Travelling Sketches

THE ALPINE CLUB MAN

It would have been easier and much pleasanter to write of the Alpine Club man, and to describe his peculiarities and his glories, if that terrible accident had not happened on the Matterhorn. It is ill jesting while the sad notes of some tragic song are still sounding in our ears. But the Alpine Club man has of late made himself so prominent among English tourists, – has become, with his ropes, his blankets, and his ladders, so well-acknowledged and much-considered an institution, that it would be an omission were he not to be included in our sketches. And, moreover, it may not be amiss to say yet a word or two as to the dangers of Alpine Club pursuits, – a word or two to be added to all those words that have been said in these and other columns on the same subject.

It may well, I think, be made a question whether we are not becoming too chary of human life; whether we do not allow ourselves to be shocked beyond proper measure by the accidental death of a fellow mortal. There are two points of view from which we look at these sudden strokes of fate, which are so distinctly separated in our minds as to turn each calamity into two calamities; and the one calamity or the other will be regarded as the more terrible according to the religious tendencies of the suffering survivor. There is the religious point of view, which teaches us to consider it to be a terrible thing that a man should be called upon to give up his soul without an hour for special preparation; and there is the human point of view, which fills us with an ineffable regret that one well loved should be taken from those who loved him, apparently without a cause, – with nothing, as we may say, to justify the loss of a head so dear. As regards the religious consideration, we know of course that we are constantly praying, with more or less of earnestness, that the evil of sudden death may not come upon us, – as we pray also that battles may not come. But yet, if occasion require it, if the honour of the country seemed to demand it, we do not hesitate about battles. We may say, at least, that we never hesitate on account of the death that must ensue, though we do hesitate with extreme caution on the score of the money that must be spent. And we consider, – if the cause have been good, – that the blood spilt on battle-fields has been well spilt, and that the lives gallantly rendered there have been well rendered. But the carnage there has all been the carnage of sudden death. It may be, – and yet it may hardly be, – that the soldier, knowing the chances of his profession, shall keep himself prepared for the death-dealing blow; but if the soldier on the eve of battle can do so, then why not he who is about to climb among the mountain snows? But, in truth, the subject is one which does not admit of too curious an inquiry. As we pray to be removed from sudden death, so do we pray that we may always be prepared for it. We are going ever with our lives in our hands, knowing that death is common to all of us; and knowing also, – for all of us who ever think do know it, – that to him who dies death must be horrible or blessed, not in accordance with an hour or two of final preparation, but as may be the state of the dying man's parting soul as the final result of the life which he has led. It suits us in some of our religious moods to insist much on the special dangers of sudden death, but they are dangers which come home in reality to very few of us. What parson, though praying perhaps daily against sudden death, believes that his own boy is specially endangered, – specially endangered as regards his soul, – when he stands with his breast right before the bullets of his country's enemy? In war, in commerce, not unfrequently in science, we disregard utterly the perils of sudden death; and if, as regards religion, these perils do not press on us in war and commerce, or in science, neither should they do so in reference to other pursuits. Is there any man with a faith so peculiar as to believe that salvation will be refused to him who perishes among the mountains of Europe because his employment is regarded as an amusement; but that it will be given to the African traveller because his work is to be accounted as a work of necessity? For myself, I do not think that there is a man who so believes.

And as to the human point of view, – that wearing regret which almost melts the heart into a stream of woe when the calamity comes home to oneself, – the argument is nearly the same. The poor mother whose dear gallant boy has fallen in battle, as she thinks of her lad's bright eyes and curling locks, and straight young active limbs, and of all the glories of the young life which she herself gave with so many pangs, – as she remembers all this, she cannot reconcile herself to the need of war, nor unless she be a Spartan, can she teach herself to think that that dear blood has been well shed for the honour of her country. And, should he have fallen from some snowy peak, her judgment of the event will be simply the same. It will be personal regret, not judgment. It is equally impossible that she should console herself in either event by calculating that the balance of advantage to the community of which she is a member is on that side to which courage and the spirit of adventure belong.

In our personal regrets we must all think of our individual cases; but in discussing such a question as belonging to England at large, we can only regard the balance of advantage. And if we find that that spirit of enterprise which cannot have its full swing, or attain its required momentum without the fatality which will attend danger, leads to happy results, – that it makes our men active, courageous, ready in resource, prone to friendship, keen after gratifications which are in themselves good and noble; that it leads to pursuits which are in themselves lovely, and to modes of life which are worthy of admiration, then let us pay the necessary cost of such happy results without repining. That we should, all of us, have a tear of sorrow for those gallant fellows who perished on the Matterhorn is very good; —

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer;Who would not sing for Lycidas?

But shall it be said among us that no boat is again to be put off from our shores because that one "fatal and perfidious bark" was "built in the eclipse?"

There is a fate infinitely worse than sudden death, – the fate of him who is ever fearing it. "Mors omnibus est communis." We all know it, and it is the excitement coming from that knowledge which makes life pleasant to us. When we hear of a man who is calm and collected under every danger, we know that we hear of a happy man. In hunting, in shooting, in yachting, in all adventures, in all travelling, – I had almost said in love-making itself, – the cream of the charm lies in the danger. But danger will not be danger long if none of the natural results of danger come; and the cream of such amusements would, under such safe circumstances, soon become poor and vapid as skim-milk. I would say that it is to be hoped that that accident on the Matterhorn may not repress the adventurous spirit of a single English mountain-climber, did I not feel so sure that there will be no such repression as to leave no room for hoping.

And now for a word or two about the Alpine Club men, who have certainly succeeded in making their club an institution, clearly to be recognized on the face of the earth. Whether rational or irrational in his work, the Alpine Club man has been successful in his pursuit. A few years since, – how very few it seems to be! – to have gone up Mont Blanc was a feat which almost opened the gates of society to the man who had done it; but Mont Blanc is now hardly more than equal to the golden ball on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. There will soon be no peak not explored, no summit in Europe that is not accessible, no natural fortress that has not been taken. The Alpine Club will have used up Switzerland, and the present hunting-grounds of these sportsmen will be expended. But money increases quickly, and distances decrease; wings that a few years since were hardly strong enough for a flight over the Channel now carry their owners safely to the Danube and the Nile; Jerusalem and the Jordan are as common to us as were Paris and the Seine to our grandfathers; cigar ships travelling at railway paces will carry new Alpine members to the mountains of Asia and South America, and we shall be longing eagerly in some autumn soon to come for news along the wires from Chimborazo, or for tidings from the exploring party on Dhawalagri.

But, in the meantime, the Alpine Club man still condescends to show himself in Europe, though his condescension is not unmixed with a certain taint of pride. He does not carry himself quite as another man, and has his nose a little in the air, even when he is not climbing. He endeavours to abstain from showing that he despises the man who enjoys his mountains only from the valley; but the attempt is made with too visible an effort, and he is not quite able to bear himself, as though he, as a genuine Alpine Club man, were not, in some sort, a god upon the earth. To have had his feet where our feet have never rested, and can never rest, to have inhaled an air rarer than that which will ever inflate our lungs, to be one of a class permitted to face dangers which to us would be simply suicidal, does give him a conscious divinity of which he is, in his modesty, not quite able to divest himself. He abstains from mountain talk as a scholar abstains from his grammar, or a chemist from his crucibles; but we feel that he is abstaining because of our ignorance; and when, at our instigation, he does speak of mountains, we feel that he talks of them as though they were naught, out of pity to our incompetence.

There are many pursuits among us which are of their own nature so engrossing that he who is wedded to them cannot divorce himself from their influences. Who does not feel that a policeman is always a policeman, enjoying the detection of an imaginary thief in every acquaintance with whom he may exchange a word, and conscious of the possibility of some delightfully-deep criminality in the bosom of each of his dearest friends? The very nature of the man has become impregnated with the aptitudes of his art. How nearly impossible it is for the actor not to be an actor, or for a cricketer who is great in cricket to forget his eleven, or for the billiard-player to cleanse his mind from hazards and canons. And with all such experts there grows up gradually an unconscious feeling that the art in which he is skilful is the one art worthy of a man's energy and of his intellect. To meet a foeman worthy of his steel he will willingly cross to the antipodes; and, as he goes, he pities his fellow-travellers who are cumbering themselves with the troubles of the journey for no purpose worthy of their labour. The genuine Alpine Club man, – he who aspires to any distinction among his colleagues, – is dipped as deeply in the waters of this mania as are the policeman, and the actor, and the cricketer. He climbs but for two months in each year of his life, but he lives his life in those two months. As the days of his thraldom to the ordinary duties of life come to an end, – the days in which he is merely a clergyman in his parish, or a lawyer among his clients, or a clerk at his desk, – his heart grows light and his nostrils almost expand with the expectation of the longed-for mountain air. Then, if you know nothing of mountain-climbing you are nothing to him, – simply nothing. If you are incapable of his exercise you are an unfortunate one, to whom God has not vouchsafed the best gift of physical life; or if you are neglectful, you are as the prodigal son who wasted all his substance. You eat and drink that you may enjoy it, sacrificing for your sensual pleasures muscles that might have made you respectable among climbers, while he, – he eats and drinks solely with reference to the endurance of his limbs and the capacity of his lungs. Knowing all that he abandons and that you enjoy, how should he not become a Pharisee in his vocation, thanking God that he is not as other men are?

But there is very much to be said in favour of this vocation. The hero of the Alpine Club, when at his work, is always a happy man. When he is defeated, his defeat is only an assurance of future enterprise, and when he is victorious his triumph knows no alloy. There is nothing ignoble or sordid in his work. He requires no money reward to instigate him to excellence, as do those who deal in racehorses and run for prizes. His Ascot Cup is a fragment of rock from some pointed peak, his Derby is the glory of having stood where man never stood before him. The occupation which he loves has in it nothing of meanness; it is never tainted with lucre; nor does his secret joy come from the sorrow of another. What father wishes his son to be great as a billiard-player? What father does not fear to see his son too great, even as a cricketer, or on the river? But the Alpine Club entails no such fears. The work is all pure, – pure in its early practice and pure in its later triumphs. Its contact is with nature in her grandest attire, and its associations are with forms that are as suggestive of poetry to the intellect as they are full of beauty for the senses.

TOURISTS WHO DON'T LIKE THEIR TRAVELS

After all it should be our first object in our autumn tourings to like the business that we have in hand. In all that we do, whether of work or play, this should be a great object with us, seeing that the comfort or discomfort – we may almost say the happiness or unhappiness – of our life depends upon it. But one would suppose that in these vacation rambles of ours, made for the recreation of our health and the delectation of our spirits, there would be no doubt on this head, – no doubt as to our taking due care that our amusement should be to our own liking, and that we so journeyed as to be able to enjoy our journeyings. But there is reason to fear that such enjoyment does not always result from the efforts made. We see, alas, too many of our countrymen struggling through the severe weeks of their annual holiday with much of the agony but with little of the patience of martyrs. We see them thwarted at every turn and cross because they are thwarted. We see them toiling as no money-reward would induce them to toil at home, and toiling with very little of that reward for which they are looking. We see them hot and dusty, ill at ease, out of their element, bored almost past their powers of endurance, so weary with work as to drag along their unhappy limbs in actual suffering, dreading what is to come, and looking back upon what they have accomplished as though to have done the thing, to have got their tour over and finished, was the only gratification of which they were susceptible. And with many tourists this final accomplishment of the imposed task is the only gratification which the task affords. To have been over the railroads of the Continent, to have touched at some of those towns whose names are known so widely, to have been told that such a summit was called by one name and such another summit by another name, to have crossed the mountains and heard the whistle of a steamer on an Italian lake, – to have done these things so that the past accomplishment of them may be garnered like a treasure, is very well; – but oh and alas, the doing of them! – the troubles, the cares, the doubts, the fears! Is it not almost a question whether it would not be better to live at home quietly and unambitiously, without the garnering of any treasure which cannot be garnered without so much discomfort and difficulty? But yet the tourists go. Though the difficulties are great, their ambition is greater. It does not do to confess that you have not seen an Alp or drunk German beer.

So much may be taken for granted. Whether we are capable of enjoying it or not, the tour has to be made. In all probability many tours have been made. Those who can be allowed to enjoy themselves quietly at home, or eat shrimps through their holiday pleasantly at Ramsgate, are becoming from year to year, not fewer in number, but lower down in the social scale: so that this imperative duty of travelling abroad, – and of doing so year after year, – becomes much extended, and embraces all of us who are considered anybody by those around us. Our wives feel that they owe it to ourselves to enforce from us the performance of so manifest a duty, even when from tenderness of heart they would fain spare us. And we, who are their husbands, cannot deny them when they put before us so plain a truth. Men there are bold enough to stay from church on Sundays, to dine at their clubs without leave, to light cigars in their own parlours, and to insist upon brandy-and-water before they go to bed; but where is the man who can tell his wife and daughters that it is quite unnecessary that they should go up the Rhine?

If this be so, – if the necessity for going be so great, and the power of enjoying the journey be so rare, it must be worth our while to inquire into the matter, with the object of seeing whether the evil may not be in some degree remedied. The necessity which presses upon the tourist is granted; but there may be a question whether the misery of those who suffer cannot be remedied. If we examine the travelling practices of those who do suffer, and see why it is that they do not enjoy their work, we may perhaps get a lesson that shall be serviceable to us.

The great trouble of those who travel and do not like it, – the overpowering parent grief, – is in the language. The unfortunate tourist cannot speak to those among whom he is going. This simply, without the composite additions to the fact which come to him from the state of his own mind upon the subject, would be a misfortune, – a want to be lamented. But the simple misfortune is light, indeed, in comparison with that to which it is increased by those composite additions of his own fabrication. The tourist in question can speak no word of German or Italian, but unfortunately he can speak a word or two of French, and hence comes all his trouble. Not to speak German or Italian is not disgraceful, but to be ignorant of French is, in his eyes, a disgrace. Shall he make his attempts and save himself by his little learning? or shall he remain mute and thus suggest the possibility of positive knowledge? Doubting between the two he vacillates, and can obtain neither the comparative safety of absolute dependence, nor the substantial power of responsible action. For the first fortnight he stumbles along with his broken words, making what effort is in his power; but it seems to himself that from day to day the phrases become more difficult rather than easier, and at last he gives himself up into the hands of some more advanced linguist, revenging himself upon his friends by a solemn and enduring melancholy, as though he were telling every one around him that, in spite of his incapacity to speak French, he had something within him surpassing show.

That this man is making a great mistake is certain enough, but it is a mistake to which he is driven by erroneous public utterances on the subject. It is not true, in fact, that he is in any way disgraced by his ignorance of French; but it is true that he has so been told by those who write and those who talk upon the matter. To speak French well is a great advantage and a charming grace. Not to speak it at all is a great disadvantage, but it is no disgrace. Circumstances with many have not given them opportunity of learning the language; and others have no aptitude for acquiring a foreign tongue. There is no disgrace in this. But there is very deep disgrace in the consciousness of deceit on the subject, – in the self-knowledge possessed by the unfortunate one that he desires to be supposed capable of doing that which he cannot do. It is from this that he becomes sore; and how terribly common are the instances of such soreness!

From year to year we see in our guide-books and volumes of travel the silly boastings which drive silly men and women into this difficulty. Those who inform us how we should travel continually speak to us as though German and Italian were known to most of us, and talking French was as common with us as eating and drinking. But to talk French well is not common to Englishmen; it is in truth a rare accomplishment. And then these informants, armed, let us hope, with true knowledge on their own parts, jeer most unmercifully at us poor tourists who venture to come abroad in our ignorance. We are ridiculed for our dumbness if we are dumb, and for our efforts at speech if we attempt to speak. And then we are talked at, rather than addressed. The accomplished informant who intends to guide us speaks always to some brother as accomplished as himself, and warns this learned brother against the ignorance of the masses. It is not very long since a distinguished contributor to a very distinguished newspaper advised his readers that an Englishman at Rome should never know another Englishman there; and this warning of Britons against other Britons on the Continent is so common that it has reached us all. It means nothing; or, at any rate, should be taken as meaning nothing. Not one amongst twenty of English men or English women who travel, can travel, or should attempt to travel, after the fashion which is intended to be prescribed by these counsellors. A few among us may so live abroad as to become conversant with the inner life of the people with whom they are dwelling, – to know their houses, their sons and their daughters; to see their habits, to talk with them, eat with them, and quarrel with them; but to do this is not and should not be the object of the vacation tourist; and if the vacation tourist cannot save himself from being made miserable by his guide-books and pretentious informants, because he is unable to do that which he never should have regarded as being within his power, he had certainly better remain at home.

To wander along the shores of lakes, to climb up mountains, to visit cities, to see pictures, and stand amidst the architecture of the old or of the new world, is very good, even though the man who does these things can speak no word out of his own language. To speak another language well is very good also, and to speak another language badly is much better than not to speak it at all. All that is required is that there should be no humbug, no pretence, no insincerity, either as regards self or others. Let him whose foreign vocabulary is very limited use it boldly as far as it will go; and let him acknowledge to himself that he is going to see the outside of things, and not the inside. It is not given to any of us to see the inside of many things. Why be discomforted because you cannot learn the mysteries of Italian life, seeing that in all probability you know nothing of the inner life of the man who lives next door to you at home? There is a whole world close to you which you have not inspected. What do you know of the thoughts and feelings of those who inhabit your own kitchen? But in seeing the outer world, which is open to your eye, there may be great joy, almost happiness, – if you will only look at it with sincerity.

There is another grievance, cognate with this grievance of language, which much troubles some tourists, – a grievance which indeed springs altogether from that lack of language. The money of these unlearned ones will not go so far with them as it would do if they could do their bargaining in French with a fluent tongue. The imperious guide-books have not failed to throw into the teeth of monolingual travellers their disadvantages in this respect, and to do all that lay in their power to add a further heavy misery on this head to the other miseries of tourists. No doubt my friend the Italian innkeeper would be more easily pressible – what we generally call more reasonable – in his financial arrangements if you could argue out the question of your bed and supper in good Tuscan; but in this matter, as in all others, you must pay for that which you have not got, and cut your coat according to your cloth. Are you going to be miserable because you, who have to pay your railway fares, cannot travel as cheaply as your friend who has a free ticket wherever he goes? A free ticket is a nice thing; but not having one, you must pay your fare.

But there are other sources of unhappiness, independent of those arising from language, which go far towards robbing the English tourist of the pleasure he has anticipated. He always attempts to do too much, and in his calculations as to space and time forgets that his body is human and that his powers of endurance are limited. With his Bradshaw in his hand and his map before him, he ignores the need of rest, and lays out for himself a scheme of travelling in which there is no leisure, no repose, no acknowledgment on his own part that even sleep is necessary for him. To do all that can be done for the money is the one great object which he has ever in view; to visit as many cities as may possibly be visited in the time, to have run the length of as many railways as can be brought within the compass of his short six weeks, to tick off the different places one after another on his list, as though it were a duty imperative upon him to see them all, and having seen them, to hurry on to new scenes, – this is his plan of action, and with such a plan of action is it possible that he should like his work? Must it not be a certain result of such travelling that the traveller will have but one source of comfort during his journey, and that that will spring from the blessed remembrance that his labours will have an end?