imaginations suggested that they were two men-o’-war, sent by the
friendly submarine host to pay their homage to Neptune and his nymphs,
and to serve as escort to our speedy ship. Nothing happened which did
not receive a fanciful interpretation by our playful imaginations.
The wonderful phosphorescence of the waves, which were ploughed up
in the smooth sea by the gliding ship, supported the illusion that
our voyage was a triumphal procession along an avenue illuminated
by the mysterious phosphorescent glow. We were headed for Scotland,
by a route which passed to the north of Ireland, and as our course
approached the northern latitudes the luminous twilights of the North
Atlantic made us almost forget that there ever was such a thing as a
dark night. Good old Neptune had quite a job to round up his nymphs in
the late hours of the evening and make them turn in and exchange the
joys of the busy days for the blessings of the restful nights. His job
was hopeless when the northern midnights displayed the awe-inspiring
streamers of the northern lights, and that happened quite frequently.
Those wonderful sights in themselves would have made it worth while
crossing the Atlantic. On such evenings the exuberance of the college
boys and of the schoolgirls from Washington was wide awake until after
midnight, watching the luminous and continuously changing streamers of
the polar regions, telling stories, and singing college songs. These
evenings reminded me much of the neighborhood gatherings in Idvor. One
of them was devoted to original stories; each member of the gay party
had to spin out an original tale. My story was called “Franciscus of
Freiburg,” and it referred to Bilharz, the Greek guslar of Cortlandt
Street. The disappointments of his youth, the calm resignation with
which in his more mature years he passed his hermit days on a top loft
in Cortlandt Street, and his search for consolation in the poetry of
Rome and Greece made quite an impression; and to my great surprise
there was not a single giggle on the part of the irrepressible nymphs.
This was the first story that I ever composed, and it made a hit,
but its success was completely ruined when, prompted by modesty, I
suggested that any tale describing disappointments in love is sure to
be taken very seriously and sympathetically by young girls. A violent
protest was filed by the girls, and I pleaded guilty of the offense
of disturbing public peace. A mock trial, with Father Neptune as the
presiding judge, condemned me and imposed the fine that I tell at once,
and without preparation, another original tale. I described the first
speech of my life on St. Sava’s day, some thirteen years earlier, and
its unexpected effect upon my mischievous chums in Idvor, comparing
it with the unexpected effect of my Franciscus story. I regretted it,
because the fairies from Washington had an endless chain of questions
about Idvor and my prospective visit to it. Never before had I had
a better opportunity to observe the beautiful relationship between
American boys and girls. Its foundation I recognized to be the idea of
the big brother looking after the safety, comfort, and happiness of
his sister, the same idea which is glorified in the Serbian national
ballads.
One pleasant incident followed another in quick succession during
our triumphant procession over the northern Atlantic, and all the
powers which control the temper of the ocean were most kind and
generous to us, just as our fair oracle had prophesied it. When the
cliffs of Scotland hove in sight, reminding us that our voyage was
approaching its end, there was no thrill of joy such as there was
when the immigrant ship, which first took me into New York harbor,
approached the Long Island coast. Not even the countless sea-gulls
which gracefully circled around the black cliffs, and with their shrill
notes welcomed us to the hospitable shores of Scotland, were able to
dispel the gloom which the sight of land produced among the members of
Neptune’s table. Nobody in our congenial company seemed to be anxious
to say good-by to the good old ship and to the golden atmosphere of the
sweet-tempered Atlantic. Most of them had never crossed the Atlantic
before, and since the voyage was practically over I thought that
there was no harm in describing to them some of the terrors of the
Atlantic, which I had experienced when I crossed it nine years before.
The pictures of those experiences were like the pictures from another
world, and not from the same Atlantic which thrilled us with its
sunshine, twilight, phosphorescent glows, and glorious streamers of the
northern lights. The comparison between my wretched fellow passengers
on the storm-tossed immigrant ship and the radiant company on the ship
which brought us to Scotland afforded me a splendid opportunity to
thank Father Neptune for permitting me to join his beautiful court.
His favor, I said, was almost as great as the favor of the immigrant
officials at Castle Garden, who had allowed me to land with only five
cents in my pocket. The professor complimented me upon my word pictures
which showed the glaring contrasts between the two voyages, and then
he referred to two pictures which, he said, he had in his mind. They
also showed, he said, in glaring contrasts, the difference between a
certain youngster on the immigrant ship to which I referred, and a
Columbia College graduate, who had contributed his share to the comfort
and happiness of Neptune’s court. When he suggested that he would give
much to be with me when I met my mother, and that he wondered whether
she would recognize me, my young friends suggested, quite seriously,
that they would all go to Idvor if I joined them in their continental
tour. I replied that their tour was along a meandering line through the
great places of Europe, whereas mine was a straight line from Greenock
to little Idvor, so little that it cannot be found on any map.
There was just one thing which delayed my straight-line journey to
Idvor. A visit to Cambridge was necessary in order to arrange for my
work at this university during the coming academic year, and I lost
no time in reaching it. The sight of the Firth of Clyde, with its
wonderfully green slopes, of Greenock, of Glasgow, and even of London
made feeble impressions. My mind was centred upon one thought only:
the speedy return to Idvor. This also explains why my first sight of
Cambridge impressed me much less than my first sight of Princeton when,
eight years before, I had enjoyed my loaf of bread under an elm-tree
in front of Nassau Hall. F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, had given
me a letter of introduction to Oscar Browning, a fellow of King’s
College; and George Rives, the late chairman of the Board of Trustees
of Columbia University, had given me a letter to W. D. Niven, a fellow
of Trinity College. Rives, after graduating at Columbia College, won a
prize scholarship in classics at Trinity College, and gained there many
scholastic honors.
* * * * *
The man at the ancient gate of King’s College informed me that Mr.
Oscar Browning was away on his summer vacation. At Trinity College I
had better luck, and the man at the still more ancient gate of Trinity
College took me to Mr. Niven, who reminded me much of Professor
Merriam, the great Greek scholar of Columbia College; the same kindly
expression of a most intelligent face, and the same gentle light from
two thoughtful eyes. As I looked into his eyes I felt that I was
catching a glimpse of a world full of those beautiful things which
make life worth living. I informed Niven that I wished to come to
Cambridge and study under Professor James Clerk Maxwell, the creator of
the new electrical theory. Niven looked puzzled and asked me who had
told me of this new theory, and when I mentioned Rutherfurd, he asked
me what Rutherfurd had told me about it. “That it will probably give
a satisfactory answer to the question: ‘What is Light?’” I answered,
and watched for his reaction. “Did not Mr. Rutherfurd tell you that
Clerk Maxwell died four years ago?” asked Niven, and when I said no,
he asked me whether I had not seen it in the preface to the second
edition of Maxwell’s great book which Niven himself had edited. This
question embarrassed me, and I confessed frankly that Rutherfurd’s son,
my chum Winthrop, had presented me with this book on the day of the
sailing of my ship; that it was packed away in my bags; and that I did
not have any time to examine it during the voyage, because I was too
busy helping to entertain twelve beautiful schoolgirls from Washington,
who were making their first trip to Europe. Niven laughed heartily and
admitted, jokingly, that twelve beautiful girls from Washington were
certainly more attractive than any theory, not excepting even Maxwell’s
great electrical theory. He suggested then that I could study at
Cambridge under Lord Rayleigh, who had succeeded Maxwell as professor
of physics. I declined the suggestion on the ground that I had never
heard of Lord Rayleigh before. Niven laughed again, even more heartily
than before, and assured me that Lord Rayleigh was a great physicist
in spite of the fact that his great fame had never reached my ears.
An English lord a great physicist! The idea struck me as strange, but
Niven looked so friendly and so sincere that I could not help believing
that he really meant what he said. He invited me to lunch, and before
we parted I assured him that I would come back to Cambridge in the
following October and place myself under his guidance.
This conference with Niven sobered me up very considerably; it
convinced me that my great aspiration and my small preparation in
physics were far from being of the same order of magnitude. I confessed
to Niven that my success in winning prizes in science at Columbia
College had led to my belief that I knew more physics than I really
did. “Confession is a splendid thing for the soul,” said Niven, and
added: “But do not permit that anything I have said dampen your
courage. A physicist needs courage, and few mortals were braver than
Maxwell. The world knows only a little of his great electrical theory,
but it knows even less of his great moral courage.” He gave me a copy
of Campbell’s life of Maxwell; I read it from cover to cover before
I left London, and it contributed much to the learning which I had
promised to bring to Idvor. It certainly convinced me that Maxwell had
a vastly better knowledge of physics when he graduated at Cambridge
than I had picked up at Columbia. That gave me much healthy food for
serious thought.
A straight line from London to Idvor passes through Switzerland, and I
proposed to follow that line in my journey as closely as practicable.
My ticket took me from London to Lucerne directly; the journey from
Lucerne to Idvor I left undetermined until I reached Lucerne. I had
no time nor inclination to explore the wonders of London, Paris, or
of any other great place in Europe before I had seen Idvor again.
Mother, Idvor, and Maxwell’s new electrical theory had brought me to
Europe, and I wished to see them as soon as possible, and in the order
named; everything else could wait. Besides, I sincerely believed that
these places had little to offer to a fellow like me, who knew the
great things of New York. I was much disposed to look down upon things
in Europe, a mental attitude which is not uncommon among American
immigrants when they go back to pay a temporary visit to Europe. I had
it quite strongly, but sobering experiences like the conference with
Niven in Cambridge helped me to apply suitable correction factors to
this mental attitude. The following brief description of one of these
experiences bears upon this point.
* * * * *
The London-Lucerne train crossed the Franco-Swiss frontier very early
in the morning, somewhere near Neuchâtel. The delay necessary for the
rearrangement of the train gave the passengers ample time to enjoy
their breakfast in the garden of the station restaurant. A look to
the east caught a sight which made me almost forget my breakfast.
The distant snow-covered Alps, bathed in the early sunshine and
projected against the background of the luminous blue sky of a July
morning, furnished a picture never to be forgotten. I had never seen
the Alps before, and this first view of them was of overpowering
beauty. An Englishman, a fellow traveller, sitting opposite me at the
breakfast-table, noticed my mental exaltation, and asked: “You have
never seen the Alps before, have you?” “No,” said I. “Oh, what a lucky
lad you are!” said the Englishman, adding that he would give much to be
in my place. He confessed that he had to climb the peaks of the Alps in
order to get those thrills which in former days, when he was of my age,
he got by looking at them from the valleys below. At his suggestion
we continued our journey to Lucerne in the same compartment, and the
stories of his climbing exploits stirred up mightily my imagination,
which was already throbbing under the inspiration of the Alpine view
which had greeted me that morning. When I informed him that I was in
a hurry to reach my native village of Idvor, otherwise I might try
some climbing myself, he assured me that a ten days’ delay in Lucerne
would suffice to prepare me for climbing one of the lesser peaks, and
he mentioned Titlis, not far from Lucerne. He prescribed the training
which would provide me with sufficiently steady Alpine legs. From the
peak of the Titlis, he said, I could see old Switzerland where the
famous legend was born which relates how Tell drove the fear of God
into the hearts of the Austrians. I always loved that legend, perhaps
because I did not love the Austrian tyrants. When the train had
reached Lucerne I saw the wonderful Alpine panorama spread out like an
amphitheatre of snow-covered Alpine peaks around its deep-blue lake,
and I knew that in spite of my great haste to reach Idvor I would not
leave this fairy-land before I had reached the snow-covered peak of
Titlis.
I immediately hired a rowboat for a week, and, clad in a rowing shirt
with blue and white Columbia stripes and thin tennis trousers, I spent
that afternoon exploring the beauty spots of the meandering shore of
the historic lake. The joy of rowing and the busy rays of the July sun
made me yield to the invitation of the clear waters of the lake to
plunge in and hug the waves, which once upon a time carried Tell to
safety after he had sent his arrow through the heart of the Austrian
tyrant, Gessler. As if imitating the example of Tell, I jumped in
just as I was, trusting that subsequent rowing and the sun would dry
my scanty attire, and they did. A glorious feeling of freedom from
all earthly restraints came over me as, floating on my back, I beheld
the blue sky above and the snow-covered peaks around me. It was the
same sky and the same luminous peaks, I thought, which five hundred
years before saw William Tell chase away the Austrian tyrants from
the historic cantons surrounding the lake; from Uri, Schwyz, and
Unterwalden. I felt that I was floating in the very cradle where real
freedom first saw the light of day. No other spot on earth was more
worthy of that immortal fame. My admiration for it never faded after
that memorable July afternoon. Europe rose in my estimation; I was
much less inclined to look down upon things European.
The next day I was up very early, feeling “as a strong man ready to
run a race,” the same feeling which I had experienced at Castle Garden
when, nine years before, I woke up early in the morning and hurried
off to catch my first glimpse of the great American metropolis. I
was just as anxious to hurry off and catch from some mountain-top my
first glimpse of Switzerland. Mindful of the suggestions of my English
acquaintance on the train, I started with the easiest climb, the Rigi
Culm. It is a very easy effort, but I made it difficult by rowing first
some ten miles to Weggis, going up to the Rigi and walking down, and
then rowing back to Lucerne again on the same day, in the waning hours
of the afternoon. An unexpected squall upset my boat, and I had quite
a struggle to get back to Lucerne, very late in the evening. The hotel
proprietor noticed my mussed-up appearance, but said nothing, seeing
that I was not in a communicative mood.
The same strenuous method of preparatory training for the Titlis climb
took me up to Mount Pilatus on the next day. But I was not allowed to
return on the same day on account of a fierce thunder-storm raging
in the valley below, which I watched from the top of the Pilatus.
The innkeeper congratulated me upon my rare luck, not only because I
had a chance to see the beautiful sight of a thunder-storm as viewed
from a point above the thundering clouds, but principally because
this thunder-storm prevented me from running the serious risk of
descending and rowing back to Lucerne on the same day. Commenting upon
the overconfidence of youth, the innkeeper said that every person has
a guardian angel, but people intoxicated by wine or by exuberance of
youth have two, one on each side. That was his explanation for the
alleged fact, he said, that young people and intoxicated people seldom
meet with serious accidents in mountain climbing. Some Americans, he
thought, should have several guardian angels. This sarcasm was aimed at
me, and it did not miss its mark.
Nevertheless, when on my fifth day in Lucerne I started out very
early for the Titlis, I adopted the same strenuous method: rowing to
Stansstadt, walking to Engelberg, and climbing to the hospice where I
arrived at 11 P. M. I reached at sunrise of the following morning the
top of Titlis, and saw the glories of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden as
my English friend had promised. But I reached it much exhausted, and if
it had not been for the skilled assistance of my trusty Swiss guide,
the last four lines of Longfellow’s “Excelsior” would have described my
Titlis climb quite accurately. I quote the lines:
“There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!”
Returning from Titlis, I ran into my English friend, and he remarked
that I looked a little overtrained. We dined together, and when I told
him the story of my six days’ Alpine experience, he begged me to hustle
off to Idvor and see my mother first, and then return if I cared to
pursue my own methods of exploring the beauties of Switzerland. “If
you continue pursuing these methods now, I am afraid that your mother
will never see you again, because there are not enough guardian angels
in all the heavens to prevent you from breaking your neck.” I agreed,
but assured him that my overstrenuous method of climbing Titlis was
worth the risk; it had humbled my vanity and false pride, and made me
more respectful to some of the slow ways of old Europe. It convinced
me that even after serving my apprenticeship as greenhorn in the
United States, I could still be a most verdant greenhorn in Europe.
The railroad journey from Lucerne to Vienna afforded me much leisure
time for philosophic reflections upon this matter. Thanks to Niven in
Cambridge and to my English friend in Lucerne, I reached Vienna with
a mental attitude considerably different from and certainly much less
exalted than that which I had taken along when I sailed from New York
four weeks before.
* * * * *
The railroad-station at Vienna where I took the train for Budapest
looked quite familiar, although I had seen it but once before. I did
not discover the great and mighty station-master who at my first
appearance there, eleven years before, nearly sent me back to the
prisons of the military frontier. The conductor, however, who called
me “Gnaediger Herr” (gracious sir), when near Gaenserndorf he asked me
for my first-class ticket, was the same man who, eleven years before,
had called me a Serbian swineherd. I recognized him easily, although he
looked very humble and had lost the fierceness which he had displayed
when he roughly pulled me off my seat on that memorable first railroad
journey from Budapest to Vienna. He failed to recall to memory the
Serbian boy with yellow sheepskin coat and cap and the gaily colored
bag. I gave him a generous tip as a reward for driving me into the arms
of my good American friends who had seen me safely landed in Prague,
and the memory of whose kind act had suggested my running off to the
land of Lincoln.
“America is the land of rapid changes,” he said, when I told him that
I was that boy, and he added: “You must have changed much, looking
as you do like a real American; but we here and our dear old Austria
are like all old people; we do not change except to grow older and
more decrepit.” He expressed exactly what I felt as I looked to the
right and to the left of the train which was taking me to Budapest.
Everything seemed to move slowly, with the deliberate step of feeble
old age. Budapest looked small, and the suspension bridge, which had
nearly taken my breath away eleven years before, when I first saw it,
looked puny in comparison with the Brooklyn suspension bridge.
I spent no time in looking around to explore the virtues of the Magyar
metropolis, but hustled, and presently I was on the boat which eleven
years before had brought me to Budapest. I could hardly believe that it
was the same boat. It must have shrunk incredibly, I thought, or else
my life in America had changed the vision of my eyes. Everything I saw
looked small and shrivelled up, and if I had not seen the snow-covered
giants of Switzerland as viewed from the top of Titlis, Europe itself
might have appeared to me as small and shrivelled up.
When supper was served I noticed that everybody had atrocious table
manners, even people of high official rank, several of whom I
discovered among my fellow passengers. Eleven years before everybody
on the boat had looked so high and mighty that I was almost afraid
to look at them, but this time I was much tempted to imagine that
I was considerably above most of my fellow passengers. I resisted
the temptation. It was a good thing that my climbing of the Titlis
had nearly floored me; it suppressed much of that haughtiness which
naturalized American immigrants bring with them when they visit Europe.
* * * * *