My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek"

I need not say that some knowledge of the French language is absolutely indispensable to one who would travel with any satisfaction in Europe. This is the most important general preparation that can be made for going abroad. Next after it, I should place a review of the history of the countries about to be visited. The outlines of the history of the different countries of Europe, published by the English Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, are admirably adapted to this purpose. This gives a reality to the scenes you are about to visit that they would not otherwise possess; it peoples the very roadside for you with heroes. And not only does it impart a reality to your travels, but history itself becomes a reality to you, instead of being a mere barren record of events, hard to be remembered. At this time, when the neglect of classical studies is apparent in almost every book, newspaper, and magazine, I am afraid that I shall be thought somewhat old-fashioned and out of date, if I say that some acquaintance with the Latin classics is necessary before a man can really enjoy Italy. Yet it is so; and it will be a great satisfaction to any man to find that Horace and Virgil, and Cicero and Livy, are something more than the hard tasks of childhood. Should a man's classical studies, however, be weak, the deficiency can be made up in some measure by the judicious use of translations, and by Eustace's Classical Tour. Murray's admirable hand-books of course will supply a vast amount of information; but it will not do to trust to reading them upon the spot. Some preparation must be made beforehand, – some capital is necessary to start in business. "If you would bring home the wealth of the Indies, you must carry out the wealth of the Indies." It would be well, too, for a person about to visit Europe to prepare himself for a quieter life than he has been leading at home. I mean, to tone himself down so as to be able to enjoy the freedom from excitement which awaits him here. It is now more than a year since I left America, and likewise more than a year since I have seen any disorderly conduct, or a quarrel, or even have heard high words between two parties in the street, or have known of an alarm of fire. In the course of the year, too, I have not seen half a dozen intoxicated persons. When we reflect what a fruitful source of excitement all these things are in America, it will be easy to see that a man may have, comparatively, a very quiet life where they are not to be found. It will not do any harm, either, to prepare one's self by assuming a little more consideration for the feelings of others than is generally seen among us, and by learning to address servants with a little less of the imperious manner which is so common in America. Strange as it may seem, there is much less distinction of classes on the continent, than in republican America. You are astonished to find the broadcloth coat and the blouse interchanging the civilities of a "light" in the streets, and the easy, familiar way of servants towards their masters is a source of great surprise. You seldom see a Frenchman or an Italian receive any thing from a servant without thanking him for it. Yet there appears to be a perfectly good understanding between all parties as to their relative position, and with all their familiarity, I have never seen a servant presume upon the good nature of his employer, as they often do with us. We receive our social habits in a great measure from England, and therefore we have got that hard old English way of treating servants, as if our object was to make them feel that they are inferiors. So the sooner a man who is going to travel on the continent, can get that notion out of his head, and replace it with the continental one, which seems to be, that a servant, so long as he is faithful in the discharge of his duties, is quite as respectable a member of society as his employer, the better it will be for him, and the pleasanter will be his sojourn in Europe.

One of the first mistakes Americans generally make in leaving for Europe is, to take too much luggage. Presupposing a sufficiency of under-clothing, all that any person really needs is a good, substantial travelling suit, and a suit of black, including a black dress coat, which is indispensable for all occasions of ceremony. The Sistine Chapel is closed to frock coats, and so is the Opera – and as for evening parties, a man might as well go in a roundabout as in any thing but a dress coat. Clothing is at least one third cheaper in Europe than it is with us, and any deficiency can be supplied with ease, without carrying a large wardrobe around with one, and paying the charges for extra luggage exacted by the continental railways.

Let us now suppose a person to have got fairly off, having read up his classics and his history, and got his luggage into a single good-sized valise, – let us suppose him to have got over the few days of seasickness, which made him wish that Europe had been submerged by the broad ocean (as Mr. Choate would say) or ever he had left his native land, – and to have passed those few pleasant days, which every one remembers in his Atlantic passage, when the ship was literally getting along "by degrees" on her course, – and to have arrived safely in some European port. The custom house officers commence the examination of the luggage, looking especially for tobacco; and if our friend is a wise man, he will not attempt to bribe the officers, as in nine cases out of ten he will increase his difficulties by so doing, and cause his effects to be examined with double care; but he will open his trunk, and, if he have any cigars, will show them to the examiner, and if he have not, he will undoubtedly be told to close it again, and will soon be on his way to his hotel. I suppose him to have selected a hotel before arriving in port – which would be done by carefully avoiding those houses which make a great show, or are highly commended in Murray's guide-books. He will find a neat, quiet European hotel a delightful place, after the gilding and red velvet of the great caravanseries of his native country. If he is going to stop more than a single night, he will ask the price of the room to which he is shown, and if it seems too expensive, will look until he finds one that suits him. When he has selected a room, and his valise has been brought up, he will probably observe that the servant (if it is evening) has lighted both of the candles on the mantel-piece. He will immediately blow one of them out and hand it to the waiter, with a look that will show him that he is dealing with an experienced traveller, who knows that he has to pay for candles as he burns them. When he leaves the hotel, he will make it a principle always to carry the unconsumed candle or candles with him, for use as occasion may require; for it is the custom of the country, and will secure him against the little impositions which are always considered fair play upon outsiders. It is possible that he will find, when he goes to wash his hands, that there is no soap in the wash stand, and will thank me for having reminded him to carry a cake with him rolled up in a bit of oiled silk. When he wishes to take lodgings in any city, he will be particular to avoid that part of the town where English people mostly do inhabit, and will be very shy of houses where apartments to let are advertised on a placard in phrases which the originator probably intended for English. He will look thoroughly before he decides, and so will save himself a great deal of dissatisfaction which he might feel on finding afterwards that others had done much better than he. Besides, "room-hunting" is not the least profitable, nor least amusing part of a traveller's experience. He will, when settled in his rooms, attend in person to the purchase of his candles and his fuel, and to the delivery of the same in his apartments; for by so doing he will save money, and will see more of the common people of the place.

Of course he will see all the "sights" that every stranger is under a sort of moral obligation to see, however much it may fatigue him; but he must not stop there. He must not think, as so many appear to, that, when he has seen the palaces, and picture galleries, and gardens, and public monuments of a country, he knows that country. He must try to see and know as much as he can of the people of the country, for they (Louis Quatorze to the contrary, notwithstanding) are the state. Let him cultivate the habit of early rising, and frequent market places and old parish churches in the twilight of the morning, and he will learn more of the people in one month than a year of reading or ordinary sight-seeing could teach him. Let him choose back alleys, instead of crowded and fashionable thoroughfares for his walks; when he falls in with a wandering musician and juggler, exhibiting in public, let him stop, not to see the exhibition, but the spectators; when he goes to the theatre, let him not shut himself up in the privacy of a box, but go into the pit, where all he will see and hear around him will be full as amusing as the performance itself; and when he uses an omnibus, let him always choose a seat by the driver, in preference to one inside. I have learnt more of the religious character of the poorer class in Paris, by a visit to a little out-of-the-way church at sunrise, than could be acquired by hours of conversation with the people themselves. And I have learned equally as much of the brutality and degradation of the same class in England, by going into a gin-shop late at night, calling for a glass of ale, and drinking it slowly, while I was inspecting the company. There is many a man who travels through Europe, communicating only with hotel keepers, couriers, and ciceroni, and learning less of the people than he could by walking into a market-place alone, and buying a sixpence worth of fruit. Yet such men presume to write books, and treat not merely of the governments of these countries, but of the social condition of the people! I once met a man in Italy, who could not order his breakfast correctly in Italian, who knew only one Italian, and he was the waiter who served him in a restaurant; and yet this man was a correspondent of a respectable paper in Boston, and had the effrontery to write column after column upon Italian social life, and to speak of political affairs as if he were Cardinal Antonelli's sole confidant. There are such people here in Paris now, who send over to America, weekly, batches of falsehood about the household of the Tuileries, which the intelligent public of America accepts as being true; for it seems to be a part of some people's republicanism to believe nothing but evil of a ruler who wears a crown. I need not say in this connection, that the traveller who wishes to enjoy Europe must put away the habit (if he be so unfortunate as to have it) of looking upon every thing through the green spectacles of republicanism, and regarding that form of government as the only one calculated to benefit mankind. He must remember that the government of his own country is a mere experiment, compared with the old monarchies of Europe, and he must try to judge impartially between them. He must judge each system by its results, and if on comparison he finds that there is really less slavery in his own country than in Europe; that the government is administered more impartially; that the judiciary is purer; that there is less of mob law and violence, and less of political bargaining and trickery, and that life and property are more secure in his own country than they are here, – why, he will return to America a better republican than before, from the very fact of having done justice to the governments of Europe.

As I have before said, it is better for a traveller to endeavour to live as nearly as possible in the manner of the inhabitants of the country in which he is sojourning. I do not mean that he should feel bound to make as general a use of garlic as some of the people of Europe do, for in some places I verily believe that a custard or a blanc mange would be thought imperfect if they were not seasoned with that savory vegetable; but, ceteris being paribus, if the general manner of living were followed, the traveller would find it conducive to health and to economy. The habits of life among every people are not founded on a mere caprice; and experience proves that under the warm sun of Italy, a light vegetable diet is healthier and more really invigorating than all the roast beef of Old England would be.

In Europe, no man is ever ashamed of economy. Few Englishmen even shrink from acknowledging that they cannot afford to do this or that, and on the continent profuseness in the use of money is considered the sure mark of a parvenu. Every man is free to do as he pleases; he can travel in the first, second, or third class on the railways, and not excite the surprise of any body; and whatever class he may be in, he will be treated with equal respect by all. It is well to bear this in mind, for, taken in connection with the principle of paying for one's room and meals separately according to what one has, it puts it within one's power to travel all over Europe for a ridiculously small sum. You can live in Paris, by going over into the Latin quarter, on thirty cents a day, and be treated by every body, except your own countrymen, with as much consideration as if you abode among the mirrors and gilding of the Hôtel de Louvre. Not that I would advise any one to go over there for the sake of saving money, and live on salads and meats in which it is difficult to have confidence, when he can afford to do better. I only wish to encourage those who are kept from visiting Europe by the idea that it requires a great outlay of money. You can live in Europe for just what you choose to spend, and in a style of independence to which America is a total stranger. Every body does not know here what every body else has for dinner. You may live on the same floor with a man for months and years, and not know any more of him than can be learned from a semi-occasional meeting on the staircase, and an interchange of hat civilities. This seems so common to a Frenchman, that it would be considered by him hardly worth notice; but to any one who knows what a sharp look-out neighbours keep over each other in America, it is a most pleasing phenomenon. It is indeed a delightful thing to live among people who have formed a habit of minding their own business, and at the same time have a spirit of consideration for the rights and feelings of their neighbours.

If, in the above hints concerning the way to travel pleasantly and cheaply in Europe, I have succeeded in removing any of the bugbear obstacles which hold back so many from the great advantages they might here enjoy, I shall feel that I have not tasked my poor eyes and brain for nothing. We are a long way behind Europe in many things, and it is only by frequent communication that we can make up our deficiencies. It cannot be done by boasting, nor by claiming for America all the enterprise and enlightenment of the nineteenth century. Neither can it be done by setting up the United States as superior to every historical precedent, and an exception to every rule. Most men (as the old French writer says) are mortal; and we Americans shall find that our country, with all its prosperity and unequalled progress, is subject to the same vicissitudes as the countries we now think we can afford to despise; and that our history is

" – but the same rehearsal of the past —First Freedom, and then Glory; when that fails,Wealth, vice, corruption, – barbarism at last."

No, we cannot safely scorn the lesson which Europe teaches us; for if we do, we shall have to learn it at the expense of much adversity and wounding of our pride. Every American who comes abroad, if he knows how to travel, ought to carry home with him a new idea of the amenities of life, and of moderation in the pursuit and the use of wealth, such as will make itself felt in the course of time, and make the fast living and recklessness of authority and tendency to bankruptcy of the present day, give way to a spirit of moderation and obedience to law such as always produces private prosperity and public stability.

PARIS TO BOULOGNE

It was a delicious morning when I packed my trunk to leave Paris. Indeed it was so bright and cloudless that it seemed wrong to go away and leave so fine a combination of perfections. It was more than the "bridal of the earth and sky"; it was the bridal of all the created beings around one and their works with the sky. The deep blue of the heavens, the glittering sunbeams, the clean streets, the fair house fronts, the gay shop windows, the white caps, and shining morning faces of the bonnes and market women, the busy, prosperous look of the passers by, were all blended together in one harmonious whole, more touching and poetical than any scene of mere natural beauty that the dewy morn, "with breath all incense and with cheek all bloom," ever looked upon. "Earth hath not any thing to show more fair." Others may delight in communing with solitary nature, and may rave in rhyme about the glories of woods, lakes, mountains, and Ausonian skies; but what is all that compared to the awakening of a great city to the life of day? What are the floods of golden light that every morning bathe the mountain tops, and are poured down into the valleys and fields below, compared to the playing of the sunbeams in the smoke from ten thousand chimneys, and the din of toil displacing the silence of night? I have seen the sunsets of the Archipelago – I have seen Lesbos and Egina clad in those robes of purple and gold, which till then I had thought were a mere figment of the painter's brain – I have enjoyed that "hush of world's expectation as day died" – I have often drunk in the glory of a cloudless sunrise on the Atlantic, and even now my heart leaps up at the remembrance of it; but after all, commend me to the deeper and more sympathetic feelings inspired by the dingy walls and ungraceful chimney-pots of a metropolis. Thousands of human hearts are there, throbbing with hope, or joy, or sorrow, – weighed down perchance by guilt; and humanity with all its imperfections is a noble thing. A single human heart, though erring, is a grander creation than the Alps or the Andes, for it shall outlive them. It is moved by aspirations that outrun the universe, and possesses a destiny that shall outlive the stars. It is the better side of human nature that we see in the early morning in large cities. Vice flourishes best under the glare of gas-lights, and does not salute the rising sun. The bloated form, the sunken eye, the painted cheek, shrink from that which would make their deformity more hideous, and hide themselves in places which their presence makes almost pestilential. Honest, healthful labour meets us at every step, and imparts to us something of its own hopefulness and activity. We miss the dew-drops glittering like jewels in the grass, but the loss is more than made up to us by the bright eyes of happy children, helping their parents in their work, or sporting together on their way to school.

There was a time when I thought it very poetical to roam the broad fields in that still hour when the golden light seems to clasp every object that it meets, as if it loved it; but of late years a comfortable sidewalk has been more suggestive of poetry and less productive of wet feet. Give me a level pavement before all your groves and fields. The only rus that wears well in the long run is Russ in urbe. Nine tenths of all the fine things in our literature concerning the charms of country life, have been written, not beneath the shade of overarching boughs, but within the crowded city's smoke-stained walls. Depend upon it, Shakespeare could never have written about the moonlight sleeping on the bank any where but in the city; had the realities of country life been present to him, he would have rejected any such metaphor, for he loved the moonlight too dearly to subject it to the rheumatic attack that would inevitably have followed such a nap as that. It is with country life very much as it is with life at sea. Mr. Choate, who pours out his noblest eloquence on the glories and romance of the sea, seldom sees the outside of his state-room while he is out of sight of land, and all his glowing periods are forgotten in the realities of his position. So, too, the man who wishes to destroy the poetry and romance of country life, has only to walk about in the wet grass or the scorching heat, or to be obliged to pick the pebbles out of his shoes, or a caterpillar off his neck, or to be mocked at by unruly cattle, or pestered by any of the myriads of insect and reptiles which abound in every well-regulated country.

The excellent Madame Busque (la dame aux pumpkin pies) had prepared for me a viaticum in the shape of a small loaf of as good gingerbread as was ever made west of Cape Cod – a motherly attention quite in keeping with her ordinary way of taking care of her customers. All who frequent the crêmerie are her enfans, and if she does not show them every little maternal attention, and tie a bib upon every one's neck, it is only that we may know better how to behave when we are beyond the reach of her kindly hand. Fortified with the gingerbread, I found myself whirling out of the terminus of the Northern Railway, and Paris, with its far-stretching fortifications, its domes and towers, and its windmill-crowned Montmartre, was soon out of sight.

The train was very full, and the weather very warm. Two of my car-companions afforded me a good deal of amusement. They were a fat German and his wife. He was one of the jolliest old gentlemen I ever had the good fortune to travel with. His silvery hair was cropped close to his head, and he rode along with his cuffs turned up and his waistcoat open. He seemed to feel that he was occupying a good deal of room; but he was the only one there who felt it. No one of us would have had his circumference reduced an inch, but we should all of us have delighted to put a thin man who was there out by the roadside. His wife – a bright-eyed little woman, whose hair was just getting a little silvery – had a small box-cage in which she carried a large, intelligent-looking parrot. Before we had gone very far, the bird began to carry on an animated conversation with its mistress, but finally disgusted her and surprised us all by swearing in French and German at the whole company, with all the vehemence of a regiment of troopers. The lady tried hard to stop him, but it was useless. The old gentleman (like a great many good people who would not swear themselves, but rather like to hear a good round oath occasionally) seemed to enjoy it intensely, and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. At noon the worthy pair made solemn preparations for a dinner. A basket, a carpet-bag, and sundry paper parcels were brought out. The lady spread a large checked handkerchief over their laps for a table cloth, and then produced a staff of life about two feet in length, and cut off a good thick slice for each of them. Cheese was added to it, and also a species of sausage about a foot in length, and three inches in diameter. From these they made a comfortable meal – not eating by stealth, as we Americans should have done – but diving in heartily, and chatting together all the while as cosily as if they had been at home. A bottle of wine was then brought out from the magic carpet-bag, and a glass, also a nice dessert of peaches and grapes. There was a charming at-home-ativeness about the whole proceeding that contrasted strongly with our American way of doing such things, and all the other passengers apparently took no notice of it.

We arrived at Boulogne in the midst of a storm as severe as the morning had been serene. So fair and foul a day I have not seen. An omnibus whisked me to a hotel in what my venerable grandmother used to call a jiffy, and I was at once independent of the weather's caprices. A comfortable dinner at the table d'hôte repaired the damages of the journey, and I spent the evening with some good friends, whose company was made the more delightful by the months that had separated us. The storm raged without, and we chatted within. The old hotel creaked and sighed as the blast assailed it, and I dreamed all night of close-reefed topsails.

"'Tis a wild night out of doors;The wind is mad upon the moors.And comes into the rocking town,Stabbing all things up and down:And then there is a weeping rainHuddling 'gainst the window pane;And good men bless themselves in bed;The mother brings her infant's headCloser with a joy like tears,And thinks of angels in her prayers,Then sleeps with his small hand in hers."

Having in former years merely passed through Boulogne, I had never known before what a pleasant old city it is. Its clean streets and well-built houses, and the air of respectable antiquity which pervades it, make a very pleasant impression upon the mind. As you stand on the quay, and look across at the white cliffs on the other side of the Channel, which are distinctly visible on a clear day, the differences in the character of the two nations so slightly separated from one another, strike you more forcibly than ever. The very fish taken on the French side of the channel are different from any that you see in England; and as to the fishwomen, whose sunburnt legs, bare to the knee, are the astonishment of all new-comers, – go over all Europe, and you will find nothing like them. That superb cathedral, the shrine of our Lady of Boulogne, upon which the storm of the first French revolution beat with such fury, is now beginning to wear a look of completion. Its dome, one of the loftiest and most graceful in the world, is a striking and beautiful feature in the view of the city. For more than twelve centuries this has been a famous shrine. Kings and princes have visited it, not with the pomp and circumstance of royalty, but in the humble garb of the pilgrim. Henry VIII. made a pilgrimage hither in his unenlightened days, before the pious Cranmer had taught him how wicked it was to honour the Mother whom his Saviour honoured, and how godly and just it was to divorce and put to death the mothers of his children. Here it was that the heroic crusader, Godfrey, kindled the flame of that devotion which nerved his arm against the foes of Christianity, and added a new lustre to his knightly fame. It is a fashion of the present day to sneer at the age of chivalry and the crusades, and some of our best writers have been enticed into the following of it. While we have so many subjects deserving the treatment of the satirist, at our very doors, – while we have the fashionable world to draw upon, – while we can look around on political parsons, professional philanthropists and patriots, politicians who talk of principle, and followers who are weak enough to believe in them – it would really seem as if we might allow the crusaders and troubadours to rest. Supposing, for the sake of argument, Christianity to be a true religion, – supposing it to be a fact that eighteen hundred years ago the plains of Palestine were trodden by the blessed feet that were "nailed for our advantage on the bitter cross" – the redemption of the land which had been the scene of the sacred history, from the sacrilegious hands of the Saracens, was certainly an enterprise creditable to St. Louis, and Richard the lion-hearted, and Godfrey, and the other gentlemen who sacrificed so much in it. It was certainly as respectable an undertaking as any of the crusades of modern times, – as that of the Spaniards in America, the English in India, or the United States in Mexico, – with this exception, that it was not so profitable. I am afraid that some of our modern satirists are lacking in the spirit of their profession, and allow themselves to be made the mouthpieces of that worldly wisdom which it is their office to rebuke. I can see nothing to sneer at in the crusader exiling himself from his native land, and forfeiting his life in the defence of the Holy Sepulchre; indeed, I am inclined to respect a man who makes such a sacrifice to a conscientious conviction: it is a noble conquest of the visible temporal by the unseen eternal. I can well understand how such efforts for the protection of a mere empty tomb would seem worthy of laughter and ridicule to those who can find no food for satire in the auri sacra fames which has been the motive of modern foreign expeditions. It would be well for the world could we bring back something of that age of chivalry which Edmund Burke regretted so eloquently. We need it sorely; for we are every day sliding farther down from its high standard of honour and of unselfish devotion to principle.