Italy : 38. Foreign Travel

It was in a splenetic humour that I sat me down to my
scanty fare at Terracina ; and how long I should have
contemplated the lean thrushes in array before me, I
cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, that drew the tears
into my eyes, had not burst from the green and leafy
boughs on the hearth-stone. 'Why,' I exclaimed,
starting from the table, 'why did I leave my own
chimney-corner? --- But am I not on the road to Brun-
dusium? And are not these the very calamities that
befel Horace and Virgil, and Mæcenas, and Plotius,
and Varius? Horace laughed at them --- Then why
should not I? Horace resolved to turn them to ac-
count ; and Virgil --- cannot we hear him observing
that to remember them will, by and by, be a pleasure?'
My soliloquy reconciled me at once to my fate ; and
when for the twentieth time I had looked through the
window on a sea sparkling with innumerable brilliants,
a sea on which the heroes of the Odyssey and the
Æneid had sailed, I sat down as to a splendid banquet.
My thrushes had the flavour of ortolans ; and I ate with
an appetite I had not known before. 'Who,' I cried,
as I poured out my last glass of Falernian, ( for Faler-
nian it was said to be, and in my eyes it ran bright
and clear as a topaz-stone) 'Who would remain at home,
could he do otherwise? Who would submit to tread
that dull, but daily ground ; his hours forgotten as soon
as spent?' and, opening my journal-book, and dipping
my pen in my ink-horn, I determined, as far as I could,
to justify myself and my countrymen in wandering over
the face of the earth. 'It may serve me,' said I, 'as
a remedy in some future fit of the spleen.'
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Ours is a nation of travellers; and no wonder, when
the elements, air, water, and fire, attend at our bidding,
to transport us from shore to shore; when the ship
rushes into the deep, her track the foam as of some
mighty torrent; and, in three hours or less, we stand
gazing and gazed at among a foreign people. None
want an excuse. If rich, they go to enjoy ; if poor,
to retrench ; if sick, to recover ; if studious, to learn ;
if learned, to relax from their studies. But whatever
they may say and whatever they may believe, they go
for the most part on the same errand; nor will those
who reflect, think that errand an idle one.
Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they
enter the world, than they lose that taste for natural
and simple pleasures, so remarkable in early life. Every
hour do they ask themselves what progress they have
made in the pursuit of wealth or honour; and on they
go as their fathers went before him , till weary and
sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to
the golden time of their childhood.
Now travel, and foreign travel more particularly , re-
stores us in a great degree what we have lost. When
the anchor is heaved, we double down the leaf ; and for
a while at least all effort is over. The old cares are
left clustering round the old objects ; and at every step,
as we proceed, the slightest circumstance amuses and
interests. All is new and strange. We surrender our-
selves, and feel once again as children. Like them, we
enjoy eagerly ; like them, when we fret, we fret only
for the moment; and here in deed the resemblance is
very remarkable, for, if a journey has its pains as well
as its pleasures ( and there is nothing unmixed in this
world ) the pains are no sooner over than they are for-
gotten, while the pleasures live long in the memory.
Nor is it surely without another advantage. If life be
short, not so to many of us are its days and its hours.
When the blood slumbers in the veins, how often do we
wish that the earth would turn faster on its axis, that the
sun would rise and set before it does; and, to escape from
the weight of time, how many follies, how many crimes
are committed! Men rush on danger, and even on death.
Intrigue, play, foreign and domestic broil, such are their
resources ; and, when these things fail, they destroy
themselves.
Now in travelling we multiply events, and innocently.
We set out, as it were, on our adventures ; and many are
those that occur to us, morning, noon, and night. The
day we come to a place which we have long heard and
read of, and in Italy we do so continually, it is an era
in our lives ; and from that moment the very name calls
up a picture. How delightfully too does the knowledge
flow in upon us, and how fast!Would he who sat in
a corner of his library, poring over books and maps, learn
more or so much in the time, as he who, with his eyes
and his heart open, is receiving impressions all day long
from the things themselves? How accurately do they
arrange themselves in our memory, towns, rivers, moun-
tains ; and in what living colours do we recall the dresses,
manners, and customs of the people! Our sight is the
noblest of all our senses. 'It fills the mind with most
ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance,
and continues longest in action without being tired.' Our
sight is on the alert when we travel ; and its exercise
is then so delightful, that we forget the profit in the
pleasure.
Like a river, that gathers, that refines as it runs, like
a spring that takes its course through some rich vein of
mineral, we improve and imperceptibly --- nor in the head
only, but in the heart. Our prejudices leave us, one by
one.Seas and mountains are no longer our boundaries.
We learn to love, and esteem, and admire beyond them.
Our benevolence extends itself with our knowledge.
And must we not return better citizens than we went?
For the more we become acquainted with the institutions
of other countries, the more highly must we value our own.
I threw down my pen in triumph. 'The question,'
said I, 'is set at rest for ever. And yet ----
'And yet ----' I must still say.The Wisest of Men
seldom went out of the walls of Athens ; and for that
worst of evils, that sickness of the soul, to which we are
most liable when most at our ease, is there not after all a
surer and yet pleasanter remedy, a remedy for which we
have only to cross the threshold? A Piedmontese
nobleman, into whose company I fell at Turin, had not
long before experienced its efficacy ; and his story, which
he told me without reserve, was as follows.
'I was weary of life, and, after a day, such as few have
known and none would wish to remember, was hurrying
along the street to the river, when I felt a sudden check.
I turned and beheld a little boy, who had caught the
skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to solicit my notice.
His look and manner were irresistible. Not less so was
the lesson he had learnt. "There are six of us ; and we
are dying for want of food." ---- "Why should I not," said
I to myself, "relieve this wretched family?I have the
means ; and it will not delay me many minutes. But
what, if it does?"The scene of misery he conducted
me to, I cannot describe. I threw them my purse; and
their burst of gratitude overcame me.It filled my eyes
. . . it went as a cordial to my heart." I will call again
to-morrow," I cried. "Fool that I was, to think of
leaving a world, where such pleasure was to be had, and
so cheaply!" '