Chapter III: “sowing the Wind.” (2)

“If all goes right,” she began, watching him closely, “I’m willing that you and Annette should be married the first of September. I’ve made up my mind what I will do for you. You shall have five hundred dollars to go on a journey with, and then you will come back and live with me here two years. I’ll give you your board, and make Annette an allowance of five hundred a year, and see about some business for you. But I won’t pay any debts; and, if any such debts come up as we have been talking about, off you will go. If this story I’ve heard turns out to be true, not one dollar more of mine do you ever get, no matter when I find it out.”

“I will speak to Annette about it,” he said quietly. “Is that all?”

She answered with a short nod.

Annette was anxiously waiting for him. “What is it?” she asked, when she saw his face.

He snatched his hat from the table. “Come out into the air,” he said; “I am stifling here.”

She followed him into the gardens, where an arbor screened them from view. “Did you know what your mother was going to say to me?” he asked.

“No!” It was all she had strength to utter.

“Nothing of it?”

“Nothing, Lawrence. I saw that she did not mean to tell me, so I would not ask. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

He hesitated a moment. Since she did not know, there was no need to tell her all. He told her only her mother’s plans regarding their marriage.

“You see it’s a sort of ticket-of-leave,” he said, smiling faintly. “We are to be under _surveillance_. Hadn’t you better give me up, Annette? She will like any one else better.”

The sky and garden swam round before her eyes. She said nothing, but waited.

“I only propose it for your sake,” he added more gently, startled at her pallor. “In marrying me, you run the risk of being poor. If that doesn’t frighten you, then it’s all right.”

Her color came back again; but no smile came with it. These shocks had been repeated too many times to find her with the same elasticity.

“This cannot go on a great while,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, and looking down. “Mamma cannot always be so unreasonable. The best way now is to make no opposition to her, whatever she proposes. I may be able to influence her as we wish after a while. You may be sure that I shall try. Meantime, let us be quiet. I have learned, Lawrence, never to contend unless I can be pretty sure of victory. It is a hard lesson, but we have to learn it, and many harder ones, too. The best way for you is to laugh and seem careless, whether you feel so or not. The one who laughs succeeds. It is strange, but the moment a person acts as if he felt humiliated, people seem to be possessed of a desire to humiliate him still more. It doesn’t do in the world to confess to any weakness or failure. I have always noticed that people stand in awe of those who appear to be perfectly self-confident and contented.”

Lawrence Gerald looked at her in surprise as she said this in a calm and steady way quite new to him. Some thought of her being strong and helpful in other ways besides money-bringing glanced through his mind. “You know the world at least, Annette,” he said, with a half-smile.

No smile nor word replied. She was looking back, and remembering how she had learned the world. She, a poor, low-born girl, ignorant but enthusiastic and daring, had been suddenly endowed with wealth, and thrown upon that world with no one to teach her how to act properly. She had learned by the sneers and bitterness, the ridicule and jibes, her blunders had excited. Mortification, anger, tears, and disappointments had taught her. Instead of having been led, she had been spurred along the way of life. She had seen her best intentions and most generous feelings held as nothing, because of some fault in their manifestation; had found the friendships she grasped at, believing them real, change to an evasive coldness with only a surface-froth of sweet pretence. Strife lay behind her, and, looking forward, she saw strife in the future. As she made this swift review, it happened to her as it has happened to others when some crisis or some strong emotion has forced them to lift their eyes from their immediate daily cares; and as the curtain veiling the future wavered in that breeze, they have caught a glimpse of life as a whole, and found it terrible. Perhaps in that moment Annette Ferrier saw nothing but dust and ashes in all her hopes of earthly happiness, and felt a brief longing to hide her face from them for ever.

“Your company are coming,” Lawrence said. He had been watching her with curiosity and surprise. It was the first time she had ever disregarded his presence, and the first time he had found her really worthy of respect.

She roused herself, not with a start, as if coming back to a real present from some trivial abstraction, but slowly and almost reluctantly, as though turning from weighty matters to attend to trifles.

“Can you be bright and cheerful now?” she asked, smiling on him with some unconscious superiority in her air. “These little things are not worth fretting for. All will come right, if we keep up our courage.”

As she held out her hand to him, he took it in his and carried it to his lips. “You’re a good creature!” he said most sincerely.

And in this amicable frame of mind they went to join the company.

Crichton was eminently a musical city. In the other arts, they were perhaps superficial and pretentious; but this of music was ardently and assiduously cultivated by every one. Wealthy ladies studied it with all the devotion of professional people, and there were not a few who might have made it a successful profession. Among these was Annette Ferrier, whose clear, high soprano had a brilliant effect in _bravuras_ or compositions requiring strong passion in the rendering. All this talent and cultivation the Crichton ladies did not by any means allow to be wasted in private life. Clubs and associations kept up their emulation and skill, and charitable objects and public festivals afforded them the opportunity for that public display without which their zeal might have languished. The present rehearsal was for one of these concerts.

They were to sing in the new conservatory, which was admirable for that purpose. It was only just completed—an immense parallelogram joined to the southwestern corner of the house, with a high roof, and tall pillars making a sort of porch at the end. No plants had yet been arranged, but azaleas and rhododendrons in full bloom had been brought in and set in a thicket along the bases of the pillars, looking, in all their airy roseate flush of graduated tints, as if a sunset cloud had dropped there. Against this background the benches for the singers were ranged, and Annette’s grand piano brought out for Mr. Schöninger, their leader. Sofas and arm-chairs were placed near the long windows opening into the house for a small company of listeners.

“I wish Mother Chevreuse could have come,” Mrs. Ferrier said, surveying the preparations with complacent satisfaction.

Mother Chevreuse was employed much more to her own liking than she would have been in listening to the most excellent music in the world: she was waiting for her son to come home from his collecting, and take tea with her in her cosy little parlor. If the day should prove to have been successful to him, then he could rest a whole month; and, in expectation of his success, she had made a little gala of it, and adorned her room and table with flowers. The curtains next the church were looped back, to show a group of sunlighted tree-tops and an edge of a bright cloud, since the high walls hid the sunset from this room. The priest’s slippers and dressing-gown were ready for him, and an arm-chair set in his favorite place. He must rest after his hard day’s work. The evening paper lay folded within reach.

Mother Chevreuse looked smilingly about, and saw that all was ready. The green china tea-set and beautiful old-fashioned silver that had been preserved from her wedding presents made the little table look gay, and the flowers and a plate of golden honeycomb added a touch of poetry. Everything was as she would have wished it—the picture beautifully peaceful and homelike.

“What would he do without me?” she murmured involuntarily.

The thought called up a train of sad fancies, and, as she stood looking out toward the last sunny cloud of evening, long quivering rays seemed to stretch toward her from it. She clasped her hands and raised her eyes, to pray that she might long be spared to him; but the words were stopped on her lips. There was a momentary struggle, then “Thy will be done!” dropped faintly.

At this moment, she heard a familiar step on the sidewalk, the street door opened and banged to again, and in a moment more F. Chevreuse stood on the threshold, his face bright with exercise and pleasure.

“Well?” his mother said, seeing success in his air.

He drew himself up with an expression of immense consequence, and began to declaim:

“‘Dick,’ says he,
‘What,’ says he,
‘Fetch me my hat,’ says he,
‘For I will go,’ says he,
‘To Timahoe,’ says he,
‘To the fair,’ says he,
‘To buy all that’s there,’ says he.”

“You’ve made out the whole sum!” was her joyful interpretation.

“Yes; and more,” he answered. “I am rich, Mother Chevreuse. All the way home, my mind has been running on golden altar-services and old masters.”

Mother Chevreuse seated herself behind the tea-tray, set a green and gold cup into its appropriate saucer, and selected a particular spoon which she always gave her son—one with a wheat-ear curling about the quaint, half-effaced initials; he, insensible man that he was, unconscious whether it was silver or tin.

“While you have a resting-place for the Master of masters, you need not give much thought to any other,” she said. “But I own that my thoughts often run on a golden altar-service. Only to-day I was reckoning that what I possess of my own would buy one.”

“O vanity!” laughed the priest. “You want to make a show, mother. Instead of being content to help with the brick and mortar, or the iron pillars, you must approach the very Holy of Holies, and shine in the tabernacle itself. Fie, Mother Chevreuse!”

“I mentioned it to F. White,” she said, “and he almost reproved me. He said that there was more need of feeding the hungry than of buying golden altar-vessels. I told him that gold endures, but bread is soon eaten; and he answered that, if the eating of bread saved from theft or starvation, and put hope into a breaking heart, it was making finer gold than could be wrought into a chalice. A good deal of grace may be found in a loaf of bread, said F. White.”

“That’s true,” answered the priest cheerfully. “F. White has sense, though he grudges me a gold chalice. I’ll remember that when he comes here begging for his organ. F. White, says I, it’s sheer vanity to talk of organs when there are suffering poor in the world. A tobacco-pipe is better than an organ-pipe, when it stops an oath in the mouth of a poor hod-carrier who has no other comfort but his smoke. Much grace may be found in a clay pipe, F. White, my darling.”

Merry, foolish talk, but innocent and restful.

“And, by the way,” resumed the priest, “that same F. White has gone away, and I must go and attend a sick call for him. I got the telegram as I came along.”

“Not to-night!” the mother exclaimed.

“Yes, to-night. I sent word that I would come. The man is in danger. Besides, I could not spare time to-morrow forenoon. I can drive the five miles before ten o’clock, stay the rest of the night there, and come home in the morning in time to say Mass at six o’clock. That is the best plan. I don’t care to be out very late.”

“It is the better way,” she said, but looked disappointed. “I don’t like to have you out late at night, it gives you such headaches.”

“Headache is easier to bear than heart-ache, mother,” said the priest brightly, and went to the window to give Andrew his order for the carriage. “Have it ready in front of the church at a quarter before nine o’clock,” he said. “And, Andrew, light the gas in the sacristy.”

Mother Chevreuse anxiously served her son, urged him to take a muffler, lest the night air should prove chilly, poured a second cup of tea for him, and, when he was ready to start, stood looking earnestly at him, half in pride of his stalwart manliness, half in tender, motherly anxiety lest some accident should befall him on the long, lonely drive.

“Hadn’t you better take Andrew with you?” she suggested.

“And why should I take Andrew with me?” the priest asked, putting a stole in his pocket.

“Why ...” she hesitated, ashamed of her womanish fears.

“An excellent reason!” he laughed. “No, madam; I shall take no one with me but my good angel. My buggy holds but two. Good-night. Sleep soundly, and God bless you!”

She stood with her lips slightly parted, watching him earnestly, as if fearful of losing some slight word or glance; but his cheerful talk woke no smile in her face.

He would not appear to notice anything unusual in her manner, and was going out, when she stopped him.

“Give me your blessing, dear, before you go,” she whispered, and fell on her knees before him; and, when he had given it, she rose and tried to smile.

The priest was disturbed. “Don’t you feel well to-night, mother?” he asked.

“Yes, quite well,” she replied gently. “Perhaps I am foolish to be so nervous about your going. It seems a lonely drive. Go now, or you will be late.”

She followed him to the door, and stood there till she saw him come out of the church, step into his buggy, and drive away.

“Good-night! good-night!” she said, listening till the last sound of his carriage-wheels died into stillness; then, breathing a prayer for his safety, she went back to her own room.

Jane had cleared away the table, drawn the curtains, and lighted a lamp, and had gone down to her company in the kitchen.

“What does make me so lonely and fearful?” exclaimed the lady, wringing her cold hands.

She busied herself in little things, trying to drive the trouble away; refolded the paper her son had not found time to read, pushed his arm-chair nearer the table for herself, and, discovering a flake of smooth-pressed clay which his boot had left on the carpet, took it up, and threw it into the fireplace. That homely little service brought a faint smile to her face.

“The careless boy!” she said fondly. “He never could remember to wipe his boots on coming in, even when he was a mere lad. I can see his bright face now as it looked when he would argue me out of scolding him. His mind was occupied with lofty matters, he said; he could not bring it down to boots and mud. It sounded like a jest; but who knows if he might not even then have been about his Father’s business!”

Dropping into his chair, she sat thinking over the old time and her boy’s childhood. How happy and peaceful their life had been! Half chiding herself, as if she knew he would have called it folly, she went into her bedroom, and brought our a little trunk, in which were preserved _souvenirs_ memorable in her life and his.

There was his christening-robe. She shook out the length, and pushed two of her fingers through the tiny embroidered sleeve.

“How little we dream what the future is to be!” she murmured. “I wonder how I would have felt if, when I was embroidering this, there had risen before my eyes the vision of a chasuble hanging above it? But I couldn’t have been prouder of him than I was. He was a fine healthy boy, and had a will of his own even then. When he was baptized, he got the priest’s stole in his baby fist, and I had to pull it away finger by finger, the little fellow clinging all the time.”

There were boyish toys, schoolbooks adorned with preposterous pencil-drawings, in which the human figure was represented by three spheres set one over the other, and supported on two sticks; there were letters written his mother while he was away from home, at school or college, and a collection of locks of hair cut on successive birthdays, till the boy had laughed her out of the custom. She placed these side by side now, ranging them according to their dates, and studied the gradual change from the silken-silvery crescent of a curl cut from the head of the year-old babe, through deepening shades, to the thick brown tress cut on his twentieth birthday. Every little lock had its story to tell, and she went over each, ending with a kiss, in fancy kissing the child’s face she seemed again to see. And as she sat there conning the past, memory struck every chord of her heart, from the sweet, far-away vibration when her first-born was placed in her arms, and coming down through deepening tones to the present.

She lifted her face, that had been bent over these mementos. “Now he is Father Chevreuse, and I am an old woman!” she said; and, sighing, rose and put the souvenirs all away. “We have had a glad and prosperous life; how little of sorrow, how little of adversity! I never before realized how much I have to be thankful for.”

Presently she put a veil over her head, and went out through the basement into the church to say her prayers. She always said her evening prayers before the altar; and now she had double cause to be scrupulous. She must atone for past unthankfulness, and pray for her son’s safe return.

By ten o’clock, the house was closed for the night, and the inmates had all gone to their quiet slumber. Mother Chevreuse’s uneasiness was all gone, and, after devotions of unusual fervor, she felt an unwonted peace. “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” she said, and sank to sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

About midnight, she started up, wide-awake, and listened. There was a low, stealthy sound, as of a door being softly opened. Could her son have changed his mind, and come home again? Some one was certainly in his room. She stepped out of bed, and listened keenly. There was a faint noise like the rattle of a latch or lock, and then a soft step retreating.

“It is he come back!” she thought joyfully; and, even in thinking so, was smitten by a wild and sudden fear. She slipped on a dressing-gown and sandals, and hurried toward the door. “My son!” she said breathlessly as she opened it.

Faintly seen in the dim light, a man’s form was leaving the room by the entry. A shawl or cloak wrapped him from head to foot, and he held a little chest in his hand. In that chest F. Chevreuse kept his money.

All personal fear deserted his mother’s heart at that sight. She thought only that the fruit of her son’s long labors was being carried away under her eyes, and that, after the brief joy of his success, he would come home to bitterness and disappointment.

She ran after the retreating figure, and caught it by the arm. “Shame! shame!” she cried. “It is the money of the poor. It belongs to God. Leave it, in God’s name.”

The man bent down, and wrapped his form still more closely from recognition, as he wrenched himself loose. But while forced to let go his arm, she caught at the casket he held, and clung with all her strength, calling for help.

“Let go!” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “Let go, or I shall do you harm!”

As she still clung and cried for help, they stood at the head of the stairs leading to the basement of the house. Steps were heard below, and Jane’s voice calling Andrew, and screaming from the window.

The man made one more fierce effort to free himself. Drawing back from the stairs, he turned quickly, and threw himself forward again. There was a sharp cry, “My son!” and a fall. Then a fainter cry, “My God!” and then silence.

TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.

WHAT does one gain by travelling? says some old wiseacre, with a shake of the head. Better the man that settles down and grows with his native or adopted dwelling-place. “The rolling stone gathers no moss,” is a venerable saying. Men who stay only a short time in one place can never be sufficiently known or loved by any people, and hence their credit and fortune cannot increase.

What does one not gain by travelling? says the boy who is just old enough to relish _Robinson Crusoe_, whose natural curiosity is feverish for knowledge. For him, all countries are more interesting than his own. He longs to climb the hill that bounds his native plain, to see what lies beyond. No one for him so interesting as the soldier or sailor come back from foreign lands, and he asks, with deep, attentive inquiry, “if there are boys in such places, too, and whether they are born there, or if they also went away from here?” Power, wealth, beauty, have no charm for him. Money he values merely because it opens his path to distant lands; and his instinctive desire to know is the passion of his youth. This is the story of all of us, at least all of us boys. It is only when our curiosity is satisfied either by personal experience or by credible hearsay, when we meet members of the whole human family, and find them seeking in our country that peace and beauty which we used to ascribe to theirs—it is then we realize that life is not poetry; that one’s native land is generally happiest for him; and that the best thing for one to do is to choose a spot thereof, and, as “H. G.” used to say, “to settle down and rise with it.”

Between the sturdy proverb of the oldest inhabitant and the boundless dream of the boy exists the medium wherein we shall find the uses of travel. There is nothing which may not be abused, and travelling may degenerate into a passion in individuals; but the strength of the ties of country, home, and family, whereby nature has bound us, forbids any but solitary instances of men who have wandered, useless vagabonds on the earth, trespassing on all countries, and aiding none; while, if the Holy Ghost call forth some apostle from his kindred to sound the trump of faith among many peoples, the Lord, who gives him an extraordinary mission, will endow him with special grace, and the world will gain by his vocation. This is the greatest traveller: who goes forth, not to his own gain, nor to further his nation’s weal, but to extend the kingdom of God on earth; to enlighten those who sit in darkness, and bring them to the knowledge of the truth.

Why do people travel? People travel for health, for pleasure, for business, and for knowledge. Some fifty thousand Americans travelled in Europe last summer with one or other of these objects in view. Have they all gained by their trip? Has the nation profited? Are they healthier, happier, richer, wiser, for their tour in Europe? A general answer to these questions cannot be given. All depends on the character of the individuals who composed that large army. Their particular circumstances and characteristics may have caused some to gain, others to lose, both when there is question of health, as well as when we speak of enjoyment, riches, and useful knowledge. I was one of that invading army that descended on Europe last year, and will try to make others partakers of whatever is communicable of the advantages derived from the trip which under advice I took to the other hemisphere. We will see who are they that lose by going abroad, what danger and damage they incur, and the reasons why. We will also find what persons profit by the excursion, what dispositions are required for this; and, by contrasting and comparing each, we shall be enabled to conclude how much of loss and how much of gain there is in travel, how the one is avoided, and the other achieved. All this I will make bold to illustrate from my own experience.

A change of air is well known to influence one’s health very much; for a man lives as much on good air as on what are commonly considered the elements of sustenance. I heard a gentleman state that the change from Newburg to New York in summer had caused him to gain eleven pounds in a fortnight. It was all in the change. A citizen flying from this pent-up atmosphere to the expanded vision and pure breezes of that delightful town could hardly have gained more in the same period. Hence the doctors prescribe change of air so frequently. An English physician says: “It is undoubted, explain it how we may, that a change of air, diet, and scene rouses the faculties, improves the appetite, and raises the spirits. When you set out for France, then, on your little trip of twenty-five miles across the channel, pray Heaven you may get thoroughly sea-sick, that nothing old or vitiated may make a bad foundation for the new man you are going to build up.” People from the plain gain by a change to the mountains; people from the mountain by visiting the plains. People from inland by going to the sea-shore, and those from the beach by retiring to the meadows. As with the body, so with the mind. Our faculties become as it were choked up and stagnant by continual monotony; even the most brilliant conversation, music, the best jokes of a friend, fail at last to please or rouse the spirit. Activity and exercise are necessary for the mind and soul as well as for the body, and are obtained by seeking contact and conflict with new ideas, sights, and wonders to move the imagination; and the consequent enlivening of the spirits acts at once on the body, and does more to restore physical power than any material food. It is by visiting foreign places; seeing strange customs which excite our curiosity; wondering at Alpine heights and Rhenish castles; sympathizing with the decayed glories of Venice and old Rome; confronting ourselves with the soul-entrancing beauty of the Bay of Naples and the awe of that burning mountain which stirs the depths of the spirit—it is thus we produce that friction, that reaction requisite for rousing soul and body from tepidity and the stagnancy of hypochondria and disease. Our spirits rise, the circulation is quickened by the winds of France and the music of Italy, the strange _cuisine_ of other lands start all our organs into activity, and happiness and health are the result.

There are those, however, who travel, and yet gain neither in spirits nor in health. What often makes the difference, other things being equal, is the bigotry and contrariety of certain individuals. Some persons are so ignorant, and therefore so bigoted, that they will never tolerate customs different from their own, hold all who think otherwise than they in profound contempt, and will persist in following their own ways no matter where they go, and although the habits and opinions of an entire nation are opposed to them. Such persons never gain good spirits; for they will not open the windows of their miserable little souls, to let in the rays of happiness in which the people about are basking. An Englishman of fifty years ago, for instance, sets out with the notion that whatever is not English is contemptible. Hence, he is disgusted with the pleasant sounds of the French tongue; the agreeable politeness of the lady in the restaurant irritates him—perhaps he feels angry that a Frenchwoman should be so much at ease in his presence; the play he despises, because his taste is too debased to rise to its enjoyment, or because Parisians applaud it. He will have his beefsteak in the morning and his heavy slices of bread, no matter though the whole French nation should think a light breakfast more healthful. Hence, it is impossible that this man’s health should improve. Instead of getting mentally sea-sick (he can’t help getting bodily so; and the prouder he is, the more amusing his appearance then), and throwing off prejudice, he keeps in his mind a bile that jaundices his views, and corrodes every healthy idea that may possibly enter his soul. He follows his own notions at the table; and, as the food and habits of his northern isle do not suit southern latitudes, of course he gains nothing in health, and often becomes sick, and returns home disgusted with dons and messieurs, signors and mynheers, and tells you “there’s no use in travel—he tried it.” The first requisite, then, is, when you go to Rome, to do as the Romans do. The customs of a place show what its inhabitants prefer; and it is silly in any man to set his own little ideas against the experience of a whole people.

My friend and I had the misfortune to meet one of this class on setting out on our trip, and thrown together as we necessarily were on an ocean steamship, it caused us a great deal of inconvenience. The poor man was actually yellow from dyspepsia and bigotry. I am sorry to say he passed for an American. Whether his bigotry caused that viselike fastening up of his better nature, and, reacting on his body, ruined his digestion, as might easily be, or whether the desperate state of his chylopoetic fluids produced a corresponding straitness in his soul, which we assumed as the more charitable supposition, I can’t say; but certainly all the benefit of new and entertaining society, all the advantages of sea air, change of diet, etc., were lost, necessarily lost to him. What was the cause of his old-fogyism? One dreadful incubus—you might call it a standing evil, a nightmare (diurnal as well as nocturnal)—was the presence at the same table, and in the willing association of those whom he also preferred, and whose company he courted, of us two priests. The man could not look us in the face, could not accept the salt at our hands, would not “do us the pleasure of wine,” as they say on English ships; in fact, his bigotry stood between him and his own enjoyment and good appetite, rendered our position disagreeable, caused the rest of the company (Protestants themselves) to condemn his behavior in the strongest terms on deck, and ruined the pleasure of our voyage, at least during the time spent at table. One of his acquaintances was a whole-souled, honest, generous gentleman, a Methodist from Brooklyn. He, on his part, took every opportunity to throw sunshine about him, and to be polite to us especially, as if to make up for the fellow’s savageness; and one day, when the dyspeptic was complaining to the waiter as bitterly as if he were being flayed alive, the other turned to him, and said aloud: “Ebenezer, if I was an undertaker getting up a funeral, I’d hire you for chief mourner.” John invited us to his cabin, and the other turned away from its door when he saw us within. John proposed to take his cheerful, amiable wife to Ireland first; Ebenezer declared his abhorrence of the Irish and his contempt for Killarney. “He wouldn’t advise anybody to go to Ireland; he’d been there three times, and there was nothing to see but beggars.” John took him up before the company: “Why did you go there the second and third time, Eben?”—a question which disconcerted the dyspeptic, and caused intense amusement to the passengers. Such an one had no use to go travelling for health or anything else. You must open the windows of your soul, slacken the risible muscles of your face, and reduce yourself to a soft, pliable, impressionable condition, if you want to benefit by change of air, scenery, and society. Dry, hard wax does not receive the impression of the seal. But let a man set out with proper dispositions, leave care and prejudice behind, be ready to speak of men and things as he will find them, let no thought of business come up for a while, but move along easily and quietly through the scenes and people of other lands, and he will experience the advantages of travelling for health.

Another motive for travel is business. The post and the telegraph afford wonderful facilities for carrying on commercial relations between different firms and branches of the same house in different countries; but many circumstances render personal visits and interviews often necessary. Hence, the number of travellers on business is very large. Many New York houses send trusty men to Europe annually or oftener to buy the stuffs and to inspect and select the styles which fickle fashion imposes on her votaries.

The American is not satisfied with looking through foreign eyes, for he knows that short or long-sightedness is often the defect of even business men in those old countries. Hence, he goes to see and inspect for himself, and commonly finds an opening where the Frenchman, the German, even the Englishman, did not suspect its existence; throws a bridge over a chasm which to them seemed impassable; works his way through difficulties they thought unsurmountable; and pushing on over precipices and untrodden ways, “that banner with the strange device, Excelsior,” in his hands, astonishes the natives, and secures the trade of the world. Thus Singer, the sewing-machine man, goes to the ancient mediæval city of Nürnberg, amongst other places—a city seemingly so dead as to have recently erected another monument to Albrecht Dürer, the artist, the only statue in the town; as if the last man of push and note they produced was dead 350 years. Singer goes to this sleepy old city, and, in spite of the depth and inflexibility of the old channels in which trade had been running for a thousand years, attempts to revolutionize it all at once with his sewing-machine. In spite of the opposition of the tailors, which similar endeavors in parts of Great Britain failed to overcome, he succeeds; for, instead of hiring a plain office, in the simple manner of the country, and cautiously investing a little capital at the outset, the American, with characteristic enterprise and self-approved wisdom, spends hundreds in advertising and thousands in erecting a building the most imposing and expensive of its kind in the venerable city, astonishes the slow Bavarians while attracting them by the employment he gives, makes them believe that he is indeed the bringer of the great good he claims, obtains their trade, and, while filling his own pockets, is a herald of his country’s genius and enterprise. Another instance: while sailing down the Rhine last October in one of those steamers which approach nearest to the graceful beauties of our own rivers, and which are therefore most highly praised by tourists, we were a little surprised and considerably proud at seeing “Lent’s Floating American Circus” (like a vast floating bath) paying a visit to one of the cities of that noble stream, up and down whose banks it for ever roves, catering for the amusement and instruction and picking up the loose thalers of Fatherland with as much _sang-froid_ as Dan Rice on our Mississippi. When the people of the Continent behold the Americans coming three thousand miles over the sea, passing inside England, from whom we learnt these very institutions, whose child our nation was, they naturally form a very high opinion of the superior enterprise and skill of the republic, so that our democratic institutions gain respect and our flag honor, while English influence gradually decays. Thus George Pullman goes over and steps in before John Bull, and secures the sleeping-car business on the Continent. Nay, it is only now that, roused by his aggressive boldness, England begins to adopt our great improvements in travel, afraid of being left still more shamefully behind. Thus does the business traveller, while making his own fortune, advance his country’s name and influence; and his successful policy is always that of generosity, accommodation, and politeness.

A class of men called commercial travellers is very numerous in England and Ireland. They are a relic of the period preceding this great advertising age, and go about from town to town soliciting orders and selling goods of which they carry samples. Many of them are peddlers also, and sometimes carry great value in money, jewelry, etc., and offer story-tellers an attractive field for wild tales of robbery on lonely roads, and murder in wayside inns. They all have some story of this kind to relate. In Ireland, a room in every hotel is set apart, called the commercial room, for the exclusive use of these men, whose business transactions and responsibility require special care and convenience, and where they can deposit their valuables without danger of loss or damage. I was in a car once with one of these lonely gentlemen, and he told me he travelled from the 1st of January to the 23d December.

The company of a wife is not considered conducive either to economy or to profit; but their life must be a dreary one, especially in Ireland, where the accommodation on the railroads and in some of the country hotels is not only very poor, but even dangerous to health. In England even, they have just begun to heat their cars, which are far below those on the Continent; and in Ireland, at least in winter, I have had to sleep in a room with a quarter inch of mildew dank and dark upon the walls. Persons travelling for pleasure, however, are not generally subjected to this last inconvenience, as the localities frequented by tourists are furnished with whatever is needful for their comfort.

Pleasure is, doubtless, the object of most travellers; but it includes much more than the word in its usual acceptance might imply. The wealthy English travel in the mild, genial climates of southern Europe during the prevalence at home of that indescribably abominable weather which sits on London like a plague during the autumn and winter. Some of them also go abroad because they cannot afford to reside at home. They revel in the atmosphere of Rome and Naples—so mild that oranges bloom and flowers deck the walls all through the wintry season. The sun is bright, while the weather is not so mild as to interfere with balls, parties, concerts, etc.; and hunting the fox, the wild boar, and the deer, with the intoxicating pleasures of the carnival, and visits to the interesting monuments of pagan and Christian times, make up a round of diversion and entertainment peculiar to Italy.

The American tourist partakes of the same enjoyments, only that his pleasure is sometimes interrupted and marred by the workings of his practical and ever-active brain. I heard of one of our countrymen paying a moonlight visit to that noblest of ruins, the Coliseum, in company with a party composed of various nationalities. While they gazed in silent, entranced contemplation at its dark majesty, with the rays of the pale planet making its black recesses visible by contrast; while they pictured to themselves 100,000 fair women and brave men seated in its circuit, witnessing the bloody tragedy of the dying gladiator or the triumphant martyr of Christ, the Yankee was asked his impressions, and replied, on reflection, that “it was rayther large, but money might be in the concern if ‘twas only roofed in and whitewashed!”

I need not go to great length to show the pleasure which travelling affords; the delight which all take in seeing new and strange places, customs, works of art, ruins of antiquity, cataracts, mountains, rivers, etc.—all of which have a wonderful charm in lightening one’s heart, wearied by care; in purifying and strengthening the brain, dimmed and dizzied by labor, and filling us with pure and exquisite delight. Besides, many find in travel a refuge from the routine of fashion, and the prospect of that lingering pain which follows her severe, artificial, often painful enjoyments. In other countries you do as you please. You are not criticised if you be not absolutely _en rapport_ with the usages of the tyrant fashion at home, because she has stayed there; nor with the ways of her sister abroad, because no one extages pects you to be _au fait_ in customs not your own. Moreover, you can live more cheaply, and your health is benefited by the change. Hence, families broken down often leave England and go abroad for economy’s sake, thus obtaining freedom by their apparent misfortune.

The student of history and the classics is the one who finds most pleasure in visiting foreign lands. Every town, every river, plain, mountain range, and country, has an indescribable attraction for him, and he gazes still charmed upon scenes which may very soon sate the curiosity of others. His pleasure is one which, if you are a reader, you will appreciate; and, if not, it would be impossible for me to make you understand. See one of these visiting Lake George. His imagination covers the water with the three hundred boats in which Montcalm advanced to the siege of Fort William Henry. He sees Leatherstocking and Uncas plodding through the forest on their war-path, dropping silently down the stream by night, and putting up their heads from under the water for a stolen breath of air, while the bushes on the bank are filled with savages watching for their scalps; stopping to eat and drink in the middle of the forest at what we now call the Congress Spring at Saratoga. Let him gaze for the first time on the coast of Ireland—what an interest has that venerable and lovely land for him! He at once looks out for the ruined castles of her decayed nobility; he seeks thirstingly a sight of those round towers which stand old but fresh monuments of that time “when Malachy wore the collar of gold which he won from the proud invader”; and he remains alone, apart on the deck, recalling in sad satisfaction the scene that presented itself long ago, when abbeys, churches, and schools crowned the fair hill-tops of Erin. Let him stroll companionless through London’s busy streets—he is not alone. David Copperfield, Pickwick, Micawber, Sim Tappertit, Agnes, Little Dorrit, Bill Sykes, and Fagin are always passing and repassing; acting their parts for his entertainment. Let him view the tall, white cliffs of Dover, and he sees Cæsar’s fleet approaching to the conquest of Albion. Calais recalls the days of Catholic England’s greatest military glory. Every spot of France, Germany, Italy lives again for him in one short space its life of two or three thousand years; for all the events of its history, all the heroes of its glory, are present to his memory and imagination even more than their present phases to his vision to-day. He sees the tradesmen of Flanders, the butchers, bakers, weavers, smiths, combining for the liberation of their country at the battle of the Golden Spurs, so called from the immense number of these articles found on the field, representing the number of professional soldiers of knightly rank slain by these bold democrats, whose liberties they came to invade. He feasts his eyes upon the “vine-clad hills of Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine,” which his boyish imagination had pictured and laid back in the most loving recesses of his heart. In Switzerland, the mountain-passes are crowned for him by the native heroes, sons of Tell, and of those others who, in the days of Catholic Switzerland, rose against the Austrian despot, and in a band of 1,300 patriots defeated 60,000 hirelings of tyranny at the battle of Morgarten. At Innsbruck, he venerates the soil consecrated by the deeds of the citizen-soldier and martyr of liberty, Andreas Höfer; at Venice, he recalls the glories of the republican queen of the seas; while his interest and pleasure reaching their height in the city of the popes, he pursues a boundless career of enjoyment as he gazes on the monuments, walks over the localities, peoples again the streets and forums, making all the heroes, poets, and great women of royal, republican, imperial, and Papal Rome live their lives and do their great deeds over again, and all for him, all for him. No amount of reading or meditation at home can supply the pleasure derived from visiting the famous places of history, while the previous reading creates the desire and predisposes for the pleasure. Hence it is that all students like so much to travel, and to travel on foot.

Those who travel expensively lose a great deal of the benefit and interest of travel. The magnificent hotels are filled with English and Americans, principally those who affect that rank and demand that obsequiousness abroad to which they could not aspire at home. Many of them are very ignorant, and the waiters, for their sake, speak a mongrel kind of English, which is simply unbearable when it is not absolutely needed. The latter affect English ways; and, though you may desire to practise your college French, German, or Italian, they insultingly reply in your own tongue, as if to spare you any further exhibition of your ignorance, and because their avarice makes them more anxious to learn English than that you should acquire a foreign tongue. I asked one of these servants once how much I was to pay the hackman. My question was in German, his answer in English; but I was on the point of paying thirty-six cents for the lesson I gave him in our language, as he told me to give the man eighty-four kreutzers instead of forty-eight, because he didn’t know how to translate _acht und pfierzig_. The tourist who, through his ignorance of the language or his desire of display, frequents these English hotels, learns nothing of the languages, nothing of the customs of the people, scarcely anything of the _cuisine_, but becomes a target for the attacks of interpreters, guides, lying _ciceroni_, and a host of hangers-on, who impose on him in proportion to his ignorance, and palm off falsehoods on him suited to his bigoted preconceptions on every subject. In the drawing-room and at the table, he may as well be at home in London or New York, as far as language, habits, etc., are concerned, and he often leaves a country with less real knowledge of it than he had before he came.

The artist, the student, the gentleman bachelor, who stroll about for their own pleasure, and pay no unnecessary homage to fashion or humbug—these are the ones who derive genuine pleasure from the novelty and constant surprises of new customs, languages, and people. I have seen such persons, some of them men of independent fortune, travelling in omnibus or on foot about Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. They send their trunks on to some known hotel in a place fifty miles off, and then, carrying simply a knapsack with necessaries for a few days, take a stick and perhaps a pencil and paper, and leisurely walk along the fine roads of those countries, meeting a village every few miles, where they can take some refreshment, or stay over night. This is seeing a country, and knowing its language, customs, people, by personal observation, and not through the uncertain medium of hotel guides. And who would compare the restrained formality of fashionable moving about to the glorious freedom of this? The students of the English College at Rome used to travel thus two or three together during vacation, and spend the time delightfully.

When visiting the ancient, interesting city of Nürnberg last August—its old castle where the peace of Westphalia was signed, and where many of the Western emperors resided; its curious walls and fortifications; its old mediæval houses, with six stories, under an oblique roof; its curious fountains; and the residence of Albrecht Dürer—I entered a magnificent temple of old Catholic times, that of S. Lawrence, now devoted to Lutheran worship. All the crucifixes, pictures, and statuary with the altars still remain; for Luther was a much more intelligent man than many who imitated his rebellion. I was admiring the tabernacle of marble tracery, which reaches from the pavement seventy feet up to the roof along one of the pillars, and is the most exquisite piece of poetry in miniature stone I ever saw, when my attention was drawn to two students, boys of sixteen or seventeen, who were likewise visiting the church. They were very plainly dressed; for the old Catholic universities are free in Europe, and good conduct only is required as a condition of membership. On their backs, they had knapsacks with straps coming over the shoulders, and containing doubtless a change of clothing, while the long German pipe was seen stuck into the bundle. They carried sticks in their hands, and one had a guide-book, and was reading therefrom, and pointing out to his companion the objects of interest existing in the church. I watched the boys with great interest, and felt how happy they were in their simple manners and pure friendship—happy in the possession of knowledge more than if they had the Rothschilds’ wealth or Bismarck’s power; they were in love with and betrothed to wisdom, and independent of the world. Walking about afterwards round the great moat and curious turreted walls of this famous town, I came across my two friends, seated on a bench in the shaded, turf-set promenade which girds part of the city, taking their frugal meal of the inevitable sausage and brown bread of the country. Thus they strolled about from town to town, living plainly and simply as their means—the gift, perhaps, of some patron—required, but happy in the banquet which their own erudition and friendship provided. I have seen many travellers, and they have remained longer or shorter in my memory; but the picture of the two students of Nürnberg will remain with me always.

Among those who travel we may include that class so numerous in our own day in proportion to the increase of the enemies of the supernatural—those who, to satisfy their devotion, visit holy places. The sight of persons or localities associated with supernatural events or with the lives of those whose heroic sanctity we venerate, impresses us beings of half spiritual, half corporeal formation in a wonderful degree. I need not dilate on this. It is the reason why, in all ages, such multitudes have traversed land and sea, spent years even of their lives in visiting the Holy Land, Rome, Loretto, Compostella. That they obtained pleasure and sensible satisfaction you may easily imagine; and that they aided the faith by supplying constant information relative to the locality of sacred events, and thus kept up the strength of tradition, cannot be denied; but I would console those whose responsible care of family or office, whose want of means or leisure, prevent their assuming the pilgrim’s scrip and staff, with the words of Thomas à Kempis: _Qui multum peregrinantur, raro sanctificantur_.