The lure and the lore of travel

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I A Royal Road to Knowledge, by Carl Vrooman . . i

II Picking up a Language, by

Chapter I A Royal Road To Knowledge

On a recent trip abroad our fellow passengers formed a rather more amusing scratch collection of human beings than is usually to be found even on a trans-Atlantic liner. The weather was monotonously calm and the voyage singularly uneventful, save for some interesting conversational " mixups " between people who, under any other conceivable circumstances, would never have taken each other seriously enough to talk together for five minutes at a time.

I remember in particular two young women. One, called the " Merry Widow " because she was taking a long vacation from home and husband and native land, was suffering from a surplus of physical and emotional energy and a dearth of any acknowledged domestic, mental, or moral responsibilities. The other was afflicted with a chronic case of ingrowing conscience, and on account of her abnormally developed analytical powers, exercised chiefly in laying bare her own and other people's failings, was referred to by her fellow passengers as " Miss Ann Eliza." Both were going abroad for an indefinite sojourn. Both were full of plans and projects to be put into execution on their arrival, and each felt completely assured that she was on the one and only right track for making the most of her opportunities.

One afternoon, after having been pleasantly diverted for some time, along with a number of other listeners, by a spirited discussion between the two ladies as to the relative values of sundry ways and means of skimming the cream off of Europe, I was suddenly thrown into a state of panic by being called upon by both fair disputants to umpire the game.

" As a seasoned globe-trotter," diplomatically began Miss Ann Eliza, " what, according to your observation and experience, is the surest way to get the best out of Europe? Is it not true that to obtain the most satisfying results one should studiously plan for a trip abroad and resolutely adhere to that plan? "

" I never plan anything," laughed the Merry Widow; " I always go to the best hotels, the best shops, the best galleries, the best operas, and try to eat and drink, to buy and see and enjoy the best of everything. I have a policy, but I never make any plans."

" I have known people," I remarked cautiously, " who have graduated from both your schools of travel. Undoubtedly, both courses are good — during the novitiate period — but I would not hesitate to prophesy that one or both of you will go in later for a post-graduate course that will open up new and undreamed-of worlds of absorbing interest."

" You mean that we are both wrong? " observed Ann Eliza with merciless precision.

" I mean that you are both right," I replied, " but both young. Even in your plans you have not yet exhausted your own possibilities nor those of Europe."

" If you do not believe in turning a European trip into a bore," resumed the Merry Widow, " I am ready to listen to any and all your suggestions, but if I had intended to make work of travel, I would have stayed at home."

" On one's first impressionistic foreign tour," I replied, " I am inclined to favor, as a method of travel, the way hedgehogs are said to eat their grapes, that is, rolling over in them and eating those that stick to their quills. If inclination be ever the best guide, surely it is on a journey in search of an answer to the essentially personal question — what does Europe mean to me?"

" Bravo," cried the Merry Widow, clapping her little white hands enthusiastically.

" If one has little or no intelligence, I can understand how that point of view would appeal to her," ejaculated Ann Eliza, looking pointedly at her antagonist, " but if one has a mind, I should think it might be just as well to use it."

" Quite so," I replied, " but let us remember that the reasoning mind is not our only intellectual faculty, and hence, strange as it may seem, the problem of getting the most out of travel is not primarily one of industry and intellectual acumen but rather one of sympathy and emotional responsiveness. Just as our physical nourishment depends less upon what we eat than upon what we assimilate, so the growth of the mind and spirit depends less upon what we see than upon what we appreciate and make a part of ourselves. There is a mental and spiritual baggage which the traveler may bring home with him quite separate and distinct from his rich spoils of memory — a certain deposit in the soul, left often by the most fleeting impressions, which the artist may later work into his picture, which may enter unbidden into some fugitive verse of the poet, or cast its forgotten halo about the lover's dream." (Applause from all the ladies.)

" I often think," I continued, with growing confidence, " of what a Harvard professor said to me as I was starting on my first trip abroad. ' A man can learn more/ he declared, ' loafing about Europe for a year than grinding away for the same length of time at the University. , If this be true, then the most important question to be decided, before embarking, would seem to be not what books to read, what lectures to attend, what studies to undertake — though all these have their importance — but how to live, how to establish the most intimate and agreeable possible relations with the people among whom for the time being your lot is to be cast. For unless one becomes sufficiently naturalized, mentally and emotionally, in a foreign country to arrive at a reasonable approximation of the native point of view, one is extremely apt to miss what is best and most distinctive about that country. While it is highly useful to have a working knowledge of another people's language and a nodding acquaintance with its literature, art, and history, all such information that an outsider may acquire is apt to be inadequate, largely incomprehensible, and at times even misleading, unless one has learned by experience to adjust his mental lenses so as to see things in their normal relations to their environment and in their true perspective."

" I am in entire agreement with much that you have said," responded Ann Eliza thoughtfully, " but the question is as to the how of getting all this. I am, perhaps, laboring under the delusion that there is ' no excellence without great labor.' "

" If so," I interrupted, " I fear that is precisely where you make your mistake. The world of the traveler is not the everyday, commonplace world of routine, drudgery, and cold logic which we ordinarily inhabit, but a species of modern fairyland, a veritable dolce far niente, but one in which life is full to overflowing of zest and exhilaration, and where more information can be soaked in through the eyes, ears and pores of the skin than can be acquired by the hardest kind of mental gorging in the usual laborious and time-honored ways."

" If I catch your meaning," suggested the Merry Widow, " life abroad should be not a dull routine, but something more like — what shall I say ? — a continuous vaudeville performance or a long-drawn-out ' joy ride.' "

" If you do not use those phrases in too literal and too materialistic a sense, you have caught my meaning exactly."

By this time Ann Eliza had almost reached the boiling-point of her righteous indignation, but holding herself well in hand, she said, " Just one other question. If life over here is to be all pleasure-seeking and receptivity, perhaps it might not be out of place to inquire as to what form of pleasures a person should specialize in, and to what sort of influences one ought to throw open arms and soul. Surely it cannot be necessary to restrict one's self to what is cheap, superficial and tawdry. It is quite possible, and it might even be found desirable, to take advantage of a foreign tour, not to gratify one's commonest and vulgarest impulses, but to learn to enjoy those things, such as the highest forms of music, literature and art, which for thousands of years the best, the most refined and the most intelligent people of the world have found to be not only enjoyable, but instructive and ennobling."

" You have struck the keynote," I replied with enthusiasm. " Without a doubt you have the right ideal, but I think I must insist that we have the right method. Have us instructed as much as you please, if only you will allow us to enjoy ourselves during the process."

" But here let me make one point clear," I continued; " while a European tour should not be turned into a grind, at the same time on going abroad it would seem unnecessary to leave all one's moral and aesthetic impressionability and mental curiosity at home in cold storage. To be sure, many tourists are constitutionally incapable of understanding, or even of contemplating sympathetically, the habits and customs of other peoples. Judging everybody and everything by the standards of their particular country, section, or neighborhood, they miss what is most worth while and most delightful about a foreign tour. It matters not how many times such travelers may circumnavigate the globe, nor how much heterogeneous information they may manage to scrape together concerning various races and continents, — they will die as they were born — provincials. A certain attitude of open-mindedness and a reasonable faculty for sympathetic appreciation of truth and worth and beauty, under whatever new guises these may appear, are absolutely essential parts of a traveler's mental equipment if he is to come into anything like an intelligent understanding of the differing points of view and the various underlying motives of alien races and peoples.

" As in America, so in Europe, the things most worth while cannot be had for the asking nor for money alone. Beauty exists only for those who are able to appreciate it; the charm of romance and legend thrills the hearts of those alone whose natures instinctively respond to the appeal of high and generous emotions; and the inspiration of historic and heroic associations is felt by none save those who are capable of being lifted out of and above themselves into the Olympian atmosphere of the good and great of every age and people."

Miss Ann Eliza did not exactly smile, but she did not trust herself to speak. Silently she raised her eyebrows just a shade, and looked inquiringly at her antagonist to see whether or not the gist of my remarks had gone home. The little epicurean seemed suddenly to have lost her taste for conversation, but being hopelessly cornered by a dozen pair of inquiring eyes, she finally broke an embarrassing silence and resolutely expressed her total lack of sympathy with either the spirit or the letter of my monologue by saying to Miss Ann Eliza :

" I believe this is your first trip abroad. When you have been over a few more times, and all that seems so poetic and romantic now has become something of an old story, I imagine you will feel as I do, that you have got past the globe-trotting stage and are henceforth free to stay as long as you please at the places you like best, such as Cannes or St. Maurice for the winter; Paris for the autumn and spring; and Aix, Carlsbad, or Homburg for the summer. At all such resorts one meets charming, aristocratic people — polished men of the world who have had the leisure to cultivate the social amenities, who have taken the pains to learn how to make themselves agreeable to women, and who, in fact, have so planned their existence as to make of living itself a fine art."

Having delivered herself of this magisterial dictum, she arose, as if to say, " The audience is at an end," — but here a much betraveled Smith College professor, who up to this time had shown herself to be a first-class listener, headed off her purposed retreat by saying, " You have opened up a most interesting problem, and some of your suggestions are much to the point. As you say, globe-trotting has no place in the post graduate course of travel. While a first view of Europe must necessarily be somewhat telescopic, or even kaleidoscopic, if, as is usually the case, one tries to cover an entire continent and some twenty odd centuries of history on a single tour; later views, if they are to be as full of spice, variety and enjoyment, must approach more nearly to the microscopic. How curious it is that although the

A ROYAL ROAD n

advantages of ' intensive farming ' have long been recognized, so few tourists seem to realize the extraordinary advantages to be derived from the intensive method when applied to travel.

" The application of this method to market gardening has enabled the French peasant to get a comfortable living from a patch of ground that the average American farmer would disdain as a chicken yard. This same method, applied to a subject instead of a plot of ground, has led to that 4 specialization ' in science which is largely responsible for the recent increase in our accurate and detailed knowledge of the physical universe. It is this method, applied to the field of industrial activity, that has given rise to that ' division of labor ' which, together with the rapid progress of mechanical invention, has brought about such an incredible increase during the past fifty years in the productivity of human toil. And it is this method, when made use of by tourists and students of comparative art, politics, history, and present-day civilization, which is fast making of travel the only known ' royal road to knowledge.'

" That is precisely what I was trying to say," chimed in the little Merry Widow nervously.

" There may be a method of travel," I remarked, " which is ' a royal road to knowledge/ but if so, it is * a straight and narrow path, and few there be that find it.' "

11 Yes," continued the fair professor, " I fear there is a gulf fixed between frittering away one's time at such fashion infested resorts as Cannes, Aix, and St. Maurice, and taking a genuine post graduate course of travel at Paris, Rome, Florence, and other artistic and intellectual centers. Among other things, the graduate school of travel, like all other graduate schools, presupposes a working knowledge of at least one foreign language. It is extremely difficult, if not actually impossible, to penetrate beneath the outer crust of convention and artificiality of a people unless one is able to speak and understand that people's language. To be sure, the common boast of British and American tourists, that no Anglo-Saxon need encounter serious practical difficulty in getting about Europe without the use of any but his mothertongue, unquestionably is true. Hotels, railways, casinos, the stock sights and the shops in the larger cities, all are at the disposition of anyone and everyone with gold in his purse. In the matter of procuring the creature comforts while indulging in the regulation round of sightseeing, certain it is that ' money talks ' every known language. But if one tries to do original work in this interesting field, it does not take long to discover that the essential character, the soul of a people, cannot be got at unless one is able to boast at least a nodding acquaintance with the literature of that people as well as with the largely ephemeral but sometimes intensely moving expressions of popular thought and feeling which pour forth from day to day through such channels as its press, its fiction, its pulpit, its theatre, and its parliamentary debates."

" Yes, of course," ejaculated the little target for these remarks, " and yet, after all, are not the people one meets abroad more interesting than the things one sees? "

"That depends upon the people," rejoined the professor. " While the fellow tourists one meets in hotel lobbies are frequently very nice in their way, yet association with them is a poor substitute for a real touching of elbows with the men and women who go with, and form an integral part of, the scenery and civilization we have come thousands of miles to see. For my own part, I am free to say that the finest moments I have experienced in foreign lands have not been the ones spent gazing at the Coliseum, or staring at the Pyramids, or gaping at the gaudy sepulcher of Napoleon, but rather those rare moments of unaffected and intimate conversation and companionship with unknown, and sometimes wholly unlettereid, chance acquaintances who, by their very naivete and unguarded freedom of expression, unconsciously have revealed to me deep and hidden characteristics of different races and peoples."

11 And these experiences," I observed, " would have been impossible but for your familiarity with continental languages."

11 Possibly," retorted little Madame Butterfly, " but I find that all the people most worth meeting at Cannes and the other exclusive resorts speak English as well as they do their own tongues."

" Yes ! " agreed the Professor. " The French Riviera offers exceptional facilities for social intercourse with foreigners who speak English. It is undoubtedly an ideal region in which to put in a month of motoring and golf, but to my mind even its wealth of natural beauty could hardly repay a normally healthy and intelligent person for a longer sojourn there. Every winter Nice, Cannes, and Monte Carlo are inundated by a promiscuous cosmopolitan influx of fanatical devotees of fashion, sport, luxury, and vice who dominate and desecrate the entire countryside from Hyeres to San Remo. And as for Aix, Carlsbad, and the other ' cures ' that are frequented by the nobility — during the ' season ' they are hot, stuffy, and swarming with the halt, the maimed, and the decrepit, and are in no imaginable way attractive, save to those who are physically ill or obsessed by social ambition."

To prevent our little sparring match from going too far — and possibly ending with a knockout blow — I hastily rose at this point, and in my official capacity declared the bout " a draw."

" It is patent," I said, " that Rome and Paris are richer in art treasures, ruins, and other stimulants of the aesthetic nature and the historic imagination than are Aix and Nice. But on the other hand, is it not demonstrated every day by thousands of our compatriots that if one has no stomach for that sort of thing, it is quite possible, even in these intellectual centers, to attain a state of surprisingly complete immunity from every cultural influence ? As a matter of fact, is not Europe like a vast library in which human nature automatically finds its level — certain types eagerly seizing upon the cheapest and most salacious authors, and others as instinctively seeking the companionship of the wisest, the wittiest, and the noblest of mankind? "

" However," I concluded, as the first gong sounded for dinner, " in a discussion of this nature, let us not forget that there is perhaps safety in the old Latin proverb — ' De gustibus non est disputandem.' "

Chapter II Picking Up A Language

On my first trip to Europe, like the Irish immigrant who came to America expecting to find money lying about the streets, I confidently counted on being able to " pick up " one or two of the leading European languages at odd moments, during a six months' tour of the Continent.

Before leaving America I provided myself with a copy of " French Verbs at a Glance," and I remember well with what intelligent care and naive satisfaction I selected from Baedeker's list of Paris hotels a little French hostelry right in the heart of the Latin Quarter as my basis of operations. Having heard that most Americans make the mistake of going to the plutocratic section of the city, near the Avenue de l'Opera or the Arc de Triomphe, I determined to settle down in close proximity to the University, l'ficole des Beaux Arts, the Chamber of Deputies and the great national museums and art galleries. Living among the French, I would absorb their language, and living among

PICKING UP A LANGUAGE 17

poets, artists, students and statesmen, I would receive mental stimulus and inspiration from the highly charged psychic atmosphere of this hive of the " intellectuals " of France. Thus I reasoned and planned and prepared to make the most of my opportunities. But alas ! while my logic was sound enough, my knowledge of the game was sadly incomplete.

At the very start, my attempt to talk business with the hotel proprietress in her own vernacular ended in failure and confusion — the good woman finally being forced to come to my rescue and explain her terms in that universal language which no self-respecting innkeeper, barber, waiter or bootblack in any part of the habitable globe can afford to be without — namely, English. But while I never mustered courage to attempt to speak French with my landlady again, I still had lively hopes of being able to " work " the waiter for a few francs' worth of French a day, and talked with him at every convenient opportunity, until to my horror I discovered that my pronounced American accent was acquiring from this association a decided Dutch flavor.

After nursing my disappointment for a few days, I finally realized that I should have to take up the study of French seriously and methodically. Accordingly I engaged the services of a gifted young woman for an hour a day, at " three francs fifty " per hour. The drivelling dreariness of these linguistic performances was past belief. As they dragged on week after week, the lady and I became so bored with each other and our common store of stock phrases about the weather, our health and kindred topics, that we finally gave up all attempts at small talk and turned our undivided attention to the intricacies of irregular verbs, irrational grammatical constructions and irritating idioms.

One of the worst features about being thus dependent upon a teacher who appears at stated intervals, is that the punctual mistress and the appointed hour so often arrive just at the moment one is particularly anxious to be doing something else, in which case one must forego a pleasure or forfeit a lesson, along with the price of it. In either event, one is apt to feel a quite unreasonable resentment against the teacher and the language — likely enough blaming one's parents roundly, as for one thing or another people have been prone to blame them, from our " first parents" until our last — for not having had foreign languages poured into one during the plastic period of childhood.

At this stage of my perplexity, I was told by a sympathizing friend, to whom I had confided

PICKING UP A LANGUAGE 19

the story of my thwarted efforts, that the easiest way to acquire the language was to get into a select " family pension " where only French was spoken. This suggestion sounded so promising that I lost no time in putting it into execution, and soon found myself in a highly recommended place where the Mistress, who was " diplomee," made a special point of correcting rigorously all the mistakes of her guests. Nearly all nationalities were represented at our frugal board, and while some of the ladies had a fairly good command of the language, none of them dared to launch out and say anything they had not previously planned and mentally rehearsed, for fear of being pounced upon by Madame and having their shortcomings held up mercilessly to the public gaze. Thus except for an occasional " well thought out and carefully executed " sentence, uttered by one of the bolder spirits, our conversation was about as vivacious as that of a table of deaf mutes.

I soon revolted at this intellectual tyranny, and one day at dinner politely indicated to Madame, that while her French was excellent and her food and drink most appetizing, her psychology was below par.

" You have got all these people scared, bluffed, buffaloed," I urged. " What they need is not so much criticism as encouragement, and plenty of it. No error should be corrected until it has been made repeatedly. Most of our blunders we are painfully aware of as soon as they are out of our mouths and by practise we could learn to avoid them. But if you are constantly at hand suggesting fear, failure and public humiliation, however much we may learn of the science of grammar, we shall never learn the art of speaking French with spontaneity or facility."

" None of my guests have ever objected to my methods before," she retorted, " and some of them have a splendid knowledge of the language."

" Yes," I replied, " and their state of hopeless inability to make any effective use of what they know is precisely what I am most anxious to avoid."

The next straw I grasped at was an advertisement of a " cultivated French family " which was willing to " take in one or two paying guests " who were desirous of perfecting themselves in the French language. I promptly swallowed the bait, hook and all, and was sadly disconcerted on entering the dining-room to see that not merely " one or two " but seven " paying guests " had been received into the elastic and commodious bosom of this hospitable family. The prevailing tongue was a sort of

PICKING UP A LANGUAGE 21

mongrel, Anglo-Germanic-French, very like a cur dog I once saw, whose owner on being questioned as to his breed, replied — " I don't yust know, but I tink he vas a spitz-bull-foundlin'."

During my brief stay there I acquired the names of a few pieces of furniture and some dishes and saucepans, but as I was not gifted with the splendid patience and persistence of my Teutonic associates, I soon retired in bad order, leaving them in possession of the field.

At this psychological moment, just as I was beginning to feel that I had sounded all the depths and shoals of discouragement, I chanced to fall in with a man who informed me that the problem of finding a royal road to a language — which had baffled the keenest minds of generations — at last had been solved, by means of that mechanical marvel of the nineteenth century, the phonograph.

" In this inexpensive little mechanism," he said, " which speaks all languages with equal ease, you have a faithful and untiring language teacher, at your beck and call day and night, always ready and willing to repeat any troublesome word or phrase over and over again, until you have completely mastered whatever difficulties you may have in the way of accent or construction. Moreover, you need have no set hours for pursuing your studies. When you have nothing else to do, you have only to make yourself comfortable, put in the desired cylinder, and amuse and instruct yourself to your heart's content."

I rose to this glittering prospect like a trout to a fly, and on learning that my informant happened to be the agent for the machine in question ordered one on the spot. The first day or two I devoted to the interesting task of learning how to run it and trying all sorts of records, some in English as a relaxation, and one or two especially funny ones about some Irishmen — but as Kipling says, " that is another story." But the French ones were troublesome and dull.

" It will become more and more fascinating," the salesman assured me, " as you come to understand the language better, and do not have to stop so frequently to have phrases repeated or to consult your dictionary."

Ah ! there I was baffled again by this will-o'- the-wisp of a language — always apparently so near at hand, but always just eluding my grasp ! However, I did not throw up the sponge without a struggle. I toiled conscientiously and doggedly on with my dictionary, grammar, talking machine, cylinders and explanatory pamphlets, until suddenly on the tenth day, all my energy and determination evaporated at the thought

PICKING UP A LANGUAGE 23

that by means of this extraordinary paraphernalia I could pursue my French studies quite as effectively at Tombstone, Arizona, as in Paris ! At this juncture, my " horse sense " asserted itself, and I packed and shipped the whole outfit — phonograph, text books, records and all — to America. My long nightmare was over. I was at last wide awake to the absurdity and the pathos of my misdirected strenuosity.

During this unhappy period of wabbling about in the wilderness, I made diligent inquiry, and discovered to my amazement, and I fear to my satisfaction, that something very like my own experience was the rule rather than the exception. I remember in particular the case of a charming young American girl, who had spent nearly four years in French-speaking countries, without having acquired much more facility with the language than I could boast. Her summers had been put in at Geneva and her winters at Mentone, with occasional side trips to Paris, Italy and elsewhere.