YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY Gift of
Norman S, Buck

NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN

NEW LETTERS
OF AN IDLE MAN
BY
HERMANN JACKSON WARNER
ADTHOH OP 'BUROPBAN TEAKS '

EDITED BY
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1913

EDITORIAL NOTE
The volume published last year under the title Euro'pean
Years, — a coUection of letters written by an American
gentleman during a residence of forty years abroad at the
end of the last century, — found its friends, and occasioned
besides some rummaging in old desks for more by the
same hand. One cabinet gave up a packet which has the
merit of filling the gaps of the first volume, — ^whole years
and voyages whose record the undiscriminating hand of
time had apparently destroyed. The material here is
therefore new ; but the personal touch of the writer is the
same, with the power to engage us in his httle affairs of
the moment, his blend of seriousness and triviahty, his
stout independence of view, and — notwithstanding ebulli
tions and explosions — his good nature in a very trying and
impenetrable world. The coUection is slightly different
from the preceding in tone, and iUustrates the subtle way
in which a letter-writer responds to his invisible corre
spondent by an unconscious mood in himself, pre-estabHshed
by ' auld acquaintance ' ; this packet is of a Ughter sort,
is more indulgent to whim and weariness, and an etymo
logical interest takes the place of poUtical economy.
There is no need now to introduce the writer ; the
brand is known, — the soundness of the grape and the
fragrance of the vintage ; and he has given his name to
it. The ' Idle Man ' has bestirred himself, and declares his
authorship. Anonymity may be a burden, and as usual
soon proved to be a useless one. It is time, therefore, for

vi NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
the editor to leave the scene ; his part, at best, was only
that of an old hand at print ; and he withdraws sincerely
happy for the accident of life which aUowed him to be
instrumental in preserving this fragile record of a type
which is passing away, — one of the final forms, in the
latter days, of that old Puritan stock which was the great
tap-root of America.
G. E. W.

CONTENTS CHAPTER I
VISITS TO AMEKICA
1881-1886
/ PAOH
A Voyage — Assassination of President Garfield — Lake Mohonk —
American Biches — Thirlwall — Boston Scenes — Leslie Stephen
— French Travellers — Scherr — Twining's Letters — Colour-
words in English and German — Apropos of the Author's
Marriage — Philadelphia — Hawthorne — On Preserving the
Language — An Iceberg Scene — Adelsberg — On Meeting
People; ........ 1
CHAPTER II
JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST
1887-1888
The Pacific Voyage — Yokohama — Miyanoshita — Tokyo — Nikko —
Shanghai — Hongkong — Bombay — DarjeeUng — Benares — Agra
— The Bed Sea — Suez — Cairo — Athens ... 47
CHAPTER III
ITALIAN WINTERS AND GEEMAN SUMMERS
1888-1891
Eeflections on the Far East — Bliemchtns — Ibsen — German and
American Style — The Japanese Experiment — American Be-
trogression — Eome in the Sixties — Christmas — The Carnival
— George Bradford — Perugia — On Drinking Tea — Middle
Names — Lord Dufierin — On American Domestics and Manners
— Italian Nerves — The Grand Climacteric — On Tragedy — On
' Taking in a Newspaper ' — A Great Snowstorm at Naples —
New and Old Harvard — On Habits before Going to Bed —
La Cava and the Amalfi Boad — Professor Sophocles — German
Writers on America — The Temperaments of Bast and West . 78

viii NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
CHAPTER IV
THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YOEK
1891-1893
PAGE
Arrival— StroUing About — 'The Picknickers' — Jefiries' Stor'y of
rny Heart — Fruits and Flowers — Sapodilla, Sugar-apple,
Breadfruit, Pawpaw — The Laying of the Cable — Sisal — The
Calm of the Buddha — A Pebble in a Pipe — Reminiscences of
Norway and Sweden — The Land of the Pink Pearl— Walks,
Sailing, and Fishing — An English Colonist — Froude — A Line
of Euripides — Newspapers — Bierstadt — An American Type —
A Murder in Japan — Return to New York— The Astor
Library— The Paston Letters— The High Art of Travel— The
Columbus Fetes — The Lenox Library — The Stock Exchange
— Thomas William Parsons . . . . 125
CHAPTER V
SWITZERLAND 1893-1894
Lucerne — An International Hotel — The Murder of Carter Harrison
— The Tradition of Pontius Pilate — Henry James — John
Moriey — Francis Parkman — The Boston Latin School — Hamer-
ton — A Play Enacted — English High Churchmen — Socialism
— The Passing World — Interlaken — Alger— Seeley's Goethe —
St. Beatenberg — Thun — Grindel wald — Miirren — Swiss Flowers
— Mrs. Ward's Marcella — The Swiss Charm — Nudlma'kr a
Paris — Lausanne — Territet — Vevey — Wiesbaden — Oliver
Wendell Holmes — Weimar — The Kneipp Cure — On Fads —
An American Philanthropist — On Old Houses — The ' Demise
of a very Old Friend ' ...... 171
CHAPTER VI
ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS
1895-1898
My Father's Article' — Birrell — Idleness Apropos of Thoreau —
'Words, Words, Words' — Ballou's Equatorial America —
'Hooker's' — More Words — Collectivism — President Cleveland
— A University in America — Football at Harvard — Georg
Brandes — On Old Age — A Visit to St. Gallen — Boston
Lawyers — The Idle Man and his Contemplative Life — The
Appen.'seller ilfundosri- From Zurich to Lugano— A Stroll
about the Streets— A Gale— Lake Como— ia Certosa— Genoa
— Sir George Bowen— A German ikr«n«— Carlyle's Friedrich
— Arrival on the Azure Coast — Surnames — Lamb's and other
Letters ••....., 230

CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER VII
AN ENGLISH SOJOURN— AND AFTER
1898-1899
PAOB
French EaUway Wreck — The Spanish-American War — Hove
and Brighton — Charles Francis Adams and Anti-Imperialism
—The Tar- Walk — Still More Words — A Memory of Bruns
wick, Maine — English Libraries — English Prices — English
Monotony — Caedmon's Monument — Adulterated Milk — A
Visit to Paris — The Fwndburea'u at Basel — Idling in the
Eiviera — Julia Ward Howe — John Holmes — Jowett and Free
man — The Powder Explosion at Toulon^Histories of Litera
ture — Mark Twain — A Voyage from Naples to New York . 261

Nicht alien alles, wenn nur einem eins gefallt
Und andern anders, so ist es gut besteUt. EtJCKERT.

CHAPTER I
VISITS TO AMERICA
1881-1886
A Voyage — ^Assassination of President Garfield — ^Lake Mohonk
— ^American Riches — ThirlwaU — ^Boston Scenes — ^LesUe Stephen
— ^French TraveUers — Scherr — ^Twining's Letters — Colour- words
in English and German — Apropos of the Author's Marriage —
Philadelphia — Hawthorne — On Preserving the Language — An
Iceberg Scene — Adelsberg — On Meeting People.
Lake Mohonk, New York,
14 September, 1881.
My dear H., — ^WeU, here I am on Lake Mohonk in the
Township of New Platz in Ulster County New York. I
have been looking forward to a bright and pleasant Summer,
and now the bright and pleasant Summer is gone, or nearly
gone ! Alas ! how swiftly the hours fly ! and the years !
and we are already caducous, at least I am, though I must
confess I can bound up a mountain with considerable agiUty
in spite of two hundred and nineteen and a half pounds. I
should never have fancied that I could have carried over
into the Fifties such a reserve of Horse Power ; for did I
not walk John H. off his feet at ifitretat, and with my hands
crossed upon my back too, as becometh the serene man !
I never could do much in the muscular way, but I can do
as much now as I ever could ; and a few days ago I slid
down a mountain on my beam ends, if I may say so, — ^the
word buttock being obsolete apparently, — and the mountain
received no damage.
I had an average passage : one hundred First Class
Passengers, mostly bagmen. We had the racks on the table
aU the way, and once a gale, and really a stiff one ; it lasted,
however, only twenty hours, but that was long enough to
lame every stout man on board except myself, and the
A

2 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
shiver of the ship when the waves struck the screw out of
water was painful to experience. It was with extreme
difficulty one could reach the Smoke Room ; so-caUed life
lines were stretched and a few adventurous spirits (including
myself) succeeded in the perilous task of getting into it, and
the even more perilous task of getting out of it. My neigh
bour at table however, an Idle Man and also a stout man,
returning from a twelve months' cruise in a yacht, received
a very bad faU. I had admonished him at lunch to be careful,
for the lurch of the ship seemed to me pecuUarly severe and
dangerous ; but after dinner aU things are rosy to the
yachting spirit, and my neighbour was not sufficiently
careful, despising my friendly admonitions as savouring of
a preternatural pessimism. He saUied out of the gangway,
caught the Ufe-line with a jaunty air — a deadly lurch of the
ship, and in a twinkUng he was roUing in the scuppers, a
moaning mass of fat and froth. His bruises were consider- .
able and he whined like a baby every time he sat down next
to me at table.
I picked up a castrated edition of Swift and also one of
Johnson at a Railway bookstaU in Liverpool ; and what ,
time I was not in the Smoke Room I passed recumbent on
my sopha in the receipt of wisdom, such as it was, from
Messrs. Swift and Johnson. But I must confess I got very
little satisfaction from these so-caUed classics. I read
Easselas for instance, and Swift's Journal to Stella. Rasselas
seemed to me insipid : exceUent sentiments in a fine round
hand as it were, commonplaces in pompous language. And
Swift's Journal to Stella ! what a glutton he must have
been, and what a parsimonious old driveUer ! and of what
a besotted life is it the picture, — drink and drunkenness and
rottenness are the incessant themes. Swift's style is terse
and extremely vigorous ; but the Tale of a Tub is after aU
hard reading, and Gulliver's Travels at once obscene and
unnatural. Swift was a pamphleteer, and a pamphleteer
in an age when pamphlets were a power ; but what very
cold coffee is aU political writing after even twenty years,
and after two hundred years it is mere gibberish, whoUy
uninteUigible, for it is impossible to catch the spirit of the

VISITS TO AMERICA 3
time, and get hold of the character and aims of its leading
men, — ^in a word, to breathe the atmosphere which Swift
breathed in poUtical pot-houses, without long continued
and minute study of obscure men and forgotten events.
Voltaire was another such pamphleteer, wielding likewise
great power in his day, and acquiring a great name which
stUl stands when none I fancy but the curious ever read
his books, though I must confess to having been amused
by Candide and even to having tried to read the Pucelle ;
but that was in the days when I was in the Culture-Business.
And now Parton has written his Ufe and I have paid six
doUars for it : a Biographical-Dictionary kind of thing en
larged. It is amusing, — the way he contemplates French
Ufe from his narrow Yankee standpoint, and is dazed at
last by its gay eccentricities : to his apocalyptic vision, it
is much of it Scarlet, — mere wantoning of the Beast of Gaul.
And so we steamed on and on through rain and fog, and
Arctic cold, untU at last we came within sight of the electric
Ughts on Coney Island, shooting up iUumination as it were
out of abysmal depths of ocean. And finaUy I was dumped
down at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, sweltering
with headache and disgust : the mercury marking 90°. I
had to stay untU the next day. The atmosphere was odious
and had a pecuUarly depressing effect ; I fancied that I
should suffocate or at least faU into a cataleptic state ;
apoplexy perhaps. I did not stir out of the hotel except
to crawl round the corner in order to get a supply of tobacco,
for I have taken again to a pipe. Cheap cigars in this
country are no longer smokable. I once fancied that I
could smoke * two-centers,' but I cannot any more. Pipe
smoking is cleaner, — good tobacco leaves no bad taste in
the mouth ; and I am not sure that I shaU not retain the
habit, for even in the Fatherland cheap cigars are now bad.
Under ten pfenu'igs you get no tobacco in a cigar, as a trades
man there once told me. Good cigars cannot be cheap ;
and I foresee a general retum to the primitive pipe smoked
by ova Forefathers and Tartars and the Uke. I had some
affairs to arrange in New York, and took up my abode on
the Seashore not far off. The shooting of the President,

4 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
which occurred on the Saturday foUowing my embarkation,
had an unpleasant effect on the Stock markets, though by
no means so severe at first as might have been expected.
It was soon discounted, to use the commercial phrase, but
the long sad illness and suffering which foUowed have created
a certain financial depression : thrown a shadow as it were
over the immediate future. It is like playing chess in the
dark, one cannot see to make a move. It was an afflicting
event : for though I have reaUy no knowledge of Garfield,
his reputation is that of a most worthy man, and his views
upon CivU Service commanded my entire sympathy ; no
thing so good was ever broached before by any President,
and this President was shot as soon as he had done it. It
is not a good omen ; in fact I regard it as quite hopeless
to expect reform in this direction. There is no country, I
fancy, where the weak are in the hands of the strong as they
are in the United States. You see this in aU these gigantic
combinations of capital, which make a few masters of the
many. And in poUtics it is just the same ; so long as
there is money to be made there wiU be men to make it.
There is money to be made in poUtics in this country, and
there is no power or force of any sort to act as a check.
The people are in the hands of poUticians and they wiU
remain there ; for the people cannot help thelnselves,
though they fancy that they can, — a delusion which is the
bulwark of the poUticians' omnipotence. These senti
ments are not flattering, and I dare say that I shaU be
reproved for entertaining them ; but it is the first duty of
man in general and of the patriot in particular, to form
right judgments of the state of his country and of the
tendencies of its institutions. Forms of government are
to me a matter of indifference, so long as a country is weU
governed ; and I must frankly confess that experience thus
far has not shown the superiority of republican forms. A
democracy is just as Uable to go wrong and work evil as a
monarchy, so far as I can see. I say this with pain, for my
bias, the result of education, is in favoiu- of democracy.
But think what we wiU, democracy is to be dominant in
the immediate future in Europe as weU as here. We must

VISITS TO AMERICA 5
accept it and make what we can of it. It wiU run its course
with the rigour of fate ; the outcome of it no man can
foresee. In Germany it wiU result in a modified form of
SociaUsm, and that perhaps in the lifetime of persons now
Uving. The Germans were the first to protest against
CathoUcism and throw it off ; they wUl be the first to make
the State an instrument for the elevation of the labouring
class ; for mind you, the Social Democracy of Germany
is not Communism ; it is just the reverse ; instead of
aboUshing the State, it wiU strengthen it and enlarge its
sphere, so as to suppress or at any rate to check the strong,
and save the weak from extermination.
From the Seashore I passed up the Hudson River and
spent some time in a pretty town on its banks, enjoying
the society of a friend whose acquaintance I made in Europe :
a young lady with Uterary procUvities and now wrestling
with intermittent malaria and her first novel, — a very acute
mind, but discursive, and capricious. She has already
written in Har'per's Magazine and the great Neiv York
newspapers, but I do not know whether she wiU be a success.
It is very common to find young persons with Uterary
procUvities cherishing an ambition far beyond their faculty ;
and this yoimg person in particular is possessed of a vaulting
ambition. I look upon it as a misfortune and pity her ;
but she is happy in her iUusions, and if she gives herself
time arid perseveres I dare say she wiU do something respect
able. But the mere fact of being fiUed with the aspirations
of genius is no proof of the possession of genius, though
perhaps it is better to have such aspirations than none at
aU ; but I am not sure. The only reaUy happy man or
woman seems to me to be the one who can gauge his own
faculty ; yet very few can do that. And hence perhaps
it may be that there are so few happy persons among the
educated in this somewhat turbid world.
From the verdant banks of the Hudson and the pictur
esque slopes of the CatskiUs I passed on to Cooperstown on
Otsego L^ke, the home of Cooper, It is a placid Lake,
fuU of fish, and the shores are undulating hillsides. I
rowed on the Lake somewhat, that is to say once, and

6 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
sweated Uke a porpoise ; I even caught fish and fingered
dirty worms ; but the hotel was odious, — a bastard French
cuisine. The house was built for a Seminary and is the
oddest building in its internal arrangement, or rather want
of arrangement, I ever saw. It wiU bum up before long
I have no doubt, for having stood fifty years it must be ripe
for the devouring flame. From Cooperstown I came to
this pretty spot : fifteen mUes back of Poughkeepsie some
where, an isolated house on the top of a Mountain with
an unpronounceable name. The Lake is merely a pictur
esque Horse-pond, fuU of hornpouts and smaU boats at a
quarter of a doUar the hour. The mountain rises up com
plete in itself so to speak, out of the midst of a vaUey, and
there are reaUy fine views from it in every direction : mag
nificent slopes, and ridge behind ridge. The landlord is a
Quaker and there is neither a Paddy nor a nigger on the
place ; neither doth he permit a Bar to be kept on his
premises ; and his cow-beU doth ring at nine in the morning
summoning the faithful to prayer. But his table is nice
and clean : fruits in profusion : pears, grapes, and peaches
in floods thrice daily : wholesome Yankee cooking : and
tidy young women for waiters, Americans, Uthe and white
aproned, quick as a pickerel and sweet tongued as Mother
Eve. There is however a Smoke Boom, where I trace these
random Unes, with a balcony projecting over the water ;
and there is a weU suppUed reading room and a Ubrary ;
and the minerals of the region are carefuUy displayed in a
way to attract minds bent on knowledge. The landlord
was formerly in the Educational Une, and one sees in aU
things the influence of his former calUng ; in fact it was
the pedagogic instinct that led him here ; and he has reaUy
created a pretty place, having brought much ingentdty to
bear upon the devising of tortuous paths through the
forests up and down the rocky sides of the mountain, and
at every point, and there are many, where there is a fine
view, erecting rustic arbours where one can rest and enjoy
it. This satisfaction, combined with the wholesomeness of
his kitchen, keeps his house fiUed from May to November,
Indeed I fancy this house to be the only country resort

VISITS TO AMERICA 7
which is fuU at this present writing ; for the first week of
September brings with it everywhere else a hopeless coUapse
of ' Summerers.'
The weather is becoming cooler ; the briUiant hues of
Autumn are beginning to tinge the landscape ; the air is
sparkUng and fresh ; and I can only regret once more that
the bright and pleasant Summer is soon to be but a memory.

Dresden, 9 December, 1881.
My dear H., — I am glad to find that I did not impose
on your good nature in sending Mr. N. to you. I found him
a most agreeable young gentleman. He is said to have
deUvered a remarkable Poem before his class at Harvard
on Class Day. His only fault, if fault it be, is perhaps a
too indiscriminate zeal for accompUshments ; but he is
exceedingly genial, a quaUty which I Uke in young or old,
and of great refinement of manner. He is desirous for his
Mother and family to cpme abroad and Uve somewhere in
Europe permanently, because — because, — what think you ?
because they cannot Uve in New York on Twenty-five
Thousand DoUars a year ! He has a petty aUowance of
Five Thousand DoUars a year, — ^petty from the New York
upper-class point of view ; but nevertheless he was aghast
to find when he came here that he had one of the largest
incomes in the place. This amused me. Yet what a pain
ful Ught it throws upon the social condition in New York !
and what is true of New York is true relatively of the other
American cities ; — ^that is to say, the inordinate increase
of wealth and the rise in the standard of wealth, which is
going on in the rich class in America, and the ever widening
gulf between that class and, — ^not the poor class, — but the
weU-to-do class. There was no such gulf in our day of
pristine simpUcity. There were relatively rich men in our
day of course ; but there was no such gulf as there is now.
The rich class in America begins now with, say, one hundred
thousand doUars income ; it began in our day with one
hundred thousand doUars capital ; but I have been assured
by commercial men that it is harder to earn one hundred

8 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
thousand doUars capital now than it was thirty years ago.
Hence the gulf. And the greater part of this present
widespread prosperity of which we hear so much in America
enures reaUy to the benefit of a few, as was the case under
the Roman RepubUc. And if in the next generation there
should happen to be a VanderbUt with five times the wealth
of the present head of the famUy, and with the ambition
and the genius of a JuUus Csesar, — I must say there might
be trouble. In other words the Unes upon which our
growth advances are precisely the Unes upon which aU
other great empires have advanced and been shipwrecked
at the end. There must be a new departure ; and I fancy
that what is caUed Social Democracy in Germany fore
shadows that departure. At any rate it seems to me in
many aspects an effort in the right direction : just as
Protestantism, which was first estabUshed in Germany,
was an effort in the right direction. And for my part I be
Ueve that Social Democracy embodies the spirit of Christi
anity, as it has never been embodied in social institutions :
that is to say, it substitutes the principle of co-operation
which Jesus taught, if he taught anything, for the principle
of competition which is the outcome of diaboUsm, — being
of the earth, earthy, the big fish swaUowing the little fish.
But I cannot write more upon this topic for there is some
thing lethargic in the effect of the atmosphere here, and I
am afraid of faUing a victim to it. Indeed the way of life
in Germany produces in me a kind of inteUectual somnolence
and apathy, and the absence of stimulating companionship
completes the deadening. For though, according to Demo-
critus, the Chief Good is drapa^la, or an unruffled serenity
of mind, yet I fancy that we restless Americans are not
content even with the Chief Good, but are always wanting
something better.
I had a horrible voyage from New York in the Cunard
packet Scythia. I never dreamed of such seas : hurricanes
and white squaUs aU the way across the ocean : companion-
ways closed : gaUeys washed out : and, worst of aU horrors,
I could not get to the Smoke Room. No, for four days and
nights I did not take off my clothes ; sleep was impossible.

VISITS TO AMERICA 9
I had a cabin to myself, but I could not keep in my berth
nor on my sofa ; but strange to relate, my stomach was as
firm as a rock ; I did not have a qualm ; on the contrary,
the more frightfuUy the screw raced, and the ship roUed,
and the waves broke over us, the hungrier I became. It
was truly a Scythian voyage ; in fact the Ocean has been
in a bad way for now two months ; according to the news
papers there were lately sixteen Atlantic steamers overdue
at New York. Tremont House, Boston,
29 December, 1882.
My dear H., — Yes, I spent some time in PhUadelphia,
that howling wilderness of dirty gutters and unearthly
twang ; and then came here where I am now sitting in a
smaU upper chamber, but alas ! not looking out on the
graveyard : no, that cheerful side of the house was aU
taken up before I came, and I was relegated to the Beacon
Street side, which is extremely cheerless, and somewhat
noisy. Strange to say, I am no longer drinking wine and
the want of it is no privation ; in fact I think I have more
pleasure in ice water ; and my ten o'clock-in-the-evening
big bowl of stewed oysters and great tumbler of sweet mUk
make me sleep the sleep of an infant in spite of horse-car-
beU jingUngs, fire alarms, and the yeUs of Universal Paddy
reeling whisky-driven through the moonUt streets ; for
just here at my comer there is perpetual moonlight ; — that
is to say, the cold glare of an Electric Lamp is ever there,
and when I wake up I can never teU whether it is morning
or night, the grey Ught of the Electric Lamp being main
tained untU it blends with daybreak. And now my mind
often resorts, in the midst of horse-car-beU jingUngs and
fire alarms, to the serene ways and placid life in the quiet
cities of the Fatherland. Yet I wonder how I could have
stood it so long in that dreary Georgenstrasse. What
wetness and storm of howling wind did I not face in the
Springtime and Summer now last past ; yet ages seem to
roU between that time and this ; so permeating as it were,
and radical, is the change when one transfers oneself from

10 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
the heart of the Old World to this noisy strand of the New.
Nevertheless I like the new world, by which of course I
mean Boston. I Uke my own Mother-tongue. I like to
meet my old friends ; for though few in number, they are
warm of heart.
I have read ThirlwaU's Letters. I am fond of reading
Letters, and ThirlwaU's are interesting, though not so good
as they would have been, had his style been Ughter, airier
as one may say. A massive style makes Letters heavy ;
but his Letters are as good reading as is possible to a ponder
ous style. He was an omnivorous reader and knew aU
languages : Uved in Wales and bought aU the new books
he wanted, having large revenues. His cast of mind was
a happy blending of Conservatism and LiberaUsm : alto
gether a useful man, though in aU his Letters there is no
mention of his ever draining a glass of wine or smoking a
cigar ; yet he is always in best Episcopal mood, feeding
geese and stroking his cat with his own fat prelate hand.

Tremont House, Boston,
11 Jarvuary, 1883.
My dear H., — On the whole I am Uving a sufficiently
agreeable Ufe at the Tremont House, and if I were not so
lazy should profit more than I do by my proximity to the
Athenaeum and its fountains of wisdom so dear,to the curious
and ceUbate mind ; but yet, though indolent, I have aimed
high. I have tried to compass a History of English Thought
in the Eighteenth Century by LesUe Stephen ; but I have
only read as yet a hundred pages, and have not grasped, —
a single thought ; on the contrary I am paralyzed by a
sense of boredom, and have not even the energy to carry
the book back to the fountains of wisdom which bubbled
it out on me ; but I shaU make an effort to do so and there
by free myself from this incubus, and range once more with
airy conscience in the pleasant pastures of Ughter Uterature.
It was my intention after finding out what might be the
thought of England in the Eighteenth Century, to grapple
with the work on Ethics by the same massive writer, but

VISITS TO AMERICA 11
I doubt if I have the courage for the task ; and I confess
I am troubled at times by the thought that my reading
faculty may have become impaired ; but I hope not. It
is possibly only my taste that has changed, or that I have
not the patience to wade through a mass of prosiness from
which I cannot extract a defixiite something, either in the
way of stimulus or information, say ; and extract it at
once ; and besides, in the book in question, the author
supposes in his reader a degree of famUiarity with names
which to me are now but shadows. I do not associate any
definite doctrine or thought with them ; and after aU, the
Uterature which he discusses is but a kind of controversial
literature, most tedious of earthly things ; and he cannot
himself repress the occasional reflection that in common
with aU too metaphysical enquiries after truth, there is
nothing but hoUowness at the bottom of it, as Paddy would
say. And apropos of Paddy, to me the hete noir of American
life, I read that but one third of the population of Boston
is of pure native origin. It is a lamentable state of things,
and removes aU doubt that in fifty years, as The Pessimist
doth prophesy, the last Puritan wiU go to his own funeral,
bearing aloft a Portrait of Ben Butler, depicted in his
costume of Head Flunky to Universal Paddy ; for this
shameless creature who now deffles like a bird of iU omen
the Chair of the Sainted Andrew, cries out to us that the
PoU Tax is a tyranny beyond aU tyrannies, for the Poor
Man having nothing but his poU, and nothing in it, has a
right beyond aU other rights to keep it untaxed and muddled.
And apropos of the Sainted Andrew, — in a letter aU things
are apropos, or should be, — it struck me as curious, even in
the Chaos of Phenomena in which we are ever whirUng, —
that on the eve of Butler's disquisition I should be dining
with the widow of the Sainted Andrew, his bitterest oppon
ent : a most exceUent and agreeable lady — the widow —
whom I used to meet in other days and whose acquaintance
I renewed at intervals in Europe, where she traveUed or
sojourned in company with two bright daughters, rosy
Buds, — in fuU flower now, — but always fuU of sparkle and

12 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
fragrance of mental culture, I have also dined with Alger
at his house on Brimmer Street. He has also an uncom
monly bright daughter, — it is an exceUent habit in Boston
to have bright daughters. She has a faculty for languages,
Swedish and Danish and such ; and besides, she runs half
the charities in Boston, looks after aU deserted chUdren and
widows in affliction ; finds work for them if she can ; and
if she can't, runs them off into the country to grass ; and
yet without a yokefeUow : for after aU, mankind must work
in pairs, if anything is to come of its work. But Paddy wUI
always take care that there shaU be somebody to work
for ; he wiU never faU to turn up ; and I dare say when we
come to pass into the planets, shot thither by an electric
popgim, we shaU find Paddy there before us : or at any
rate behind us.
It so happened that I had arranged to go out and see R.
yesterday ; but in the night preceding, there came on a
violent snow storm : furious and biting wind : thermometer
marking 10°. At nine o'clock in the morning when I went
into the Smoking Room and looked out of the windows into
Tremont Street, the tempest was at its height : a driving
whirlwind of snow. It was impossible to think of going
out of town, and I telegraphed that I could not come. We
never escape Winter in Boston, and it is upon us now with
a fury and a rage, as it were : the old fashioned thing :
a howUng storm : streets deserted except by an occasional
pedestrian with furled umbreUa : vainly paddling against
the blast : whirUng snow driven against the window-panes :
jingle of horse-car beU and shriek of driver to his panting
horses : a chiU unutterable in the air. And yet after aU,
it is something to enjoy, this war of the elements ; there is
reaUy a fascination in the kind of dreariness and terror and
gloom it casts upon aU things and upon the haimts of men.
Ensconced in my armchair, in tranquU comfort, in my
cosy upper chamber, I smoke the pipe of contemplation
and am gladdened by a sense of security and repose in the
raidst of aU this wintry desolation.

VISITS TO AMERICA 13
Tremont House, Boston,
23 Janiiar'ifi 1883.
My dear H., — Apropos of voyaging to America, you have
read in the newspapers of course an account of the sinking
of the Cimbria, of the Hamburg fleet, from coUision in a fog
on the North Sea, with a loss of many hundred Uves : most
horrible event. This is the ship in which I saUed from
America in 1867. When I returned to America in 1872
I came in the Deutschland, of the North German Lloyd fleet,
from Bremen ; both those ships now Ue at the bottom of
the sea. Strange, is it not ? There seems to be a fataUty
pursuing ships in which I voyage. The very first ship, —
a saUing ship, — in which I saUed from Boston to London
in 1859 was not long afterwards burned at sea ; and a
steamboat in which I took passage a few years ago from
Copenhagen to Lubeck was also burnt up at sea shortly
afterwards with the loss of aU on board except the Captain
and a steward who was too fat to sink.
Fancy what a night we had this last night : thermometer
marking 7° below zero, and aU day it has not risen higher
than 8° above zero, with a howUng wind blowing clouds of
dust in one's face and cutting one's cheeks as with a razor ;
my window is coated with frost, so that it looks as if it were
made of ground glass. There were few persons in the
streets when I salUed out timidly in the course of the morn
ing. The horse-cars grated harshly as they ran^ and the
wizened pedestrian skipped along the pavement with
shriveUed step, casting furtive glances at the frosted windows
of the shops. It is a terrible visitation, this extreme cold,
and quite nips me in the bud as I may say. I have picked
up a book, however, entitled Health Resorts, — Rivieran
strandsj Swiss vaUeys, — which I think wiU make deUghtful
reading for these frosty nights when I am housed ; for I
cannot venture out into this terrible air : the mercury
below zero too. The imagination and the memory are the
two leading factors in Uterary enjoyment ; and I fancy that
reading about the Riviera wUl add a zest to the comfort and
serenity which I experience, even in a hotel, in my smaU
upper chamber, — even with the harsh grating of infelicitous

14 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
horse-cars ascending incessant to my semle ears. I have
a comfortable armchair on rockers, made of wicker, — the
great discovery of modem times ; there is no comfort
comparable to the comfort of a wicker on rockers ; and in
this chair I sit and read and smoke ; I smoke to your
health as I may say, in the far off German land, in the City
of The Plain, — or rather, of The Very Plain. And by the
way, tobacco in this country, as I have recently learned, is
the cheapest of aU weeds ; it runs down to three cents a
pound in price : happy country. I meditate a treatise
upon the Serenity-producing function of tobacco. Fancy
what phUosophies the Greeks would have evolved if they
had possessed the tobacco plant, and what profundity even
the sayings of Socrates might have reached, if he had but
calmly smoked his pipe under Xantippe's nose instead of
running about the market places and baths, bothering
stupid folk with inept queries. And apropos of Greeks, I
heard the other day that Sophocles, our old tutorial Greek,
is djdng ; he is very old and leaves his money to Harvard
CoUege. Parsimony seems to be the fountain which fer-
tiUzes Uterary institutions everywhere. He was a most
parsimonious creature ; but, after aU, parsimony is of
more use to the world than prodigaUty, for through parsi
mony is created Capital, and it is Capital that employs
labour, and thus enables more wealth to be created ; pro
digality destroys capital, being an expenditure of wealth
unfructuously.

Tremont House, Boston,
2 February, 1883.
My dear H., — I have picked up a Uttle French book, —
entitled Le Tyrol et le Pays des Dolomites par Jules Le Clercq.
Fancy the crass ignorance of French people when a French
man can write thus : Ou est done le pays des Dolomites ?
Peut-etre songerait-U (the reader) tout d'abord a une
lointaine contree peupMe de f6roces cannibales. Les Dolo
mites ne sont pas une peuplade, mais des montagnes cal-
caires. EUes doivent leur nom au geologue frangais Dolo-

VISITS TO AMERICA 15
mieu qui le premier observa leur structure. La region
qu'eUes occupent n'est pas aussi eloign^e que pourrait le
faire croire la singularite du nom ; eUe n'est ni dans I'Hima-
laya, ni dans les Andes, mais sur le revers meridional des
Alpes. . . . Les Am6ricains ont decouvert chez eux, U y a
une dizaine d'annees, une region magnifique, situee dans
le bassin de la YeUowstone. lis en ont fait un pare national,
et, suivant leur manie d'expressions emphatiques. Us lui
ont donne le nom de terre des merveUles. Apres avoir
parcouru I'Amerique dans tous les sens, depuis I'Atlantique
jusqu'aux montagnes Rocheuses, apres avoir visite le
' Pare Monumental ' et d'autres sites c61ebres des Etats-
Unis, j'en suis revenu avec la conviction que notre vieUle
Europe n'a rien a envier a I'Amerique a ce point de vue, et
que nos Alpes, dont une grande partie est encore a peine
connue, sont infiniment plus beUes que les Alpes am6ricaines.
Si le pays des Dolomites se trouvait sur le territoire des
Yankees, Us en auraient fait depuis longtemps leur terre
des merveUles, et leurs reclames feraient accourir des legions
de touristes europeens. But in order to undertake a jour
ney among the Dolomites, U faut savoir se passer du con-
fort, renoncer a tous les raffinements de la civUisation, se
pourvoir d'une bonne provision de patience et d'energie,
et etre prepare a supporter la chaleur, la fatigue, et meme
la faim ! ' — ^fancy ! And then go on and read that at
Cortina there was neither a bookshop nor a marchand de
cigares : and he could buy there neither a map of the
country nor an ItaUan Dictionary. Pour les cigares, on
s'en passe encore : but the dictionary ! — he knew not a
word of ItaUan : and it happened unto him thus in conse
quence : si je demandais de I'encre, on m'apportait une
chandeUe ou un tire-botte ; si je voulais une omelette, on
me donnait un tire-bouchon. To put an end to this
deplorable suffering, he applied to the maitre de poste de
I'endroit who possessed German and ItaUan, and who
kindly furnished him with some common phrases, which
he noted dans mon camet. He speaks weU of Cortina
however : La situation de Cortina est de toute beaute et
nous en fumes si epris que nous resolumes de nous y arreter

16 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
vingt-quatre heures ! He stopped at the Croce Bianca •
the AquUa Nera was invaded by an avalanche of EngUsh,
who had taken possession of every chamber in the house
as weU as in its dependances. At the SteUa d'Oro he fared
no better, but at the Croce Bianca he got in : ' trae type
of an ItaUan auberge where rice and macaroni constitute
with oU the base of the kitchen.' But I wiU make no
further comments. The mere fact that this enterprismg
Gaul traversed the whole of the Tyrol on foot in ten days
wiU be in itself sufficient criticism. But the book carried
me back to pleasant scenes, — so far away now, — to the
bright Summer days when we sat in the arbour at — where
was it ? I have already forgotten the name, — or walked
down to San Vito and rode home boozy. And how the
famiUar names aU came back to me with such a charm,—-
Antelao, Tofano, Tre Sassi, Drei Sinnen, CristaUo, — Ospitale,
Schluderbach, — Tre Croci and the rest ! I have just read
a Uttle German book by Gregorovius : a sketch of the
career of Athenais, maid of Athens, afterwards the spouse
of Theodosius n., and Empress of the Byzantine Realm.
There is uncommonly Uttle to teU about her, however ; but
the simpUcity with which that Uttle is told is cheerful.
What a permanence there was after aU in the ancient world.
Plato set up by his WUl a sort of PhUosophic Academy in
his house, with revenues attached ; and that Acaxiemy with
revenues attached did not cease to exist untU a.d. 529 :
eight or nine hundred years after Plato's death.
Tremont House, Boston,
28 February, 1883,
My dear H., — Your welcome letters take my mind away
from this turbulent strand and carry me in imagination to
a serener land, where not merely things, so to speak, are
calmer, but men are calmer ; for I find in America a uni
versal ferment and restlessness, — that is to say, in the
cities, — ^which wears upon one of my temperament : a
ferment about material things : a mere cerebral activity
and itching of the body, as it were, in mere restlessness,
without depth or purpose, unless it be greed : an aU absorb-

VISITS TO AMERICA 17
ing devotion to money in fact, which is reaUy striking and
very different from what I knew in younger years. The
fact is, even Boston has become demoraUzed at last by the
floods of wealth which have been pouring Eastward now for
some years from the vast Southwest, in the success of
speculative raUway ventures in that wonderful region.
The cities are the centres of a feverish activity in aU sorts
of speculation ; for the possibiUties of wealth beyond the
dreams of avarice have taken possession of the conscious
ness of men, and the sudden and fabulous fortune of the few
has corrupted the many. I do not wish personaUy for a
reverse to this state of things ; but I must say that from a
large ethical point of view a check to this colossal prosperity
would be wholesome. But I must say that it struck me as
comic on the part of your friend Mr. S. to wait in Munich
for the ugly March weather of New York to pass away before
returning home. Munich is reaUy a mountain resort, with
a hard, very hard cUmate. What kind of weather did I
not have there even in July ! cold, raw winds and incessant
rains : far worse than I ever knew in this country in any
month of the year : for Boston is reaUy The City of Sun
shine and if one could only stand up on the sUppery pave
ments in the Winter, it would be the Ideal City in spite of
Paddy and aU MateriaUsms : in spite of horse-cars and the
Fire-Fiend : — which reminds me that I beheld beautiful
flames mounting high into the heavens last night, when
roused by the Fire Alarm I started up and looked nervously
out of my window. The colouring was extremely fine and
the pulsations of the flames reaUy unique ; this kind of
thing one can have only in the Ideal City and I must say
one can have a great deal of it here. I sent you the other
day an article on The Imperial Dictionary. AU Diction
aries however of the EngUsh language wiU be swamped, I
fancy, by the great work of the PhUological Society of
England which has been for many years in preparation
with thousands of readers coUecting references, in aU parts
of the EngUsh-speaking world ; and I beUeve the EngUsh-
speaking race has up to this present gobbled up about two
thirds of the habitable globe.

18 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Yes, you can stiU browse at wUl at the Athenaeum among
the archives upstairs ; and I am told that there are never
more than four middle-aged and altogether unmarried
Women, sitting m the alcoves : wearing gold spectacles
and blue stockings,— the stockings bemg more or less
visible : sitting strongly-minded, on lore intent, frowning :
never more than four, I say, sitting at any one time in these
secluded precincts, but always so sitting or bustling that
one can neither look out of the window nor browse without
hitting a stocking. But these impertinences were related
to me by a married man, and I dare say he exaggerated the
infeUcity which he experienced whUe browsing, on lore
intent, frowning.

Tremont House, Boston,
16 March, 1883.
My dear H., — ^Yes, read aU you can find by Scherr. He
has written several interesting books. I remember one
entitled Hammerschldge ; and there are also several col
lections of Essays by him, aU piquant and suggestive. I
look upon him as the most Uvely of German beUes-lettres
writers. He is a Professor in Zurich. I met him once at
Weissenstein, a high mountain resort just behind Solothurn
in Switzerland. He is a short plain man and his physiog
nomy is precisely that of a prig, dire to behold : a most
wide awake man, however, and clever. He wrote a harrow
ing account, based upon the judicial acta in the case of a girl
in Germany, who fancied that she was appointed to suffer
as Jesus did and rise again from the dead. She was actuaUy
crucified, but she didn't rise again ; a most remarkable
case, and the story is most dramaticaUy told : a portentous
proof of the existence of the coarsest superstition in these
days of Ught and dynamite : hardly credible, yet as true as
Gospel : some folk would say truer.
I picked up the other day an interesting Uttle book :
Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the Eigh
teenth Century. Being Selections from the Correspondence
of the Rev. Thomas Twining. The Twinings are tea mer-

VISITS TO AMERICA 19
chants on the Strand since 1694 ; but this particular
Twining not taking to the tea business, became a clergyman,
and pursued Greek studies. His Opus Magnum was a
translation of Aristotle's Poetics. He lived in the country,
where he cultivated music and Uttle Teas, and exchanged
letters on music with Dr. Burney, father of the Cecilia
Burney, and also with his brother who shouldered the Tea
business on the Strand and at the same time made a point
of being up in VirgU. The letters are reaUy clever and
interesting and exhibit a quite ideal Ufe. The writer was
born 1735 and died in 1804. My only objection to the book
is that there is not half enough of it. I do not Uke a one
sided correspondence : one is always imagining, and often
vainly, what the other feUow has said. Even in case of
celebrated men, their letters when pubUshed, should be
accompanied by their correspondent's letters ; otherwise
one is always bored, vainly striving as I have said to make
out what the corresponding Obscurity may have remarked.
But to say the truth, I do not think the letters of celebrated
persons (except as furnishing biographical information)
are as a rule half as interesting as the letters of a person,
say, like Twining, who has a faculty for letter-writing, and
who writes without the faintest idea of his letters ever
coming before the pubUc. AU obscure persons do not
write good letters ; but many do, I have no doubt, though
we can never know because their letters never come to
Ught. But I take this case as an example in point, of the
general truth of my remark. After a hundred years are
gone letters like Twining's are inestimable. They give one
an insight into the domestic life of the period to which they
belong, such as one would in vain strive to obtain from
stately histories, or even from memoirs of celebrated
persons ; precisely because stately histories and memoirs
of celebrated persons give one accoimts of higher society
only. Letters Uke Twining's give one pictures of the life
of the middle class of educated reflned famUies : famUies
which after a himdred years belong to the Obscurest of
obscure earthUness.
Twining in speaking of a journal of travel which his

20 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
brother had sent him, writes : ' But two things misUked me
in the whole journal. You somewhere use a form of refer
ence that I abominate, i.e., the latter, the former. It may
have its convenience sometimes ; yet I find myself always
forced to look back, and see which is which ; and, moreover,
there is an appearance always of aiming at antithesis. I
don't mean that you had any such aim ; you write better
than aU that comes to ; but the form is used by your Uttle
dapper writers, who mean to write prettUy, — ergo, should
never be used by you. " As long as you have the use of
your tongue and your pen," said Dr. Johnson to Dr, Burney,
" never Sir, be reduced to that shift." ' — Twining also
addresses his brother as ' Sir,' just as we use the word in
America. In England the use of ' Sir ' is discredited,
except as addressed by a social inferior, a shopman for
instance to a gentleman : showing how England changes,
and we don't. ' This letter, I calculate, wUl find you returned
from BittesweU,' — another instance where we preserve a
fossU usage ; for we stUl calculate. The foUowing passage
wiU iUustrate the kind of old gentleman Twining was :
clever old gentleman, too, for he made emendations in the
text of Aristotle which were greeted with pleasure even by
Heyne the great Gottingen scholar : — ' after dinner I took
my leave of Llanvorog . . . but what was happiness to me
at Llanvorog would, I know, be miserable ennui to many
people. [He had passed three weeks at Llanvorog in a way
perfectly to his satisfaction.] I am so constmcted that I
reaUy do not think I could be equaUy happy in any place
more exposed to good company, — to the artificial manners,
the gene, the etiquette, the buckram ostentation, rivalry,
insipidity, and variety of poUshed and moneyed Ufe. It
was a great comfort to me that I did not meet with a single
fine lady or fine gentleman aU the time I was in Wales,
except, indeed, one gentleman who affected to be fine, and
was the only disagreeable person I saw.'
I have begun readuig a work by Serjeant Cox of England,
entitled The Mechanism of Man : an Answer to the question
What ami ? I must confess that it strikes me as plausible,
and moreover it puts into words, and reasons out, certain

VISITS TO AMERICA 21
vague notions which have always been floating in my mind
as it were. At aU events it is a good antidote to Materialism,
which is reaUy the barrenest and dreariest doctrine ever
inflicted on starving humanity. We cry for bread and they
give us a stone ; for materiaUsm is a stone, as it were, —
at any rate stony.
I have discovered exceUent cigars at two cents each :
strong : too strong : but as good as we smoked in the
Ampezzan Vale for the same money. There is a good deal
of false pride about the cost of cigars in America ; no one,
not even a Paddy, wiU admit that he smokes ' two-centers,'
although ' two-centers ' are reaUy made of tobacco arid are
not bad. I flaunt them, and feel a maUcious satisfaction
in mentioning the price. Poor old Dr. Hedge toddled into
the Smoke Room the other day, where he found me smoking.
He begged for a cigar as he sank into an armchair, and I
gave him a ' two-center.' To him of course, having respect
for the cloth, I did not mention the price ; but I watched
the effect of the cigar. Tastes vary I suppose ; at any rate
the poor old man wrestled with my ' two-center ' for a long
time, and obviously with a rising sense of discomfort, which
of course he poUtely endeavoured to conceal. Presently
the time came for him to go, and I observed that he threw
the only half -smoked cigar into the fire, with a sigh of relief.
I felt positively wicked.

Tremont House, Boston,
14 April, 1883.
My dear H., — I have been reading the first volume of
the Emerson-Carlyle correspondence. It came only last
evening, and hence I cannot report upon it at this present,
having read only the foUowing sentence, written by Emerson
to Carlyle on April 30 in the year of Grace 1835 : ' You may
board in Boston in a " gigmanic " style for eight doUars per
week, including aU domestic expenses. Eight doUars per
week is the board paid by the permanent residents at the
Tremont House, — ^probably the best hotel in North America.
There, and at the best hotels in New York, the lodger for a

22 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
few days pays at the rate of one doUar and a half per day.
Twice eight doUars would provide a gentleman and lady with
board, chamber, and private parlor, at a fashionable board
ing-house. In the country, of course, the expenses are
two thirds less.' Oh fancy !
I have been reading some sketches of recent French
writers by Paul Lindau entitled Aus dem literarisch Frank-
reich. They are not at aU fatiguing, being reaUy sketchy ;
but the author manages to hit off a saUent point in the
character of each of the writers whom he discusses, and
you carry that point away with you. And that is much ;
for many writers fix nothing in your mind, unless it be
emptiness, as it were. The point he makes in treating of
George Sand is an iUustration of his method, ^t is a new
point to me, and I dare say weU taken, as the lawyers have
it : — but the theme is not clean. The book is nicely printed,
but the type, of the new and fashionable sort, used not
infrequently now in Germany, is extremely trying to the
eyes, aU the noxious characteristics of th'e ordinary horrible
German type being intensffied. I have also had on my
table a book entitled : Linguistic Essays. By Carl Abel.
In one of the Essays entitled Language as the Expression
of National Modes of Thought I flnd some remarks which I
am tempted to quote : for they throw Ught upon difficulties
which I have always experienced in dealing with foreign
languages, but of the real nature of which I have never
had a clear conception.
' EngUsh ladies astonish foreigners by their exactness
in discriminating between colours. In Germany the sex
generaUy content themselves with marking the great
divisions of the optical scale, and at most indulge in a few
foreign words : such as lilac, rose for favourite shades
between. Only the artist, the manufacturer, and above
aU, the miUiner, note finer distinctions. For the mass of
ordinary colour-bUnd individuals, it would be affectation
to copy them. It is different ui Great Britain. No EngUsh
chUd in any way developed wUl be caught confusing the two
shades of pink and rose-colour, although Germans caU both
rosa. No EngUsh lady would find it strange to distinguish

VISITS TO AMERICA 23
between violet and peach colour, though her German
sisters entirely ignore the latter, as far as my experience
goes. No EngUsh writer with any care for precision wUl
faU to caU hazel, hazel : auburn, auburn : and bay, bay :
whUst any German not wishing to be thought finical, wUl
use broivn in aU three cases. Lavender, lilac, slate, puce,
navy blue, mauve, French grey, are aU distinct shades of
purple which no EngUsh lady who visits her linen draper
more than once a year would confound. A more significant
token that accurate observation of natural phenomena is more
generally prevalent in England than in Germany could not
well be brought forward. Tints which in Germany only he
who has an exceptional eye for colour can distinguish, and
then has to describe by paraphrase out of his own head, are
in England recognized as of course, and in consequence
named with special words. Here therefore the German
Dictionary is positively defective as compared with the
EngUsh. This is one of the most essential differences which
can exist between two languages. This is one of the facts
which show that language is the mirror of thoughts common
to aU the members, or at any rate to large sections of a
nation, and that these thoughts, and consequently their
speech-mirrors, have moulded themselves differently with
different peoples.'

Tremont House, Boston,
19 May, 1883.
My dear H., — This is the last message you wiU receive
from the Great American CeUbate, — who now capitulates,
and makes himself comfortable in the way appointed to
man. We shaU settle somewhere presently in the country
for the Summer ; and then I hope to enjoy an agreeable
leisure and indite stiU more festive letters : for I trust there
wUl be nothing in the married state to disturb the normal
serenity of my mind. On the contrary I hope that it wiU be
quickened into genial activity and blossom into fruit of some
kind, after a long period of lethargy : for my companion
wiU not be too exacting, I am sure ; but wUl learn, if by

24 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
degrees, to adapt herself to my amiable but somewhat
indolent, or at any rate contemplative mood. At my time
of life, and perhaps at any time of Ufe, it is not wholesome
to be overmarried, so to speak : for no companionship, not
even that of marriage, may be exclusive without danger of
destroying that freedom of mind which is an indispensable
condition of the rational Ufe. One must be whoUy free,
within Umits of course, even in marriage : that is to say,
each must be free, if the individuaUty of each is to be
preserved unimpaired : and unless it be preserved, and
preserved in harmony, there is sure to be infeUcity and
unpleasant constraint. It is a fatal mistake (which I have
often observed from the serene standpoint of CeUbacy) :
the attempting, I mean, by the one or the other to dominate
or absorb the companion : for as far as I am able to judge,
a woman who is worth being selected as a companion, is
after marriage just what she was before marriage : she is
an entity, self contained : and it is only in certain directions
that she comes near the accompanying entity : but is never
absorbed : each entity stands for itself : and it is therefore
only by the extremest metaphor, from the phUosophical
point of view, that two individual entities are said to be
made one in marriage. Say what you wUl, each Uving
soul is set in this world soUtary and apart in its substantial
character. Yet as if to soften the asperity of existence,
there is in each of us a craving for companionship and the
spiritual comfort of sympathy and affection ; and this
desire, enUghtened and reflned by daUy intercourse of
dependence and counsel, is after aU the surest bond between
husband and wife, and wUl preserve the relation to the last,
unimpaired in its sweetness and vigour. So it is, at any
rate, that I regard the institution of matrimony at my time
of Ufe ; but I can weU understand that at an earUer period
of life one may take a different view ; or what is most Ukely,
no view at aU. And moreover a relation so purely subjec
tive as that of marriage commends itself in divers ways to
divers minds : probably no two persons take precisely the
same views of it, or carry it on in precisely the same way.
But I hope that my wisdom wiU justify itself and bear

VISITS TO AMERICA 25
exceUent fruits ; else it were better to be a fool ; and
peAaps after aU the fool alone is happy, tn that he seeth
not his foUy. It is the painful consequence of wisdom that
one becomes self-conscious in aU his acts : beholding him
self in a mirror as it were, a mirror which, whUe it shows
aU the flaws in a man's mind reflects no Ught whatever on
the logical sequence of his actions, nor upon their ethical
necessity, if I am not becoming obscure. A mere diaboUsm
of passion, such as is set forth in tragedies, as of Romeo and
JuUet, undoubtedly crops up now and then in the world ;
but it is an unwholesome ebuUition, and possible only in an
inferior order of mind : for the mind which is dominated
by feeling alone is of an inferior order. The phUosophic
mind, which is the highest order of mind known to me,
recognizes feeling of course as an element in life : but in a
poetical way : as one recognizes and loves aU tender emo
tions and sentiments. Goethe indeed said that feeUng was
everjrthing ; but then Goethe said a good many things which
you may take as you Uke ; and from one point of view feel
ing is everything : whUe from another point of view it is
nothing. No man exists who has not feeling, in some
degree : even Carlyle's Frederick the Great had feeling.
But it is hardly graceful on the veige of matrimony to
phUosophize on it.
I think of writing some Essays in the course of the
Summer ; and I fancy I may begin with one on Late Marry
ing, with a view to encourage the hesitating : for if I can
but strike the right key I have no doubt that I shaU send
at least half a dozen old bachelors spinning headlong after
me, but to strike the wrong key is to tempt the ridicule of
a frivolous world and provoke the smUe of the scomer. I
have had a good letter from P. which I have answered with
news of the Coming Event ; an Event which I wish we
could celebrate in the cheerful depths of the RathskeUer,
medisevaUst of all mediaeval depths, over bottles of Affen-
thaler and other serene Uquids unattainable on this thirsty
strand. But in cheerful days to come we wUl gather to
gether in humid ceUars on the banks of the icy Isar : and
hear how P. didn't get verlobt. But nevertheless I have

26 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
a high opinion of P. ; and he is not, as he fancies, a man of
books, but of action. He has energy in abundance, enter
prise, sagacity, a clear head and a ready wit ; and if I am in
the least a judge of character and of men he wUl make a
figure m the world, and sit in the CouncUs of the Empire,
with a plantation cigar in his mouth and a glass of green
Curayoa at his elbow. This is not irony, but prophecy.

Philadelphia, 14 December, 1883.
My dear H., — I have led so confused and unsettled a
life of late that I have had little opportunity for reading,
but now that we have gone into Winter quarters I hope to
repair the omissions of the last months. I have obtained
preUminarUy Du ChaUlu's Land of the Midnight Sun ; and
I find it entertaining. I Uke books of travel which relate
to countries I have myself visited ; they enlarge my infor
mation, and correct my wrong impressions, and at the same
time renew and freshen pleasant recoUections of far-off
lands and other days, long gone : for the real property we
acquire in life seems to me to consist in agreeable recol
lections. It is a cheerful capital and produces a high rate
of interest ; aU else is dross, — of the earth, earthy ; so
that as we grow older, whUe on the one hand we have less
in the future we have on the other hand an accumulated
wealth of experience and deUght for which younger men
might envy us, did they but know what to envy ; but they
do not, for they are in the meshes of iUusion, — of a mirage, —
maia : and untU this be past, there is nothing real. UntU
there be serenity, there is no essence or substance to human
things ; the greater part of Ufe is but turbulence, — a whirl
of phantasms. It is only through abnegation of desires
so caUed that the Soul reaches its real life, and possesses
itself in the past. Hence I look upon it as a privUege to
grow old, and not a misfortune.
Thus far I have nothmg of which to complain in the way
of climate. It has indeed been good weather : sunny skies,
mUd air : the grass is everywhere green : not a snowflake
has ruffled the calm of existence : each day seems warmer

VISITS TO AMERICA 27
than the preceding, and each sunset more glorious. The
people are hospitable, but given to idiocies of gossip. The
spiritual atmosphere is gloomUy Episcopal ; yet I went to
a lecture the other night by one AUen and was agreeably
surprised to hear an Episcopal intimation that the doctrine
of the Trinity — unknown in the first century — was evolved
out of Judaism by the clever Greek phUosophers of Alex
andria : or did I not hear aright ? There is no doubt
about the fact : but Episcopal admission of the fact — ^what
progress ! The lecturer's deUvery was execrable and I
could make Uttle of his performance.
We are on the Eighth story of a big hotel : two nice
rooms connecting : and are shot up in a twinkling by a
swift Elevator. The view from our windows is superb, and
at night phantasmal. I have been through the city in
various directions, but I am only just now getting a proper
notion of its vastness. What a conglomeration of masses,
aU on a dead level ! The genteel part of the town is however
very smaU ; in fact it is nothing but a Uttle PedUngton ;
and it is a curious fact that PhUadelphia never produced a
man of national reputation. We gave it Franklin ; it has
no other great name. Local celebrities of course there are
and have been in plenty : lawyers, physicians, divines : but
not a soUtary poet, historian, statesman or noveUst of
national fame whom an American abroad or at home would
mention as one of the ornaments of his country : curious
fact, and it has a miUion of inhabitants !

Philadblphia,
Monday, 2 March, 1885.
My dear H., — The latter half of the Winter in Boston,
I am told, has been extremely cold, yet in PhUadelphia
we have not suffered from inclemency ; on the contrary,
compared with Boston, we have been fortunate. We had
only about a week of reaUy cold weather ; and even that
weather was less uncomfortable than would have been the
same degree of cold in Boston : for as you wUl doubtless
caU to mind, from your experience in Baltimore, the quaUty

28 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of the air is different on this side of the Hudson River.
There is nothing of the North Pole, — ^Arctic, — rasping, —
North-east cutting quaUty about it, such as shivers us aU
to pieces in New England. In fact I have come to the
conclusion that the thermometer is a misleading instrument ;
or rather, that we use it in a bUnd way. Thus : 10° above
zero in PhUadelphia and 10° above zero in Boston are two
different degrees of cold in their relation to man as a living
being : and not the same degree : — an important fact this,
and always to be borne in mind, although always lost sight
of. I shaU bring it into fuU light in my Meteorological
Essays. I stiU keep Dorgan in mmd ; but I do not beUeve
that there are ten persons in PhUadelphia who ever heard
of him any more than of Jones Very, I should be glad if I
could find one who knew him, but I can't ; and the more
I seek for him the more he disappears, as it were ; and the
obscurity in which his personaUty, to say nothing of his
Poems, slumbers, grows ever more baffling.
There is no doubt about the Decay of the Subjunctive : —
and also the writing of many words with a capital Letter, — a
practice which gives to the pages of old books a picturesque
appearance, besides enabling a reader very often to seize an
idea quickly, making restful spots for the eye, — this too has
disappeared. A printed page now-a-days is a dead level of
words looking aU alike ; a monotone, inducing weariness and
somnolence : for no one ever went to sleep over the pictur
esque pages of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
But I am sorry to be obUged to confess that I am unable to
formulate any rule for the proper use of the subjunctive.
I can only feel the necessity for it in a given case, and not
always then : as for instance in the baffling sentence which
you quote from Hawthorne. It is reaUy noteworthy, this
disuse of the subjunctive. In newspapers it is almost uni
versal : although of newspapers, from the high Uterary
point of view, we make no account : but in aU recent better
class writing, this disuse of the subjunctive is a striking
feature of style, or rather, want of style. Take up a number
of the Atlantic Monthly for instance, and I fancy that one
might count on the fingers of one hand aU the subjunctives

VISITS TO AMERICA 29
contained in it. And wUl you beUeve it 1 in some recent
remarks made by Matthew Arnold about this country, I
came across the word tireless in the sense of untiring ! —
This is reaUy too much : at any rate it is almost enough
to make one despair of our EngUsh speech : coming from
a writer too, who as I remember, once wrote essays on
the advantage which the French enjoy in possessing an
Academy, — the function of this Academy being to estabUsh
canons of style, taste, orthography and what not : a function
so weU discharged that many of the absurdities, which crop
up in EngUsh books, — to say nothing of the books them
selves — would be altogether impossible in France. Fancy a
French writer using a word of corresponding worthlessness,
so to speak ! yes, the French do certainly enjoy an advantage
in possessing canons of taste, style, orthography and what
not ; and Matthew Amold does not.
I forgot whether I told you that I met here this Winter
a gentleman whom I had not seen for thirty-four years, I
met him in Lenox in the Summer of 1851, — ^where we
became somewhat intimate, — afterwards for a year or two
exchanging letters. I never saw him again untU he turned
up one night in our dining-room in this Hotel. This was a
case to try my memory. I must confess I was appaUed
at the weakness of it. I could remember nothing in com
parison with what my friend could remember. He recaUed
the looks of the Inn in which we lodged : of the dining-
room : told me of the kind of food we had : of the appear
ance of the landlord : in short he remembered even the
minutest particular of our sojourn. I could not recaU
anything, to speak of ; and what is worse, I could not
remember anything which he recaUed. So much for a poor
memory. But my friend is one of those fortunate persons
who can quote verses : recite scenes from dramatists and
prose writers : from Pickwick for instance. I never had
any such memory. But in relation to Lenox in particular,
I must say that I fancy my friend, — who is an Idle Man,
yet who has never slept out of his own bed in West PhUa
delphia since the year 1870, — ^has done nothing ever since
but dweU upon his sojourn there ; for he has hardly been

30 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
anywhere else ; never even so much as in Baltimore or
Washington. In fact I cannot find that since 1851 he has
been more than seventeen mUes away from PhUadelphia,
with the exception of day trips to New York, which every
PhUadelphian takes. He is a man of Uterary tastes : of
much reading in the EngUsh classics : a quiet man, with
some humour : once taU and thin : now taU and portly :
in fact, twice my size. His father was a Presbyterian
clergyman, weU known in his day : Avriter of BibUcal Com
mentaries, from the Presbyterian standpoint, whatever that
may have been. The son is of phUosophic, eclectic mood :
with a face red as a boUed lobster and a neck thick as a prize
fighter's : also of a deep red :-^gold spectacled, bald-headed,
and big-beUied : thus was he too resurrected after thirty-
four years.
But to retum to our muttons, namely Hawthorne, and
give you my view of him as a writer. Sometime ago whUe
reading The Scarlet Letter, I remember giving expression
to a feeling of disappointment. This feeUng no longer
possesses me. I look upon the book as a masterpiece. The
style is exquisite ; but I need not dweU upon the style ;
everyone must feel Hawthorne's style, — at any rate, every
one of any sort of Uterary culture. Furthermore, Haw
thorne possesses the rare faculty of sketching a character
so that it stands harmonious, and clear in outUne, id the
reader's mind as an enduring entity. The Vicar of 'Wake
field shows Goldsmith to have been possessed of a simUar
faculty. But Hawthome's characters stand as objective
delineations so to speak : as reaUy wonderful portraits.
Hawthome sketches his figures as a painter sketches por
traits ; his characters do not evolve themselves ; in other
words, Hawthorne has no dramatic faculty. The plot is
next to nothing ; his characters have no Ufe of their own,
inwardly ; what life they have, — and it is much and beauti
ful. — is the Ufe that a portrait has, — the life we read into
them. As Ulustrating what I mean, take the single fact
that there is no dialogue in Hawthorne. Little Pearl in
The Scarlet Letter talks like her mother ; and her mother
does not really talk at aU ; she is merely described as having

VISITS TO AMERICA 31
said this or that. Take Hawthome's Letters and Note
Books. You have everywhere just the same faculty exer
cising itself : the faculty of observation and of delinea
tion of what exists. Hawthome had no creative faculty :
no imagination. This may seem a strange remark and
altogether absurd, but on reflection you wUl perceive what
I mean. Given a Puritan woman or man, Hawthome
delineated them, — just as he delmeated Margaret FuUer.
Of course in a sense he created Hester Prim ; but he created
her just as a painter creates a Portrait ; he delineated her
from existing materials ; she does not create herself : there
is no dramatic evolution. It is in this sense I say that
Hawthome has no imagination ; and it is a defect which
finaUy prostrated hun ; he broke down, most pathetically
at the last, in sheer incompetency to weave a plot, as you
wUl observe when you come to read his Ufe. But neverthe
less he was a master of our EngUsh speech ; and his works
are masterpieces in their way ; exquisite genre pictures.
And there is, further, a subtUe profound signfficance in his
writing, which I wUl try and iUustrate some other day
when the weather is not so fine and I am not tempted
into the sunUght.

Tremont House, Boston,
17 A'pril, 1885.
My dear H., — You wiU doubtless be somewhat surprised
to learn that I am once more at the Tremont House ; but
here I am. I have resumed my old quarters, — and also my
walks : for in PhUadelphia I could reaUy take no walks.
The place was too dreary and the streets too filthy, I feel
in walking about the streets here, so clean and trim, as if
I had just come from a bath, — such a fresh and wholesome
feeUng do they impart to one coming from the dirt and
shabbiness of PhUadelphian rectangularities : aU horse-
cars and dirt. And moreover I found myself ' running down'
as we say, in PhUadelphia ; assuredly the climate does
not agree with me there ; no vitality in the air. I began to
lose my appetite ; and even loathed my dinner, last and

32 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
worst of signs ; though I tried to wash it down with a quart
of (New Jersey) Claret. But now my appetite has returned
to me, and I feel altogether refreshed and quickened by the
change of air. In fact, I feel Uke one who has come down
to the seashore after a long absence in the interior of a hot
country ; precisely that feeling of tonic and bracing, and
eager hunger.
I was amazed by the extracts from your German friend's
letter ; and besides, they were interesting as showing how
prone is the human mind in aU countries to the same kind
of idiocies in regard to speUing and that kind of thing,
although at present there is doubtless less Blodsinn on the
whole in Germany than among us Americans, who in regard
to the EngUsh language seem to me obstinately bent upon
improving it the wrong way. Let us add what we wUl to
the language, but let us not change it : for no good can come
of change : nay, rather much harm : for do we not thus
lose connection with the Past ? and aU our magnificent
Earlier Literature is swept into the limbo of gibberish, — the
limbo I mean Uke unto that in which Chaucer doth languish.
By all means take up this topic in your next Monthly
Lecture. The topic is of ethical import. It connects itself
with the sanctity of Inherited Good, and the vast moral
blessing of having conscious root in the Past. It is only
gorUlas that devour their own offspring, only savages that
pass away without leaving trace of their existence. Deepen
ing and preserving race-consciousness, so to speak, is of
ethical import. The more civUized is a race, the more it
wiU keep in its consciousness the whole sweep of its Past.
To preserve the language is to preserve this sweep of the
Past, What good does it do to write scepter instead of
sceptre ? go on in this way and a book two hundred years
old is a strange thing to us ; keep on writing sceptre and we
keep on being conscious of possessing the whole Past of our
Literature as an integral and famiUar possession.

VISITS TO AMERICA 33
Tremont House, Boston,
22 April, 1885.
My dear H., — Very amusing indeed were the ' droppings
from the Sanctuary,' which you sent me ; yet I must reaUy
differ from you in fancying that a Uttle culture would have
made this glowing negro preacher into a poet worthy to
rank with Walt Whitman. To be sure, it might. I can
only say that I am sure I could write much more poetic
prose, yet no amount of culture could make me mto a poet.
Poeta nascitur non fit. Bums had very Uttle, if any culture ;
yet was he an exquisite poet. And by the way, I have just
read the clever notice of the Geschichte der Litteratur Nord-
amerikas von Eduard Engel : obviously a nachwerk as the
Germans themselves would say. There is reaUy nothing
so deUcious as the ignorance of foreigners about this country
and its Literature, — especiaUy the ignorance displayed by
Germans, when they write about us, for Germans have a
reputation of being thorough and profound ; and it is a
reputation weU deserved, for nothmg could be more thorough
and profound than German stupidity.
And now I do most heartUy congratulate you upon the
coming of the Walking-time : — upon emancipation from the
miseries of mud and rubbers and snow and slush. How
gladly do I haU the coming of the Walking-time ! and daUy
since I have been here, have I walked with fidiis Achates,
nearly two hours each day : delightfuUy clean streets, pic
turesque vistas, a tonic air. I am quite another being since
I left PhUadelphia. But as I was saying of Hawthome ; —
there seems to me to run through his writings, — or rather,
his chief romances, for I am not famiUar with his later
writings, and of his chief romances I have freshly in mind
The Scarlet Letter only {The House of the Seven Gables I have
read in former years, very former years, and cannot remember
now a single character or scene in it), and vaguely in mind
Transformation, — there seems to me I say to be ever present
to his mind, — for he was after all of a morbid nature, brood
ing over insoluble problems, — the Puritan doctrine of Sin :
innate sin. This psychological thread, so to speak, mns
aU through The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prim and Arthur
c

34 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Dimmesdale stand as the representatives of the working
of this Doctrine, the one boldly assuming the burden, the
other cringing and trying to shirk it ; in both, a conscious
ness of sin, yet a conventional consciousness, — ^by which I
mean a consciousness growing out of the ideas of the time ;
and the conflict which Hawthome portrays is to my mind,
in its last analysis, not merely the conflict to which this
Consciousness of Sin gives rise, but, further, the conflict
of human nature, robustly ¦Jtwconscious of Sin in this par
ticular of the sexual relation, with the conventional con
sciousness of Sin arising, as I have said, from the ideas of
the time in relation to reUgious duty, which of itself is pres
sing upon the minds of these two unfortunate persons. I
cannot remember Transformation weU enough to cite the
characters, but I have no doubt that you wUl find underlying
both that book and The House of the Seven Gables precisely
the same problem. In fact this doctrine of Sin dominated
Hawthome's mind. He could not write a romance upon
any other basis ; and hence his extreme limitation. In
three Romances he exhausted the vein ; and I fancy that
he died of a broken heart, of bitter disappointment, of
gnawing grief, when he came at last to be himself conscious
of this limitation, and of his utter impotence to weave a
plot upon the basis of other elements. His notes of plots
in his Note Books, thoughts of characters, suggestions of
scene, aU run in this Une. I do not know how much he read
in Puritan history and Puritan sermons and that kind of
thing, but to me his mind seems soaked, if I may use such
an expression, with Puritan problems pertaining to human
experiences and the inexorable need of the Church ; and
the cause of his death, of which no account is given in the
biography of him, — altogether a mysterious affair, — seems
to me to find plausible explanation in the suggestion made
above, if one bear in mind what is written of him, of his
Uterary efforts and disappointments in the last years of his
life : disappointments I mean in relation to this precise
point of inabiUty to cope further with the motif to which
he had been indebted for his previous success. I cannot
do more now than merely throw out this thought, if haply you

VISITS TO AMERICA 35
may find anything in it. I have not Hawthome's books by
me ; and without them, and without a close study of aU his
writings, I cannot iUustrate and bring out my meaning.
And I can only add, in reference to Hawthome's style, that
the charm of it to me consists in its extreme lucidity. The
words flow in precise harmony with the ideas. It is a rare
gift, this. One has to carry nothmg in one's mind. The
beautiful simpUcity of the diction, and the entire absence of
meretricious striving for effect, make the sentences read as
if they came of themselves. This is supreme art ; but it is
impossible to define the charm of Hawthome's style, except
by contrasting it with the style of other writers. Take,
for instance, Lowell's prose style : how very smart it is, as
we say : and how the writer intrudes his smart personaUty
on the reader : says smart things and then looks round as
it were, for applause. This is the stuff that perishes. Every
smart man in every age does the same thing. Hawthome's
style on the contrary assures to him perpetuity of fame ;
for so long as the EngUsh Language exists, so long, I fancy,
wUl the characters, wonderful by their very limitations,
which he has portrayed, prove to have an abiding fascma-
tion. In fact Hawthome is unique ; and I may add that
it is this very smoothness of his writing, this facUity with
which one reads him, this lucid flow of sentences making
themselves, so that as one reads one fancies one might have
written just the same thing oneself and wonders why Haw
thome should have become famous for that kind of thing : —
highest proof, this, of Supreme Art.
Postscript : I came across a variety of queer names in
PhUadelphia : thus, Sniffen, Boggs and Gums, Staggers,
Death !— Parkstbassb, Carlsbad,
12 July, 1885.
My dear H., — ^Yes, we saUed in the Cephalonia from
Boston : comparatively smooth voyage : much drizzle
and fog, however : and head winds of course aU the way.
Icebergs were numerous and dangerous. Frequently the
steamer was obUged to slow down, or even stop altogether.

36 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
untU the fog Ufted so that the watch could see a Uttle way
ahead. I beUeve Icebergs were never known to come down
so early in the season, nor to reach so low a latitude as they
reached this year ; there must have been very abnormal
conditions in the Polar regions. I went on deck early one
morning and beheld half a dozen vast Bergs towering
through the mist, far above the masts of the ship. They
were most beautiful in their white drapery : an exquisite
picture : altogether unreal : gUmpses as it were into a Polar
world : such as a Poet might create in fancy : pictures
such as Tumer might paint : ethereal, vague, misty : a mist
which the sunUght iUumined but did not break : a sUent,
weird, dreary world : a world of white phantoms, lifeless,
voiceless. We had a goodly number of passengers, but I made hardly
any acquaintances : indeed I can now recaU but one, an
ingenious Yankee from Cambridgeport, the representative
of a firm of stUl more ingenious Yankees, who were the
original inventors of the process by which granulated sugar
is made ; aU the granulated sugar consumed in the world
is made by machines of their invention. I detest granu
lated sugar, but the fact is interesting and highly creditable
to Cambridgeport : which * may they Uve,' as the Germans
say. The firm now makes machines of their own invention
for the manufacture of cube sugar ; and our feUow passenger
was on his way to Europe in order to introduce these
machines, which are extremely practical and cost only
ten to twelve thousand doUars apiece. ' The firm ' is now
wrestling with an interesting problem, namely : how to
make sugar in globular form (smaU baUs of sugar) ; but
I am glad to say that the problem is considered nearly
insoluble, to say nothing of the sugar.
We spent two days in London : bright, clear, warm days.
The ' season ' was on in London ; the crush in the streets
was reaUy striking ; and the great hotels were dreadfuUy
crowded. We were lucky in getting into the Grand Mid
land Hotel at St. Pancras, a most remote situation, and
therefore overran only by Cook's Tourists ; but the table
d'hote was exceUent and the rooms most comfortable. On

VISITS TO AMERICA 37
Saturday morning at 6:30— frightful hour to leave a London
hotel, — ^we were on our way to the Railway Station at the
Holborn Viaduct, and at 7:35 were speeding on our way to
Dover. One hour and thirty minutes transit from Dover
to Calais : deUghtful sunny weather : smooth sea : fresh
breeze : sparkling waters. I had never entered the port
of Calais before : but I could not see that it differed from
any of the Channel ports, except in the fact that our hand
bags were not looked at. On to Cologne at 12. But I
broke down at Brussels ; it was hot and dusty ; and I was
faint with emptiness. We dropped out of the Train at
Brussels in time to catch a table d'hote dinner and snub a
Scotchman who made impertinent remarks about Ameri
cans. Sunday in Brussels : very hot : and very smeUy.
Grand Hotel : in a new part of the town : Boulevard An-
spach. Extremely clean city, Brussels : and reaUy beauti
ful : great opulence and taste : but oh the smeUs ! On
Monday morning at 6 o'clock we were in the train on our
way to Hannover, via Cologne, reaching Hannover ' in time
to catch a table d'hote dinner ' at 6 o'clock at the Hotel
Royal. The next morning at 11 we took the train to
Dresden. We tarried three weeks in Dresden, and then
came here. I am drinkmg the Marktbrun water, and fancy
that I feel already somewhat better. We have pleasant
lodgings in the new part of the toAvn, in a great house stand
ing by itself in a garden of roses. In Dresden I bought a
book which has excited much interest. It is said to be very
clever. The writer, Max Nordau has become very popular.
It is entitled Die Conventionellen Liigen der Kulturmensch-
heit : — pessimistic of course. But I have not yet read it :
in fact, what with the Allgemeine Zeitung and the Waters
and the wrestUng with long overdue letter-writing, I have
had no time for anything. We spend four or five hours
in the afternoon in wandering through the forests : and
three hours walking in the morning : — fancy how Uttle
there is left of me ! But I commend the book to you, and
leave it to you to commend it to them that do Uke clever
pessimistic writing.

38 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Carlsbad, 24 Jul-y, 1885.
My dear H.,— ' Twintered ' is indeed a curious word,—
and one which I never met with, and I have been feelmg
plumb catawampous because I could not make it out ; but
' nach unablassigen Sinnen ' your explanation seems to
me, at least plausible : namely that the ' t ' corresponds
to the German ' ver ' in verwittert, or rather, did formerly
correspond, the form being now archaic. ' The twintered
framework of a sleepy Church ' would therefore be written
now ' the splintered framework,' etc. And you are right
in your criticism of the word sequestration, used in one of my
letters. What I meant was seclusion. How I could have
used so affected a word as sequestration, and incorrectly
too, is not clear to me, — a lapsus lingucB perhaps. And I
am extremely glad that you remarked upon the word.
There is nothing to which I so much aspire as to a thoroughly
idiomatic use of our EngUsh tongue. I say thoroughly
idiomatic use of our language : because I disUke what I
may caU purisms : or pedantries : faults to which too close
criticism of words often lead, and to which I think Ameri
cans are pecuUarly prone : for purisms and pedantries
destroy the vigour of style, and weaken altogether the effect
of sentences : in fact, are tiresome : and the main point
in writing is to keep the interest unflagging. The success
ful writer is never lame ; else he would not be successful.
His style, good or bad, awakens the attention of his readers,
and keeps it awake, if indeed a bad style be capable of such
an effect ; and sometimes it is, if the matter be sufficiently
novel and in itself of absorbing interest, for style as a fine
art is reaUy looked for only in works of imagination or
criticism, in essay writing and that kind of thing. One
never reads a German work, for instance, with a view to
enjoyment of the style ; one seldom regards anything
written in German as fine Art. German books furnish us
material : thoughts, facts, results of investigations, theories,
and so on : and from this point of view are extremely use
ful : nay, indispensable. There is also a kind of poetry in
the very language itself ; in the midst of the most tiresome
prose one comes often upon a poetic phrase or colouring.

VISITS TO AMERICA 39
revealing the depth of feeUng and sentiment out of which
German words seem to weU up, as it were. Hence the great
attraction of the language to the contemplative mind : a
weUspring never faUing, m the Serene Life.

Dresden, 20 October, 1886.
My dear H., — The Peach-Cure in Bozen was a faUure :
for the peaches, though magnificent in size and colour,
were as hard as paving-stones, bemg gathered before ripen
ing, — for the purpose of export, they said. But we were
in the import business in the peach way, and therefore could
do nothing in Bozen. In Venice however, we revenged
ourselves ; the peaches there were deUcious, and I do not
know which did us the most good, the peach-, or grape-, or
fig-cure ; nor can I suppress the remark that for FuUness
of Poetic DeUght there is nothmg Uke Venice in September.
From Venice we went by raU to Adelsberg, which we
reached at midnight : most uncomfortable joumey. But
we enjoyed a briUiant moonUght ; and as, for a good part
of the way, the RaU runs through a desolate region, a waste
of rock, we secured effects altogether unique : a spectral
landscape : white and weird. Adelsberg is a duU hamlet :
rolling country : gorgeous sunset : and there is an airy
hotel, large and weU placed, with a stingy table d'hote and
uncomfortable landlord : and the Cave, — or Grotto as it is
caUed, — weU, I do not know what to say of that. I can
only caU it extremely fine ; and add that it is precisely
what one might expect a Cave to be. It is impossible to
say more about it than what the Guide Book says : wind
ings, haUs, a Mount of Calvary, — exceUent paths aU tfirough
it : electric lamps hung in haUs : stalactites, assuming
every fantastic shape, the name of each shape being written
upon a board planted by the side of the hapless thing. The
paths were Ughted by candles stuck here and there at in
tervals, so that we did not have to carry lamps ourselves : —
candles extinguished directly by men who foUowed us up
for the purpose. There must have been as many as twenty
visitors who went with us, — among them the Bishop of

40 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Laibach with attendant priests, aU in petticoats and shiny
stove-pipe hats. We were two hours underground : damp
and uncanny. One of the guides told me that the top of
the Cave was about three hundred feet under the surface
of the earth, and there are parts stUl unexplored ; but
there was quite enough of the Cave accessible, for me. I
do not care for underground splendours ; a green pasture
on a New England hUlside is to me far more beautiful than
any Grotto. There is something depressing to me in sub
terranean depths : — ^nevertheless, two caraffes of the ' wine
of the Country ' brought me round, and we resumed the
RaU and traveUed on to Vienna. I was too tired to stop
in Gratz as I intended, and we therefore passed the Sem-
mering in a grand moonUght : extremely picturesque. We
spent only a couple of days in Vienna : truly Imperial
City. Thence we came to Dresden, where we are now
tarrying : a massive house, standing by itseU in the midst
of verdure, now fast taking on Autumnal hues. In three
months we have had but three rainy days ; and those I
am grieved to confess, were in Cortina. But alas ! the
Beautiful Summer is now but a memory : for in Dresden
we were plunged at once into the gloom of a German Autumn,
than which nothing can be more gloomy unless it be an
EngUsh Autumn : — grey skies, duU, coal-smoked, damp
weather : rain and fog : — in fact a humid cUmate, which,
though I disUke it, is perhaps better for me than a dry
cUmate. I have resumed my old walk in the Grosser Garten.
Long ago I laid out a definite walk there and have never
varied from it : superb foliage, autumnal glories, exquisite
vistas, purer air ; and I am in better form, as the EngUsh
say, than when I came to Dresden in June. I feel that
Carlsbad has reaUy helped me : given a fiUip as it were to
the vitaUty : and I am only depressed by a feeUng that one
ought to go there every year : — tiresome business and
inconvenient. Nevertheless one must do something for
one's health as the Germans say ; and one might spend a
month in a worse place than Carlsbad.

VISITS TO AMERICA 41
Dresden, 13 November, 1885.
My dear H., — I feel more than ever Uke a waif when
I contemplate your abounding relations with mankind.
Nevertheless, temperaments and faculty differ ; and out
side of a few companions, the world is to me a mass of
dreariness, — or rather, something too vast and aUen to grasp
and be made into an agreeable element of consciousness.
Tendencies of mind too, finaUy fixing themselves as habits
controUing conduct, have a vast deal to do with one's atti
tude toward the world. Some persons are drawn toward
the world by aU the fibres of their being ; people always
interest them ; they act upon people and are reacted upon
by people ; they have the faculty of social intercourse ;
their thoughts flow out of their mouths in words, even
whUe they stand up on their feet before others ; they are a
power in society, and keep the world aUve ; they are bom
preachers, and orators and teachers and the Uke. But
again there is a recluse class : persons of a contemplative
kind ; of a whoUy subjective tum of mind ; who feel no
craving for objectivate-ing themselves ; nor could they
gratify such a craving if they had it, not possessing the
faculty. Their world is not outward ; it is inward ; where
in the mirror of consciousness is reflected and caught up aU
that makes their Ufe, — from the teleological point of view a
Ufe that caUs for an apology ; which however it can never
furnish ; a self-contained, unasserting Ufe ; dominated by
a profound consciousness of the supreme transitoriness of
aU earthly things, and the vanity of aU earthly pursuits ;
of the incredible egoism of man and the fate that rides him
like a whirlwind. But these wiU appear to you, and quite
mevitably, to be heterodox sentiments ; yet the Grund,
the au fond of Earthly things, — who shaU grasp it ? Does
Christianity, as it presents itself to-day, grasp it ? Christi
anity in its original essence seems to me to have been pure
communism ; but the Egoism ineradicable of human nature
cast out communism long ago, and Christianity remains as
a kind of form in which the metaphysical cravings of man
kind have taken refuge, and been crystallized. This from
the contemplative point of view : from the point of view

42 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of actual Ufe, it stUl remams a mighty power for moral
teaching, and the purifying of Egoism.
In Dresden the days flow tranquiUy ; and to me there is
always pleasure in this tranquUUty. At any rate for a time
I Uke it. When I Uve in Boston, — though I see but few
folk and have no part in any affairs except my own, — ^I
cannot even go into the street without imdergoing a kind
of friction of the nerves. Here the very air is conducive
to moral repose. I walk in the Great Garden. There are
few persons walking there. The long avenues and over
arching elms ; the golden sunUght touching with glow the
Sere of Autumn ; the occasional expanse of greensward ;
the vistas : — aU this tranquUUzes : soothes the mind :
carrying it into the Ideal. In New England, I never walked
in a country road except in a hurry and more or less dis
tracted by an aim of some kind, mostly effete. Yet I dare
say this sort of thing wUl seem ridiculous ; and I pass on
to say that we have done about two-thirds of the Kiigelgen
book, and have worked the boy up into his Eleventh year,
where he has been sprawUng semi-breechless over the last
fifty pages ; the Schauplatz of his tiny activities being
Dresden, however, sixty years ago, the interest of locaUty
asserts itself. In the evenings I have been reading to the
ladies, — there Uves with us a young girl of twenty-one, half
German, half EngUsh, the father a reprobate, quite alto
gether reprobate, German Graf, the Mother an EngUsh
woman, Unitarian too, fancy ! The Mother is now dead
and the Father gone, UteraUy, to the devU wherever that
may be ; — I have been reading aloud I say, a novel by Hugh
Conway (one Fargus — ^now dead) entitled A Family Affair :
extremely sensational. Yet it struck me as rather clever.
The scene moves itself for a short time to Munich : and there
is a brief sketch of the Munich Gottesacker and of weU-known
streets. The Wicked One in the novel turns up dead in
the Todtenhalle, an institution which is by the way wie ge-
schaffen for the practical noveUst. I wonder it has never
been turned to account before : — ^perhaps it has been. The
Theatre has faUen out of my Ufe at present, owing to a
variety of causes ; else I might report to you upon the

VISITS TO AMERICA 43
plays, — not operas, — for I never go to an Opera except upon
compulsion, having no ear for music, as you know. But
I am more interested at this present by the drama which is
unfolding in the East, and which I fancy wiU furnish us
presently with extremely agitated scenes. I verily beUeve
that we are on the eve of great events : the whole Eastern
Question in fact reopened and for the last time : Turk swept
out of Europe : and a frightful war : — the issue of which
no man can foresee — between Austria and Russia. An
altogether dramatic perspective opens itseU : and I fancy
there must be some sort of connection between this state of
thing and the phenomenon of the Boom now on in American
States : — in other words, European buying is going on
induced by a fear of approaching trouble, in this part of the
world.

Dresden, 19 December, 1885.
My dear H., — I have been of late in a rather sodden
condition. At intervals I faU into a kind of moral marasmus,
or paralysis of the WUl. It is an affliction very common
among Idle Men ; and there are times when I reaUy can't
shake it off. At such times I grasp at a change of residence,
or a bit of travel, as the only remedy ; and it is possible, —
that we may go to London for a month or two. London
always stirs me up ; I hear the EngUsh tongue : and read
EngUsh Reviews and newspapers, and feel as if I had come
back to the Centre of Things :— for though the tranquU Ufe
of Germany soothes and strengthens me, yet at times I
get very tired of foreign tongues : — blood is stronger than
water, after aU ; and famUiar as I am, and have been for
years, with the German language, I find a certain constraint
in it. When I get to London I feel Uke a bird that has been
let out of a cage.
I have been worked up to take an interest in the troubles
in the Balkan Peninsula. The outbreak of the War between
Servia and Bulgaria quite took away my breath ; and with
the help of the Times and the German newspapers, I have
kept up a kind of study of the Eastern Question, so-caUed.

44 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
But the more one studies it, the more addled does one get : —
m short, it is an appaUing muddle : and I do not wonder
that diplomats, even the supremest, tum away from it
helpless, and let things drift : the course which they are
now taking, by the way. The two Powers that stand in
absolute antagonism to one another at the outset are Austria
and Russia ; England and Germany come next ; Greece
and Italy follow ; — is not that a Gordian Knot ? a Knot
which the sword alone can cut. But none of the Great
Powers want war at present, fancying I suppose that at
some future period they may be better prepared. Hence
the muddle : and the tons of newspaper writing which
overwhelm a labouring world.
There are not many Americans in Dresden whom I know,
though the town is fuU of them, OAving partly, no doubt,
to the fear of cholera in Italy. It is reaUy curious what a
scarecrow the cholera is ; but perhaps it is not so much fear
of cholera, as dread of Quarantines which deters people from
going to Italy ; most horrible quarantines having been
established last year, — quarantines far more dangerous
than the Cholera itself. I have no great Drang to know
people ; such people as come in my way without any effort
on my part suffice for my wants in this particular. I never
go to the Opera, having no ear for music ; and as the wife
does not care to go to the Theatre yet, I have dropped out
of that amusement ; indeed for now several years I have
had no fancy for the Theatre : the real reason being that
I am afraid of an attack of vertigo, which the close air of
a Theatre might bring on : — but domestic Ufe is sweet to
me ; our evenings are deUghtful ; and I thank God every
night that I have not to go out of doors. We have a Uvely
young lady Uving with us, — she makes us great fun : she
is betrothed to an officer in the German Navy, who is now
in Zanzibar or some equaUy infernal hole. She is the
Grafin von K. ; the founder of the famUy was ennobled a
century and a half ago by August the Strong, that ' man of
Sin,' for reasons I hope not sinful, but I have always fancied
he was one of the Sin's bastards ; at any rate in her famUy
archives are letters from Frederick the Great and a mass of

VISITS TO AMERICA 45
other celebrities, and on the breaking up of the family lately
the young woman was on the point of clearing out the
whole lot of manuscripts as Maculatur ! fortunately she was
caught in time and the papers were saved.

Pittsfield, New Hampshirb,
26 July, 1886.
My dear H., — Yes, June is our American May ; and far
superior to the European May, because one can depend upon
fine weather in our June, and it is a chance whether one
gets fine weather, — in Germany for instance, — ^in May. I
have known May to be very wet in Germany ; and not
May alone, but half the Summer. We had delicious weather
in June, and aU the freshness of the blossoming Springtime.
We had rooms at the Tremont House in Boston lookmg out
upon the Granary Burial Ground ; and the birds sang and
the foUage was fresh and the flowers beautiful there — but
alas ! for the everlasting jingle of the Horse-Gar all through
the night and the screams of Herdic drivers running races
at midnight ! We made pleasant Uttle excursions : to
Nantasket by steamboat : and City Point by Horse Car.
I was surprised to find how pretty it was at City Point :
and there is a pier there jutting out far into the water, —
a Pier buUt by the City, — we sat down on a bench there and
enjoyed the salt sea breeze : aU for nothing. In England
the Pier would have been built by a private Company and
the PubUc would have been charged a penny a head for
the privUege of enjoying it : which I regard as the proper
course, for if MunicipaUties in this country are to go on
supplying facUities for recreation and pleasure to the in
habitants, — what is to become of the property of the small
percentage of citizens who pay for this sort of thing ?
Where can the line be drawn I — -why not supply every poor
person with a newspaper : — also with dwelling, and with
music and a theatre ? where I say is the line to be drawn —
are the twenty per cent, of the citizens of Boston who pay
taxes, to divide up with the eighty per cent, who pay
nothing ? it is coming to that, I fancy. R. tells me of a

46 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
case that came within his knowledge where the tax that was
levied on a person took his entire income and he went to
the Poor House, — to be supported by citizens who were
lucky enough to have something left after paying their
taxes, and therefore did not require to go to the Poor House
themselves : else everybody would have to be supported at
the pubUc expense. In this country SociaUsm is creeping
in under the disguise of taxation. The Majority rule ; the
majority has no money ; the majority therefore vote to
spend the money of the minority on themselves. I beUeve
the German principle to be wiser and safer ; for what one
enjoys one must pay, if he can ; for schools for his chUdren
as weU as for everything else. // he can't pay, and the State
looks weU into that, the State gives him The Indispensable
for nothing ; and schooling, being a part of the Indis
pensable, is free to him who can't pay for it. A frightful
problem — this adjusting the relations of money and labour,
and mankind has never yet solved it. Rome couldn't solve
it and went to pieces. The Chinese seem to be the only
folk who have managed, — ^not perhaps to solve it, — but to
steer clear of it. The ' phUosophy of Chinese civUization '
has yet to be written ; it seems to me that it must disclose
a secret worth knowing, the secret of stabUity.

CHAPTER II
JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST
1887-1888
The Pacific Voyage — ^Yokohama — ^Miyanoshita — Tokyo — Nikko
— Shanghai — Hongkong — Bombay — Darjeeling — Benares —
Agra — The Red Sea — Suez — Cairo — ^Athens.
Grand Hotel, Yokohama, Japan,
Tuesday, 21 June, 1887.
My dear H., — ^What you say about Scherr is quite true.
He was always aiming to produce a sensation and to write
something packend, and nothing hits, I am sorry to say,
Uke nastiness and morbidness, if cleverly spread out, and he
was rather a master I think in the analyzing and display
of rot in high places, — his portrait of Katherine of Russia
for instance being altogether unique in this particular.
Lichtenstein is flat : a German imitation of Walter Scott :
very German. Spielhagen's novel. Was die Schwalbe sang,
is clever but nothing more. The plot seemed to me to
be rather forced. Spielhagen wrote better things when
he was younger ; — Problematische Naturen for instance.
He wrote himself out long ago ; now he manufactures
merely at so much the Bogen, this being generaUy the case
with professional noveUsts. Turgenjeu is however an artist,
after the French school ; and I have no doubt that his
etchings of Russian character, done with a biting acid, are
true to Ufe. At any rate they would certainly interest me
if anything Russian could, but it can't ; Russia and Russians
being to me a mere synonym for dreariness and aridity and
lacquered barbarism.
I am deUghted to learn that you are to print a Guidebook
of Walks in B. This is precisely the thing we need in aU
picturesque towns, and can never find. He is indeed a bene-
47

48 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
factor who writes a good guidebook of walks, and thereby
helps to keep up the fashion of walking, — a fashion which I
observe with pain to be dying out in Boston ; at least I
never meet young men taking walks there, as we used to
take them when we were young.
After aU we did not saU on Thursday, May 12. The
departure was postponed untU Saturday, May 14 ; and
fancy ! we made the fastest passage on record from San
Francisco to Yokohama : namely fifteen days twenty-three
hours, and seven minutes, arriving in Yokohama on Tuesday
morning. May 31. Of course with instant criticism you wUl
say ' this makes 17 days,' but it doesn't ; because we
dropped out a day. I hope I shaU pick it up somewhere,
else I shaU be one day short in my earthly reckonings ; for
on Monday, May 23, in the afternoon we crossed the
Meridian, or 180° Longitude West from Greenwich, and the
next day therefore was Wednesday, May 25 ; and you wUl
at once understand what became of Tuesday. I hope my
self to comprehend it some day. But it was a duU gloomy
voyage. AU told, we had hardly two days of fitful sunshine :
foggy, wet, windy : at times heavy seas. They told me in
San Francisco that in May the Pacific would be so smooth
one could cross it in a tub, — ^what rubbish ! I was extremely
disappointed. I had looked forward to sitting on deck,
reading drowsy novels, fanned by zephyrs : nothing of the
sort, not even a sunset : letting alone sunrises (which I
always do). But the ship was good and staunch. The
smoking room, where I spent the greater part of my time,
was on the spar deck : commodious and accessible. Smok
ing Rooms are sometimes on the hurricane deck, and in
rough weather one gains them at the perU of his Ufe : — a
peril however which I never faUed to face. We had only
about fifteen passengers : a perky Connecticut Colonel —
he told me that American Colonels as a rule were frauds,
but that he was an exception, he was genuine — running
over to Yokohama to buy curios and to say that he had
been in Japan, Mrs. Colonel and Miss Colonel accompany
ing him ; then we had five missionaries, — three of them
young women ; the other two were an old man (65) and his

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 49
wife, — the pair had never been out of the United States :
Methodists : and I am sorry to say, the poor old man waa
very sick from one end of the voyage to the other, and now
he is trying to learn Japanese, the mere sound of which
almost gives one a fit of nausea. The language is said to
resemble the ItaUan in the pronunciation of many words.
One of the missionary young women, a bright Blue Nose,
flirted with the chief officer to a degree that interested us
aU : nay, ahnost did we congratulate her, or him (I forget
which) ! but fancy ! unbeknown to everybody, the day
after we arrived in Yokohama, the sprightly creature was
married to another man who was waiting for her ! Never
theless, she was an admirable Uttle woman and wiU do a
great deal of good work I know among the Japs. But when
it comes to reUgion,- — ^I don't know. If Christianity means
Roman CathoUcism, I should prefer Buddhism. At any
rate the Buddhist's dogma is pure ; and the Buddhist
images are in no wise more hideous than Roman CathoUc
images. If Christianity means Unitarianism,— I should
say that the Japs had already got it, substantiaUy, in
Shintoism : — an extremely pure form of reUgion : a kind
of Quakerism : the soul in the attitude of repose waiting
for the spiritual Light that shaU make aU things holy.
The Shinto Temples are as bare as our Meeting Houses ;
absolutely nothing in them ; not an image ; not a picture ;
not a bronze vessel ; in short nothing whatever, — not even
a chair ; though for that matter chairs are unknown in
Japan ; in fact, the Japanese have no furniture at aU ; and
if one wishes to see how a nation can be happy without any
wants whatever except green tea, he should come to Japan.
But the Japanese do not worship in Temples ; the Temples
are with few exceptions extremely smaU ; the worshipper
approaches the Temple ; throws a few pieces of copper
money into a receptacle provided for the purpose ; gazes
and gazes and goes away. The worshipping is done by the
priests, who sit, I should say squat — Japanese do not sit —
before an image of the Buddha, in the Buddhist Temples,
that is ; and mumble prayers ; and occasionaUy strike the
rim of a great bronze bowl, making a sound wonderful and
D

60 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
clear : this for the purpose of caUing the attention of the
god to a prayer.
WeU, another of our feUow passengers was a U.S. Naval
Captam going out to Yokohama in order to take charge of
a Ship of War, a most admirable man. He has recently
pubUshed a book on Mathematics. On the voyage he read
novels from early dawn to late night in the Smoking Room,
and reaUy seemed to enjoy it. He broke down however on
She, by Rider Haggard : — frightfulj book. It is prodigious
what rubbish the pubUc wiU swaUow in these days. I
never read anything quite so absurd as this book.
We had several German passengers : uncanny race ; and
another German, not a Jew ; and a ' Globe-trotter,' —
capital feUow : scientificaUy educated : and of most in
structive conversation : an emancipated man, too : he
frankly said that the Germans were very smaU minded folk
and gossipy : and for his part he prefers Bass' Ale.
And so we wore away the days with as much merriment
as possible. The ship was an EngUsh ship, though chartered
to an American Company, and therefore we had to celebrate
the Queen's Birthday ; the ship suppUed free champagne
and the Colonel suppUed a poem which he tried to get
printed, but couldn't, though it was bosh. And finaUy we
landed in the rain at the Custom House steps. The Jap
Custom Officers in European dress pretended to understand
aU we said and opened only one trunk, and that out of curi
osity I fancy. The trunk was our steamer-trunk and con
tained only the soUed linen of three weeks. This didn't
seem to interest them, and they poUtely passed our four
trunks and five boxes into the Empire of the Mikado with
out further official mysteries. We estabUshed ourselves in
this, the Grand Hotel : French cuisine : most admirable.
Frenchmen run aU the kitchens in this part of the world,
whUe the EngUsh run the banks ; the Germans do the
taUoring, and the Chinese the printing. The Hotel is situ
ated on what is caUed the Bund, or street, embanked,
ranning along the water, — the hotel being at the end of the
Bund, at the comer of a creek running up from the Bay
inland. Our rooms are directly on the comer : most

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 51
comfortable sitting room, and large bedroom. We look out
over the shining waters of the Bay fiUed with men-of-war
of aU Nations : the U.S. have no less than five naval ships
here : and also upon a wooded height, — densest verdure, —
where are the EngUsh and French Naval Stations. This is
the European Quarter of the town, and contains several
narrow streets Uned with European buUdings, mostly of
German style of architecture, where are the shops and tea
warehouses, and sUk warehouses, and so on, caUed godowns
in Oriental phraseology. Just across the creek, on a high
Bluff are the residences of Europeans : pretty viUas em
bowered in verdure : none of them more than two stories
high : for be it known that this is the land of earthquakes.
Last January there was a bad earthquake and our rooms
stUl show the marks of it ; the chimney in the sitting-room
and also in the bedroom is cracked aU over ; the floors
are aU irregular ; and to a vivid imagination Uke mine even
the waUs seem to slant ; and fancy, yesterday whUe sitting
in a great armchair at a commodious writing-desk,^ — ^one
gets a great deal of comfort in Japan for very Uttle money,
comparatively, — smoking my after-breakfast cigar, aU of a
sudden I felt myself shaking Uke a mass of jeUy ; the arm
chair rocked ; the plastering rattled and bits of it feU down,
and to my overstramed imagination the end of aU things
seemed to be commg. It was of course a tremblement de
terre, as the French say, a tremor : — and fortunately nothing
more ; but the same thing was repeated at night : our
two beds rocked with a great noise ; each of us fancied the
same thing was the matter with the other ; I sprang up and
Ughted a candle ; more bits of plastering feU. I went to
the windows of the sitting-room ; the sky was black as ink ;
and a great wind was lashing the waters below as if the EvU
one himself were abroad on a spree. But people here seem
to think nothing of this sort of thing ; and I suppose that
I ought to be equaUy unconscious ; but reaUy it is an
extremely uncanny feeling to sit in one's armchair and
shake like a mass of jeUy, and I shaU be glad if we get out
of this country without anything more ludicrous happening.
The Jap town is a continuation of the EngUsh Quarter :

52 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
rather narrow streets : Uned on either side with shops : smaU
shops : everything Japanese is extremely smaU : never
more than two stories high : often only one story : the
fronts are aU open : having sUding doors that push in
grooves sidewise : the doors being fuU of panes Uke a
window : but the panes instead of being made of glass are
of white paper. Inside the tiny shop, the floor is raised a
foot from the ground ; it is covered with straw matting ;
and on this matting the Jap squats ; he is most poUte and
bows his head to the floor when he greets you ; and does
not overcharge you, if you are smart and know about what
the prices of things should be ; otherwise he wUl do you
in the most playful manner, and then present you with tea —
green tea — in tiny cups, — ^neither mUk nor sugar to it, and
with bonbons which you take into the mouth with deUcate
chop-sticks. The bonbons taste Uke paint. But the Japs
are right in drinking tea without our barbarous addition
of mUk and sugar to it ; the tea is strong, too, and most
refreshing ; but one swaUow exhausts a cup ; and two
whiffs exhaust a Japanese tobacco pipe. They seem to
take everything in a tiny way ; the houses are mere doU
houses, or bird cages ; and absolutely devoid of furniture
of any kind. There is not a thing in them. I emphasize
this statement, because the Japs seem to be a very happy
race : always laughing and showing superb teeth : — ^happy
because they have no wants : none I mean in the American
sense. They are quick-witted and endowed with deUcate
taste in art,^ — -they can imitate anything ; they are wonder
ful workers in sUk and bronze. I was told that the Japanese
surgical instruments, made from European models, are
among the best in the world. But this faculty of imita
tion, I am very much afraid, wiU bring them to grief ; for
they are what we caU a progressive people. By progressive
I suppose we mean a tendency to invent new wants, to
improve material methods, and introduce new methods.
Now for ages the Japs have been in possession of a reaUy
fine civUization ; for ages every man, woman and chUd in
Japan, has been able to read and write ; for ages they have
inherited mteUectual tastes and training : — and for ages

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 53
they have been happy and contented. The population
has been dense and the people have led easy Uves : — because
their wants being few, there has not been an excess of
labour required to gratify them. Their dress is picturesque
and practical ; it costs less than a quarter of the money
needed to procure a European costume ; they wear no
leather shoes of costly workmanship as we do, — costly I
mean comparatively ; they wear white socks and when
they go into the streets they put the feet on a sort of wooden
sole with two Uttle sUts to it in order to elevate the foot,
say three inches from the ground, — the sandal being fastened
to the foot by a string passing between the toes. When
they enter a house they drop these sandals at the door.
Now, I say, being contented with this exquisitely cheap
way of Uving, of what good wiU it be to the Jap to harrow
himself to earn extra money in order to buy a chair, for
instance, when he can just as weU squat, and would reaUy
rather squat, his short legs being apparently bowed for
the purpose ? And so on through aU the rest of the Ust
of wants. Why should the Jap toU for money to buy a
bedstead for thirty doUars when he can as weU sleep on the
floor with his head on a Uttle block that costs three cents ?
But nevertheless the Jap wiU keep on introducing European
furniture and methods, for it Ues in his nature to do so ; he
is possessed of a truly revolutionary passion for change ;
in fact the Jap blood is of a superior quaUty ; the Jap has
genius ; and genius is always extravagant. I dare say the
country may have sources of great wealth, though I do not
know what they are ; at present at any rate the country
is poor, from our point of view ; and it is painful to observe
the burden of expense which the Govemment is laying
upon the people : buying ironclads for their navy at vast
cost : fortifying the country : erecting large and expensive
buUdings in the European style, and so on : for of course
aU the money must come from direct taxation, the customs
bringing in practicaUy nothing, there being a uniform duty
of only five per cent, on everything : but this is too poUti-
caUy economical.
I have been keeping weU ever since I came here. At

54 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
present a delightful temperature : not exceeding 76° in
our sitting-room : but the wife I am sorry to say has been
far from weU. We shaU remain in Yokohama untU the heat
drives us to the mountains, for I fear that the food of Jap
inns may complete her rain. It is most agreeable Uving
here ; we are directly on the water ; and in the cool of the
afternoon can always take a jinrikisha ride into the coimtry.
The jinrikisha is what we should caU a tiny chaise, drawn
by a man instead of a horse ; yet the man rans as fast as
a horse, and is about as naked as a horse. The country is
most picturesque, and green to the water's edge. I have
seen strawberry fields coming down to within a foot of the
swash of the sea ; but I cannot describe scenery, if I would,
and therefore I wUl not dweU upon it.
We have made but one long excursion : to Kamakura,
where is the Great Buddha Image : forty-nine feet high :
standing in the open : bronze : hoUow : eight hundred
years old. Wonderful face : the Greeks never fashioned
anything finer than is the expression of Eternal Calm on
the face of this August Buddha.

The Ya-Ami Hotel in Ejoto, Japan,
Wednesday, 5 October, 1887.
My dear H., — I find that letter writing is becoming
extremely difficult now that we are once reaUy in motion.
Hitherto we have been mainly in a state of repose : in
CaUfornia and in Yokohama : also in Miyanoshita : and
a state of repose is absolutely essential to me for the exer
cise of the epistolary function. Nevertheless I find myself
able to write this morning, after two days spent in a jinri
kisha, or kuruma, as the vehicle is commonly caUed in these
parts, in an excursion to Nara, gazing at heathen idols ; and
in spite of the continuous beating of priestly gongs in a
temple situated just behind this picturesque hotel, — not
half so bad, however, as the ringing of beUs in CathoUc
countries, in Bozen the Beautiful for instance. The gong,
by the way, is not the Chinese gong too famUiar to us in our
country hotels, but a great, — ^nay, a superb bronze vessel.

JAPAN AND THE PAR EAST 55
shaped like a bowl ; the rim of the vessel is strack by a
heavy instrument Uke a drumstick, and the resonance is
long and solemn. In the night time the sound is ahnost
uncanny, so pecuUarly dirgeUke is it. In fact there is in
aU Buddhist temples, or rather in the temples in many
places, an aU pervading sUence and solemnity quite deUcious
to the contemplative mind, except when a hoUday comes,
and what is caUed the Fourth-of-July business of Buddhism
takes place : aU kmds of junketing : a sort of fair : resem
bling very much the country, or Volksfeste Fairs, one sees
in Germany.
If I remember rightly a letter from you reached me in
Miyanoshita (a mountain resort, about eight hours distant
from Yokohama) just before my departure. We went there
mainly on account of the wife's health, and also for the sake
of the hot baths : a picturesque spot, half way up the
Hakone Pass : m the mountains, with a grand view down
the Pass and out upon the distant sea. Not long after our
arrival in Japan the wife was prostrated by an attack of
malaria, or what was caUed malaria, accompanied by total
loss of appetite and other unpleasant features. But finaUy
she came around as we say, and has since been asweU as ever.
But she was not alone m being thus affected by the cUmate
of Japan ; almost every one who came over with us was
taken down in a simUar way. I was one of the few excep
tions. The climate seems to suit me ; and I have been
in exceUent condition during the whole summer. It is one
of the uniform cUmates ; there is very Uttle variation in
the temperature from day to day ; no violent changes such
as we are famUiar with. We landed May 31 : 70° in our
sitting-room in the shade : and the weather grew gradu
aUy warmer untU the thermometer marked usuaUy 84° in
the shade : this was the highest point. And now since
September the weather has been growing graduaUy cooler
untU we are back to about 70° again ; but the nights were
always cool. I have never experienced a reaUy hot night ;
and although we have been sleeping under mosquito net
ting, I have seen but one mosquito. In Miyanoshita,
however, there were dreadful black beetles flying about

56 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
at night. I saw one, with two large horns,- — it was as big
as a hen's egg ; and besides in Miyanoshita I kUled two
awful centipedes. One of these was running across the
straw matting of my room,- — -as big as my hand I should
think ; and my razor strop is aU smeared over with spiders
which I used to smack on the waUs. I found it a con
venient instrument for spider-killing. The whole mountain
region roundabout Miyanoshita is fuU of Hot Springs ;
further up the Pass, at a place caUed Ashinayu are Hot
Sulphur Springs. Our Hot Springs were of no therapeutical
value, containing a trffling amount of iron only ; but the
Baths were deUcious. The water was hot to a temperature
of 176°, and you cooled it as you Uked with cold water
flowing into the bath tub. Bathing is part of the life of
the Japanese ; they bathe aU the time ; every Jap — even
the poorest — ^bathes at the end of the day. They are the
cleanest people I know, taking in, I mean, the lower classes.
We Uved in a Japanese inn accommodated to European
uses : and an exceUent inn it was : a verandah running
aU around it enclosed in sUding frames of glass : one storied
and not much privacy. In a regular Japanese inn there
is no privacy at aU ; the sense of privacy seems whoUy
wanting in the Japanese. SUding frames, paper-paned,
make the partitions between the rooms ; any one may
shove the sUde aside and enter ; and they shove it and
enter aU the time. At Nikko one night between two and
three o'clock a man shoved aside one of our sUdes and
came in. The wife heard him, and aU I can say is, that the
man didn't stay very long to enjoy her screams. Whether
he came to rob us, — who knows ?
WeU, whUe in Miyanoshita, we made an excursion to the
top of the pass, where is Hakone Lake : a beautiful sheet
of water encompassed by lonesome mountains covered with
verdure of intensest green. We were carried up the moun
tain steeps, — and very bad steeps they were, some of them,
— ^in chairs : wicker armchairs, suspended between two
poles : each pole bome by two men on their shoulders :
when not half way up, one of the bamboo poles of my chair
broke, and down I came with a thump. I dare say the

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 57
crash was heard aU over Japan. It was the day of the
EcUpse and the EcUpse was a faUure. Nevertheless I
walked on undismayed, and presently another pole was
obtained. We crossed the lake in a sampan, sitting in our
chairs, with our eight cooUes curled up in a comer. A
sampan is a flat-bottomed Japanese Boat, — ours was
scuUed by two boatmen : seven and a half mUes in an hour
and a quarter : this seemed to me prodigious. At the end
of the Lake we began a long and tiresome ascent, a tramp
through a lonely forest, the path being so narrow and
crooked that the men could not carry us. Here we were
overtaken by the ecUpse ; the ecUpsed Ught in the forest
was certainly weird, — I might say uncanny. Then we
came into the open : a plateau desolate and wUd : aU
blasted by the fumes of sulphur which issue from the boiling
sulphur springs : — and then we began the descent through
a most awful gorge : desolate and rocky : sUppery with
trickling sulphur water. Two of the cooUes got hold of
me and somehow worked me down. It was a toU of an
hour and a half, and I assure you I was in an exhausted
state when I got to the bottom. I never went through
anything Uke it. The wife thought she would manage the
business without help ; and she did very weU ; only once
did she come doAvn flat on her back. The place is caUed
by the Japanese Ojinoku, or the Big HeU ; and if HeU be
anything Uke it, may I be saved !
We spent a month in Miyanoshita ; and then we went
by jinrikisha and raU to Tokyo. Tokyo is a vast place :
a miUion of inhabitants : but the streets are precisely Uke
Jap streets everywhere, aU Jap streets being aUke, When
you walk in one of them, you walk in aU of them, so to
speak, throughout Japan. Tokyo is the capital : formerly
caUed Yeddo. The Mikado Uves here ; and here at his
Court are concentrated the Europeanizing influences now
working in Japan. The official classes aU wear seedy
trousers and sit in rickety chairs : — ^for the Jap as you know
is a creature devoured by a passion for progress and European
clothes. We stopped at a Uttle teahouse yesterday on our
way from Nara in order to eat the lunch we had with us.

58 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
The wife came across a Jap youth there who showed a desire
to pick up some EngUsh names ; he gave her a book to look
at which he had bought entitled : How to Learn English
without a Master. It was evidently done by the man who
writes ' EngUsh as she is spoke.' I looked it over and cuUed
the foUowing sentence which I give you UteraUy ; perhaps
you wiU understand it ; I must confess that I didn't : ' Lave
and lave only is the loan for love.' Fancy ! I am afraid
that poor Jap youth wUl make progress backward. Well,
at Tokyo we Uved comfortably in a nice clean Uttle inn :
European, kept by Japanese aided by a Uttle pot-beUied
German Jew : — and we went and saw the temples : very
beautiful work in them in lacquer and bronze. The temples
in the quarter caUed Shita are the burial places of the
Shoguns : once great feudal lords and afterwards the poUti-
csl rulers of Japan. They were overthrown in the great
revolution which took place in recent years, when the
Mikado was recaUed from his impotent spiritual function
in Kioto, and restored to power. Shita is what one might
caU an Imperial Cemetery : — temples on successive terraces :
one terrace after another : one flight of steps after another :
untU I quite lost my wind : vast grounds : a brooding
stillness. But when it comes to describing these Japanese
temples,- — shrines of Buddhism, — I must say frankly that
I break down ; my faculty is not equal to the task. My
conscience rather twits me indeed for disposing so summarUy
of the only sights in Japan ; but I reaUy shouldn't know how
to begin to describe them ; they are not Uke anything in
our architecture ; and in short are altogether inferior
and gruesome things. There is a certain impressiveness
indeed in the setting, so to speak, of the temples at Shita
and at Nikko : vast grounds : on the sides of mountains
or great hUls : overhanging forests of intensest green.
SUence — solemnity — ^broken only at intervals by the low
deep resonance of the priestly gong. It sounds to me always
like the dying waU of a pagan and cruel and grotesque age.
There is no end of temples in these grounds, — a large temple,
Uke the awful thmg in the quarter caUed Asakusa in Tokyo,
being an exception.

JAPAN AND THE PAR EAST 59
From Tokyo we went to Nikko ; four hours by rail
through a flat and fertUe country, riant with luxuriant
vegetation ; and then six hours in jinrikisha. Nikko was
a favourite resort of the Shoguns ; and as priesthood and
power go hand in hand, or at least have done so hitherto,
the temples in Nikko are many ; and you ride to Nikko
through a magnfficent avenue of trees — cryptomeria —
resembUng cedar and spruce trees in appearance. It was
moonUght when we rode, and a memorable ride it was ;
also were memorable our days in Nikko, where I slept on
quUts spread on the floor, and brushed my teeth outdoors.
I am getting to be rather too old, however, to find this sort
of thing amusing for long, and I was glad when we had
done Nikko, for it came near doing me. Nevertheless we
made several deUghtful walks in Nikko : wUd, romantic
scenery : on the banks of a raging mountain stream : and
we were carried in chairs up to lake Chiuzenji, twenty-five
hundred feet higher up than Nikko : extremely beautiful
scenery, and fine, cool air : mountains, torrents, temples
and so on. Then we went back to Tokyo — afterwards to
Yokohama : and from Yokohama we came to Kobe by
steamer : voyage of thirty hours : we struck a moonlight
night and a smooth sea : altogether deUghtful : coast
scenery aU the way. From Kobe to Kioto is two and a half
hours by raU : — ^picturesque hotel kept by Japs in European
style, just outside the town : fine view of the town lying
in a great vaUey at our feet, a vaUey bordered beyond by a
long low mountain range : temples behind us and all about
us : Japanese towns aU aUke.
The main thing of phUosophic interest in Japan are the
Japanese : quick-witted, playful folk : good-mannered and
poUte : I should fancy them to be the happiest people on
earth : always contented. Their civilization is a peculiar
one and has many beautiful features : to me from the
material point of view, it is the most exquisite refinement of
— discomfort possible to conceive.

60 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
No. 9 Chowbinghee, Calcutta,
Monday, 26 December, 1887.
My dear H., — We went back from Eaoto to Kobe, where
we embarked October 13 for Shanghai, stopping for a day
in Nagasaki, on the way. Nagasaki is extremely pictur
esque, — a landlocked harbour and greenest hUls. It is the
place where for two centuries (say from 1650 to 1850) the
Dutch had a factory so-caUed, or settlement : strictly con
fined to a bit of island : and through this keyhole it was
that for aU those two hundred years the Japanese held
their only communication with the outside world. For two
centuries Japan was a sealed land ; untU Commodore Perry
came up one fine morning into the harbour of Yeddo, now
caUed Tokyo, and smashing things right and left, laid open
the land and breathed into the Japanese a consuming
passion for trowsers, or European civUization as some people
caU it. We left Japan with regret ; in fact we quite lost
our hearts there ; for the land is picturesque and clean.
Ah, how clean does it seem to be now after an experi
ence, happUy brief, of Chicago dirt and Indian degradation,
and how winning are their ways ; they smUe sweetly ; their
Ufe is festive ; a Ught-hearted folk ; gay though sUppery ;
and they make lots of pretty things. You would see in a
day more things in Japan which you would like to possess
than you would see in the rest of Asia in a year. It is a
terrible country for the weak-minded traveUer with a taste
for curios ; the bronzes and embroideries, the silks and
porcelains of Japan are extremely fascinating ; and also
extremely dear ; and the sUppery Jap is a difficult creature
to handle, so sweet is he and fuU of guUe in aU his ways.
WeU, with aU their faults we Uked the Japs and we Uked
Japan ; and the pleasant memories we have of the land are
worth aU the cheateries to which alas ! we feU dupes.
From Nagasaki to Calcutta, — ^it is aU a waste. Such a
weariness have we undergone in aU these days of voyaging,
— three days from Shanghai to Hongkong ; twelve days
from Hongkong to Colombo ; eight days from Colombo
to Calcutta ; and there stUl remain eleven days, — ^from
Bombay to Suez, — to be undergone. In Shanghai there

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 61
is a foreign settlement as you may know. The EngUsh
quarter is fine : clean streets : magnfficent houses : a
pretty pubUc garden on the banks of the river, where I
used to sit in the sun and smoke ManiUa cigars ; for Shanghai
lies far to the north and the autumnal breeze was already
cold. The winters are said to be bitterly cold ; but the
spring comes earUer and the summer is intenser than with
us. 106° was not an unusual figure this last summer in
Shanghai. Farther north in Tientsin and Peking the
winter is extremely severe, — zero weather is the rale for
half the time in Peking ; but owing to the dryness of the
cUmate there is not much snow. This is the kind of cUmate
I should Uke ; and I was told by a gentleman whom I met
somewhere in our steaming, and who had Uved in Peking
for many years (in the EngUsh Consular Service) that the
climate of that place was reaUy deUghtful. But being a
Chinese city of course it is fuU of stenches and dirt ; and
once you have put your nose into a Chinese city, you would
be willing to take any kind of cUmate in preference. We
put our noses into The City as it is caUed in Shanghai ; it
is the Chinese city ; surrounded by high waUs ; precisely
Uke the ramparts by which European cities were girded in
mediaeval days, and of which here and there are instances
yet surviving in Europe. There are several gates or portals
through which one enters the City in Shanghai, or rather,
gateways cut through the massive waU ; and inside, a
labyrinth of lanes, — ^hardly wide enough to permit a person
to be carried in a chair ; paved with flagstones and lined with
two- or three-storied buUdings of brick, covered with stucco,
and the fronts aU open. These are the shops ; and over
head on lines suspended across the streets or passages are
strips of cloth inscribed with Chinese characters. Mattings
also are often stretched across the streets ; and here and
there a heavy chandeUer may be seen hanging. In fact,
the whole place looks Uke one large bazaar : damp and dark
and an unutterable gloom : swarming with human beings
in every stage of filth : water carriers, and carriers of mer
chandise, jostling one rudely at every step : for there are
no carts of course : aU merchandise is carried by men :

62 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
suspended from the two ends of a pole balanced across
the shoulder : and the cries and the noise, the shrieks of
itinerant pedlars, the harsh grunts made by the carriers as
they stagger under their heavy burdens, — a sort of cadence,
such as saUors utter when heaving an anchor, or setting a
sail — aU this and much more besides, to say nothing of
the stenches and the dirt, made the place a kind of nauseous
Bedlam. We did not tarry long. We spent a fortnight
in Shanghai, and might have gone up to Peking had not
the wife been attacked by a violent Ulness. The iUness,
however, though extremely serious, was happUy of short
duration ; but owing to the lateness of the season, — the
Peiho freezes over toward the end of November,^ — and our
utter disgust of aU things Chinese, we decided to give up
Peking. And I feel no regret that we did so. I regret only
that I took the trouble to see anything of China. It is a
dreary country and the Chinese are a dreary, uninterest
ing people. There is nothing pleasing in their ways ; one
never sees a smile on a Chinaman's face. Nevertheless I
must do them the justice to say that merchants in China
assured me that the Chinese were far more honourable in
their commercial dealings than the Japanese ; one can
trust a Chinaman's word. This is much ; for you can't
trust a Jap, though he swears by the Buddha ; he is gay and
sUppery ; the Chinaman is sombre, but you know where
to find him, as we say.
We spent a fortnight in Shanghai ; and then we saUed
away in a German steamer to Hongkong, — most picturesque
of spots : a landlocked harbour. The city is buUt on the
side of a hUl, or mountain rather ; there is only one level
street ; everything else is uphUl ; not the place for me ;
it took four cooUes to carry me up the moimtain ; but they
stood it ; and so did I. We made an excursion up the
river to Canton ; feU in with an American female missionary
who kindly took us in for the night ; no hotel in Canton,
or rather one hotel but too vile for ladies. We were carried
through the streets aU one day in chairs ; the streets are
mere lanes ; and what I have said of the City in Shanghai
appUes to Canton ; the only agreeable recoUection I have

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 63
of Canton is of getting out of it. We met with nothing
but suUenness and hisses : horrible lot, the Cantoners :
a turbulent folk : always mobbing foreigners. The streets
have great iron gates at intervals, guarded by patrols ; in
case a mob surges up of a sudden, the gates are closed ; and
poUcemen club the mob, or pretend to. We saw a magnffi
cent Chinese procession in Hongkong in honour of the Queen
of England's jubUee : no end of dragons and aU possible
barbarisms. A fortnight in Hongkong and then we steamed
away to Colombo in Ceylon, — calling for a day at Saigon
in Cochin-China, — dreary hole ; and also for a day in Singa
pore. At Singapore I was as near the Equator as I ever
wish to be : extremely oppressive heat. We intended
spending a month in Ceylon, but broke down after a fort
night and fled. The tropical vegetation and scenery of
Ceylon are extremely beautiful ; but Colombo is a tiresome
place, swarming with sharks in the shape of vendors of
precious stones : 84° night and day : punkahs going aU the
time except at night : most depressing atmosphere. We
went by raU to Kandy in the interior, high up amongst
mountains, — extremely beautiful scenery ; palm trees and
bananas and aU kinds of rank luxuriance. Kandy is the
residence of the Governor : and has a wonderful garden,
containing every kind of tropical tree and plant. We left
Colombo on Sunday, December 11, and on Sunday, December
18 we reached Calcutta. The hotels in Calcutta are bad,
and we are in a boarding-house. I am writing this in the
great verandah of our house in the open air, sparrows
twittering and crows cawing around me. The verandah
looks down upon a great square or common, — caUed
Maidan, meaning green. And opposite me stands a great
column in honour of one Ochterlony ; and not a human
being of aU I have asked can teU me who he was or what
he did to earn a monument. What is fame ?
Apollo Hotel, Apollo Bundbe, Bombay,
Wednesday, 16 February, 1888.
My dear H., — I wrote you a letter from Calcutta. I
mention the fact because I have learned that the Natives

64 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
employed in the post offices in India frequently steal the
stamps from a letter, and afterwards bum the letter. Hence
it is usual to write on the envelope the amount of postage
affixed, and also to draw a Une halfway across the stamp,
or stamps, the Une being extended over an adjoining part
of the envelope, so that the stamps are rendered useless, and
also that it may be seen if any and how many stamps have
been removed : precautions I did not adopt for a long time.
We arrived in Bombay on Monday, February 6. We
have taken our passage in a fine large new steamer for
Suez, saUing Saturday, February 25, the Austrian Lloyd
steamer Imperator, and I feel that our days in Asia are now
reaUy over and gone ; that henceforth the playful Jap and
the sombre Chinaman and the MUd Hindoo wiU exist for
me in dreams only : — ^dreams of sun-Ut lands : and power
less people : of placid seas and awful inns : dreams of
lizards and centipedes and snakes : of waving palms and
punkahs : and camels and elephants : of black faces and red
turbans : of statuesque maidens draped in cheap cotton
of many hues : and all the rest of it. There is a good deal
of gaiety I am told in Bombay in the cold season ; the cold
season is now on ; 80° in the shade in the daytime, and
nothing over one at night except a cotton sheet and the
gauze netting of the bed. I went out the other day at half
past two in the afternoon, and the glare of the sun was Uke
a deUrium. I was walking to the Bunder, about two
minutes' walk from the hotel. Bunder is the Indian term
for quay, or landing place, but where they got the ApoUo
from. Heaven and the Buddha only know. WeU, as I say,
I never walk in India ; nobody ever walks in India ; it is
as much as your life is worth to walk ; one always rides in
cabs, and the bare-legged cabman in red turban, — with a
piece of white cotton cloth wound somehow picturesquely
between his legs and thence carried somehow pictur
esquely over his shoulder, — ^never gets more than twice as
much as he ought to have — out of me at least. But as I
was saying, we were on our way to take a boat at the Bunder
in order to sail across the Bay, and see the Elephanta Caves
so-caUed. The boat was a large one with one tremendous

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 65
saU. We were a party of six. The boat carried eight men :
natives, aU in turbans and not much else to speak of : when
the wind faUed, they worked the oars — ^very wretched oars, —
everything is very wretched and dUapidated in India. We
saUed from the Bunder at 2:30 p.m. and reached it on our
retum at 7:30 p.m., — ^five hours, and the total charge for
the big boat and eight men was four rupees. I figure a
rupee to cost me thirty -six cents U.S. gold, — one doUar and
forty-four cents therefore. This gives you an idea of the
cheapness of things in India, — ^it being reaUy the price of
the boat for a whole day.
It is not worth whUe to try and give you an idea of the
Caves. I hate a cave. This particular Cave however is
artfficial : on an island up a high hUl : landing on the
island most precarious : causeway extending into the sea, —
composed of big square blocks made of smaU stones covered
with cement : cement worn off. You have to step from
block to block whUe the waves dash up between your
legs. I became quite giddy : ascent paved with stones :
very high. I became altogether blind when I reached the
entrance of this cave, and stepped in carefuUy lest haply
I might stumble over a cobra : bite of cobra deadly :
premium of sixpence, four annas, on every cobra kiUed ;
and the MUd Hindoo is sometimes caught rearing cobras
for the market, — I mean the premium. WeU, inside are
huge idols : the Trinity, — Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva : and
so on : aU frightfuUy ugly : some of them pathetic, but
unspeakable, aU carved in the rock : like hideous stalac
tites : curious for their antiquity, I beUeve nobody knows
how old they are, and it 's immaterial. Portuguese, three
centuries ago, in an excess of reUgious frenzy, endeavoured
to destroy them ; but couldn't. But what the Portuguese
couldn't do, the Ardent Tourist in course of time came near
doing by chipping off bits, untU the EngUsh Govemment
put a man in charge of the place. Now each visitor pays an
entrance fee of ten cents, which is most moderate, consider
ing how awfuUy ugly are the Idols ; and that the man tries
to explain the meaning of them without recourse to grammar.
WeU, now, I ought to teU you something about India,
E

66 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
and of our journeyings therein. But I hardly know where
to begin or what to say. Did I teU you that in the first
place we went to DarjeeUng ? Twenty-four hours' joumey
by raU : most tiresome joumey : left Calcutta in the
afternoon : came to the Ganges which we crossed in a smaU
steamboat : the Sacred River, — and aU I could get hold
of was a bottle of PUsener Beer ! Then we rattled on aU
night long, and in the morning reached a sort of steam
tramway which carried us up to Darjeeling seventy-three
hundred feet in seven hours, — one hundred feet per hour.
Most picturesque ascent : superb walks in DarjeeUng :
such scenery ! I never saw the Uke of it. The place Ues
on a mountain biUow as it were, — ^not a square yard of level
anywhere as far as the eye can reach ; you look down upon
gigantic mountain biUows ; and beyond them the stupend
ous waU of the Himalayas, — white, majestic, — ^the range of
Kinchinjunga, twenty-eight thousand feet high ; and a walk
of six mUes wUl give you a sight of the top of Mt. Everest, — ¦
about as big as a sugar loaf, — ^for Mt. Everest is the highest
peak in the world, twenty -nine thousand feet ; but I didn't
take the walk, though I took a part of it with the wife. The
air was tonic and clear. I felt Uke a new being. 45° in the
shade : bitter cold at night : and we were suffocated,
bUnded, by the smoke of the wood fires in our rooms. If
it had not been for this smoke we should have tarried. As
it was, we fled back to Calcutta. The paths and roads
about DarjeeUng were superb ; wherever are the EngUsh
there are good roads, and wretched viands, but lots of bath
tubs ; tubbing and horses, whisky and soda, lawn tennis
and picnics, — these are the deUghts of the Briton in India :
worthy successor of the great Mogul : and perhaps as
ephemeral : for the MUd Hindoo shaU survive aU conquerors
at last, I fancy, whether Mohammedan, or EngUsh, and that
by virtue of his very effeteness, for no conquering race can
long hold its vigour in this hot cUmate. It is only an effete
race that can keep itself aUve in these deadening heats.
Yet perhaps after aU, I may be quite wrong, for does not
the damp and fetid jungle breed the fiercest tigers ? And
if the tiger, with his terrible muscle, can thrive in these

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 67
climates, why should not man, once the right stock is
planted here. At present the stock looks extremely feeble.
If you speak somewhat louder than is your wont to your
Hindoo servant, he wiU tremble aU over his effeminate
person. But of course I am speaking of Central and
Southern India. In Northern India you come to different
races and a different climate. And the MUd Hindoo becomes
tough and fierce.
We went back to Calcutta, and made ready for our
joumey. The distances are considerable in India, —
eighteen hours for instance to Benares, the Holy City of
the Hindoo : nasty place of course. There is nothing
Hindoo that is not nasty ; the cow, the goat, aU animals
even including the monkey, are sacred to the Hindoo ;
hence ineffable nastiness and aU abominations of supersti
tion ; Cow Temples ; Monkey Temples ; beggars, Brahmins
and dirt. The view of the Ganges at Benares is most
picturesque ; dUapidation and ruin everywhere ; but to
my mind there is no genius in Hindoo architecture ; on
the contrary the Mohammedan evolved a most exquisite
type, — the Mosque with its dome and minarets, unsur
passed in its way ; and though in aU his architecture the
same type reappears, yet it is difficult to fitnd it monoton
ous, — so exquisitely beautiful is it in its simpUcity. The
simpUcity indeed of Mohammedan architecture as weU as
of Mohammedan worship make a most agreeable impres
sion upon the mind, in these countries crammed with idols
and temples, overlaid with aU possible hideousness. One
sees what a comparatively pure worship Mohammed intro
duced ; and can understand the progress it made in lands
sunk in the abyss of Hindoo and other superstitions. In
the mosque there is no graven image ; nor pictures ; marble
pavements and marble walls and awe-inspiring dome ;
nothing more.
From Benares we went to Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, Jay-
pore, Ahmedabad, Bombay : a week in Delhi : five square
miles of ruins. Cold weather : that is to say, wood fires
at night and a damp room in the daytime ; outdoors in the
sun, brUUant and tonic. In Agra are the great works of

68 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
the Great Moguls ; chief of aU that remains to us of their
time, — The Taj. I hope you have seen pictures of The Taj,
for I reaUy can't describe it : marvel of beauty, sepulchral
edffice : of white marble : grand dome : exquisite carvings :
stands on a great square platform thirty feet high, with a
minaret at each comer of the platform, overlooking the
sacred Jumna and the country for mUes : a beautiful
garden leads up to it. We saw it by moonUght : white
and fanciful like the ornamentation on a wedding cake— -
a vision of glory that is past, for who cares nowadays about
the Great Moguls ? But I must say some of their wives
had exquisite faces, if the ivory miniatures of them sold
in Delhi may be trusted. They were a white race too,
Caucasian, — ^these turbaned conquerors ; and the men also
have faces of great refinement of feature, — in the minia
tures, I mean.
In Jajrpore the wife rode on elephants for the fun of the
thing, and got pretty weU jolted. The Maharajah sends
them to strangers who honour his dominions with a visit,
and the ride is grating, or rather I should say gratis. Bom
bay is a deUghtful city. I should Uke to Uve here every
winter : deUcious cUmate : fine Uvely streets weU watered
and full of picturesqueness : fine Seabreeze and a glad
some place after aU the dreariness that Ues between it and
Calcutta.

Grand New Hotel, Cairo,
Thursday, 22 March, 1888.
My dear H., — ^The heat or dampness of these Eastern
cUmes thickens my ink, and the free flow of my thoughts
is often checked by the bad working of my pen, and I shall
soon betake myself to Japanese paper, of which I laid in a
supply. The Japanese paper is made of the fibres of a cer
tain tree, is extremely tough and almost untearable, and soft
as sUk to write upon. The surface of the paper presents no
impediment to the easy gUding of the pen ; one must use,
however, a round-pointed, not a sharp-pointed pen ; other
wise the pen wiU occasionaUy pick up a fibre in the paper.

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 69
But where was I ? Yes, we didn't saU from Bombay as
appointed on Saturday, February 25 ; the ship was held
for cargo coming round from Calcutta Monday night,
February 27 ; superb, large new steamer ; the wife was
infatuated with it ; an exceUent cuisine ; and free wine
(white or red) twice a day ; free wine is always sure to set
me up and keep me hUarious. We had each a cabin to our
selves : only thirteen passengers : one lady with a child,
wife of the usual EngUsh Colonel, returning home with the
usual sickly chUd which is to be braced up by a London
East Wind. The rest were commercials ; chiefly Germans ;
they were aU in indigo and were all fat and their noses were
aU hooked after the manner of the ChUdren of Israel. The
Chinaman and the German Jew wUl eventuaUy eat up the
earth, and the laws of modem poUtical economy wUl be
justffied. Smooth and brUUant voyage to Aden. 80° to
84° in our cabins. We reached Aden on Sunday night
(March 4), coaled by Electric Light and saUed the next
morning for Suez. Aden is a dreary rock, but it is a fre
quented Port of CaU ; or rather it is a mass of picturesque
and rocky formations enclosing a Uttle harbour which our
ship was too big to enter. We lay outside ; and in the
morning amused ourselves with watchmg naked Uttle Arabs
dive from their petty canoes (dug-outs) for pieces of sUver
money thrown to them. The game is sometimes a Uttle
dangerous on account of sharks, but for a gold piece I
fancy, the Uttle Arab would dive into the very mouth of
a shark ; so voracious is the Uttle Arab for money. The
Chinese also exhibit this greed to an appaUing degree ; and,
speaking generaUy, I suppose there is no people so hard and
unfeeling as the Chinese. They seem to be absolutely
destitute of human sympathies. I dare say I do them
injustice ; but such is the impression I have of them. At
the same time they are obstinate to a prodigious degree in
sticking to their old ways. This is doubtless the secret of
their permanence, or at least one of the elements of it ;
and yet, after aU, they have not worn pigtails for over one
thousand years.
Well after we entered the Red Sea we encountered a great

70 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
wind from the North, ahnost a gale. 0 was absolutely
smooth ; 12 was the most terrific possible ; we had number
7. The waves dashed over the hurricane deck and the water
ran down the ventilators and wet us ; the sky was blue and
the sun scorching, and as far as the eye could see there was
a white spray over the surface of the waters, the foam of
breaking waves scattered by the winds. The Captain had
never had such an experience in the Red Sea ; nor had I ;
in short, the Red Sea turned out to be precisely the con
trary of what I had always fancied it to be, and after we
had reaUy entered it, passing through the straits of Babel-
mandeb or Gate of Tears, it began to be cold, and by the
time we had reached Suez, the mercury had faUen to 60°
in the cabins. We saw land two or three times only ; but
what was worse than seeing land, we saw the wrecks of half
a dozen steamers sticking out of the water in various places.
The sight gave me a chUl. On Sunday March 11, at four in
the morning, we dropped anchor off Suez. It is a disagree
able feature of this voyaging in Eastern waters that the
steamers never come to a pier or landing place ; you have
to embark and disembark in smaU boats, the prey of the
lowest class of land sharks. At Suez we got into a saU
boat, a high wind blowing, and saUed three or four mUes
to the Custom House, bespattered with spray, whUe the
boat tipped so as almost to take in water ; and I was suffer
ing aU the time from a horrible nervous pain in the head.
At the Custom House landing a crowd of howling Arabs
swooped down upon us Uke so many demons. I was nearly
frantic, and the sim scorched us Uke a bUster : flies, mos
quitoes and dust : extortionate demands and continuous
shrieking aU the way to the raUway station : never any
thing so nasty : finaUy, however, we reached a rotten old
raUway carriage and at half past eleven in the morning
roUed out into the desert, carrying my headache with me :
nothing to eat aU day, and the glare of the sun from the
desert nearly spUt my head open. At half past six o'clock,
— for aU days do at last come to an end, — ^we reached the
station in Cairo, and were met by a friendly porter from
the hotel ; and, rescued from the demons that again beset

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 71
us, we were trundled in an omnibus to rest and dmner in
this New Grand Hotel. A quart of Beaujolais drove away
my headache ; and I beat down the landlord six (EngUsh)
shiUings in his price per diem. And this is how we came
from Bombay to Cairo. TraveUing has its occasional in-
feUcities, and I have given you a specimen of them at the
risk of being tedious.
Cairo is a profound disappointment ; its old orientaUsm
has aU gone out of it ; there is nothmg left but rotten
ness and fleas. Fortunately my hide is thick, or it may
be fleas are fastidious ; I never felt a flea in my life. We
tried to get away yesterday in a steamer bound for Athens,
but couldn't. The steamers are crowded at this season, —
nothing but second-class cabins to be had ; and we are
doomed to suffer for yet another week the plagues of Egypt.
Nevertheless I don't find the sojourn so tiresome as I
fancied it was going to be. The heat after aU is not so very
oppressive ; our rooms, though not large, are weU venti
lated ; with doors like Venetian blinds giving upon a spacious
verandah, admittmg air, but excluding the sun. We do
not go out untU about four o'clock in the afternoon, when
we take a drive : open two-horsed victorias : Ught and easy :
coachman in European clothes except that he wears a fez,
I should also wear a fez were I permitted to do so ; it sets
very weU on me ; but the wife dislikes eccentricities and I
wear it only by stealth, when I go downstairs between six
and seven o'clock in the morning for coffee and omelette,
which is aU the breakfast I can afford. I have a passion
for caps, my head being always cold ; and wherever I go I
procure the cap of the country. The Japs have no national
head covering. They never wore anything on their heads
untU the Europeans broke into the land ; and now they do
not wear much of anything and what they do wear is Euro
pean, a straw hat or a white helmet, nothing national,
and being European, nothing picturesque. But neverthe
less I caused to be made for me some exquisitely embroidered
silk caps : altogether bewitching. In China I got the
round black Chinese cap with a red knot sticking up from
the middle of the crown : precisely the same sort of cap

72 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
which you see Chinese wearing in America. There is no
diversity in anything Chinese, nor in anything Asiatic
for that matter. Each people got up its own rig centuries
ago, and every individual wears the same rig. It is appal
ling, this monotony of form and habit : altogether incom
prehensible to the individuaUzing European mind. In
India the natives wear extremely pretty caps, when they
do not wear turbans. But I never could find a cap to fit
me, the caps being worn on the back of the head. A good
one is heavUy weighted with elaborate gold embroidery,
and is very expensive, and besides, gold embroidery is rather
flashy. I did not have a cap made. I contented myself
with some plain round caps of cashmere wool : exquisitely
soft. WeU, yesterday afternoon we drove out to what is caUed
HeUopoUs. Of course there isn't any HeUopoUs, — ^nothing
but the usual flatness : wastes of sand alternating with
fields green with growing com ; and in one field rises an
obeUsk of red granite, covered with rude hieroglyphics :
extremely ancient. I beUeve it is the oldest thing in
Egypt, — but what of it ? The sun scorched us like fire ;
and cripples shrieking for backsish quite made me forget
that Plato once came to this very spot in order to explore
Egyptian lore. Indeed there are moments when it is im
possible to dUate with any emotion except disgust, and I
hope Plato found more shade and fewer fleas than we did.
Yet after aU what could he learn worth knowing in this
dreary land, from a people that made mummies and carved
nightmares in stone, with the thermometer, as yesterday
afternoon, registering 102° in the shade ! The ride home,
however, was deUcious, in spite of a Hot wind that blew in
from the sands of the Desert, as if from a furnace : long
avenues of shady lobbek trees, simUar to acacias, — aU made
since I was here in 1860. Indeed when I was here there
was not a carriage road nor a carriage ; not a sidewalk nor
a gas lamp nor a European shop ; now the place is like
a Southern-ItaUan City ; fuU of dirty cafes and shabby
Greeks, and aU the scum of Europe I should think, whUe
in the background stand English Red Coats ; and over aU

JAPAN AND THE PAR EAST 73
the land hang the dark shadows of impoverishment and
tyranny and aU the rottenness of years of plundering and
corruption. Of course we have taken the usual sixteen
shiUing drive to the Pyramids. The wife said she could
see nothing except what she had seen in the photographs :
aU stale and tiresome : especiaUy the Sphinx. It is alto
gether incredible, the fuss mankind has made for centuries
over the Sphinx : a misshapen mass, clumsy and stupid.
And then we stroUed through the Govemment Museum,
fuU of awful mummies and grotesque images in stone. How
very turbid must have been the Egyptians' imagination !
And I can't but wonder how our friend Plato, the hUarious
Greek, could have stood aU this hideousness, — as if there
could have been any lore behind it aU. With what joy
must he have gone back to his boUed beans in Athens !
Hotel de la Grand, Bretagne, Athens,
Monday, 9 April, 1888.
My dear H., — We go to Rome, — by a new route, opened
recently I beUeve, by raU from Athens to Patras, say nine
hours ; thence by steamer direct to Bruidisi ; and thence
by raU, twenty hours of it, — to Rome via Naples. But
come to think of it, the route is not so very new ; it is the
same route by which Horace traveUed some years ago.
Leaving Athens at 6 a.m. you reach Brindisi the next
afternoon at 4, and Rome the foUowing day at noon, — ^fifty-
four hours, say, from Athens to Rome. This is somewhat
quicker than Horace made the joumey. Yet twenty
hours in one of these European raUway cabooses is a terror.
In India raUway traveUing is more comfortable ; the com
partments are commodious and each compartment has its
lavatory ; the seats too are not transverse to the raU, but
paraUel to it, as in an omnibus ; and at regular hours the
train stops for a regular seventy -five cent meal and a thirty-
six cent bottle of Bass's ale. However, the wife does not
Uke leaving at six in the morning, for that means a bad
night preceding. We expect therefore to depart from the
very dusty Eye of Greece on Thursday next at noon, sleep

74 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
in a wretched inn at Patras, and take the steamer for
Brindisi the next afternoon, — thus breaking the joumey.
And that reminds me how very Uttle I have to write you
from Athens. One would fancy there would be a good deal
to talk about, but there isn't ; even do I experience a certain
dreariness in finding myself here once more amidst the
mutUated remnants of Greek Art. They do not inspire me
as once they did ; and the modem Greeks for whom I once
enthused seem to me now a beggarly lot ; and I blush to say
that I am far more excited by reading about strikes of
stokers and engine-drivers on our Western raUroads than
about the last find of the rump of a Greek statue. So
thoroughly in the last twenty years has the classic interest
ebbed out of me. I have, however, done my entire duty,
and hope to be able to shake the dust of this place from off
my shoes with a good conscience. I have sipped tea in
company with a lot of American ladies amidst the ruins of
the Parthenon, and by the help of a cup of strong tea and
a pipe I did the AcropoUs : — and behold how aU things
crumble ! WhUe we were there bits of marble from the
under part of the capital of one of the front piUars, — ^bits
that must have weighed from ten to twenty pounds, — feU
to the ground ; and one of the watchmen of the place
motioned to us to keep away from the pUlar, fearing that
more bits might faU. You know aU about the AcropoUs,
and I need not dweU upon it, except to say that the theatre
of Bacchus on a side of the AcropoUs has been much exca
vated since I was here, and that in the rear of the Parthe
non there has been buUt a smaU Museum which I have not
yet visited, containing the finds on the AcropoUs. We had
a pleasant afternoon. But I was never amid such a lot of
invaUds as were these American tourists : one, — a most
interesting woman, — ^was troubled by a very bad disease
of the heart, another was doubled up by lumbago, another
had lost an arm through a disease of the nerves, and so on.
It is altogether prodigious, the courage such folks exhibit
in traveUing about the world ; they were aU nice people ;
inteUigent, bright and Avith some degree of education ; but
I fancied that at times they were aU somewhat peevish.

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 75
You rarely meet a reaUy sound American woman. Is it
ice water or green tea 1 or hot air stoves ?
WeU then, another afternoon in company with two or
three invaUds, — we are aU invaUds in Athens now, — I walked
out to the HUl Colonos. The walk was along a dusty
dreary road ; it is dusty and dreary everywhere in the
neighbourhood of Athens ; but the view from the hiU — it is
a very smaU hiU — was reaUy fine. It is situated in the
middle of the plain, — a much broken plain in which Athens
Ues ; and you command the whole classic scene : the sea
and Aigina : Hymettus and Lycabettus and PenteUcus,
and the AcropoUs, and aU the rest. On the hUl are two
white marble monuments, marking the resting place of two
Greek scholars and PhUheUenes ; — ^the Frenchman, Charles
Lenormant and the German, Gottfried MueUer. These
monuments are aU defaced by every kind of scriblet, and
blackened by bird shot fired by wretches who have used
them as targets. The walk occupied us three hours, and
when I got home I ached m every joint and bone ; you
would have thought nothing of it, but I thought of it for
three days. Yet I must say the air here is truly divine :
cool, clear, sparkling as it were : and often redolent of
fragrance of wUd flowers, or the exquisite perfume of orange
blossoms. Having just come from softer climates, it may be
that we are more sensitive to this tonic air than if we had
come directly from the north ; yet nevertheless I fancy that
it is a pecuUar atmosphere, arising from conditions not found
elsewhere, whatever they may be. It reminds me of the
atmosphere in our Uttle Pasadena in the VaUey of Gabriel
in Southern CaUfornia. Often in the winter I spent there
was I reminded of the sparkle of Attic skies and of the
sterile landscapes of Attica. There seemed to me a great
simUarity between the cUmate and landscape of Southern
California and the climate and landscape of Greece and
Syria, — a cool, dry sparkling air, and a gUttering dreariness
of mountain and plain, and I often dreamed that a time
might come when the oUve groves of a new Academe should
murmur with the musical voice of a new Plato, and a new
phUosophy be bom with an inteUigible message for man-

76 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
kind. Perhaps my dream may materialize (awful word) ;
and perhaps not. But how can we enthuse for beings that
shaU not Uve untU a thousand years or more after we are
gone from this Vale of Tears, — and Uve in the CaUfornian
Vale too !
WeU, another afternoon we drove to Eleusis : picturesque
but frightfuUy sterUe scenery, untU we came to the Eleu-
sinian Plain, where we were refreshed by the sight of a few
green fields. The fields were mostly devoted, however, to
the grape ; and the very low smaU stalks were only just
putting out buds. There have been tremendous excava
tions made at Eleusis, and many statues and things found.
There is nothing of the ancient temple standing, as you
know. And I fancy that nothing reaUy new has been dis
covered in aU these expensive excavations made in recent
years. Those made in Eleusis are said to have cost fifty
thousand doUars. But I speak with reserve, for I have not
been able to find any connected account of the explorations
in Greece. Of course I am friendly to excavations. In
fact I can conceive of nothing more fascinating ; but thus
far they have added merely to the quantity of our knowledge
so to speak, and not affected the quaUty ; but I reaUy do
not know ; I am merely guessing this. At any rate no
excavations yet made have yielded up the secret of the
Eleusinian mystery. It is as much a secret as ever. Do you
fancy it was a secret worth knowing ? It was a horribly
dusty ride to Eleusis ; and it took two caraffes of Greek
red wine to moisten my parched throat when we got back
to dinner at haU past seven o'clock. But the scenery
was exquisite, and I experienced moments of supreme
exhUaration. Athens has grown a good deal since I was here, but it remains
a very second-rate tiresome place. A Greek by the name
of Sappa who Uved in Roumania, a merchant I beUeve, died
some time ago and left forty miUion francs for pubUc uses,
one and a half miUions to be devoted to a Permanent
Exhibition BuUding in Athens. This buUding is nearly
completed. It stands between the Palace Garden and the
Columns of the Temple of Olympian Jove, and is reaUy

JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST 77
beautiful. It does credit to the architect who conceived
the design : five pUlars of PenteUcan marble, a grand
hypaethral Court, an exquisite simpUcity and grace. There
is also in another part of the town, a grand central museum ;
half of it is completed and open to the pubUc. It is intended
to contain aU the finds in Greece ; and it is astonishing, —
the number and beauty of the recent finds. There are
enormous grounds around the Central Museum, and when
the whole plan is carried out, it wUl be a fine thing. Near
this hotel SchUemann, the discoverer of Troy, has a fine
vUla which we intend to honour with a visit. We have
already inspected his coUection of finds at Mycenae : ear
rings and fragments of potteries and smaU swords, very
rusty. We visited this coUection and the Central Museum
m one afternoon in company with an indefatigable Uttle
Buffalonian. It was harrowing the way she walked us
about ; and prodigious, also, what Uttle Buffaloes know ;
and I ache in every joint when I think of it, or rather of her.
And then we celebrated on Friday (AprU 5, March 25 in
Greek calendar) the fete of the anniversary of Greek Inde
pendence, — the Greek Fourth of July ; and an uncommonly
thin celebration it was ; not a Greek stirred, except at night
when some of them feU to quarrelUng about poUtics, and
then to murdering one another. Greece is in a poor way ;
it has a forced paper currency ; and gold is at thirty per cent.
premium ; and they make us foreigners pay for everything
in gold. It is a nation of idlers and cafe-loafers, and smaU
poUticians ; and it is as much as the Great Powers can do
to keep them quiet ; for they are always chafing within
their narrow Umits, and threatemng to spoil the great
Powers' Uttle games.

CHAPTER III
ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS
1888-1891
Eeflections on the Far East — Bliemchens — Ibsen — German
and American Style — The Japanese Experiment — ^American
Eetrogression — -Eome in the Sixties — Christmas — ^The Carnival
— Greorge Bradford — Perugia — On Drinking Tea — ^Middle Names
— ^Lord Dufierin — On American Domestics and Manners — Italian
Nerves — ^The Grand Climacteric — On Tragedy — On ' Taking in
a Newspaper ' — A Great Snowstorm at Naples — ^New and Old
Harvard — On Habits before Going to Bed — ^La Cava and the
Amalfi Eoad — Professor Sophocles — German Writers on America
—The Temperaments of East and West.
Dresden, Tuesday, 18 September, 1888.
My dear H., — I congratulate you upon having had a good
summer, diversffied by agreeable variety ; and I don't
think I should have been made homesick by the summer
soUtariness of Boston. I think a place is always more
agreeable when aU the people are out of it, and one has it
to himself ; for after aU, — of course with exceptions of
famUy and a few friends, — ^very few, — people are a burden ;
at least to me. Temperaments differ ; the wife differs
from me ; women are generaUy different from men. She
Ukes people ; she Ukes the animation of a crowded street ;
and nothing bores her Uke the sweet sUences of a noiseless
Quarter of a town. Women are not contemplative ; they
Uve in things, and their nerves ; and hence fiU Ufe with
trifles, — ^fortunately for us men ; for if it were not for my
indefatigable comrade stirring me up aU the time, I fancy
I should relapse even into that Supreme Vacuity, in which,
sittmg, doth the Buddha dream of Nirvana, And apropos
of Buddhism I am going to see if I can grasp its whole
doctrine. I do not mean to embrace it, Uke the man from
Salem. But if it were possible I should Uke to comprehend, —
78

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 79
seize in its entirety, the whole doctrine of Buddhism ; it
seems to me a beautiful doctrme ; but at present I do not
understand it in the least. When I get hold of it, I wUl
impart it to you, — to the end that you may use it in iUus
tration of ' The Highest Doctrine ' ; for aU spiritual side-
Ughts, so to speak, are of unspeakable value ; and the
mUUons, nay, the bUUons of inteUigent human beings who
have found comfort in the acceptance, and supreme purity
in the practice of Buddhism,— shaU not this go for some
thing ? — m fact I beUeve that in point of mere numbers
there are more Buddhists in the world to-day than there are
Christians. It is astonishing, — ^the effect of reUgions upon
mankind. Brahminism I fancy to be the most awful
creed ; yet the Hindoos are an mteUigent people (although
inferior in inteUectual force to the Chinese, and inferior
also to the Japanese), and Brahminism has kept them
together and kept them civilized under conditions under
which any other race would have perished off the face of
the earth. Indeed I cannot help reverting often to the
antiquity of the civUization of many Asiatic races. Fancy
how it would interest one to walk the streets of a Uttle Greek
town and see everything, — ^people and houses and aU their
civUization in fact, just as they were six hundred years
before Christ. This you can do to-day in China and Japan,
for Chinese and Japanese civilization. Yet China and
Japan are so far away, and their type is so far removed from
our type, — an inferior type too to ours, but possessing what
ours has not yet shown itself to possess, the secret of per
manence, — China and Japan are so far away, I say, that
they seem to belong to a different planet ; yet they don't ;
they are Uving masses right at our doors : — so rapid is steam
communication nowadays. Japan is but a suburb of San
Francisco : — and the world is very smaU, and everywhere
turbid.

Dresden, Saturday, 20 October, 1888.
My dear H., — I have received the newspaper and maga
zine cuttings, which you were so good to send me, relating

80 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
to Japan. They were interesting reading ; and you wiU
have observed that the Rev. Mr. Hawkes writes in quite
the same strain with myseU, although I did not go so far
as to say that ' next to Uving in England (America) I think
I coidd most happUy make a home here.' It is indeed a
picturesque country, and the Japs are an agreeable people ;
and though he may overdraw the charm of the country
and people somewhat, the Reverend Hawkes is quite right
in deploring the disastrous effect of European vice in Japan.
So far as I can see, contact with Europeans brings only
misery upon these Oriental races. But in using the term
vice, one must bear in mind that the Japs entertain quite
whoUy different ideas touching the relation of the sexes
from those which prevail among us, — ^nominaUy at any rate.
However, I should reaUy think the Japs would take more
readUy to the Unitarian form of Christianity, than to any
other form of it, if they take at aU to Christianity. The
upper,— -by which I mean the inteUigent and educated, —
classes AviU never, I fancy, take on any reUgion at aU ; they
are born phUosophers or freethinkers or what you wUl ;
but Japan is drawn by the very nature of the people into
the vortex of change. The Japs are a superior race ; and
once they have come in contact with a higher civilization,
— higher m Science, Art, Technique, and I wUl add, finer
in Ideals, — though for that matter I am not sure, I fancy
the Buddhist Ideal may be as good as any we possess, — the
Japanese cannot sit stUl. The process of evolution must
go on ; and as states cannot exist without recognizing some
form of reUgion, I dare say the Japs in taking on European
civUization, wUl eventuaUy take on European reUgion, and
writing, just as in the fifth century they took on Chinese
civiUzation in the form of letters and reUgion, and would
doubtless have taken on pig-taUs too, but fortunately in
those days the Chinese had not arrived at pig-taUs. It
would reaUy also not be surprising if ultimately the Japs
changed their language for the EngUsh language ; but of
course such momentous changes do not come in a day,
though it is incredible how fast Europeanization, so to
speak, has already gone on in Japan : — wonderful testi-

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 81
mony to the superior inteUectuaUty of the Japs. As for
the moral quaUties of the Japs, — ^weU, I do not know ; it
depends a good deal on the definition of the term ' moral
quaUties,' and also upon how much we have a right to
demand from the standpoint of our own Umited moraUties.
You ask whether Dresden affords anything characteristic
in the Uterary way Uke Rauchenegger's 'Miinchener Skizzen.'
Of my own knowledge I cannot say ; but I asked my book
seUer and he thought there wasn't anything, except some
humorous writing done in the last years, in the Dresden-
Saxon dialect, under the title of Adventures of Bliemchen.
There are several of these stories. He showed me the
newest one, and I ordered it to be sent to you. But it 's a
mistake to fancy that Dresden has lost its original quaUty, —
if it ever had any, which I doubt, — through being overrun
by foreigners, Uke Boston. Boston is overrun in a different
way : by a foreign labourmg class ; and moreover Boston
people have changed imder the influx of wealth and in
crease of luxury ; a new spirit has developed itself ; society
itself has changed ; but Paddy alone did not cause the
change. Dresden has, say, 250,000 inhabitants ; there
were never more than 5000 foreigners in the place ; and
these foreigners Uve almost exclusively to themselves, in
boarding-houses, flats and hotels ; they have no influence
and never had any influence upon Dresden society ; and
what is more there isn't much Dresden society. There
has never been any rich aristocracy in Dresden, — at any
rate, not for two hundred years ; and it is rich aristocracies
that fashion society and dominate Ufe. I say that Paddy
did not cause the change in Boston ; yet he has helped to
cause it through his children, who are reaUy foreigners.
It is a change of population that is going on in Boston and
in parts of New England : notably in Massachusetts. If
you should travel about in the heart of our Commonwealth,
you would find more than half of the labouring people to
be Poles, or Hungarians ; the rest Irish ; the American is
not there. Maine has probably less foreign population
than any other New England State ; but in Massachusetts
and Connecticut Paddy is everywhere. And in my opinion

82 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
in the long run. New England wUl dwindle into the insigni
ficance to which it is condemned by its climate and its soU.
The Seat of Empke in the New World wiU be the Great
Mexican Plateau ; at any rate did not Carl Ritter affirm,
after a Ufetime spent in researches into the relation of cUmate
and soU, that the Mexican Plateau was best fitted of aU the
countries of earth to produce the Flower of the Human
Race?

Dresden, 20 December, 1888.
My dear H., — I am quite of your mind about tragedy.
I do not like to be deeply stirred by pictures of human
misery ; and I do not see the good of it. Thought, however
profound, attracts one; disciplines, enlarges and instructs
one inteUectuaUy ; but a concrete representation, so to
speak, of the working of human passions in the wrong
direction, — of what good is it ? And besides, we have enough
of this kind of thing in murder trials and so on. What did
a poet ever invent more pathetic and stirring than a first-
class murder trial ? or than the description, to be supple
mented by the imagination, of the late awful murders in
Whitechapel in London for instance ? Yes, I do not care
for Tragedies : nor even to read Plays. I Uke to see Plays
acted, — though owing to various causes I have not been
inside of a Theatre for now several years. And now I am
sending you something I picked up the other day entitled
Kaiser und Galilaer. It was highly recommended to me,
but I did not know that it was a Play ; or I shouldn't have
bought it. The title was attractive, and I looked for some
kind of semi-phUosophical-reUgious romance. It is a trans
lation from the Norwegian of Henrik Ibsen, and I beUeve
has been much applauded ; but the print is too fine to be
comfortable for me. Besides, a Play to be enjoyed, — if
not acted, — must at least be read aloud. It is very tire
some to read a Play to oneself ; at least it is for me, — who
am a weak vessel. Nevertheless I shaU presently send you
more Bliemchens. How many can you digest a month ?
There seems to be no end to Bliemchens ; people cry for

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 83
more, and there they are ; I think at least six BUemchens
are lying on my table ready to be shot across the Water.
And did you ever notice the kind of paper in which I wrap
them ? — Japanese paper, — almost untearable. The Jap is
a paper-making animal, and makes very durable paper ;
or did make it durable untU he learned of Europeans how
to cheapen the quaUty and increase the price.
WeU, we have been having reaUy marveUous weather
for the place and the season : now for a long time : not a
snowflake : dry, frisch, sunny weather : but the days are
very short and I don't beUeve I get as much exercise as I
ought to have, though to be sure I take an early morning
walk. It is pitch dark at seven o'clock in the morning and
the servant Ughts me down two flights of stone stairs with
a duplex burner. I take a before-breakfast walk ; and
another walk in the afternoon ; but we do not get out untU
after three o'clock, and it is nearly dark again at four ; so
that I am reaUy sighing for longer days ; it is a kind of
ewige Nacht. I have begun to read John Ward, Preacher.
We were told that the book was making a sensation in
America. But the only interesting thing about it to me is
that it shows what an awful theology must stiU prevaU in
the country, or over a large part of the country, to make it
worth whUe to present a counterpart to it in a novel. I say
interesting thing ; I ought to say, melancholy thing ; for
it is reaUy prodigious what stuff human beings can be
brought to think they beUeve. And now don't forget to
read carefuUy Quincy's Peckster Professorship and teU me
what kind of reception the book is having. I am extremely
curious to know, — as a sort of gauge of pubhc interest in
the subject. For my part, I reaUy don't know what to
make of it, though m a general way I do reaUy beUeve in the
existence of occult material forces, the nature of which has
not yet been explored : though whether a soul can be photo
graphed as it emerges from the body of a dying person ! !
Nevertheless, the author beUeves in HeU, for he puts Peckster
there squarely ; but this after aU, is a kind of Buddhism, —
though Buddhism gives the wicked soul a chance.

84 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Munich, 9 June, 1889.
My dear H., — You must not reproach me because I
don't send you criticisms on German style ; it is not worth
criticizing ; it has no laws and no standard ; every German
writer is a law and standard to himself ; for German style
is not Fine Art. AU that interests one in German Uterature
are thoughts, information, or, — as in poetry and novels,
sketches of peasant Ufe and the Uke, — the expression of a
deep and touching Gemilth ; yet not the form of the expres
sion ; rather, the sweetness and beauty of the Gemilth
itseU. German taste is bad in everything. We have fine
art in Literature ; the Germans haven't. They don't look
to form ; they look only to substance ; hence they have no
Literature, but only Histories of Literature. We have
substance also, but, besides, we have form.
I was extremely interested in the newspaper cuttings
about Japan : — everything about Japan interests me,
though it seems to me that in hardly anything I read do I
find things set forth as they seemed to me reaUy to be. If
I had never seen Japan, I am sure that the general impres
sion I should form from what I read in American news
papers and magazines about the country would be an alto
gether erroneous impression. Japan is a fearfuUy poor
country ; aU this inteUectual activity and what not of which
one reads is confined to a very smaU class. As for reUgion,
I don't beUeve that the masses of the people care for any
reUgion. They are a playful, sUppery lot, the Japs. They
wUl get aU the education they can from missionaries at the
expense of other countries ; and are very glad to get it ;
and are amused to get it for nothing, when, — in spite of the
general poverty of the country, — they could in almost
aU instances pay for this education as weU as the people at
home who give the funds can afford to pay for it. StUl,
after aU is said, it is a wonderful experiment that is making
in Japan ; and from a phUosophical point of view, intensely
interesting ; and I never faU to read with pleasure whatever
I may come across written about the country, if only for the
recoUection it awakens of the balmy Summer days we spent
in the green isles of Nippon. Yes, I fancy I must be very

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 85
much Uke your friend S. I think the Americanism of our
boyhood was a far superior thing to the Americanism of
our mature age. I think the people have retrograded in aU
that made the vigour and charm of our Early Days. Old
Boston has ceased to exist ; it is dead and buried ; spiritu-
aUy as weU as corporeaUy so to speak ; every time I go
back to Boston, it seems to me as if haK of me were in the
grave of the past and the other half projected into a turbid
future. People talk differently from what they did ; ideals
have disappeared ; a vast howUng Irishy mass has taken
the place of the serene gentlefolk whom in our days we met
in the streets ; aU sweetness and serenity have disappeared
from our ways ; you hardly ever see a green tree or a
fiower ; acres of brick ; and a sodden mob. Yes I am
' pessimist, cynic, grumbler, kicker and scold,' — especiaUy
kicker, — I kick at our present Americanism ; I think it is
the meanest product of the nineteenth Century ; go to
PhUadelphia, Cincinnati and the cities and towns of the
West : and you wiU perceive what I mean by our present
Americanism. InB  you do not perceive it ; B  Uves
in the past. What the outcome is to be, Heaven only
knows ; if I were to hazard a prediction, I should say that
no nation has ever had so rapid a rise or wUl have so sudden
a faU as ours. I do not beUeve that this vast disintegrated
howling mass can be kept together. What with poUticians
and monopoUes, the country wiU be wrecked ; agrarianism
wUl come to the fore ; for there is no country in which the
strong prey on the weak as with us, and Disorder must
sooner or later overwhelm us. We shaU soon be once more
on the verge of a paper currency : which means the wiping
out of almost aU indebtedness aU over the country. In
democracies there wUl always come periods when the
Debtor Class gets the upper hand. And by the way you
need take no notice of my ' cynicism,' ' pessimism ' and so
on ; it is bom in me ; and no amount of talk could ever
work it out of me. It is however merely a kind of philo
sophical pessimism. PracticaUy I am a sanguine sort of
person ; I hope always for the best ; even that something
good may some day come out of Paddy ; also that I shaU

86 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
never have to pay more than seven doUars for a pound
sterling. WeU, we had a joUy time in Carlsbad : deUcious
weather : deUcious walks : deUcious air : deUcious coffee :
and so on. Three weeks in Carlsbad : and then we went to
Nuremberg for four days, and ' did ' the place : no longer
intensely mediaeval : waUs pretty much gone : many new
houses : towers stUl standing : stuffy, stinky place in hot
weather. Here in Munich are many changes, — improve
ments so-caUed ; for my part I prefer the old time when the
Pinakotheks stood far away amidst fertile fields, — ^but then
you know I am ' a Kicker.'

H6tel Paoli, Lung' Arno della Zeooa Vbcohia,
Florence, Sunday, 20 October, 1889.
My dear H., — It is always a great pleasure to me to send
you anything that might interest you ; but here in Italy
I fancy nothing of the sort wUl come up. There is nothing
that interests me now in ItaUan Uterature ; it is too trouble
some to read the language. In former years I did read the
language somewhat and went through a good many of the
classics ; but now the language is a burden, or I am too
lazy to take the trouble of using a dictionary. I have no
doubt, however, that a good many books and pamphlets
are pubUshed in these days in Italy, which at a former
period in my Ufe would have been of keen interest to me.
But I am getting on in years ; and I think as a rule that
under the pressure of that feeUng one's interests get dis
integrated ; ties are loosened ; the hopelessness of earthly
things overcomes one ; and the days gUde serenely without
much to fiU them up except the contemplation of what is
beautiful in art and nature, subjective enjoyments as it
were of various kinds : which I must say, although appar
ently seffish, are nevertheless whoUy filling. When I come
to analyze my own disposition, however, and subject my
mind to a rigid scrutiny, I must confess that I find my
interest in mankind, objectively speaking, was never very
strong ; and hence it is logical and natural that as the years
descend and weigh upon me, I should undergo a shrinking

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 87
process, and contract within very narrow Umits. From a
large ethical point of view I beUeve this to be whoUy wrong ;
I believe that no one has a right to Uve for himself alone ;
that our faculties and our Uves belong to others as much as
others' faculties and Uves belong to us. But nevertheless
the world does drop away from me, and I can't help it. I
weep over my own degeneracy, but with an ebbing vitaUty,
the wUl also grows weaker, untU it becomes paralyzed ; and
we cease to think even of what one ought to be making of
one's self ; the oughts vanish out of the consciousness ;
and there remains only a dim outline of the beauty of earth
as it Ues behind the dirty veU of men's passions and sufferings
and greed, — ^the Earth as it might be, the fulfilment of the
task set to mankind. But I am not going to intrude upon
your province and write a sermon. Let me rather keep to
the futUities where I belong.
But first I must disagree with you upon one important
point. Yes I do not ' take in ' a newspaper ; that is, just
now ; but sometimes (not often) I do take a piU. ' There is
an instance in which we Americans drop a preposition where
our EngUsh cousins do not,' and our EngUsh cousins are
right ; because — ^perhaps, but this I wUl not assert — their
instinctive appreciation of the spirit of the EngUsh language
is deeper than ours. Do we not endeavour to reduce the
language to a monotonous level ; to aboUsh niceties of
expression, shades of meaning, to cast off deUcate touches ?
Now is not the language enriched by the use of the preposi
tion ' in ' ? ' Take in a newspaper ' : otherwise, don't you
' take a newspaper ' as you ' take a pUl ' ? And by the way,
there sits opposite to us at the table d'hdte a bright EngUsh
girl. The wife does the talking with her. I am monopo-
Uzed, to my disgust, by the old walrus of a father, a retired
General, thirty years in India and that kind of thing, aged
seventy : hardly a grey hair in his head : eyes of a tiger :
head, perfect type of a walrus. I can hardly hear a word
he says. In fact I do not hear as weU as I did ; within a
year there has been a noticeable faUing off ; the wife says
it is wax in the ear, but I say it 's wane. However the point
of aU this is to report that the English girl says they have

88 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
borrowed the expression ' quite nice ' from the Americans :
' quite nice ' being aU the fashion now in England. The
wife told her they would be saying ' I guess ' next ; bright
EngUsh girl laughed a bewitching laugh ; dear me, and what
a set of white, superb and altogether cannibaUstic teeth
she did show ! bom in India too, where even the EngUsh
animal loses something of its omnivorousness.
WeU, and now we are leaving Florence. We have been
here three weeks, and have had perhaps three clear days,
of the azure sky and altogether deUcious ItaUan sort. For
the rest, rainy, cloudy, fitful ; yet aU the time the air is soft
and sweet. It is pecuUar this air of Italy : deUcious odour
in it when I open my great windows of a morning : and in
spite of the rain I get what I came for, climate : elsewhere,
in the North I mean, one has only weather.

H6tel Eoyal, Via Venti Settembrb, Eome,
Wednesday, 4 December, 1889.
My dear H., — I first came to Rome in the early part of
January, 1860. There was no raUway from Florence to
Rome. I came in a steamer from Leghorn to Civita Vecchia,
and up to Rome by raU. The place was very smaU in those
days. I forget the population then ; but I fancy it could
hardly have reached 100,000. It is now over 400,000.
There was hardly a sidewalk here then, so far as I can re
member. The streets were insecure at night, and I never
went out of the house after dark, except in company, and
then with fear and trembling. The place was fuU of priests
and beggars : constant processions and what not : Cardinals
in great equipages ; and purple and red Uveries. Pius ix.
was on the Papal Throne, and the mould and damp of ages
seemed almost to suffocate what Uttle Ufe was left in the
people. The money was different then too. The scudo
(about one doUar in our currency) and baiocchi for cents ;
and we were bothered about visas on our passports, and
costly visas too : visa to enter Rome, visa to leave it, and so
on. How aU this is changed, to be sure ! The quarter in
which I am now Uving did not exist at aU then : whoUy

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 89
new. The great Boulevard of the Via Nazionale did not
exist. There was not an omnibus, not a tram in the place.
The ancient ruins indeed remain ; the great mediaeval
palaces were as we see them to-day ; but there was hardly
anything else, except dirt ; and the greater part of the
lowest class of inhabitants, — incredible to relate, but
nevertheless whoUy true, I remember it only too weU, used
the streets to make their toUets, so to speak, and not to put
too fine a point on it. Now the Tiber is embanked : stu
pendous work : great sewers have been constructed. The
Ghetto, where the Jews were huddled together for centuries,
is demoUshed, and a broad avenue is constructing through
it ; new bridges over the Tiber. The tortuous, narrow
street which we used to traverse on our way to the Ponte
St. Angelo and the Vatican has been widened by the de
struction of aU the houses on the right hand side, leaving
that side open to the river. Streets have been cut through
dirty, dark and sodden masses of buUdings ; Ught has been
let in everywhere. In short the city has been nearly trans
formed ; and it wUl not be long before it is whoUy trans
formed. I fancy no city was ever made over anew m so
short a space of time ; but the cost has been terrible, and
Rome is for the moment bankrupt. To use our American
lingo, ' They bit off more 'n they could chew.' There was a
tremendous ' boom in real estate ' : ' banner prices ' : — and
now of course the inevitable crash is on, and everywhere one
sees vast pUes of buUdings in every stage of incompleteness,
standing dreary amidst empty scaffoldmgs, waiting for the
fiush times that shaU see them completed : new ruins among
the old. The growth of cities both in America and in Europe
is a phenomenon of modem times. You can have no idea
how much Munich, for instance, has grown since you left
it ; new quarters have arisen everywhere. I do not know
how this may be in France ; the population in France does
not increase much, if at aU ; but Germany, England and the
United States are growing countries ; Germany has from
ten to fifteen miUions more inhabitants than when I first
knew it. What the upshot of aU this growth is to be, only
the prophets and Mr. BeUamy can teU.

90 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Perhaps you have read Looking Backward ; its optimism
is indeed exquisite : ingenious fancies : but fearfuUy tire
some. I could hardly get through it. Yet in view of the
rapidity with which modem society is passing through new
and ever changing conditions, economical, poUtical and
social, nothing seems too incredible to happen nowadays.
If one could only go to sleep and wake up in one hundred
and thirteen years, after aU the fuss is over, how very
diverting might be the scene ; for serenity is gone now out
of Ufe ; the modem world imder its new conditions of
physical existence is a seething cauldron, and nobody can
tell what wiU some day spurt out of it : — after us, the
volcano.

H6tel Eoyal, Via Venti Settembrb, Eome,
Monday, 30 December, 1889.
My dear H., — Our weather continued brUUant, — what
azure skies, what tonic air ! — ^up to Christmas ; but on that
day the scirocco set in, and it has been warm and rainy
ever since : also gloomy : and gloomy skies in this riant
cUmate are particularly depressing. Our sight-seeing came
to an abrupt ending, and also our walks ; for the Roman
rain seems to be pecuUarly wetting. But one must always
be on one's guard in this treacherous cUmate against taking
cold, and hence I have stayed so much in the house in the last
days that I feel as if I were suffocating. This must stop ;
and I must get out. This morning however I am aU alone.
The wife received a ticket of admission to a grand Papal
Ceremony in the Sala Regia in the Vatican, which is to come
off at ten o'clock : — ^being nothing less — or to speak correctly
nothing more — ^than the creation of three Cardinals. It is
not easy to obtain a ticket for this show ; but one was
kindly presented to her by the Uttle Spanish-American
wreck, — Envoy to the Pope from Columbia, — who graces
the head of our table, and spits on the carpeted fioor be
tween the courses. Fortunately the ticket admitted but
one person only, and hence I was reUeved.
Your discovery of that sweet word ' oscitancy ' came to

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 91
hand altogether apropos ; I had just been in St. Peter's,
where I had been contemplating a long line of worshippers
passing in front of the bronze statue of St. Peter, and
kissing the toe of it as they passed : an oscitant ceremony
as one might say. And speaking of ceremonies I am often
reminded of the resemblance between Roman CathoUcs
and Buddhist Ceremonies : this very oscitant ceremony
for instance :¦ — what is it but Buddh-ism, — or as the word
is sometimes written Boot-ism !
As I may have mentioned, not much seems to be made
of Christmas in these parts. I say ' seems,' because I reaUy
know nothing about the private Ufe of ItaUans. I judge
merely from the meagre show in the shop windows and the
paucity of things which in other countries remind one of
the day ; no evergreens, or greens of any kind visible : no
Christmas trees for sale in the market-places and so on.
The only thing that I noticed were numbers of women and
men of the poorer classes carrying home chickens and
roosters on the afternoon before Christmas Day ; not dead
and plucked fowl as with us, but fowl aU aUve with their
feathers on, — sometimes half a dozen together, with their
legs tied in a bunch and heads hanging downwards. They
are very cruel to animals, these people ; but they seem to
have no consciousness whatever of the cruelty they are
practising. I do not know however whether even m New
England towns Christmas is kept after the manner of the
Fatherland with festoons of evergreen ' aU over the place,'
and green Christmas trees, Ughted with candles and laden
with gifts. When I was a boy there was nothing of the kind
in Boston, — in our household at any rate. We simply
hung up our stockings outside of the door of our chambers
when we went to bed on Christmas Eve ; and dreamed aU
night of gifts. ' Episcopals,' however, I remember, used to
hang green wreaths in their windows ; and this is aU I
can remember of Christmas in those far-off days of boy
hood. And speaking of boyhood reminds me of age. Have
you observed of late what a critical age is fifty-eight to sixty ?
I have been struck by the number of deaths among class
mates and among others whom I know either by name or

92 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
personaUy, at about this age. I fancy that if one passes
fifty-nine safely, one may have a chance for seventy. Yet
what matter a few years more or less ? There is my Father's
class at Harvard, — aU dead and buried : — ^what matter
whether one died at thirty-five Uke my Father, or at eighty-
five Uke his classmate Palfrey : — what is a handful of years
to the eternities into which now they have aU passed ! —
This is not a quotation however from ' Old Mortality ' :
but it comes to the same thing.

H6tel Eoyal, Via Venti Settembrb, Eome,
Wednesday, 19 February, 1890,
My dear H., — Yes, what you say about change of air
and scene is quite true, as a rule ; but nevertheless a change
in Italy in the Winter is often dangerous, unless one can
be sure beforehand of a warm house and sunny rooms.
This house is exceptionaUy warm, for as a rule, the hotels,
especiaUy further South, have no caloriferes ; the corridors
are bitterly cold ; and one might as weU go into one's tomb
at once and be done with it, as to change from warm sunny
rooms to rooms which have no sun. There is nothing so
dreadful as the icy chill of a North room in Italy in the
Winter. The Italians are like the Japanese ; they worry through
the winter without any fire, they warm their poor frozen
fingers over brasiers of charcoal embers, and when they
feel reaUy cold they go and sit in their kitchens. Some
ladies went from here, for the sake of cheap Uving, to a
Pension in Siena. Siena Ues high and is much colder than
Rome, but there was not even a fire-place in any of the
rooms ; and I suppose in Siena the temperature would not
be above 45° to 50° in any room ; and even five francs
per day, the Pension price there, strikes me as dear for this
kind of thing.
WeU, the Carnival closed last night, — what there was
of it ; for the Carnival is dead, though not entirely buried.
The Govemment is doing aU it can to undermine it ; for
with the tremendous increase of population in Rome in the

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 93
last years, and especiaUy of the turbulent classes, it was
found impossible to control the frenzied outbreaks to which
the Carnival sometimes leads. Under the Popes it was
different ; the Popes were despotic ; and the Papal cara-
binieri slashed the crowds right and left upon occasion.
The present Govemment dares not do this sort of thing, and
hence there remained no alternative except to suppress the
Carnival altogether, and this they have already pretty weU
succeeded in doing ; and now aU the stirring and pictur
esque descriptions with which m former years traveUers
used to bore their friends, and the pubUc, of this grand old
Roman Saturnalia are mere Ancient History.
I hear of the death of my good old friend, George Brad
ford, — at Cambridge, cetatis suae eighty -three : — sweet con
genial spirit, though perhaps at times a trifle gossipy. I
met him in Rome, precisely in these months, now sixteen
years ago. We were much together, and I enjoyed his
conversation ; many a stroU have we taken together. He
was an Emersonian spirit : aU sweetness and gentleness,
yet not without a deUcious shrewdness and humour. He
had the disposition and the faculty in quite genuine way of
what the EngUsh caU an Idle Man, and I took him to my
heart ; he is gone now and I must confess I felt a touch
of genuine sadness when I heard the news of his death,
although now for a good many years I have never seen him.
Yet he Uved to a good age, and imbibed aU the sweetness that
the sunUght of earth and its flowers and friends and books
could give him. And after aU, we can't Uve for ever : —
his departure was easy : and to borrow a German phrase,
may the earth rest Ughtly on him. I forget whether you
knew him. Emerson says kind things of him, I beUeve, in
his letters ; and Hawthome mentions him ' with com
mendation.' When I made his acquaintance he was sixty-
seven years old, lithe and brisk ; his activities were aU
over, whatever they may have been in earUer Ufe, for I
believe he was at one time a worker ; but in Rome we were
two Idle Men together, and drank in the beauty of it as
befits the truly Idle Man. I don't indeed Uke the term
' Idle Man,' and I feel sure that it wiU evoke your severest

94 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
reprehension ; yet in the sense in which I mean it, the term
is not so bad ; it means simply a man freed from the neces
sities imposed by outward obUgations, and given the oppor
tunity to view life and enjoy it from the contemplative side,
without reference to the money value of his existence to
himself or others.
WeU, we have come now upon deUcious weather : ex
quisitely blue skies : transparent air, warm and springUke :
fresh with the perfume of budding grass and bush. I used
to say that our skies were as blue as the ItaUan skies, but I
think I must eat my words. There is a pecuUar intensity
of colouring to the ItaUan sky : a pecuUar dazzle of Ught,
which we hardly ever see : and then the deUcious quality
of the air, this freshness and softness : — weU, we haven't
got it : at any rate, in Boston : and I don't suppose we
want it.
Yes, I spoke of a notice of Fitzgerald's Life and Letters,
not of a new Edition of his works. His Letters were spoken
of as extremely interesting, and I caUed your attention to
them, for we are nothing if not Men of Letters. His
Agamemnon I never read : and never want to read it.
I am too weak a vessel for that kind of thing.
Hotel Eoyai, Via Venti Settembrb, Eome,
Tuesday, 18 March, 1890.
My dear H., — We are stUl in Rome, and the weather is
now continuously bad : cloudy, gloomy, rainy, windy : the
air however is deUciously soft, and we have got rid of aU
our Uttle troubles. My cough has disappeared and I have
come back to my normal catarrh, and we are only waiting
for the season to advance a Uttle, so that we may tum our
faces Northward, to the greening Fatherland.
But did I teU you that we had an earthquake here some
time ago ? did you ever experience an Earthquake 1 I
never did but once untU I went to Japan ; and there we had
frequent earthquakes. This Roman shake was a rattler.
I had gone to bed, but the wife was stUl up in her room :
11.15 o'clock at night precisely : everything shook, aU over

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 95
the place, as the EngUsh say : and — I turned over and went
to sleep.
Having used up our German books we have taken to
ItaUan recently. I fancied that I could read the language
tolerably weU : but I find I can't. I am constantly coming
upon masses of words of which I am ignorant. We are
reading together Cuore by De Amicis. It is a book for
chUdren, — the experiences of a Uttle school-boy ; but it is
extremely touching, — exquisite simpUcity of diction and of
thought : quite equal to anything of the kind in German.
I read two ItaUan newspapers every morning, and read them
rather easUy, because the meaning of words can be guessed
in ItaUan more easUy than in any language I know. They
almost aU seU for one soldo (one cent), and are hawked about
the streets by shrieking newsboys, quite as with us. What
would they think of one of these shrieking newsboys in the
streets of Munich ? The Germans never buy newspapers
as you know ; or hardly ever. But the ItaUans and the
French are very prodigal of their money upon this kind of
Literature. Rome is now swarming with tourists, especiaUy with
American Tourists. It is amazing, — the number of Ameri
cans that manage to get here, and stiU more amazing the
way in which many of them Uve here : — ^private salons :
meals served in their apartments : equipages and so on.
We feel altogether Uke paupers having neither a private
Salon nor an equipage. I suppose the Americans are now
the greatest money-spending race on earth ; and yet money
seems to me nowhere so precarious as in America. But
Italy strikes me as in a poor way. The cost of the army
and navy is stupendous and the taxes are fearful,^ — -thirty-
five per cent, of the rental value of houses : and thirteen
per cent. Income tax. I reaUy do not see how the country
can escape bankruptcy. Heavy octroi duties on aU edibles
that enter Rome : and a crashing duty on salt, — to say
nothing of the tobacco monopoly, and the horridest tobacco :
and everywhere you go in Rome masses of unfinished buUd
ings, — scaffoldings stUl standing, — new rains among old
ruins. It is a heavy price Italy is paying for Unity : — forced

96 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
mUitary service for aU, and hundreds of thousands of ItaUans
escaping to the United States and the Spanish RepubUcs
of South America.

H6tbl Eoyal, Via Venti Settembrb, Eome,
Monday, 7 April, 1890.
My dear H., — ^WeU, though I don't care much about
Birthdays and wish I could get on without having any
more, — yet I am not sorry that you reminded our friend W.
of my last Birthday ; for have I not received from him
lately a most deUghtful letter. He was once in Rome, and
has been immersed ever smce in recoUections of it : — so
.much so that he speUs homesick, Romesick ! It is an ideal
world now to him ; and I suppose it is good for everyone
to possess an ideal world. I hope however that the mis
fortune wUl never come to him to spend six months in Rome
and get his ideal upset and turned out of his head. To lose
the ideal is to lose something very real indeed ; and outside
of certain art enjoyments, Rome is altogether a beggarly
place, — and always was : — a poor thin country Italy.
To be sure, the Church has always shown cleverness in
keeping its foot on the neck of mankind, so to speak ; and
in the Renaissance period the ItaUans did many grand
things in Art and Commerce, in the buUding of beautiful
cities, and so on. Also the men of Piedmont, — a hardy
race, — have done cleverly in bringing Italy under one Head ;
but they are carrying on ridiculously now : squandering
miUions upon a useless army and a stUl more useless navy,
and desolating the country with a taxation altogether
unparaUeled. There is a misery beyond words in aU these
ItaUan cities, — especiaUy in Rome. In fact, the situation
is extremely turbid. What the outcome wUl be, the next
years wiU show. The ItaUan newspapers by the way,
exhibit Ul-concealed worriment over the dismissal of Bis
marck. It is prodigious, — the influence of a personaUty
Uke that. WhUe Bismarrfj was in power, the peoples of
Europe rested tranquil ; now that he is dismissed, there is
a gloomy uncertainty in aU men's minds. Italy is quivering

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 97
from the Alps to the Sea, as if conscious that something
awful may occur at any moment. And I must say it does
seem ' rubbing it in,' as it were, that one pesky Uttle pig
headed creature in Berlin should hold in his hands the Uves
and fortunes of the countless miUions of Europe.
But stiU the skies are blue, — intensely blue, — the air is
soft, and perfumed with the blossoms of Sprmg ; nature
is riant, and the world is young ; and stUl the Pincian HUl
blooms with the fairest, if palest flowers that vigorous young
America can throw at the feet of the worn-out aristocracy
of Rome, — only too happy to have them picked up by its
putrid hands.

Paoli's Hotel, 12 Lung' Arno della Zecca Vecchia,
Florence, Sunday, 27 April, 1890.
My dear H., — We are now m Florence— settled for a
fortnight — and it is a good deal in these days to be settled
even for a fortnight. We left Rome on Wednesday, AprU 16
at 10:20 o'clock in the morning : and changing trams at
FoUgno, reached Perugia at 4:10 o'clock in the afternoon.
We were, after aU, rather sorry at the last to leave Rome,
painfiUly diversffied as had been our long Winter there. But
everything comes to an end at last ; even Rome, ironicaUy
nicknamed the Eternal City. WeU, we sat for a week in
Perugia ; but I must confess I am not precisely suited for a
place like Perugia ; the ache of those awful steeps is stUl in
my poor legs. In fact I did not enjoy the place, except when
I sat on its grand summit and surveyed the vast landscape.
Of course there are many sights in Perugia ; but I must
confess that sights, — ^pictures, churches and that kind of
thing, — rather bore me now ; yet stiU I did them. I couldn't
have gone away without sacrificing a fifty centime piece to
Vanucci's (surnamed Perugino) famous frescoes in the Uttle
Commerce Chamber close to the hotel, especiaUy as Perugino
was Raphael's Master and the frescoes were on the ground
floor. And also I did lots of other things, — most of which
I have already forgotten,^ — -to say nothing of the Etruscan
Museum, and the fearful flood of waters in which we were
G

98 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
enveloped upon leaving it : this I shaU never forget. No
cabs in Perugia ; even horses can't stand the hUls, — or steep
aUeys rather.
However, I remember one church, that of S. Pietro, to
which we descended one lowering cold afternoon. It is
situated on a spur of hUl ; the whole place wanders over
spurs of hiUs. Our hotel was on a plateau, one or two
hundred feet below the highest cluster of aUey-wedged
houses, and the spurs ran away from this plateau in various
confusing directions. The church of S. Pietro was buUt in
the year 1000 : externaUy, Uke aU the churches in Perugia,
very shabby : but the interior is very beautiful and wholly
finished, — the only thing that ever got whoUy finished I
fancy, in the place : exquisite wood-carvings in the choir :
pictures on the waUs : and ceUing of the great roof beauti
fuUy paneUed. We were shown the church by a gossipy
Uttle priest. He chattered Uke a swaUow, and his breath
was as a blast from a sepulchre ; but he was most friendly
and simple and we took to him. He carried us to the rear
of the church (it is buUt on the extreme edge of one of the
Perugian spurs) and opening a double-door, with panels of
inlaid woodwork, — intarsiata work, for which Perugia was
once, nay stUl is, celebrated, — he stepped out upon a Uttle
balcony, holding the doors for us remaining inside, so that
we might get fuU Ught upon the inlaid woodwork : most
exquisite. I never saw anything of the kind so beautiful : —
representing on one door the carrying of Moses to Pharaoh's
daughter, on the other. The Annunciation. And after we
had enjoyed this altogether deUcious art, we stepped out
upon the balcony : the grandest view of its kind I ever saw,
though much of it was concealed by heavy clouds. ' When
the clouds Uft, you can see four cities,' said the sweet Uttle
priest, — ' Assisi,' and so on (I cannot remember the names)
— ' and there beyond is stUl another city, — the only city
where aU men are equal,' — he said with a sigh ; and pointed
— to a cemetery. There is a singular beauty and weirdness
in the situation of Perugia : a rocky eyrie as it were : from
a Uttle terrace, at the very top, you can even see the Adriatic,
on a clear day of course : a vast and beautiful panorama.

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 99
The hotel is a new one, six years old, buUt by an Italian
of Perugia, formerly a courier ; and his wife is EngUsh, —
formerly a lady's maid. It is buUt in quadrangular form
around a court, and this court is enclosed in glass and the
square large area serves for a smoking room ; and aU the
ladies gather there after dinner. In the middle of this room
is a veritable Yankee smaU-town-grocery-store stove, with
a funnel at the side, canying the smoke and gas down below.
There was a glowing fire in this stove aU the time we were
there. What a fraud indeed is the so-caUed ' beautiful
ItaUan Spring ' ! We had m aU about two clear fine days in
Perugia : aU the rest, wet and gloom. On the afternoon
however on which we left for Florence, the sun came out
for once hot. I reaUy thawed out for the first time for six
months. Florence is UteraUy jammed with strangers : and . . .
our rooms are fearful. I am Uving in a state of chronic
irritation. The first day we were here and the morning of
the second day were hot : since then, cloudiness and cold
and damp : aU the charms indeed possible for the beautiful
ItaUan Springtime to possess.

Paoli's Hotel, 12 Lung' Arno della Zecca Vecchia,
Florence, Wednesday, 14 May, 1890.
My dear H., — Apropos of Afternoon Tea, if you drop
tea altogether you wUl have no stimulus at aU, as you do
not drink coffee and have abjured tobacco, and take no
wine or spirits. Now I do not beUeve it is wise to attempt
to run the bodUy machinery on mUk, or water, alone. I
may be wrong, but I do not beUeve I am wrong. Look
about you. Have you ever found a person, man or woman,
who attained a great age, upon mUk, or water, alone ? one
who did not use tea, coffee, wine, spirits, or tobacco ?
absolutely nothing whatever of a stimulating kind ? Hence
the experience of old persons ought to prove to you the
faUacy of your notion about narcotics. In my opinion, it is
precisely a certain degree of narcotics that the nerves need ;
what that degree should be, one must judge for oneseU. The

100 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
tendency of your nature is to asceticism ; and I do not
beUeve that asceticism is good for anyone, or that anyone
wUl Uve long under it. Be careful therefore about dropping
tea altogether ; take it only once a day if you wUl, but take
that, or something in the nature of a stimulus every day.
I dislike the word stimulus ; it does injustice to the nature
of the thing itself ; one might as weU caU food a stimulus.
The nerves need food, as much as the stomach, and they can
only get it by the use of some one of the things I have
mentioned, — the physiological effect of each and aU being
pretty nearly the same. And by the way, don't ride that
' antic ' horse. There is nothing I dread so much as horses ;
every day when I take up a newspaper I read of an accident,
often fatal, happenmg through horses. I am never happy
behind a horse, unless it be that I am in a tram, and then I
quiver. ' Antics ' are not for us ; walking is far more useful
exercise ; and yet you mustn't overdo walking. Moderation
in aU things, and avoidance of ' antics ' of every kind : — this
alone is the way, narrow if it must be, that leadeth unto the
Serene Life, and a grand Old Age. And then again, don't
bother with hydropathy,- — ^that is another fad, or antic ; no,
plain living and high thinking ; and a cup of tea for solace.
We are aU human, and we aU need cheering cups : — but no
pie at breakfast ! It was pie at breakfast that broke down
Emerson prematurely ; no human being, however weU, can
live long and keep his mind unclouded on pie at breakfast.
Emerson lost his mind, — or memory, at a much earUer
period than he would have been likely to lose it, owing to
the vicious habit of pie at breakfast. No, eat no pie at aU,
and drink no ice-water : and drink your tea without milk :
eat vegetables and meat : but drink no tea with meat : no,
never. Tea does not help to digest anything. Drink tea
in the morning, or evening, or both, with Ught food ; some
thing farinaceous perhaps.
Well, you write as if I had conveyed to you an impression
that I like middle names. No, I detest middle names'; but
if middle names must be, let them be inscribed in fuU on
tombstones, and written in fuU in aU historical documents :
— this only is the length of my fad. And apropos of names.

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 101
Christian names I mean, did it ever occm^ to you that none
are ever invented ? WeU, now consider the tremendous in
crease of popiUation in the civiUsed countries of Europe and
in America, as weU as in AustraUa and so on, in the last
hundred years, — to go no farther back ; and yet we can
hardly get back far enough to discover the period when
names were invented. The population in the Umted States
has increased in a hundred years, — say for instance merely
by way of Ulustration, — from three mUUons to sixty mUUons :
— in other words where there was one person a hundred
years ago, there are now twenty in the Umted States.
Of course in these one hundred years there has been great
immigration, and the immigrants have brought their names
with them. But there has also been an enormous natural
increase. A hundred years ago John Black needed no
middle name : — ^but for one Black a hundred years ago,
there are now twenty Blacks, and there are not Christian
names enough to go round. Wherever I go, I am pursued
by Warners : — and you see it makes a bother about letters.
There was a Henry S. Warner in our hotel in Rome ; and
ItaUans can't teU an ' S ' from a ' J,' nor for that matter,
can I sometimes. The other day I found on my table here
in Florence a bottle of Bourbon Whiskey, — fancy, directed
to Dr. H. H. Warner. And in Rome I used to get letters
addressed to General Willard Warner. So that if population
goes on increasing, — and there seems to be no way of
stopping it, — middle names wiU have to be written out in
full, because even a middle initial wiU not suffice, many
persons of the same name bearing the same middle initial.
And yet it wiU be a pretty serious business to remember
everybody's middle name.
I am writing these fatuous Unes in monkish seclusion, in
my den, — formerly cell in a monkery. I look out upon a
weU, — or rather might if I would ; and I feel as if I could
go on scribbling untU to-morrow morning, — because you
see when one has nothing to say it takes a long time to say
it. We have had a few very hot days ; then yesterday in
the morning a howling gale ; a bad month of May for
Florence, they say, — rainy and windy ; but the roses are

102 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
fragrant and the air is soft ; and the lUies of the vaUey, —
how they do perfume a room to be sure ! I shall carry their
catarrhal fragrance with me through the Summer.

Haus Konig Ottokar, Schlossplatz, Carlsbad,
Monday, 7 July, 1890.
My dear H., — The weather is so bad that it is impossible
to go on with the Luft Kur. We are driven into the house
every afternoon by downpours of rain ; there is no such
thing as sitting in the open : — the Luft Kur is a faUure.
But our four weeks of wet and discomfort wiU happUy come
to an end soon. I think, — thus far, — it is ' about ' the
worst summer I have experienced in Europe : or certainly
one of the worst : and come to think of it, it couldn't be
much worse. The cold and rawness are most trying : over
coats and umbreUas aU the time : and so on. You see in
cities one can get on fairly weU in bad weather ; in fact, in
cities one can take one's mind off the weather altogether ;
but not so here. Here one is altogether dependent upon the
weather, because the very object of coming here is to do
nothing except to drink water and keep in the open air.
And even in fine weather it is very hard work, — this Luft
Kur business : it is very hard work to break up aU one's
habits of indoor life.
Apropos of words. I was struck in reading Robert Elsmere
by the number of words used by the Avriter, which were
entirely new to me ; many of them are words I dare say in
common use in England. In fact, the EngUsh language as
used in England seems to me to be richer in old words, so
to speak, than is the language as we use it. We coin a good
many words ; we coin a good many phrases, in which the
words though famUiar have shades of meanings unfamUiar ;
hence the novelty and reUsh of the phrase. But hardly ever
in an American writer does one come across old words of
which he is ignorant. At any rate, almost all the strange
words which you have mentioned to me, have been found
by you in EngUsh and not in American writings. And
apropos, too of phrases. I was talking with a Presbyterian

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 103
minister here, — biUous beyond words. His last Parish was
in Detroit, and he said there were a good many New England
people in it : one famUy in particular from Massachusetts.
WeU, these people were always using the word ' visit ' in a
pecuUar way : they would say, for instance, — ' We have just
been calling on Mrs. Jones : and we visited and visited
and visited ' ; and he thought it very strange that I had
never heard the expression, it being common in New
England. No, I have not seen Lord Dufferin's book on India. He
is at present EngUsh Ambassador in Rome, and the Embassy
Palace was not far from our hotel, I passed it often, and
always with admiration of the sumptuous manner in which
England lodges her pubUc servants : a grand place with
grand garden. And Lord Dufierin is an extremely able
man. I suppose he is one of the few ablest men at this
present m the pubUc service of England. He was always
giving receptions at which people whom we knew in our
hotel were attending ; and everybody spoke weU of him.
Did you ever read his book of voyaging to Iceland ? If I
were a younger man I, too, would voyage to Iceland ; and
many a remote place else. There is to me a fascmation in
strange lands : always a new sensation as it were in looking
upon scenery and upon peoples far remote from anything
I ever knew. But alas ! the years have come, and I am too
far gone in decadence for anything but comfortable Uving ;
and even of that I don't get any too much. Locomotion of
any kind wearies me. But stUl I am dreaming of India for
next Winter. It 's my last chance now for this sort of thing :
for when a man of my avoirdupois is turned of sixty, — weU,
it 's time for him, as a faded butterfly of a beUe used to tell
me last Winter in Rome, — it 's time ' to simmer down and
take a back seat.'
Now what did Henry Drummond and Newman Smith
write about ? I make memoranda of EngUsh books re
commended to me ; and some day when voyaging is aU
over, and I come into port for the last time, and the SUver
BiU leaves me a margin for subsistence, — weU then, I shaU
pass my days in looking through these books : — for books

104 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
after aU are to me the best society, but I do not say that
they are the best society for everyone. In fact, I think
the number for whom books are the best society is ex
tremely smaU. It 's aU a matter of temperament, and social
gifts ; I never had any social gifts ; and my temperament
is altogether away from people, in the direction of stUlness,
and contemplation. I can quite understand hermits ;
though I freely admit that hermits have no ethical standing
in the universe ; and that a good dinner in good company
would stUl remain a source of pleasure to me if I could
get it.

Dresden, Tuesday, 14 October, 1890.
My dear H., — I do not like your use of the word ' do
mestic ' as a noun ; it is rarely that I Uke to have an adjective
used as a noun ; why don't you use the word servant and be
done with it ? There is such an institution in the world
as personal service ; the relation of master and servant
arises from the nature of things, and cannot be done away,
however much a false spirit of equaUty may seek to cover
it up with a gloss of words. This false spirit of equaUty
is carried to a ridiculous extent in New England ; though
I never knew the real extent of it untU some years ago
when I happened to be with the wife in a country town in
New Hampshire. There were two serving-maids in the
house. They had, both, been students at the Academy.
One was caUed Miss Duffy, the other was Miss Packard.
Now they had heard me caU the wife, ' Mary ' ; and one
day as I was standing at my window, I heard Miss Duffy
shriek to Miss Packard across the green in front of the house
(we occupied two rooms in a cottage opposite) : ' Miss
Packard ! — Mary wants her room done up ! ' Also there was
a serving-man on the place ; he was always caUed Jfr. Brown ;
and one day I heard the Duffy shrieking across the green, —
' Mr. Brown, that man in the cottage (meaning me) hain't
had his shoes blacked yet ! ' Now to my mind aU that is
false and bad ; it is democracy run riot. The relation of
master and servant is a wholesome relation ; the greater

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 105
part of mankind must always remain servants ; there must
always be hewers of wood and drawers of water, — untU the
coming of those last and better days promised to us by the
Prophet BeUamy. Mankind caimot get on without personal
service ; there is nothing degrading in it . . . and the
relation of master and servant, Uke aU relations springing
from the nature of things, is a wholesome, — nay, divine
relation. If this be old fogyism, aU I can say is that I am
an old fogy ; and that I think life is more agreeable in those
parts of the world where old fogyism holds society together
in salutary obedience to the law of aU devouring fact, so to
speak. WeU, I mustn't forget to say that I picked up another
' BUemchen ' the other day, — an altogether fresh BUemchen :
yea, even ' BUemchen bei Bismarck.' There must be,
after aU, a contmuing demand for BUemchens, strange as it
may seem ; and yet he can't hold a candle to Josh Billings.
Did you ever turn your attention to Josh BUlings ? He
was reaUy very witty and humorous. His speUing was
BUemchenisch ; and his truck brought him in a fortune
at last ; there is always money in truck.
Yes, as you say, there ought to be in every CoUege in
America a Professorship of Manners. At any rate in some
way should the duty of civiUty be inculcated in youth ;
and furthermore, should youth be taught what manners are.
And perhaps in time a kind of politeness wUl grow up some
how among us, and the rawness, the crudeness, of the ruck
of Americans wUl be meUowed : for you see there are sixty
mUUons of Americans, and they don't aU Uve in the old
Seats of CiUture in our Uttle New England. This is one of
the facts brought home to us in foreign parts.
I am looking forward now if nothmg breaks, to spending
winter after next m the City of Mexico ; I hope by that time
the place wUl be thoroughly drained and no longer malarious.
I dare say you can't understand the cravmg, but I am always
pining for a Southern climate ; I have always pined for it
since I was a boy, but circumstances have always been
pretty weU set against my getting it. I was never better,
and the earth never seemed brighter to me than it did

106 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
in the Winter I was in India. I beUeve Paradise was
originaUy ' located ' in that country ; and I confess I
am surprised now that I have been in the country that it
should have proved such a faUure.

Albergo Mtlano, Via Cbrretani, Florence,
Friday, 14 November, 1890.
My dear H., — We are stranded here in Florence. This
hotel is very far from the hotel we have usuaUy patronized,
being in the centre of the town, whereas we were formerly
at the extreme end of the Lung' Arno, opposite the wooded
height of San Miniato and looking out upon the bare brown
ish Apennines. There of course we had floods of Ught and
sunshine, but here in the town the streets are narrow and
gloomy, and though the great window of our Salon looks
' fuU South,' yet in the nature of things it can't catch much
sun. However, we are very comfortable here, tremendous
bedroom and Salon leading from it. We are up only one
flight, and up stUl another flight is the Dining-room : — very
curious arrangements in these old ItaUan houses. However
everything is sweet and clean, and the kitchen is exceUent.
The weather in Padua and Ravenna was very rainy and
gloomy : but here since yesterday we have had blue skies
and exhUarating sunshine, and the air is very mUd, — alto
gether deUcious ; and we do not need fire in the least, but
at night after dinner, at half-past eight, the wife makes a
blaze of tiny sticks of wood on the great hearth of the fire
place, merely for the cosiness of the thing.
In Padua last Sunday on an old house in the Via Tredici
Giugno I read this inscription :
Deese nobis terra
in qua vivamus
in qua moriamur
non potest
I can translate the lines easUy enough, but I do not grasp
the signfficance of them.
Florence has always seemed to me an extremely stationary
town as regards increase in population and increase in

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 107
buUding ; but I observe that in the old Ghetto part of the
town, — behind the Or San Michele Church, — there is a
tremendous demoUtion going on. A fine Piazza has already
been made there, and in the centre of it is the usual grand
Equestrian statue of Victor Emanuel, and aU round it
great buUdings are going up. This improvement wiU let
in much Ught into the somberest, gloomiest part of the town.
But I must confess I do not care much for Florence, — after
doing its architecture and art and so on. It rains here quite
half the time, and the streets of the old town are so narrow
and crowded that I always feel in imminent perU of getting
run over by dashing cabs and other vehicular annoyances.
And what a noisy folk too are the ItaUans ! Our friend,
the Sandy-whiskered Reviser of Murray's obsoleteism —
remarked that the ItaUans, and Latin peoples in general,
have no nerves, and are not in the least disturbed by street
cries and noises. He said an ItaUan could write a verse
calmly whUe a hand organ was performing at one elbow
and a Punch and Judy at the other. This struck me as
supremely true. The NeapoUtans, for instance, are always
making horrible noises ; they are mere devUs, said the
Sandy-whiskered. I thmk this hardness of the nerves must
come from their being so much in the open air, — or rather,
from their never Uving in heated air, — as we Uve ; for an
ItaUan never has a fire. He wUl warm his frozen fingers
over a brasier of charcoal ; but his body never gets any
warmth from the outside air : — hence his nerves remain
tough.

H6tel Bristol, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Naples,
Wednesday, 24 Deceraber, 1890.
My dear H., — You seem to put ' the grand climacteric '
at sixty ; but my impression is that sixty -three is the age
assigned to it. To be sure three years do not make much
difference ; but stUl at our time of Ufe one is grateful even
for a respite of three years. But there arises in most men,
I fancy, at some time in their Uves, a strong consciousness
of age. I remember this consciousness or feeling arose in

108 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
me at forty ; at that period I reaUy thought myself old,
reaUy advanced in Ufe, and as it were finished : nothing
more to be looked for except in a senUe and futUe way.
This consciousness however passes, or becomes numbed as
the years go by ; at least such was my experience ; and
now it seems to me that I did not reaUy begin life untU I
was fifty. In poor Fitzgerald's case this consciousness
seems to have struck him at fifty-two : and hence his
moans ! — but how long did he Uve ? I do not remember.
I dare say that in his case, too, this consciousness passed,
and that at sixty he felt altogether boyish. Dyspeptic folk
with a pessimistic turn are always singularly youthful, and
generaUy Uve to a great age ; but the thing that keeps people
aUve longest, as a rule, is cussedness. This is paradoxical,
but nevertheless true, oh boyishest of Boys ! — and I doubt
whether our good friend W. was correct in his rendering of
the name on that Babylonian clay cylinder. I am weU up
in hieroglyphics as you know, for do I not read even W.'s
handwriting at a glance ? and having given special study
to that particular clay cylinder (what is a clay cylinder,
Babylonian or otherwise ?) as weU as to the problems of
life in general, I am quite sure that I read cussedness in the
root Be-el-ze-bub. TeU our friend W. to give his spectacles
a wipe, and read it again, cyUndricaUy so to speak, and he
wUl easUy see that it couldn't be anything else ; for nothing
but the cussedness of the material could keep even a Baby
lonian clay cylinder unbroken to this day, whUe breaking
everybody who tried to make out the superscriptions on the
same. And now, beware of that horse ; no one is safe in the
saddle at sixty who has not been continuously in the saddle
for forty years previously ; this you wUl find holds of aU
old men who are stUl daUy tempting Providence by riding
a horse, instead of remaining at home truly grateful that
they have not already broken their necks. There is nothing
so dangerous as a horse. I hate even a cab-horse. I can
just endure a tram. I never take up a newspaper that I
do not have to run over a mass of accidents with horses.
For my part, I never rode much ; and now I cannot ride at

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 109
aU. When I was in Cairo thirty years ago I used to ride
donkeys aU day long. Alas ! fancy ! when I was last in
Cairo, — two years ago last Spring, — I did not even dare
to mount a donkey. I felt a kind of pang for a moment
once, I remember, at this sign of ageing ; but only for a
moment for the underlying festiveness of my nature soon
bubbled up and set me right. But you see. Providence
does reaUy temper the wind to the shorn lamb, for now
there wasn't any need of riding donkeys ; there were plenty
of cabs. When I was first in Cairo there wasn't a horse
and carriage of any kind m the place, excepting those
belonging to the Khedive. But the thing I Uke best is a
jinrikisha : drawn by a man — or rather, two men tandem.
There I am safe. Yet, perhaps, after aU, I could have ridden
a donkey even two years ago in Cairo, if I had not been so
timorous : but fat men never have any physical courage, —
did you know it ! — and the reason is, that they lose their
centre of gravity easUy. A thin man, especiaUy a thin man
with long legs, recovers himself in a twinkUng ; a fat man
is a dead and sodden weight ; once he loses his centre of
gravity, it is aU up with him ; hence I am extremely careful
about my centre of gravity. But after aU it 's a poor horse
that leaves everybody behind in the mud, including its
master ; and I beg of you to have no trffiing with that horse ;
be thankful for your thin legs and abihty to walk. And that
reminds me that I am fiUed with a sense of inward satis
faction and comfort upon learning that you now take an
occasional smoke by yourself. To be sure. Lone Jack is a
dreadful kmd of tobacco, but it 's better than none ; I re
member using it for a time, but gave it up after finding
that the granulated particles were for ever falling red hot
upon my trousers and bummg Uttle holes in the same. But
a corn-cob pipe is not a bad thing. I bought a box of a
dozen in America, and they have remamed in my trunk
to this day, — unused. Smoking, — with me, — is not what
one would caU a social habit ; it is, rather, what I should caU
a contemplative habit. Perhaps you would caU it an un
social habit. It 's aU the same. I do not enjoy tobacco
unless it comes to me as a kind of solace, in moments of

110 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
repose ; I do not reaUy enjoy smoking with other people ;
in fact I detest other folks' smoke. When I smoke I
ruminate ; sometimes I reaUy think ; and therein to my
mind Ues not merely the pleasure, but also the benefit of
tobacco, if there be any benefit to be had out of it at aU.

H6tel Bristol, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Naples,
Sunday, 25 Jan'uary, 1891.
My dear H., — Bernstein's stories which I sent you, were
read aloud to me by the wUe, and I must confess I was not
taken with them. Every one of them is a tragedy, or a
little tragic phase of Ufe. I dare say they are weU done,
but I do not fancy the kind of thing ; tragedy in Art was
always painful and disagreeable to me ; and the more
perfect the Art, the more painful and disagreeable the im
pression. If I want tragedy, I have only to walk out in
these streets of Naples ; they are fuU of it ; poverty and
misery at every step. Of course a touch of the tragic wUl
come into aU works of art, but Art need not be aU tragic ;
there are genial, optimistic spheres, if I may use the ex
pression, where Art may dweU, and where the wearied soul
may find rest and peace and joy. The function of Art is
to bring gladness not sorrow ; to keep before us the Ideal,
not the Tragic. The caprices of fortune, the awful havoc
of Destiny, — we aU know what these are ; this Vale of Tears
has more grief in it than joy : — ^let us not add to the grief
by imagining more grief, but rather iUumine the joy, and
at any rate make beUeve that poor wretched mortals may
have a share in it.
Many thanks for your Librarian's interpretation of my
Paduan inscription, and for your kindness in consulting
him ; but with aU deference to him, I cannot think his
interpretations correct. Deesse I should hardly think could
be construed into conveying the meaning, ' to escape from ' ;
and besides, this rendering doesn't seem to me to have a
signfficance appropriate to an inscription on a house. It
has occurred to me that the meaning may be : 'No one shaU
ever lack (there shaU never be wanting to anyone) a country

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 111
in which to Uve, nor a house in which to die ' : — that is,
Providence wUl always kindly care for us. This seems to
me to have a certain appropriateness for an inscription on
a house. But it isn't a matter of any moment, and I have
not the least confidence in my own classical abUity ; I am
quite ready to take off my hat to your Latm Professor and
accept humbly his interpretation. One is always coming
upon old inscriptions on houses in Italy. I have copied
a good many ; it amuses me to do so when I am not too lazy
and the weather is not too cold. The Latin mscriptions as
a rule are very old, and the modern ItaUan inscriptions
as a rule are very clear : containing much significance in
a few choice clear words.
WeU now, — ' take in,' — as appUed to a newspaper or a
magazine subscribed for is not a cockneyism, as you fancy.
It is good old-fashioned EngUsh. When I was young, good
old-fashioned folk used the phrase. I have heard Rufus
Choate use it at least a dozen times, — he always said, ' take
in ' ; dropping the ' in ' is a new-fangled Americanism.
You speak of EngUsh tricks of speech. I do not know
whether EngUsh tricks of speech are worse than American
tricks of speech ; for my part I do not Uke any tricks of
speech, either EngUsh or American. I have too much respect
for the EngUsh language. I want to write Eiiglish, without
reference to cockney use of it either in England or America,
EngUsh in the Pure, so to speak, EngUsh from weUs un
defiled ; and say, — ' I take a piU,' and, — ' I take in a news
paper.' To ' take in,' in the sense of defraud, would not
be used in vyriting ' elegant EngUsh,' I fancy ; it is a coUo-
quiaUsm ; I certainly should not use it in print, except in
a humorous way. And then I must take exception to your
preference of the phrase, — ' I speak less loudly than I used
to,' instead of, — ' Used to speak,' or ' used to do.' ' Used
to do,' I do not Uke much myself ; but I detest the practice
now prevalent of leaving the preposition ' to ' stranded at
the end of a sentence. I prefer a repetition of the verb,
' used to speak.' There is to me something very incom
plete, coUoquial, — may I say vulgarian, — in leaving ' to '
alone at the end of a sentence ; ' used to ' is too much for

112 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
me, and besides it 's ungrammatical, and at any rate, the
hearer would mentaUy supply the word ' speak ' ; and it
is always a defect in style, in my opimon, when a writer
throws upon his reader the burden of supplying a word
omitted. Yes, I am a Uttle ' slowed up ' as you say ; some men
break up earUer than others, and I am afraid our good
friend W. is breaking up. I know aU the signs. I am
shaky myself on my pins, and I can't bear much physical
fatigue ; I am soon used up. I get on weU so long as I
keep in certain grooves but I cannot get out of the grooves,
without being entirely upset. Your activity, — ^physical
activity I mean, — fiUs me with amazement. A man of your
age going out on snowshoes, — ^thermometer marking zero
Fahrenheit ! — prodigious ! but I wouldn't do it if I were
you ; it cannot be good for you ; stick to the fireside and
let other folk do snowshoeing and that kind of thing. Cold
is a deadly enemy to the vitaUty ; stick to the fireside.
Pray take heed to this admonition ; and Usten to the harrow
ing tale that I shaU now unfold (having reached the weather
point in my screed). WeU, — ^last Thursday night a week,
there came on a heavy snowstorm here ; when I awoke on
Friday morning the whole place was under snow ; and then
came driving blasts and more snow, — the air so thick and
black that you couldn't see twenty yards from any balcony.
Our Uttle ItaUan chamber-maid came into our rooms in
terror, roUing up her eyes, and wringing her hands, and
moaning that something terrible was surely going to happen.
I reaUy thought so, myself. WeU, it was a dreadful storm :
snow and rain driving against the windows in fitful blasts, —
but more snow than rain ; and for three days I could not
go out of the house. The snow was wet and sUppery, and
there was a great deal of it ; and I knew I couldn't walk
a yard even on the Corso ; least of aU could I descend the
steeps into the town. Every cab too vanished from the
Corso. It was a most gloomy trying time. The wife of
course went out, but even she had great difficulty to keep
from sUpping. However she reported that the streets on
the level in the town below us were immediately cleansed,

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 113
and that Ufe and cabs went on as usual : but up here it was
as sUent and deserted as if a plague had struck the place.
The railways were blocked, and for two or three days we
got no maU. A gentleman who arrived here from Rome
at three o'clock one morning, — due here at 6:30 p.m. the
previous evening, — told me that they were eight hours in
doing tho last forty mUes into Naples. However, on
Sunday night came a heavy rain, which cleansed our
Corso ; and on Monday afternoon we resumed our ' consti
tutionals,' and have had no further trouble.
I have neglected to comment upon Stevenson's use of the
word ' specious,' appUed to a Cathedral : a detestable ad
jective to be so appUed : but I think it is obvious that he
uses the word in its strictly etymological meaning of form,
appearance: — having the/orwi of a ttwi* : Uke a statue : but
being in fact, multitudinous, Uke a forest. But it 's a poor
practice, it strikes me, in a popular writer, to use such
words : they only bother people.

H6tel Bristol, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Naples,
Thursday, 12 Fehruary, 1891.
My dear H., — I observed, in one of the newspapers you
sent me, some Reports by the Faculty of Harvard CoUege
upon the subject of reducing the undergraduate course from
four years to three years. I read them with interest, but
I could not see any advantage in making the course three
years instead of four. The fact is the CoUege has made
such strides, — the changes have been so numerous and so
radical that I faU to find anything which reminds me of the
old time ; I feel as if I were a fossU, or had gone into a long
sleep, from which I wake at intervals to look out upon a
world quite different from the world I once knew. The
world progresses too fast for me ; I cannot keep up with
it, — this increase in students, this variety of studies and of
courses, this vast apparatus, these Scholarships and Funds
and Class Libraries and aU the rest of it. I am glad the
CoUege Ues years behind me ; I could never get through it
nowadays. It makes me sad sometimes, — this mass of
H

114 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
increase in people and things ; I feel as if I were in danger
of being swaUowed up somehow by a deluge. This vast
increase of riches with some, and this vaster increase of
impecuniosity with others : — simplicity gone out of Ufe, —
in the cities I mean ; a riotous, vulgarian mUUonaire-ism
planting its cloven foot upon aU the inteUectuaUties and
sweetness and Ught of other days (this is rather a violent
metaphor : but nevertheless ' the principle remains the
same '). However, I dare say there is a good side to aU
this, — ^only as I have said, I cannot work myself into a
feeUng that I belong to it. WeU, it doesn't matter ; every
thing Ues behind me now, for on Sunday next I shaU be
sixty years old. I fancied I was pretty old when I got into
the Fifties ; but when one gets into the Sixties,— cZa hort
Alles auf. I wonder how it wiU be, should I ever get into
the Seventies, — second chUdhood perhaps !
Yes, keep on and confess aU your Tabak-Siinden ; they are
few, and very thin, and venial. I rejoice to Usten to the
harrowing tale. How many ' smokes ' can you get for one
cent a day ? how many pipesful ? But your not sleeping
so weU after a pipe at night is not to be ascribed to the pipe ;
it comes from working, — ^reading or writing — aU the even
ing : and going directly to bed with the brain somewhat
excited. The great phUosopher Kant — who was a wise
man also — used, as I have read, to put away aU writing
and reading, — ^to put away aU things ; in short get every
thing out of his head for an hour before he went to bed.
Then in this hour he smoked a pipe, abjuring aU thought.
In this way the brain was quieted, and sleep came at once
and refreshed him ; and at four or five in the morning
(phUosophersi always keep dreadful hours) he was ready to
resume his tiresome round. Also I wUl add that irregular,
or rather, unquiet sleep, often comes from going to bed on
an entirely empty stomach ; you do not need to eat mince-
pie upon going to bed ; but I think if you take something
of easy digestion a half hour before going to bed you may
sleep better. I used to find it so. I remember at the
Tremont House I used to go into the Refectory and drink
a tumbler or two of mUk before going to bed ; the

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 115
mUk at the Tremont House was very good, and I|used to
sleep like an infant after it. Here it is different. I do not
leave the dinner-table untU about eight o'clock, and I go
to bed at about ten. I sleep weU as a rule, being fuU of red
wine. Sometimes however, I order a bottle of white Ischian
wine (Ischia bianco), mainly on the wife's account, for she
does not Uke wine at aU ; she is a born teetotaUer ; but she
wiU drink a Uttle white Ischian wine ; of course I have to
finish the bottle, and I observe that after white wine I do
not sleep weU ; white wine seems to act on my nerves, — it is
an irritating and feverish drink : — stUl, one must sometimes
make sacrffices for others ! and besides, it 's an ' awfuUy
good ' wine, — the only ItaUan white wine I have ever reaUy
enjoyed, except the Vino Santo of Tuscany.
Yes, I am glad with you that our good friend W. has got
a coUeague. I should hear with greater pleasure, however,
that he had got a pension. Why shouldn't clergymen have
pensions ? I beUeve in pensions. There comes a time
when, though a man may be capable of work, he is stiU
more capable of rest : — and I think after forty years in the
pulpit, a man deserves to be gratefuUy retired at the ex
pense of his congregation ; reUeved of care ; whUe his
Uving presence stUl remains a blessing to them that look
up to him. I wish, too, with you that W. had leisure, in
order that he might gather up in print the many beautiful
things which he has written. He has deUcate perceptions :
fine insights : a good range of reading : unusual aptitudes
in aesthetic Unes : a style altogether pecuUar and original :
a flavoTU" of his own : his is a kind of writing that wiU wear :
neither rhetoric nor platitudes endure. I certainly for one
should read him with the greatest pleasure ; and as for the
ol TToXXot, the great unwashed, — the vulgarian masses, —
who would care for instance to be read by this rabble in
Naples, if one were sure, being an ItaUan I mean, of finding
a welcome among a few choice spirits of congenial tastes
and fine perceptions.
No, there are no ' cultivated Enghsh people ' in this hotel
at this present. I don't know where cultivated EngUsh
people keep themselves when they are on the Continent ;

116 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
I know only that they don't come and sit near me at table
d'hdte dinners. The greater part of the English who come
to this hotel are on their way to or from AustraUa and India.
These are officers, merchants, cattle-men and what not.
Naples is the nearest European Port of caU for these far-off
countries. From Naples (or Brindisi, which is nearly the
same thing) there are swift through trains to Calais —
London. The Peninsular & Oriental Company's Liners, also
the Orient Steamship Company's Liners, — these are the
two great companies, — and many other Liners for India
and AustraUa, caU here or at Brindisi. Also in the Winter
Naples is a point of departure for tourists on their way to
Egypt ; but we have not caught many of these. We have
known only one EngUsh famUy here, — nice, pleasant people ;
but they were not the kind of people who know about
books ; I think the husband might have been a merchant
taUor. There was a retired General of the EngUsh Army
here, — Irish, — ^very nice man ; he took a fancy to us, and
made the Head waiter keep him opposite us at dinner.
He also was not a bookish man, but he had had con
siderable experience of life and was often very amusing.
He was a smaU man, of sturdy buUd, looking as if he
had an iron constitution. Alas ! he came to the table
one night complaining of headache and chUls, and left
it before the dinner was finished. We never saw him
again ; two weeks afterwards we foUowed his remains to
the grave : — typhoid. This was altogether depressing : a
strong hardy looking man stricken down before our very
eyes, as it were. It has sickened me for a time of this
part of Italy.
It is too horribly early to go North, and the weather is
by no means mUd here ; the Winter stUl continues, —
briUiant for the most part, but for a time we had biting
penetrating tramontana winds, very disagreeable indeed,
whirling white Umestone dust into one's eyes. But how
ever, it is better now ; the winds are less harrowing and the
sky is stiU brUUant ; yet there is no sign of Spring, although
usuaUy at this time the ahnond trees are in bloom ; and the
Earth rejoiceth in the coming of vernal joys.

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 117
I sent you some time ago an article from the Daily News
upon American EngUsh. The Daily News has some clever
writers upon its staff, although I thought the article in
question was somewhat laboured and duU ; stiU, it is amus
ing to note the difference of expression in England and
America. And on the whole it strikes me as quite remark
able that these differences are few and trivial. I Uke to think
that the EngUsh Language shaU prevaU as a whole, un
changed, in aU EngUsh-speaking countries over aU the
Earth ; and I beUeve it wUl, — ^barring a few frivolous
blemishes here and there in remote corners of the Earth.
It is a world-tongue, the EngUsh ; aU other tongues are
local, — the German, the French, the ItaUan and so on, —
aU are mere local languages, so to speak. The EngUsh
tongue is the one commanding Language of the World : —
' one Bible, and one Shakespeare ' : Reciprocity with
Canada : and the gold standard : a Tariff for Revenue
only : International Copyright : and so on : — this is my
creed : — and the EngUsh Tongue shaU remain triumphant.
There have been poUtical upheavals of late in Italy.
Crispi has been defeated and upset ; Uke Bismarck he has
withdrawn involuntarily into private Ufe ; the German wits
caU it the Kanzler-Ddmmerung — fancy !

Hotel Bristol, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Naples,
Monday, 23 February, 1891.
My dear H., — I posted to you the other day a Uttle
pamphlet, entitled Evangelical Church of Italy {Chiesa
Libera) : being a brief account of the year's work of the
wife's ItaUan teacher. But the Uttle man proved to be a
poor teacher ; the lesson seemed to bore him ; he took no
interest in it. The only interest he took was in the postage
stamps we gave him ; he was helping a ' signora ' to coUect
a miUion, — the superstition being rife in Italy that there
is some merit somehow in coUecting a million postage
stamps. I found that the wife was making no progress, and
at my suggestion she let him go. I think he was rather
glad to be let go ; he said teaching was not his business.

118 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
At any rate he was very meek about it ; and turning round
fired this pamphlet at us.
It is astonishing, the long continued sunshine and brUUant
weather in this place ; I have almost forgotten what a
cloudy day is like : — day after day, precisely the same blue
sky and precisely the same temperature. It is however
not at aU mUd ; the air is hard and cold, the Tramontana stiU
prevaiUng ; and though there is one Uttle almond tree in
blossom, on a high terrace opposite my balcony, I am in
despair of the Spring ever coming, and it is quite useless to
think of moving about in this sort of temperature. What
astonishes me is the uniformity of this temperature : in fact,
the uniformity of the cUmate in general in Italy in the
winter : — no sudden changes, in fact hardly any changes at
aU. My thermometer has marked precisely 56° on rising, —
working up to precisely 60° in the afternoon, — for now
these four weeks. And I have become so hardened that
I can't even approach a fire, which they keep feebly blazing
in the Salon. It heats me disagreeably even to look at it.

H6tel Victoria, Sorrento,
Friday, 20 March, 1891.
My dear H., — ^WeU, we spent a week in La Cava, and
day before yesterday came to this place by carriage : a
drive of a trifle over three hours and a half. It was a
brUUant day ; but the road was very dusty, and we were
in a dirty plight indeed when we arrived after five o'clock
in the afternoon. The road ran through a plain aU the
way from La Cava to CasteUamare : mountains on our left
hand, on the summit of which traces of snow were stiU
visible, and in front of us the towering Vesuvius with its
volume of smoke. From CasteUamare the road ascends, —
winding round rocky promontories, untU it reaches Sorrento.
I fancy on the plain between La Cava and CasteUamare we
passed through at least half a dozen smaU, closely buUt
towns : aU of them very stuffy : stone houses : narrow
streets : and|at the entrance to each town an octroi station :
for m Italy it is not merely eatables and drinkables that pay

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUVIMERS 119
an octroi or municipal duty, but every mortal thing that
enters the place is taxed. Fancy, what an idiotic system !
what a hindrance to free circxUation of products ! it is a
dreadfuUy overtaxed country, this : and pessimist observers
say it is going to the dogs, — starvation being frightfuUy on
the increase. I do not know how this may be ; certainly
there is misery enough visible to spoU half the pleasure of
a drive. One may almost say that the highways are Uned
with beggars in every stage of physical degradation and
suffering. WeU, one day, we drove to RaveUo and Amaffi. Such
a combination of scenery ! the blue sea, — mountains, —
ravines, — ^rocky promontories, all terraced : lemon plan
tations : picturesque monasteries, vUlas, churches, every
where, on slopes and crags : franticaUy maccessible, appar
ently. In RaveUo, perched on the top of a mountain, is
an old Moorish Castle, — belonging now to a Scotchman
who has Uved there for forty years ; the view is entrancing,
but I wonder he did not go mad long ago, dweUing year
after year on that lonely crag. At Amaffi we drove to the
foot of the great rock on which is situated the old monas
tery of the Capuchins, now the Hotel Cappuccini ; but the
ascent (on foot) looked too steep for me, and I turned away
and went to the Uttle hotel of the same name in the tovm, by
the sea. The wife however is nimble of foot and she skipped
up the staircase and saw the place ; of course she met some
people there whom she knew ; and I waited, famishing, for
her to come to lunch. The ' people ' were Edwin Abbey
and his wife. We met him at the Hotel Bristol in Naples,
and he was m Amaffi in search of motives for his work — the
decoration of one of the HaUs in the new Boston Public
Library. He told me in Naples that his subject was to be
the Origins of Romance, — whatever that may mean. He
has acquired reputation as an iUustrator for Harper's
Magazine : and he is now Ulustrating Shakespeare for that
magazine.

120 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Dresden, Monday, 15 June, 1891.
My dear H., — I shaU be glad to read the Reminiscences
of Sophocles ; he was a good friend of mine in years now
long gone by. In August, 1860, I was returning from a
first tour in Europe and the adjacent countries, in the crack
steamer of the Cunard Line, the Persia, when Sophocles
turned up one morning as I was sitting on deck in the lee
of the smoke-stack, — there was no smoke-room in those
days, and it was a side-wheel steamer into the bargain, —
vainly endeavouring to fancy that I was enjoying the retum
to my native land. WeU, then and there I made Sophocles'
acquaintance. He took a fancy to me, and afterwards
taught me Modern Greek, — for nothing too ; this was much.
But I am sorry to add that I have forgotten it aU now, as
weU as Ancient Greek besides. And if there is one thing
I regret more than another it is that I did not keep up my
Greek. Alas, how sadly I recaU now that in the very last
letter he wrote me, our lamented friend W. — apropos of
some translations from the Greek which he had been read
ing, — ^regretted the same thing. He went so far even as
to wonder whether Ufe were worth living if not spent largely
over Greek Literature and Art. For his part had he his
own way, he would never read a word henceforth but
Greek. How very much I sympathize with him in this.
I have my own way ; yet I read not a Greek word. WeU,
for several years Sophocles and I were reaUy intimate ; I
saw much of him and was always interested in his conver
sation. By nature he was a Cynic : a Cynic of the Old
Greek School : a pecuUar and not unwholesome kind of
cynicism. His conversation amused me and made a variety
in the awful monotony which had engulfed my existence, if
I may use such a phrase. He seemed to me a veritable
Greek of the ancient time. He was not in the least a Modem
Greek so caUed : in fact he despised the Modem Greeks :
an Ancient Greek stranded upon the arid New England
shores, — for so the New England shores seemed to me then.
I take a different view of them now ; but I left Boston again
late in the year 1867, and have never seen him smce.

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 121
Dresden, T'uesday, 14 July, 1891.
My dear H., — I have got the last thing on Buddhism :
by Monier- WUUams, Professor of Sanscrit in the Univer
sity at Oxford. But I must confess it doesn't teU me much,
if anything, that I didn't know already : I mean m respect
to the fundamental dogmas of Buddhism. There is a vast
mass of detaU about Buddhistic Ceremonials and super
stitions, but this of course I skip ; how in the world can one
carry aU this rubbish m one's head ? Nevertheless there
are curious things m the book here and there. The Pro
fessor makes it out to be a poor thin reUgion, doomed from
the beginning to disintegration and decay. However,
there are some pretty things about it ; and I learn from
the Professor why the Buddha is always figured squattmg
as it were, with his legs crossed under him, or nearly under
him. It is because this position is more favourable to entire
restfulness, and hence to the Calm which the Buddha pre
figures ; in fact, a ' feUer ' can't squirm at aU with his legs
in that position ; he muM keep still ; this is a very profound
thought ; and the longer you sit in that position, the nearer
you come to Nirvana, and the great bosom of the Infinite,
upon which you are to float serene, Uke a lotus flower on the
placid surface of gleaming water.
I am troubled now with a craving for sea air. There is
no ozone in the Dresden air ; at any rate there is a lack of
something needful to me, for after several months here I
begin to feel somewhat sodden and lethargic. I was
affected m a simUar way, but to a much greater degree,
once in PhUadelphia some years ago, and had to run back
to Boston in order to get braced up. I think the quality,
or composition of air so to speak, should be more studied
than it is, being a matter of great importance. The quaUty
of the air in Munich for instance, though it is a hard dreary
climate, is probably more suited to me than the quaUty of
the air of Dresden. In a general way we say that the air
in one place is more tonic, bracing, than the air m another
place, but this is too vague ; it is time we knew the quaUty
or composition of the air, and furthermore precisely what

122 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
quaUty or composition of air each one needs. This would
be a great gain, even if at the moment we were unable to
obtain the precise air we needed. This may indeed sound
somewhat frivolous ; but bear in mind that according to
the recent theories, disease-germs are carried in the air ;
hence if the quaUty or composition of the air in any par
ticular place be unsuited to one, there is probably more
liabiUty of infection by these disease-germs than in another
place where the quaUty or composition of the air is more
suited to one. There is a wide field for investigation here : —
and the upshot of it aU is, that the human race wUl have
to be redistributed in reference to adaptabUity to quaUty
of air. The prolongation of human Ufe is the object to which
aU medical and sanitary science tends : but are aU Uves
worth prolonging ? This question however I wUl not ask : —
it plunges one into too deep a muddle.
Seidel's story Der Tulpenbaum is marred by the usual
German notion about America : — as a land of fraud and
chicanery and so on. What a narrow-minded lot these
Germans are to be sure ! I never read a line by any German
writer containing anything good about America ; always
one tiresome stream of vituperation. Why is this ? or
are these creatures in the right ? and are we what they
paint us ? — speaking broadly I mean, and as a rule. If
these bigoted Germans could ever see themselves as others
see them, in aU their Uttleness and meanness ! But then
nobody does ever see himself as others see him, and national
antipathies and prejudices must ever prevaU ; in fact, pre
judices and antipathies give a kind of strength to races as to
individuals ; they make for vigour in the multitudes ; while
to the phUosopher, — the wise man, he that traveUeth and
knoweth, — ^they furnish a source of unfaUing amusement.
You know the story of the German who upon returning from
long travel round the globe was asked how he found man
kind elsewhere : — ' aU just the same fools everywhere,' he
repUed, ' as we are at home.'

ITALIAN WINTERS AND GERMAN SUMMERS 123
Dresden, Sunday, 19 July, 1891.
My dear H., — It is very hot here, and I can do nothing.
I am feeUng sodden and stuffy. Oh ! for an ocean breeze
and the biUows that bounce us ! Oh ! for a sight of the sea,
and the sound of swashing waters, and aU the smeUs that
do exhUarate us on board a great Ocean Liner ! This Uving
inland is aU very weU for a time, but it becomes at last most
depressing in a cUmate like Dresden, where there is no tonic
in the air : nothing life-giving : smoky, sodden, and gloomy
days. I think far back in the centuries there must have
been a Viking in my famUy, from whom I have inherited a
liking for the sea, for roving, or tramping, as we say : aver
sion to the restraints of Uving in any fixed place : restless
ness : craving for wUd freedom of motion. But, after all,
I suppose almost every one has the same sort of restlessness
at times, only others don't talk so much about it ; and
besides, have more to counterbalance it, — definite duties,
a grateful sphere of activity, and so on, to say nothing of
greater innate ethical vigour. WeU, each accordmg to his
kind ; and at any rate, it is not for long for any of us now ;
a few years and we too shaU be among the stars. And that
reminds me how very impressive it seems to me sometimes,
when I think of my father's class at Harvard : every man
of them under the sod ! What bubbles we are to be sure.
And yet there is something reaUy awful to me in this transi
toriness of Earth. The Orientals, — Hindoos and Buddhists
and the Uke, — to them, this transitoriness is a much more
real thing than to us. We are in the midst of a Uving
evolution, so to speak, in every direction ; we quiver with
longings and with the greed for things, the possibUity of
which is just dawning upon us ; whereas in the Oriental
world, aU is done and finished ; what one generation has
beheld, enjoyed, or suffered, precisely the same thmgs shaU
the next generation behold, enjoy and suffer in endless
cycles. Hence the mind becomes accustomed to contem
plation of unchanging successions of phenomena, and aU
reality goes out of things : — phenomena — transitoriness :
this is aU that is real. How very different is it in the

124 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Western world : seething with hopes, longings and visions
of new things ! We are making a new civUization ; I fancy
we shaU get through with the job in a Ufetime as it were.
We are grinding out a new social order and transforming aU
things in the bubbUng cauldrons of invention : — if this be
an aUowable metaphor : what I mean is, we are busy with
the finite, and talk as if we coiUd ' fix it up ' and make it
lasting. The Oriental contemplates only the Infinite ; the
Hindoo looks upon the presence of the English in India as
but a passing cloud : — a few centuries — what are a few
centuries ? — and India shaU once more be for the Hindoo
what it was four thousand years ago. What a contrast !
the calm of the Buddha, — and Edison's workshop : — and
which will make mankind the happier ?

CHAPTER IV
THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK
1891-1893
Arrival — Strolling About — ' The Picknickers ' — Jeffries' Story of
my Heart — Fruits and Flowers — Sapodilla, Sugar-apple, Bread
fruit, Pawpaw — The Laying of the Cable— Sisal — The Calm of
the Buddha — A Pebble in a Pipe — Eeminisoenoes of Norway
and Sweden — ^The Land of the Pink Pearl^ — ^Walks, Sailing and
Fishing — An English Colonist — Froude — A Line of Euripides —
Newspapers — Bierstadt — An American Type — A Murder in
Japan — Eeturn to New York — ^The Astor Library — ^The Paston
Letters — ^The High Art of Travel — ^The Columbus Fetes —
The Lenox Library — The Stock Exchange — ^Thomas WiUiam
Parsons. Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Monday, 21 December, 1891.
My dear H., — We have just arrived here this morning,
reaching the hotel at about nine o'clock. I got up at half-
past five, and sat on deck, and saw the day break over a
smooth sea in the balmiest air. Ah ! it is worth coming
to the Enchanted Isle to breathe this air !
On Thursday at three o'clock in the afternoon our steamer
moved away from the Pier at the foot of WaU Street in
New York, and we threaded our way out into the ocean.
It was a brUUant sunny afternoon : 20° : a dry. Northwest
wind : biting cold. Fortunately the sea was smooth at
the outset : vessel perfectly steady. We eat weU and slept
weU, and waked in 40° the next day, the sea continuing
smooth. But the weather was cloudy and rainy. On
Saturday we got up into 62° but the sea became more or
less restless ; and Saturday night to Sunday morning was
reaUy awful. I fancied we should founder ; the ship
roUed badly and creaked sadly, and the wind raged Uke a
hungry wolf. On Sunday morning however the heavy
126

126 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
seas died away ; we came into smooth water ; deUcious air
and in the afternoon sunny. At midnight we came to
anchor, and this morning the tender came outside the bar
for us, and we were brought to the landing-place in Nassau :
no Customs Examination. But I have no time to write
more. I can only say that I feel as if I had reached
Paradise.

Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Thursday, 31 December, 1891.
My dear H., — -Yes, it is a change indeed from the grating
of electric trams and aU the racket of busy Boston to the
absolute stiUness, the preternatural calm of this African
Isle, for land of the White Man it is not. It is the land
of the lobsided (how 's this for a word ?) nigger and the
cocoanut palm ; the land of the tamarind and the banana
and the thatched hut ; of the orange and the lemon and
the sapodUla and the pawpaw.
And now, having nothing to teU you, I hardly know how
to begin to teU it. At any rate I have seen as yet but one
coffin traveUing into this hotel, and that was this morning, —
an elderly man : took a cold tubbing here a week ago and
laid down and died. I verUy beUeve that more Uves are
sacrfficed to this deleterious EngUsh practice of cold ' tub
bing ' than were ever saved by cleanUness. However at
best this hotel is but a hospital : — one gentleman from
New York, — pleurisy : his daughter, — Uver : a gentleman
from Boston, — acute nervous dyspepsia : a French Cana
dian, — ^bronchitis : an Alsatian woman, — ^Uver : a yoimg
man from New York, — consumption. As yet there are but
thirteen or fourteen guests, but we are aU looking for more
by the next (fortnightly) steamer from New York on
Monday. It is a unique experience this, to me, of being
shut off from even the possibUity of communication with
the outward world for two weeks at a time. I can't say
that I have as yet been able to accommodate myself to
it : — fancy, no morning and no evening newspaper : hotel
aU lighted up at night : affable clerk in attendance : register

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 127
lying on the office counter : aU this, every day and every
night, and yet not a new-comer possible. It strikes one
at first as very odd, and then as very tiresome. However,
the thermometer has marked 76° m my room night and
day ever since I hung it up ; the mercury never budges ; it
is a deUghtful temperature ; the air extremely soft and
balmy ; open wmdows of course and gauzy vestments,
but no nets to the beds : only one mosquito as yet registered
in our rooms : but he was a stinger. No end of ants : and
there is said to be an msect caUed a ' jigger,' which works
into the flesh, lays eggs there and has to be cut out, and cigar
ashes stuffed into the hole m order to kUl eggs ; but these
are mmor infeUcities : no snakes, nor scorpions as in Cuba.
The island flat : covered with bush : Nassau is on North
side : and stretching along the island here at distance of
half a mUe is a long green strip of land caUed Hogg Island,
serving as a breakwater and thus making harbour of Nassau
safe and convenient. I beUeve it is said to be the best
harbour in the West Indies. The island is aU rock : coral :
but it looks like Umestone : fancy a place where aU the
streets run over natural rock : hence no dust : but an
awful glare at midday. The hotel is scrupulously clean :
dining-room most ample : fare decent : breakfast at eight
to nine, — dinner, alas ! at two, — supper, very scrubby :
nothing but cold meat and cold toast. We stroU for two
hours every afternoon aU over the place and I puU myself
together at supper over bottles of Bass, — praised be his
name. It is very odd, but I am never sleepy here, — ^no sleep
in me since I came : nor do the walks tire me in the least ;
the oiUy discomfort I experience is getting in der Schweiz
gebadet, as an American lady once remarked to me in the
Fatherland. But I must not write everything aU at once.

Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Tuesday, 12 January, 1892.
My dear H., — Your most interesting and welcome letter
(everything is interesting and welcome here) came duly to
hand. The steamer which brought it had a most horrible

128 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
passage : awful gales : portentous seas : cabins flooded :
everything on deck smashed, and so on. But, apropos of
books— before I came down here I picked up in the West
Indian alcoves in the Athenaeum a Uttle book about Nassau,
which it amused me to look through, written by some
women who spent a winter here, hiring a cottage and keep
ing house. They described their experiences in a vivacious
way. The Uttle book is caUed Picknickers. At any rate,
Usten now to this tale of woe. It was a famUy of three,
who began coming here five years ago, — Mrs. Mary Dickin
son and two daughters from Fairport in the State of New
York and a (lady) friend. It was the daughters I beUeve
who wrote the Uttle book. WeU, they engaged their pas
sage for the usual winter voyage on the steamer saUing
Thursday, December 31 ; but on the Monday week preceding
they were caUed upon to bury the poor old mother, who died
on Saturday, December 19, of grippe at the age of eighty -six;
or as the local Fairport newspaper said, — (copied into the
local Nassau Guardian) ' Eighty and six years was she
ripening under the sun of Righteousness.' It was reaUy
touching, — ^the notice of the good woman in the local Fair-
port newspapers. It opened thus : ' Again the Reaper has
thrust in his sickle and gathered in one of our ripened
sheaves ; in her fuU age, Uke as a shock of corn cometh
in its season, our Mother in Israel was gathered into the
gamer above.'
WeU, having buried the old lady, the daughters set saU
on the appointed day, Thursday, December 31, and, as said
at the beginning of this writing, they had a terrible voyage ;
according to the accounts given me by one of the passengers,
— a lady who had traveUed oceans at intervals for years, —
it was a marvel the ship didn't founder ; as it was, she did
weU in getting in even twenty-four hours late. As I said,
the boat came in on Tuesday morning. On Wednesday
one of the Dickinson daughters sickened, and on Saturday
mght she died. They get you under ground very soon after
death in these parts. On Sunday afternoon we were taking
a stroU along the sea, and came to the viUa where the sisters
had lived. It was set back from the road on slightly rising

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 129
ground, a pretty lawn in front of it, and on either side
groups of taU cocoanut pahns, and tamarind trees and aU
tropical fruits and flowers : in front the blue sea : altogether
an idyUic spot. Behind and not far from the house is a
cemetery. Thither the coffin was being bome by negroes,
a sad and sUent procession, quite altogether pathetic. Read
the Picknickers.
I wrote to you on Thursday, December 31, nearly two
weeks ago, and since that time we have experienced a
' Norther.' The equableness of the climate was a Uttle
shaken; the mercury feU to 60°, and everybody made beUeve
feeUng cold ; one poor gentleman carrying sciatica in both
legs, had to go to bed in order to get warm. Fancy a biting
cold wave desolating a place and the thermometer marking
60°, and you wUl have a fitting conception of our sufferings
for a week. For my part I shouldn't mind if the cold wave
were stUl biting ; it is 74° in my room at this moment of
writing ; aU my windows are open and pretty much aU my
clothes are on the bed ; however I must say that on the
whole I enjoy this sort of thing : the sunUght never ending :
the golden sunset : the soft air and the refreshing breeze :
the summeriness of aU things. But I cannot eat sapodiUas
or pawpaws or sugar apples ; everythmg fit to eat comes
from the North, — even chickens, — though chickens are as
plenty here as blackberries in a New England pasture ;
but they are tough and bony and refuse to be edible.
The hotel remains deUghtfuUy empty. How I dread a
restless American crowd.

EoYAii Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Wednesday, 27 January, 1892.
My dear H., — ^Yes, as you say, I dweU among fruits and
flowers, and am every day in the open, — walking and sitting ;
but I doubt whether I should be here, were it not for that
pecuUar infirmity of mine which renders it an agony I could
never make anybody understand, to pass a winter in a place
where snow and ice prevaU in the streets. And Jipropos of
this trouble, I read the foUowing sentence in the local
I

130 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Bahamas newspapers, — a semi-weekly pubUcation printed
here in Nassau, and made up chiefly of advertisements of
' variety stores ' and cUppings from current EngUsh and
American journals, with a sprinkling of brief remarks upon
local events, or rather, want of events. WeU, what I read
was this : ' Numerous terms have recently sprung into
use on the Continent for phases of dread experienced by
that widespread functional disease, neurasthenia, — such as
' agasophobia,' the fear of pubUc places ; ' batophobia,' the
fear of coUapse of lofty objects ; ' pantophobia,' the dread
of everjrthing possible.' Thus it has come at last to be seen
that I suffer from a recognized disease ; a form of neuras
thenia ; and now aU that remains is to find a name for this
pecuUar form of neurasthenia, namely the dread of faUing
when walking over sUppery ground. Can't you hunt up in
your Greek Dictionary words that wUl convey the meaning,
and put them together ? What I want is a handsome com
pound Greek word for the thing, and it might amuse you
in a moment of leisure to invent a term for my trouble.
Such a term would save lots of periphrases : and besides
impart a certain dignity to what is now regarded as a
ridicidous failing.
Now about books : A lady here has recently lent me a
book entitled The Story of my Heart : My Autobiography, by
Richard Jeffries. He was born in 1848 and is now dead ;
but his life is said to be a tale of ' heroic struggle against the
agony of disease, of genius unappreciated untU it was too
late.' As yet I have read a smaU part only of the book.
What I have read is a description of his passionate longing
to experience what I should caU an immersion in pantheism.
The repetitions are incessant and tiresome, and the style
is not good, — ^not sufficiently fluid, as one may say ; and as
yet I do not find any original underlying thought in the
book : phrases of passionate^ longing for a pantheistic im
mersion, varied in every possible way ; and then from this
kind of longing he passes into a longing for a soul Ufe, —
something beyond this circle of ideas known to us, — ^beyond
Deity even ; yet this I must confess I do not grasp. What
I had in mind in speaking of the book at aU was to quote

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 131
the foUowing exceUent aphoristic writing : ' It is injurious
to the mind as weU as to the body to be always in one place,
and always surrounded by the same circumstances, A
species of thick clothing slowly grows about the mind, the
pores are choked, Uttle habits become a part of existence
and by degrees the mind is enclosed in a husk.' This strikes
me as weU said, mainly I suppose because I have felt the
truth of it in some degree myself. I suppose our author
felt it also. Nevertheless I should quite agree with you that
it is absurd to generaUze and set up one's own personal ex
perience, and make a dogma of it ; this is a mistake con
stantly made. Some men have a craving to keep constantly
moving and are improved if the craving be gratffied ; other
men have a craving to Uve always in the same place ; to be
busy always in the same pursuits ; to create a definite
sphere in which they can always be revolving, untU finaUy
whirled off into the Infinite with aU the rest of us. To each
his own ; in Ufe, in taste, in thought. Without variety the
world would be a duU place indeed. What would it be if
everybody stayed at home ? What would it be if nobody
ever stayed at home ? Let us make no rule.
This is a deUghtful morning ; altogether heavenly ; 74°
in my room, darkened by heavy jalousies, through the slats
of which I can look out from my writing-table upon the
distant blue sea, over lofty cocoanut palms waving in the
breeze and silk cotton trees making the air foul around them
with the stench of their blossoms. And that reminds me that
the SapodUla, about which you inquire, is a fruit resembling
a very dark large russet apple ; the skin is rough like leather,
and the taste of the juice might be defined as that of a
rotten pear soaked in maple syrup. It is said to be exceUent
for the digestion, and many of the invaUds here eat it on that
account. Although not pleasing to me at first, yet I fancy
I could readUy acquire a Uking for it, having a cosmopoUtan
and most hospitable stomach. The sugar apple is another
pecuUar fruit. It looks something Uke an artichoke, is full
of big stones or seeds, and what Uttle pulp there is has a
most deUcate flavour. There is also the sour-sop so-caUed,
but this I have not yet seen ; it is used mainly to make a

132 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
drink ; also there are breadfruit trees in plenty, but I have
not yet seen any of the breadfruit ; also tamarinds, which
the wife Ukes on account of their acid taste. The pawpaw
is a horrible fruit ; it resembles a smaU pumpkin fiUed with
gUstening caviar, and I regret to learn that it prevaUs in
the United States, even as far north as Ohio. The vege
tation of Nassau is whoUy tropical ; one sees few trees with
which one is famUiar in New England. There are however
roses in plenty ; we get fine ones every day ; also morning-
glories, and I have seen one hoUyhock. There are also pine
trees and cedar trees ; but trees are not abundant, that is,
except the cocoanut palm and the tamarind and the silk-
cotton. The island is covered with bush and jungle ; and
a drive is to me absolute pain, — so appallingly dreary is the
landscape. There is a walk, however, through the viUage
and back by the sea which I take almost every afternoon ;
it is enchanting.
We have a few more guests now but the season is promis
ing to be a brUUant faUure from the landlord point of view,
though there are quite enough folk for me, who desire none.
To me it is a deUcious cUmate, and altogether fiUing in itself.
I am grateful to be here ; it is precisely the kind of thing
for which I have always had a passionate longing. Alas !
that I cannot Uve the summer in Munich and the winter in
Nassau ; but one cannot have everything all at once in the
world.

Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Tuesday, 11 February, 1892.
My dear H., — ^You wUl find in a Greek Dictionary the
word a-7roBr;iJ,o<t (away from home) from which I took
the Uberty to frame that exceUent and expressive adverb
apodemoticaUy. 78° at this moment of writing, and as
usual my clothes are aU on the bed. This is the kind of
thing I Uke, — provided I do not have to go out of doors.
It is better (for me), — this having to sUp off one's clothes
in order to keep cool, than having to go to bed to keep warm.
Rousseau and the Sentimentalists of the last century were

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 133
always trying to get back to a state of nature. I wonder
they didn't strike at once for the West Indies ; here one
may enjoy a state of nature for twenty hours out of the
twenty-four.
And now the cable is laid. It began to function last week,
and has just brought us the news of the burning of a hotel
in New York, accompanied by the loss of thirty lives. WeU,
I think we were just as weU off without a cable, when for
two weeks at a time we were in happy ignorance of the
miseries of the world. Newspapers and telegraphic news, —
what are they for, except to keep one in a state of unnatural
cerebral excitement ? Better after aU, a cycle of Cathay
than fifty years of Europe. I don't wonder that for twenty-
four hundred years, three hundred mUUons of human folk
have been ' going in ' for the Cahn of the Buddha, which
they have never attained, — so imperfect are aU earthly
things. MateriaUsm is the product of northern and cold
countries ; the Romans, too, were fiUed with materiaUsms,
for Italy has . a season of bitter cold ; but in these softer
cUmes, where the struggle for existence is less severe, the
mind does not tum with such fury as it were, as in the north
to the seizing of material good. One cares less for the
instruments by which wealth is created ; cares less for
wealth and luxury ; Ufe is simple, easier. I do not beUeve
the Bahamas would ever have got an ocean cable if they
hadn't had a Govemor, — fuU of what is caUed enterprise
and that kind of thing, — who had Uved seventy years in
Newfoundland ; a man of rigid, icy wiU. He made these
poor creatures lay a cable at an expense of £30,000 ; and
now he expects to galvanize the place through the Sisal
industry ; one hears of Sisal plantations, and ' boom,' and
that kind of thing ; but it 's aU in vain. The population
of these islands is whoUy African, and you never can get
anything out of the Africans except Ues and Methodist
hymns ; they are too lazy ; poor old Govemor ! They say
he is seventy-six, a most inteUigent, clear-headed business
man. In Newfoundland there is something for a man Uke
that to grapple, but the finest wiU is of no avaU when it
strikes a coral reef ; it is sure to be wrecked.

134 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
WeU, and now our good and gentle friend W.'s Letters,
I have read them aU, though not without strainings at the
eyes and mind, with a sad kind of pleasure ; for a certain
sadness one caimot but feel in handling reUcs Uke that of a
friend but recently gone. In after years the sadness would
be worn off ; one would feel only gladness. I find pleasure
unmixed in the airy touches, the sweet spirit of sympathy
and admiration, the amusing bursts of indignation. I have
a feUow feeUng for aU his ways of looking at things, for his
UberaUsm and his naive admiration of beauty in things
altogether useless from the world's point of view ; also his
remarks upon books interested me ; the same sweet Catholic
spirit, the same horror of the prosy ; the same humour and
frankness. They were Uke a dream to me of other days
and other lands, idling now in this pahny isle of Southern
Seas ; sweet echoes of a world that exists only in echoes
now, if I may say so ; of days and scenes and persons, all
evanescent as the purple tints of sunset in the Land of the
Pink Pearl ; yet golden, too, and tranquU, like the won
drous Ught of morn that awakens me here in this shining
land to more dreams and purified memories as I stroU by
the gUttering sea.
And now I find I have written myself quite dry ' anent '
these letters ; I cannot pump up another word ; and yet I
fancied that I had much to write ; thus are we emptiest
when we feel fuUest ; however, ' anent ' is one of our friend's
words, and I am sorry to say that I dislike it ; I don't know
why I dislike it, unless it involve to my mind a certain
affectation. But it 's aU the same now ; the suns rise and the suns set,
the waters sparkle ; the lofty cocoanut palms wave in the
breeze ; one day is Uke another day, and aU days are the
same, and the years gUde away ; one cycle cometh and
another goeth. The Infinite and the Eternal, — they are
here and now, and endless succession alone abideth. This
is the mood which these sunny cUmes induce ; the mono
tone of nature transfers itself to the mind ; and hence it
seems to me may be explained the tendency to brood over
the Infinite and the Eternal which is characteristic of

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 135
climates Uke this,— of India and Ceylon and aU the hot Far
East coimtries. In the northern countries of Europe and
with us in the North, — the climate is constantly vexing us
with its changes ; hardly ever one day like another. Our
life for the greater part of the year is an indoor Ufe and is
fiUed with intense pursuits ; — in these sunny cUmes an ever
lasting sameness ; a perpetual sitting ; the mind grasps the
monotone of the Universe as it were. You see and feel the
law of endless succession, — always of the same thmgs ; —
you wUl understand what I am feebly struggUng to express,
namely, that nature in these latitudes predisposes to this
brooding over the Infinite. I can understand the calm of
the Buddha in India but not in New England. And now
my thermometer marks two degrees higher ; 80°. I must
resume my clothes and go to dinner. But diimer has now
become a mere form with me ; a plate of soup and two
vegetables ; a sUce of pie and a cup of coffee ; no meat ;
nothing more. I eat a breakfast which runs me for twenty-
four hours ; it is the habit which best agrees with me.
However, since I last wrote, the hotel has fiUed up a Uttle,
but I do not care for the guests ; the restless Yankee is too
great a discord in this suimy world to suit my taste ; but
the wife finds diversion in the society of many agreeable
persons, and is altogether contented. And what is more
and best we keep weU, and postage has just been reduced
from fourpence to twopence haUpeimy.

Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Saturday, 20 February, 1892,
My dear H., — I am deUghted to learn that you have read
Moriey and like his style. I do not know a better style in
aU the writing of these days. It is a long time since I have
read him, but I retain a most vivid recoUection of the
pleasure I derived from his pages. Your criticism of his
style is most just, — clearness and sincerity are his leading
traits. He is far more interesting to me than Macaulay
with his rhetoric and so-caUed brilUancy. Does anybody
read Macaulay in these days ? I suppose the young do.

136 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Some time ago I took up Macaulay's Essays expecting to
renew the pleasure, — ^nay, the enthusiasm which I once felt
in reading them : in vain, they fell altogether fiat upon me,
and I laid aside the book. I do not beUeve one could ever
have that experience with Moriey.
From Moriey to pipes is a far cry : — but I must teU you
who are fond of pipes that I picked up an admirable ' wrinkle '
here yesterday. I bought a cheap pipe at a shop kept by
a Maltese coloured man ; weU, we talked about pipes and he
told me to put a smaU pebble at the bottom of the pipe ;
the pebble, he said, absorbed the nicotine and moreover
tempered the smoke and kept it from coming so hot into the
mouth as is usuaUy the case. He kindly ' fixed ' a pipe for
me, and I smoked it on the spot : admirable. I repeated
the experiment this morning : more admirable. Henceforth
I shaU smoke nothing but pipes with a pebble at the bottom :
supreme wrinkle. I have lost aU desire for cigars ; I now
only wonder that hitherto I have never done justice to pipes ;
I have now a craving for pipes. The limestone pebbles here
are precisely the right kind of pebbles, for Umestone is
porous ; hence put a pebble in your pipe when doing your
lesson in the Norwegian tongue.
In years gone by I have spent two long summers in Norway,
carrioUng aU over the country, but I confess I never observed
' the smooth and musical quaUty of the language.' The
language always struck me as very hard and rugged, — nay,
repulsive ; and I was never drawn to it. I don't quite
compass your desire to study it, unless it be in coimection
with Platdeutsch, in which I supposed you to be proficient.
There is more or less Uterature in the language, — ^the Danes
have written a good deal ; but I never heard of any master
pieces. All that is worth reading in Norwegian is accessible
I fancy in German. For my part were I at this advanced
period of my course through this terrestrial sphere to at
tempt a Scandinavian tongue, I should take the Swedish.
Sweden has an attraction for me beyond Norway, — or
rather, I should say, the Swedes ; for Norway is a most
fascinating country in which to joumey ; its mountains and
fiords are beautiful beyond words ; and then the mode of

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 137
travelling, — in a carriole. The roads aU through the country
are admirable ; the inns clean ; the dayUght never ending.
I have carrioled over the Dovre Fijeld to Throndhjem, and
steamed along the coast to Tromsoe. Alas ! for the days
that are gone : and the years : and the weird scenery of
those high northern latitudes, — how it aU comes back to
me, — ^in its loneUness and grandeur ! But the Norwegians
are a race of saUors, and never brought much to pass in a
bookish way. The Swedes, on the contrary, are a brighter
people, with a history, and, I might say, civUization of their
own ; they have produced grand characters ; they are an
entertaining and poUshed people, and Stockholm is a
unique city ; its water environs, with their castles and things,
are extremely beautiful. However, you study Norwegian,
I fancy, mainly for its Ungual relations, so to speak, and
not for its Uterature ; and I have no doubt you wUl find
great pleasure in the pursuit. I wish I had your enterprise
and courage to attack a new language, but I haven't. I
am too far gone in indolence and pipes. However, I have
one possession — won by years of assiduous toU — the German :
for a book-knowledge of which I reaUy think I could stand
an examination for entrance at Harvard.
WeU, we are Uving serene days in the Land of the Pink
Pearl. We had a varied cargo of folk by the last steamer
from New York, on Monday. I looked them over, but they
do not interest me in the least : weak-lunged for the most
part : broken-winded : but worst of aU, very ordinary, — ¦
this ' you was ' and ' I just come ' kind of thing. I declare,
take us aU together, we Americans are the greatest vul
garians on earth. WeU-meaning folk, no doubt ; I am m-
tensely aUve to aU their good quaUties ; but in manner and
way of talk, supreme vulgarians ; in the whole lot lately
arrived I do not beUeve you would pick out more than two
or three gentlemen, as the word gentleman is ordinarily
used. In Southern CaUfornia I used to caU this kind of
folk, cattle. I do not Uke, however, to use that word, and
must confess I am totaUy at a loss for a fitting term. I
wUl add only that the tooth-pick chewing habit seems to
me to be making frightful progress among the better class

138 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of Americans ; even boys are taking it up. We are an
educated people and spend lots of money on common schools
and the like. Why in the world can't ordinary good
manners be taught to the young, and aU this horrible vul
garity of speech pointed out to them ? There wUl never
be any improvement untU this is done ; as it is, we shaU go
on sinking from one depth of vulgarity into another, and
become the laughing-stock of the earth. WeU, we are now
enjoying a cool speU — 72° in my chamber at this moment ;
but we have been having gales, which make night hideous
through rattling windows and doors. However, we have
been having charming walks, notwithstanding. My favourite
walk is to Fort Montague so-caUed, through Shirley street,
round the point, and back by Bay street along the water
to the Polo Grounds, and thence across to DowdesweU
street, and so to the hotel, — about four and one-half mUes :
everywhere scattered negro cabins : lofty cocoanut pahns :
palmettos, oleanders, tamarinds, breadfruit trees and spark
Ung green water. The walk is eastward, — sun behind us.
The sun is down by the time we return : golden sunsets
and lonely pahns with weird fronds against the gUttering
sky : air intensely clear : roads dustless.

Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Wed'nesday, 23 March, 1892.
My dear H., — Apropos of words, do you know the word
' plodge ' ? A bright young EngUsh girl writes to the
wife : ' Do you and your husband never go saUing ? Is
there no fishing ? for porpoises or sardines ? No shrimps
or prawns ? Why don't you try ? It 's such fun. I 'm
pretty sure your husband would Uke it. Do suggest to
him to plodge among the rocks for prawn. I know of no
amusement more entertaining for young people.' Fancy
me ' pledging ' among rocks for prawns, barefooted too : —
and I don't even know what the word means. No, I don't
go saUing. I have been in a boat several times here, but
I reaUy don't enjoy it : you have to tack a great deal here,
and the jib-boom, or whatever the beastly thing is caUed,

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 139
is constantly getting swung from one side to the other,
and it 's a dreadfuUy tiresome task for me to be always
dodging it ; and besides, when there is any wind here, there
is apt to be too much wind, and the boat reels over in an
uncanny way, and I feel as if it would take but a very Uttle
additional energy in the breeze to tip me altogether into
the water. In fact, my particular form of neurasthenia
keeps cropping up in aU these things : dread of this or that
thing happening : and I enjoy nothing when the dread is on
me, and by no effort of the wUl can I suppress it. I suppose
everybody has his infirmities ; at any rate my infirmities
are taking this disagreeable form at present. As for fishing,
when I was a boy I used to like salt-water fishing ; but such
a mass of years Ue between that time and this that I don't
know whether I should like fishing or not. I made some
inquiries about fishing when I first came here, and the fisher
men told me that in the winter months the fish are very
shy in these waters in the day-time. The fishermen make
their catch for the market at night ; weU, I can't fish or do
anything else at night except sleep. I am too far gone in
seniUty for night amusement of that kind, or any kind. I
have never heard of any fishing for porpoises, but there is
occasional fishing for sharks. This is said to be wUdly
exciting. A dead horse is taken out some distance from
the mouth of the harbour and sunk in the water, a buoy
being attached to show the place. After a day the men
go out and find lots of sharks ; the sharks smeU the carrion
and gather from aU quarters. In fact these seas swarm
with sharks. The sharks, I beUeve, are speared, but I have
forgotten precisely how they are done for.
A nice young man, EngUsh, appeared here one day, and
was put next to the wife at table, now a good whUe ago.
He had just come over from Florida in a schooner after long
days on the water. He had come out to Florida a few
weeks before from England, bringing his wife and an infant
boy. The wife is an American, and she remained in Florida
whUe he came over here with a view to soUcit a position in
the Colonial Service, he had formerly been in the Colonial
Service, in Ceylon and in British Guiana. In the latter

140 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
country he feU Ul, but after several years of suffering finaUy
recovered his health, and is now, with a wife and famUy on
his hands and no money visible from any quarter, most
desirous to secure a permanent position. He brought letters
from Lord Knutsford, head of the Colonial office in London,
and also from other sweUs, aU most fashionable. He was
born in India, this youth, where his father was a magistrate,
in the Bengal service, — ^not far from Calcutta ; and his
father's sister was Thackeray's wife, but he can only just
remember seeing Thackeray. When a chUd, his father
and the famUy stayed with Thackeray once in Thackeray's
house in London ; and among his letters was one from
Mr. Ritchie, the husband of Thackeray's daughter. WeU,
the young man appUed to the Govemor, of course. Sir
Ambrose Shea, and was most favourably received ; but the
Govemor frankly advised him to abandon his project of
soUciting a Govemment appointment in the Bahamas.
There were but two or three vacancies, and these were offices
of the meanest description, at any rate as far as salary was
concerned : £80 a year and the Uke. Sir Ambrose advised
him rather to turn his attention to the Sisal industry, which
is now becoming an aU-absorbing industry in the Bahamas,
and in the Governor's opimon is destined to have a famous
future. The Govemor provided him with letters to the
Chamberlains, who have a great Sisal estate in Andros
Island — one of the Bahamas, — and the young man sailed
over there to look up the Chamberlains. He was weU
received, and spent several days there. The Chamberlains
have a grant of twenty thousand acres, but as yet they have
only about six hundred acres under cultivation. Mr. S.
expected with a favourable wind to get over there in six
hours ; he was 26 hours on the passage, — a smaU sponge
boat ; and he had to sit the whole time on deck, and besides
he went the whole time without food or drink. He had
taken no provisions of his own : he said it was impossible
to eat the negroes' food, or drink the water they used ; they
got short of provisions themselves, but they soon obtained
a fresh supply, for they dived and brought up conch shells,
and ate the meat raw, — fancy ! It is positively incredible

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 141
what a nigger can Uve on. Coming back they had an en
counter with an enormous shark. These sponge boats are
so smaU that a shark suddenly turning over on his back
and making a lunge at the deck could bite a man in halves.
Mr. S. said the negroes were wUd with fury, and as the shark
made for the boat one of the men took an oar and thrust it
into his mouth, giving it such a shove that shortly afterwards
the shark gave up his horrible ghost.
WeU, upon coming back Mr. S. fell in with some American
capitaUsts, and he is now away in the out islands looking up
favourable sites for a Sisal enterprise, which these capitalists
are intending to organize. He has studied the Sisal question
with care ; and he teUs me that the state of the case is
this. The Bahamas are adapted to produce the best kind
of Sisal, but the product has thus far been too smaU to
have a commercial value by itself ; there hasn't been Sisal
enough produced here to enable manufacturers to put upon
the markets products exclusively made of Bahamas Sisal.
Hence the Bahamas Sisal is mixed with Sisal from Yucatan
and other countries, and commands no higher price than
the Sisal from other countries, though on its merits it is
worth more than any Sisal produced anywhere else. Hence,
when the product of Bahamas Sisal becomes large enough
to be avaUable for manufacturers to estabUsh what I may
caU a Bahamas brand, then the Bahamas Sisal wUl command
a very high and most remunerative price, and the Bahamas
wUl become a Sisal mine. It takes four years before the
Sisal plant begins to yield a product, and at fifteen years of
age the plant dies.
Well, it 's 76° by the thermometer hangmg on the waU,
and I am beginning to feel empty ; the witching hour of
two is approaching and I must get my clothes on ; I will
give over spinnmg idle cobwebs, and sit now for a Uttle
and gaze upon the blue sea and Usten to the winds sighing
through the palms and the cedars ; for Calm as of the
Buddha is on the waters and in the sunUght.

142 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Eoyal Victoria Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Monday, 7 March, 1892.
My dear H., — The last fortnightly maU brought me your
most agreeable birthday letter ! And I am wondering
where our next birthdays wUl find us both. Alas for the
fiying years ! How true is it as the poet wrote : ' Singula
de nobis anni praedantur euntes. Eripuere jocos, Venerem,
convivia, ludum.' I found these descriptive Unes in Froude's
book ; and yet after aU, they are not entirely true as yet
of me, though I am hastening fast towards the cataclysm
of age ; for I do stUl enjoy jokes and cups ; I only wish cups
were as cheap as the jokes. And now we are returning shortly
to New York, where we may spend a month : anything for
a change ! It is a great remedial agent, change ; there is
nothing that makes one so sodden as Uving in precisely the
same way week in and week out. Goethe said the world
was wide, and made wide expressly to give mankind a chance
to stir around in it. Hence his advice to keep moving
briskly ; to wander and learn. Froude, too, enjoys wander
ing ; especiaUy does he enjoy sea voyages, the chief fascina
tion of which consists to him as he says, in their affording
a respite from dinner parties, — ^fancy ! And apropos of
Froude and voyages, do you know why the smaU guU,—
swaUow-Uke, — is caUed a petrel ? It is in memory of
St. Peter, — because they (petrels) ' seem for a moment to
stand upon the water, when they stoop upon any floating
object.' And then again, speaking of the sea, Froude
quotes Euripides (I wUl spare you the Greek words) as say
ing : ' The sea washes off aU the woes of men,' — this, in
iUustration of the joy the Greeks had in the sea. WeU,
now I don't beUeve the Greeks had any more joy in the sea
than I have. I wish to speak respectfuUy of the Greeks,
though I think they are often overrated, and besides I am
often vexed to find that a good thing which I have come
across in a modern writer, and taken as original and as
showing the depth of modern thought, has been said before
by one of those very Greeks. WeU, what I am driving at
is that I have a passion, an ever returning craving, for the
sea. I am at times driven to make a voyage ; or to sojourn

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 143
by the sea. There is something gladsome, joyous to me
in the sparlde of the waves, in the mere wide stretches of
ocean : a freedom of spirit : emancipation from cities and
poor mankind and aU the turmoU of human Ufe : a restful
ness beyond words. But precisely what I don't grasp is the
signfficance of this saying of Euripides about the sea washing
off aU the woes of men. Is it that, when on the sea or in
the presence of the sea, say on a lonely strand, we forget our
woes and so get washed clean of them ? Perhaps you wiU
divine this thing better than I can.
I shaU try and read Oscar WUde's Intentions. Clever
paradoxes are always entertaining, especiaUy if they favour
a view of life which one Ukes to take in face of the prevaiUng
popular views. But the real fact is, that though in a general
way we may aU use such phrases as ' everybody ought to be
useful,' and so on, yet there are exceptions to aU general
rules. WUde sees these exceptions, and boldly justffies
them ; the mass of mankind does not see the exceptional
character of many cases of individual Ufe, and does not
justify them ; and the mass of mankind is quite right in
not justifying them. Else the exceptional cases would find
no reUsh in WUde's paradoxes ; and besides, the mass of
mankind would make itseU uncomfortable, if it permitted
any deviation from the popular standard : and that is the
last thing the mass of mankind wiU ever do, — make itself
uncomfortable, I mean. But I go with you on aU fours,
as the lawyers say, about that vulgarism, ' later on.' It is
precisely thirty-four years that I have been fighting this
vulgarism — ' later on ' ; — on what ? I had an impression
that it was an Americanism, I do not remember ever seeing
it in a book by a British writer ; yet vulgarisms after aU,
are an international possession ! But how deUcious what
you quote WUde as saying about idleness,— idleness pro
perly understood, that is, — not the idleness of the street
loafer, not the idleness of the vacuous mind ; but abstinence
from action, made an ethical standpoint ; quite the purpose
for which the Elect exist, luminous in the fuUness of vision,
and lonely as guiding stars in the turbid blackness of low
lived materialism.

144 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
And alas ! your Norwegian teacher ! that was reaUy
tragic. In the midst of life we are in death. The unex
pectedness, the suddenness, of this kind of thing affects me.
What a vivid iUustration it is of the fraUty of the ties which
bind us to earth ! Such a thing quite knocks the breath
out of me for the time being. I remember writing one day
a long letter to our friend W., figuring him as Uving : — and
not long afterwards, aU of a sudden, a postcard was laid on
my table, and I read thereon that he was dead. However,
you took the case calmly ; but you are more in the Une of
funerals than I am. I mean that it probably seems to you a
more natural thing for a man to die than it does to me, and
you are less affected by a case of death when it occurs.
It is indeed in the course of nature that men die ; but what
I mean is, that the suddenness of the event affects less those
who are more famiUar with its recurrence.
The Cable does no harm ; we get no news by it, except
perhaps three Unes twice a week ; and as for newspapers I
share your opinion. If it were not for the financial articles,
which I cannot afford to ignore, I would never look at
another American newspaper ; I say American, because there
are some European newspapers which I Uke to read ; of
course the average American says there is nothing in them ;
that is precisely why I Uke them ; there is nothing in them
which the American Ukes : and I don't Uke what he Ukes.
I remember finding often most interesting reading in such
journals as the Allgemeine Zeitung and especiaUy in the
Neue Freie Presse. I always used to ' go ' for the Neue
Freie Presse the moment I entered a caf6 on the Continent.
It is one of the charms of this place that we are without a
daUy newspaper ; that we know nothing of what is going
on in the world for a fortnight at a time. At first one may
not adjust oneself readUy to this arrangement, but after a
little experience it comes to be recognized as beneficent : a
supreme element in the calm yet joyous mood which alone is
fitting for a ripe enjoyment of these Isles of June.
Bierstadt has returned to the Royal Victoria after a long
and very rough cruise to WatUng's Island, whither he went
with a view to understand the spot where Columbus made

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 145
his first landfaU in the New World, it being now agreed that
WatUng's Island is the right island. He is a very weU-
preserved man, Bierstadt ; his wife, sweet Uttle diaphanous
creature, has been coming here for the last ten years to die,
but she is Uving stUl : wonderful proof of the efficacy of this
charming cUmate. It was in the Bahamas, as you may
remember, that Ponce de Leon sought for the Fountain of
Eternal Youth. The Fountain is here, but he didn't stay
long enough to find it ; the Fountain is the Climate.
Bierstadt is said to be painting a great picture for the
Chicago Fair, Ulustrative of that first landfaU of Columbus ;
and if an evU fate sends you to Chicago, I dare say you wiU
be able to gaze upon something reaUy wonderful : namely,
the very spot where Columbus feU when he landed in the
New World.
We had a cold speU here lately, — I mean ten degrees off
the usual temperature ; but we are back to 78° now, and
my clothes aU go upon the bed again as soon as I come
upstairs after breakfast and pipes. I hope you have tried
my wrinkle of a pebble, it works very weU with me. I shaU
write you once again, — my last letter from the Land of the
Pink Pearl.

Eoyal Victoria. Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
Thursday, 31 March, 1892.
My dear H., — ^We are booked to embark for New York
on Monday, AprU 11 ; and I must confess that it is with
sadness I behold the winter (so caUed) which we have spent
in these Isles of June passing away, to be buried with aU
preceding Winters in the great chamel house of the Past.
WeU, everything comes to an end at last ; we are but
phantoms, shadows ; and aU things are iUusions, as Solomon
said ; and surely he ought to know.
The last boat for New York took away lots of guests and
thereby broke the back of the season. We are now once
more quiet, and the Smoke Room is no longer swamped,
and there is an occasional tenderloin left for breakfast.
The last boat took away a party of C.'s from Boston. One

146 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of them I had never happened to meet there, but I have
heard of him aU my life, and was glad to meet him. This
was John C, seventy-eight, and the best preserved man of
his age I have ever met : smaU in stature : active and alert
to the last degree. He used to bathe almost daUy, and
bathing here is reaUy an enterprise. I may have told you
that along the Northern side of Nassau, at a distance of
half a mUe or a mUe — there is nothing so deceptive as
distance measured by the eye on the water, — stretches a
long narrow island, caUed Hog Island, which serves as a
natural breakwater, and makes a harbour, — such as it is, —
for the place. WeU on the other side are stretches of sands
where people bathe. There is indeed another bathing-
place, — sands Ukewise, — in front of an old abandoned fort,
caUed Fort Montague ; but John C. used to bathe in the
morning on Hog Island ; and that meant a walk in a sun
that burns one Uke a Uve coal, a long puU acr&sg the harbour
diagonaUy, and then another walk through jungle to the
sands ; and then aU this over again on the return. I cannot
do it. I should be used up for a fortnight, were I to attempt
it. John C. made nothing of it ; his physical energy is
stupendous ; he ran after girls Uke a boy of seventeen, and
chased young men upstairs. I was only too sorry to see
however that he had no sympathetic appreciation for cups
and pipes ; his passion was High Low Jack, WeU, he has
written a good deal. He began Ufe as a supercargo's clerk in
New York and got to the Far East. There he was super
cargo ; then he was master of cUpper ships, and I beUeve
it is not yet twenty years since he left the sea. He has
written many magazine stories of his adventures, etc. : all
buried now I suppose, thousands of feet deep in that colossal
mass of print which goes on encumbering the earth with
ever increasing rapidity from year to year, tUl one finaUy
wonders what wUl become of the earth. Of late years John
has been an ardent advocate of free ships. You know under
our present law upon the subject, no American Register
can be granted except to an American-buUt ship. John
hoped to get this law repealed, and he says the prospect of
success is altogether certain. John has also Uved much

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 147
among the Mormons. He has a smaU ranch m Idaho,
where he passes the summer. I am told that he has written
a book upon the Mormons of whom he has a more favourable
opimon than most foUs have. He has also lately pubUshed
a Uttle book relating the adventures of a horseback ride
from New York to Boston ; the frontispiece contains a
portrait of himself on horseback, properly decorated for an
equestrian joumey. In winter he Uves in New York, when
he is not away on horseback up the Hudson somewhere,
going there for skating : fancy, at seventy-eight ! There is
something altogether prodigious in aU this to me. Never
theless the poor man has his aUments : horrible catarrh, and
disorganized stomach : — ^bad stomach, — this is dangerous.
A Scotch physician once told me that I should Uve for ever
(whatever that may mean) because of the soundness of my
stomach. WeU, John was most entertaining when among
men. I reaUy never heard so many stories aU at once from
any human being as he used to reel off late of an evening in
a comer of the haU downstairs caUed the lobby.
I fancy you do not put your mind much upon PubUc
Measures ; but I cannot help congratulating myself and
the country upon the defeat of the Free Coinage of SUver
BUl. There seems to be in aU countries what I may caU
an EvU Fate urging Govemment and People upon courses
directly contrary to the true weU-being of the land. The
Pree Coinage of SUver BiU is an instance, and I dare say
it wUl come at last ; it is too disastrous not to come ; it
means the abandonment of the Gold Standard and the
adoption of the SUver Standard, and that means taking us
out of the company of strong nations and putting us among
weak nations. It means disturbing commerce and industry
in such a way that the rich grow ever richer and the poor
ever poorer. It means many deleterious things, but I wiU
not dweU upon the subject now ; in the sunUght and the
soft air of this deUcious climate it is fooUsh to forecast the
gloom which may come from poUtical economies wrongly
appUed. Did you ever know a man, — personaUy know a
man I mean, — who was the victim of a murder ? I never
knew but one man : and the tragedy of his murder is now

148 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
fiUing the newspapers aU over the world. The great Hong
Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation has a branch
estabUshment in Yokohama in Japan, and in this branch
estabUshment there was employed when I was there, a young
man by the name of Robinson, — George Gower Robinson.
He attended to the Letters of Credit, to forwarding letters,
and that kind of thing ; he was most agreeable and poUte
and attentive. I beUeve his mother was an ItaUan, but I
am not sure of this ; at any rate, if I remember rightly, he
spoke several languages fluently, especiaUy ItaUan and
French, and Japanese of course : he dressed in rather a
gorgeous way, — velvet waistcoats and highly -coloured neck
ties. He seemed to me especiaUy attentive to us and our
interests, forwarded our letters himself to Miyanoshita and
Nikko and Tokio with great care and promptness, and was
in every way serviceable. I Uked him very much, and had
looked upon him as a friend. I remember once when we
were descending the sulphurous heights of The Great HeU,
as the Japs caU it, we met Robinson and a companion
coming up. It was an awful descent ; we had eight or ten
cooUes with us, but we had to abandon our chairs, and three
or four cooUes had me in charge on foot. I was nearly
paralyzed by the heat and the sulphurous fumes and the
terrible fatigue of climbing the mountain, for we had come
up on the other side. We were descending at the time I
speak of, and the descent was worse than the ascent : pre
cipitous decUvities : bare and jagged rocks cutting one's
feet : a boUing sun : and stench of sulphur. There we met
Robinson and his companion coming up. Robinson was
as fresh and gay as a lark ; he bounded up the rocks Uke
an antelope ; it was an immense pleasure to meet a friendly
face in those dreary soUtudes. I shaU never forget his
hilarious ways and joyous good-humour. WeU, you know
we always have a warship at Yokohama. One of the
officers of it, a man named Hetherington, had a giddy
flirting wife. Robinson's quite altogether fascinating ways
produced an impression upon this siUy thing, and I dare say
there was more or less fiirtation ; given the chance, and
there are few yoimg men of the world who would not take

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 149
advantage of it. WeU, the upshot of it aU was that one
afternoon in February, whUe Robinson and another man,
a German merchant from Kobe, were riding along the Bund
in a dogcart (the Bund is the street in aU the foreign
settlements, which runs along the water : it contains as a
rule aU the great Banks and mercantUe houses), this man
Hetherington shot Robinson dead, or nearly dead. Robin
son died the next evening. The Coroner's Jury returned
a verdict of WUful Murder ; and if this wasn't a case of
wilful murder, I never heard of one. Hetherington is under
arrest of course, in prison ; but as this kind of murder is
becoming more or less fashionable now I dare say he wUl
save his neck.
I have been reading Marion Crawford's The Witch of
Prague. He calls it a ' fantastic tale,' — ^I should think so :
altogether weird and dreary. The Witch's name is Unoma.
The Witch was bom on the 29th of February. ' Unor
means February ' : Unoma, derivative adjective, ' belong
ing to February ' : some one gave her the name to com
memorate the circumstance. We ought to caU you Unoma
H  , as you too were bom on February 29th,
Boston, 20 October, 1892,
My dear H., — Parkman's mention of my father's article
as being ' on a subject so important and a work of Roscoe's
so recent,' has misled me. I supposed the ' work of Roscoe's '
to be a work by the author of Lorenzo the Magnificent and
other simUar works on the ItaUan Renaissance ; and I
wasted much precious time, and wiped off on my hands and
coat a mass of dirt and dust which had been at least half a
century in accumulating, in endeavouring to find such an
article. In vain. At last I hit upon an article on a book
entitled Observations on Penal Jurisprudence and the Refor
mation of the Criminal Code et cetera, by WUUam Roscoe, Esqr. ,
London, 1819. This was the work, and this the Roscoe :
hardly more than a book notice : and it does not pretend
to be more : quite in my father's style : with copious ex
tracts. The work advocates the Penitentiary system for

150 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
criminals, and contains in an appendix ' the latest Reports
of the State Prisons or Penitentiaries of PhUadelphia, New
York and Massachusetts.' I mention this in order to intro
duce the opening paragraph : which strikes me as weU
written and worth quoting.
' The contents of this volume, as they are the result of
real phUanthropy, address themselves forcibly to aU the
benevolent, who, to the common compassionate regard for
the wretched unite a willingness to aid, by their individual
exertions or infiuence, aU endeavours to reUeve the suffer
ings, to reclaim the guilty or to invigorate generaUy the
moral principle among men. They are particularly suited
to awaken a strong interest in those who have at heart a
feeUng for the purity and peace, and if we may so speak,
the integrity of our society in its progress to refinement.
It is not confined to the phUosopher, to know that, as
society advances, crimes multiply faster than virtues ; and
those who are happiest in the consciousness of the com
paratively unsuUied character of our society at this day,
of our present youthful innocence, are perhaps the saddest
as they contemplate the moral changes that await a man
hood of power, consoUdated and immense, and an old age
weakened by wealth and corrupted by luxury,' , . .
' To exti/rpate moral evU, is among the dreams of the
visionary. To apportion with a discriminating regard to
the subjects of it, punishment to crime, — ^by chastisement
or restraint to subdue or soften the obduracy of the vicious :
by a wholesome discipline to chasten and control the way
ward : in short, so to lay the sanctions of the law, that by
every form of penal appUcation the deUnquent shaU feel
himself rather drawn to penitence than driven to despair —
is among the noblest aims of the legislator and phUan
thropist.' I found nothing worth noting in aU the volumes I looked
through except one article, upon the Memoirs of the Life of
Anthony Benezet, by Robert Vaux, of PhUadelphia. Benezet
was a phUanthropist apparently, after the fashion of Howard.
He Uved in the last century, was an opponent of slavery, and
seems in his day to have been not merely weU known, but

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 151
reaUy a celebrated person. It is said that he desu:ed that
no posthumous memorial of him should be erected by his
friends ; but he adds, ' if they wUl not regard my desire, they
may say, ' Anthony Benezet was a poor creature, and
through divine favour, was enabled to know it.' This struck
me as exceUent : — in the dreary waste of rubbish through
which I had been making my way, it was Uke the quickening
sound of a human voice in a soUtude peopled only by
phantoms. The Summer seems not yet to have come to an end ; it
always lasts with me as long as I can sit in the open air,
and stiU I sit at appropriate times in the day in the porch
of mine inn and do offer incense in curUng clouds to the
shades of the Great Immortal of the Hour, — I am referring
to Columbus : who though by no means a Saint is perhaps
not after aU so much of a Liar, as be some who do so
designate him.
Also I have noted Church's Dante and Other Essays. I
Uke to read anything that takes my mind five hundred
years away from this present. Did I say that I had finished
reading Sir Henry Taylor's Autobiography ? and I am in
debted to it for several pleasant hours passed in weU-bred
and inteUigent society : a society which does not in any
way distract the mind : one sleeps weU after it : and though
one can remember nothing about it the next day, yet stUl
there remains the recoUection of a pleasant flavour associated
with the book, — the flavour of agreeable hours, which just
missed being heavy, through the inborn grace and nobffity
of the talkers. Also I have read BirreU's Res Judicatoe —
charming, tranquU, Uttle essays, and now I have at last got
hold of Obiter Dicta, second series, by the same writer : most
agreeable writing : especiaUy at the hour when one draws
the curtains and Ughts the lamps and sinks back with
sUppered feet and coUarless neck into one's comfortable
armchair : and though I suppose I have read a hundred
Essays on Charles Lamb, yet in the quietude of the evening
hours, I can always read one more, — especiaUy if Birrell
writes it.

152 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Boston, 28 October, 1892.
My dear H., — I have made a note of the Life of Fawcett.
Carlyle says that biographies are sickening things : — perhaps
because he spent his Ufe in writing biographies. At any
rate, his is the most odious name to me in English Literature.
I never read him now ; at one time I read a good deal of him.
Now and then he would write an admirable paragraph, —
but alas ! for his drivel ! Yes, I have read BirreU's Obiter
Dicta, second series, aU through now : deUghtful reading.
Did I caU him tranquU ? weU, in a way he is ; but at the
same time what you write about him is quite true, — he is
Uvely ; he is brisk ; but it is not a kind of Uveliness that
in anyway excites one, — ^it is a tranquil flow of good-humour.
He has not quite what I shoiUd caU sparkle. Our friend W.
hit him off precisely, — ' he tickles one ' ; he tickled me on
almost every page. It is immensely amusing at times, —
the way he writes : his irony is deUcious, — he does not reach
satire ; his good-humour dominates him. He has what I
should caU a quiet way of saying things that are not in the
least biting, but always tickling. He is tranquU ; he doesn't
shriek ; he doesn't abuse anyone ; the flow of his talk is
gentle, — ^Uke that of a quiet humorous old feUow who sits
at one's fireside, and discourses in a low pleasant voice of
Uterary men, — always fuU of a kind of underlying fun ; no
deep thinking, as in Meyer's Essays. I am looking forward
to reading his third and last book. I may buy it perhaps
and read it on the way to New York, though as a rule I do
so Uttle car-riding that I am more inclined to sit quietly and
view the landscape. The trees and houses, the hUls and
vaUeys furnish me ever with themes for pleasing reverie.
I do not care much for books when I am riding ; it is a peep
at nature I get ; and I always enjoy it. I like sometimes
to sit stiU and let the outward world be borne in upon me ;
and raUway riding in a Drawing-Room Car furnishes an
agreeable occasion for this sort of placid and poetic, if half
somnolent mood : when one may ' pause a whUe from letters
to be wise,'
Yea, poor dear W, ! how often I thought of him when
reading BirreU's writing on good old Sam Johnson. ' It is

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 153
notorious that he (Dr, Johnson) never read any book aU
through, and never could get to beUeve that anybody else
ever did.' ' As a letter-writer Johnson has great merits.
Let no man despise the epistolary art. It is said to be
extinct. I doubt it. Good letters were always rare. It
does not foUow that, because our grandmothers wrote long
letters, they aU wrote good ones, or that nobody nowadays
writes good letters because most people write bad ones.'
This is truly pleasing, and altogether Birrellesque. And
with aU his humour and gentle irony, whatever BirreU writes
is marked by good sense ; he is always just ; one goes along
with him, as they say in the law, on aU fours. But how he
does tickle one at times ! I should never have thought of
this word, but it does credit to W.'s discernment ; and I
must say that for pure Uterary enjoyment BirreU is reaUy
a treasure. But before I leave him, I must quote a passage
in his writing on Pope : it is deUcious : it tickled me in every
line :
' Men and women, we can weU beUeve, went in terror of
Uttle Mr. Pope. WeU they might for he made smaU con
cealment of their names, and even such as had the luck to
escape obvious recognition have been hoisted into infamy by
the untiring labours of subsequent commentators. It may,
perhaps, be stUl open to doubt, who was the Florid Youth
referred to in the EpUogue to the Satires, — ¦
' And how did, pray, the Florid Youth offend,
" Whose speech you took and gave it to a friend ? "
Bowles said it was Lord Hervey, and that the adjective is
due to his lordship's weU-known practise of painting himself ;
but Mr. Croker, who knew everything, and was in the habit
of contradicting the Duke of Wellington about the battle
of Waterloo, says " Certainly not. The Florid Youth was
young Henry Fox." Sometimes, indeed, in our hours of
languor and dejection when " The heart is sick
And all the wheels of being slow,"
the question forces itself upon us, What can it matter who
the Florid Youth was, and who cares how he offended ?

154 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
But this questioning spirit must be checked. " The proper
study of mankind is man," and that title cannot be denied
even to a florid youth,' — et cetera. This is deUcious, — this
is BirreUesque, — this is truly tickling.
And by the way, I have found a new book, Nature in
Books : Some Studies in Biography. By P. Anderson
Graham. I have read only the paper on Thoreau ; — The
philosophy of Idleness. It strikes me as a just critique.
Yet I don't know in what sense the word Idleness is used.
I suppose I am entitled to be caUed an Idle Man, and yet I
am busy from morning untU night with something or other ;
I don't find time for one half what I should like to do, and
to read. Thoreau was a busy man, — a much busier man, —
in his way. Hence if the philosophy of Idleness is to be
extracted from the Uves of Thoreau and — longo intervallo, —
from your humble servant, the word Idleness must be used
in a sense different from what is usuaUy attached to it. If
by an Idle Man is meant a man who is doing nothing to earn
money, the phrase does not apply to Thoreau for he was
always, or almost always, trying to eam money. If the
phrase is appUed to a man who is doing nothing to eam
money, because he has enough for his support, it is a vapid
phrase ; for the chances are that such a man wUl create
occupation for himself. A man who is inteUigent enough to
understand the phrase ' phUosophy of Idleness,' wUl be in-
telUgent enough to utUize his Idleness, and make clear the
phUosophy of it. It strikes me that Thoreau is the last
person in the world to stand for the phUosopher of Idleness ;
yet after aU, I must confess I don't grasp the sense which
is attached to Idleness, — ^I don't mean in Ufe, but in books ;
however, the author undertakes to give us his notion of an
Idler: ' His (Thoreau's) physique was a contradiction of his
creed. The innate idler (Usten to this) is of a soft and cor
pulent habit of body, his eye restful and languid, his muscles
unstrung, his motions easy and slow, his speech trickling
and ever in search of an excuse to stop. He rests i' the sun
Uke one who has eaten of lotos, and aUows the warmth and
the breeze, the greenery of Nature and her music to buUd

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 155
picture and procession, to erect groves and to trace rivers
and to people this land of fancy with beauteous nymph and
naiad. But it aU comes as involuntarUy, as unbidden, as
independent of exertion as a dream.'
I should think so.

The Westminster Hotel, New York,
13 December, 1892.
My dear H., — In a comer of the tiny writing- (also smok
ing-) room, in this Uttle hotel, mounted upon a convenient
stand, provided with divers mechanical devices for opening
and laying out the book, is a stupendous copy of Webster's
Unabridged, — fancy ! I have never seen any one having
recourse to it, except two negro beU-boys, and myself. But
it is certainly an immense resource to me, and I shaU now
be able to crack aU the phUological nuts that may get thrown
this way. Yes, obelise : exceUent word : derived from the
old practice of putting the sign of an obeUsk against spurious
or doubtful passages and words. Also digladiations, 1 like :
though both words strike one as uncouth ; but if they were
much used, and we were accustomed to them, they would
sound no more remote than thousands of other words, —
dilapidate for instance. It is strange, how from century to
century words drop out of use, and when we stumble over
them in old writers, how very archaic, obsolete, — nay,
absurd they seem. Yet I think this is a pity. The EngUsh
language is none too rich in words, — words conveying
different shades of meaning. Why shouldn't we keep aU
these so-caUed obsolete words, — obelise and digladiation for
instance ? I wonder if any list has ever been made of these
discarded words. I should reaUy Uke to study such a list,
and see if I couldn't find words worth restoring to use, — for
myseK I mean. Of course good taste is a law unto itself ;
and in EngUsh style we are extremely sensitive to anything
that smacks of barbarism as it were. StiU I think we may
carry this aesthetic tendency too far, — ^for there must be
obsolete words which are not offensive to the ear ; and if a
word be a good one, conveying as is often the case, a shade

156 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of meaning different from that conveyed by the word which
has taken the place of it, — ^why not use it ? It is use that
makes words, in aU cases, legitimate ; and the ear once
accustomed to a new word, — ^the new words that somehow
get coined from time to time in our day, for instance, — we
take the word as a matter of course. However, it may be
that there is some occult reason for dropping these now
obsolete words, — a reason vaUd in itself ; it may not be a
mere caprice or fashion in aU cases. This again would be
a curious subject of inquiry, and I should think could hardly
be characterized as a distemper of learning ; for after aU,
there may be things which even ' the late Lord St. Albans '
never dreamt of in his phUosophy. Nevertheless, I am
curious about Ben Jonson's Timber or Discoveries : very
odd word. Timber : I suppose it must have a meaning,
although I have not caught it. But I am obUged to you
for giving me an account of the new edition. I should agree
with you in preferring it to an old and musty foUo edition, —
especiaUy if I must go into one of the great New York
Libraries in order to read such an edition ; for as I have
told you, no books are aUowed to go out of the great New
York Libraries. This is a fact difficult to grasp ' but it is a
fact you would soon feel, as it were, if you were in New York.
And it is so long since I have haunted or much used great
Libraries that I feel considerable diffidence and awkward
ness in attacking them. Librarians, Uke other folk, are
creatures of habit, and they have to get used to you and
know you, — get en rapport with you, — ^before you wUl re
ceive anything but a certain cavaUer treatment at their
hands. Now this is a tiresome process, especiaUy for a bird
of passage Uke myself. I do not complain of it, for it Ues in
human nature ; and I understand it. I bought the other
day, — or rather, the wife, who kindly does aU my errands,
bought it for me (I am too heavUy buUt, too clumsy, too
timorous, to go about much in these crowded streets, swarm
ing with vehicles, and amidst these shops big and little
swarming with masses of people, aU in a hurry and aU hust
ling one to the waU) — the wife bought for me, I say, an
entertaining Uttle book, caUed Pensieri-Vani : aU about

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 157
Italy by a young feUow who was never in Italy. Neverthe
less he has caught somehow the warmth and glow of the
ItaUan Landscape, — when it isn't sterUe and dreary, — and
is quite master of aU the emotions which ancient ruins and
fragments of ruins and that kind of thing awaken in the
breast of the contemplative wanderer. The writer comes
from Chicago too, but I notice a certain striving for humorous
effects : — for instance, ' invertebrate humanitariamsm,' —
meaning sickly humanitarianism. This wUl pass, but I
nearly choked when I came across somber sepulchers : and
felt as if I would never open another American-printed
book so long as I Uved. Also I have been reading another
book, — Equatorial America, by Maturin BaUou. BaUou is
a traveUer. He Uves at The Brunswick in Boston when off
the road, and he made my acquaintance there not long
before I left Boston : an agreeable, elderly, and extremely
weU-preserved man. He made recently a voyage, which I
also shoiUd Uke to make ; for his travelling, Uke mine, does
not go beyond the beaten ways. He goes only where good
steamers and the raUway wUl take him, and where there are
inns, or hotels, more or less LucuUian. Of the interior of
tropical countries Uke South America and AustraUa he
knows nothing. WeU, he took a steamer at New York and
saUed Southward, caUing at the Barbadoes and Martinique,
— on to Para, Rio Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, and so on ; and
then round through the straits of MageUan, up the West
Coast, calUng at Valparaiso and so on. And then he
steamed back, and across to London, and then back again
across the Atlantic to The Brunswick in Boston. He was
absent from Boston just seven months, and he visited, we
wiU say, a dozen seaports : nothing more : never more than
ten miles inland from the coastline anywhere : and out
of this he makes a book, — and caUs it Equatorial America !
The book interested me simply for the reason that I have
always had a fancy for doing precisely the same thing,
though I shouldn't care to do it in seven months. But
incidentaUy I must confess I was somewhat surprised by
the picture he draws of the prosperity and progress of many
of the South American cities, such as Rio, Buenos Ayres,

158 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
and Valparaiso. South America is a terra incognita to most
of us : and I fancy you could find twenty persons who had
been in Japan, to one who had been in BrazU.

The Westmnster Hotel, New York,
31 March, 1893.
My dear H., — I am an advocate, as you know, of change
of scene and air, if it is possible to be had. Nothing wears
on the nerves Uke the monotone of an unbroken round of
Uving ; change of scene is to the moral nature what a tonic
is to the blood, quickening the circulation and refreshing
the spirits. WeU, here I am, sitting at my table with the
firm purpose of letting off something before the last day
of March runs into the first day of AprU. AprU, — deUcious
word ; — for it signffies the burial of Winter and the actual
presence of the inchoate Springtime : such as it is : and I
must confess there is not much of it at present. StiU, the
month is there ; and the man, meaning this weariest of
mortals. The thermometer marked 46° out-doors when
I went down to breakfast this morning, and we are getting
to be far ahead of you in our nearness to the Springtime.
I am interested in noting the greater mUdness of the climate
of New York over that of Boston, as I remember the Boston
cUmate. There is reaUy a greater difference than I had
supposed. The East wind here is not what it is in Boston ;
though I cannot see that the North wind, — ^which I hate far
more than the East wind, — ^is any the less penetrating.
It is a horrible wind to me, — this icy, arctic hard North
wind ; it drives aU the blood to my head, and rasps aU my
nerves like a gaUon of green tea ; and we have had a good
deal of it in the' last days.
This is Good Friday ; and the maU came as usual. Whether
the shops are shut, I do not know ; but the Stock Exchange
is shut ; and I shan't be able to lose any more money untU
to-morrow. I have several times of late frequented the Astor Library,
and my experience there has been agreeable, so far as the,
officials are concerned. But it is very tiresome business, —

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 159
using the Library. You write your name and address and
title of book wanted etc. on a printed blank, and give in the
same over the counter. Well, there is weary waiting and
waiting ; yet you must wait, for the Reading-room is a good
distance away ; the books are not brought to you there ;
you receive them over the counter and carry them to the
Reading-room. And in the great haU where the deUvery
is made, there is no chair whatever ; not a soUtary chair ;
you must wait standing ; and I get very wearied by standing.
It would be hard work for me to prosecute any researches
under these circumstances. I wanted to read Froude's
Oceana : which I did. An interesting book : Froude always
makes his books interesting : a voyage to AustraUa : and
comments upon AustraUan scenery and things, including
New Zealand. I should like very much to visit those coun
tries. Far-off lands have always had a pecuUar attrac
tion to me, even if I don't travel to them, as does Froude,
with Horace in one hand, and Euripides in the other, and
care Uttle for aU the reUgious talk which makes up a good
part of Froude's experiences. Also, I have been long in
tending to look up the Paston Letters, which I have often
seen mentioned as being of interest, through the Ught they
throw upon social life of a remote period, — the period being,
speaking roughly, from 1440 to 1480. I foimd them intoler
ably duU, and soon put the book aside. The letters are aU
short, the greater part being what we should designate as
' brief notes ' ; and they are translated into Modem EngUsh.
It is amazing the change which has gone on in the EngUsh
language in five hundred years. WiU there be as great a
change after another five hundred years ? and if so, what
wUl ever become of the mass of printed matter with which
the present age is encumbering the Earth ? It wUl require
a special education to read, for instance, the newspapers of
to-day, if any newspapers of to-day survive so long ; and
very few newspapers survive one year nowadays : except
in the great Libraries, and those you can count on your
fingers. Indeed the only comforting thing in the contem
plation of the printed matter with which the Earth groans
daUy, is its rapid disappearance. Take newspapers ; —

160 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
there is no place in New York where you can buy yesterday's
newspaper. A friend wrote to us, asking us to get a copy
of a certain number of the New York Times, — say three
months old. We went everywhere, and we couldn't get it.
At the Office of The Times, there are kept files of that news
paper, which files you can inspect ; but there is no copy of
any old newspaper to be bought ; and the reason is that
none are kept. When the day's newspaper is served out to
the newsboys and newsdealers, copies of yesterday's news
paper remaining in the hands of the newsboys and dealers
are returned to the Office, and then sent to the paper miUs
to be ground up. And as for individuals who buy or take
in newspapers, how many ever keep a file of them ! Bum
up half a dozen of the big Libraries, — ^and everything in
this coimtry, at any rate, in Boston, seems to get burned
up sooner or later, — and of aU this newspaper Uterature
which covers the earth every morning and every night
as with a blanket, there wiU not be a shred left : — happy
deUverance indeed for the race !

The Westminster Hotel, New York,
14 April, 1893.
My dear H., — It is just a fortnight ago to-day since I
wrote to you ; and here we are stUl, in statu quo. On
Thursday morning I went to the Lenox Library. It is a
very smaU affair regarded as a Library ; but there are col
lections of manuscripts and Columbiana and old rare books
and things which are interesting and valuable. There is
also a gaUery of Pictures upstairs, — not a large gaUery,
and much of it poor stuff ; and lately there has been added
another gaUery, containing pictures bequeathed to the in
stitution, — also poor stuff for the most part ; also a bric-a-
brac coUection. And then the Library, — smaU and common
place ! The Institution is neither one thing nor another.
It is a pity that it does not confine itself to a specialty : say,
rare books and manuscripts. This mixing up pictures and
bric-a-brac and books and manuscripts produces a hetero
geneous mass, of which the average worth is low. It is

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 161
very far up town, — Sixtieth Street or thereabouts, — in Fifth
Avenue ; and we intended walking down Fifth Avenue on
our way home. It was a briffiant morning, but there was
an arctic North wind blowing, which cut us in two and
fiUed the eyes with dust ; one shivered Uke a poplar sapUng
in a gale of wind ; and we took refuge in an ommbus. In
the afternoon we went over to Hoboken, and inspected the
Kaiser Wilhelm II. of the North German Lloyd. The sail
on the ferryboat across the North River always interests
and refreshes me : most picturesque of waters : if that
grand statue of Liberty with its uplifted arm were not so
tiresome : and why is Liberty always represented as a
woman ? It is a fine Boat, the K. W. II., buUt, I believe,
in Stettin : very large cabins. I never had such cabins on
any ocean Liner : — clean, and commodious : — and then we
walked along Hudson Street, — ^nice, pretty houses, com
manding fine views of the Harbour, — lying between the
water and the Heights behind them, — untU we came to the
Fourteenth Street Ferry, whence we horse-carred home.
I fancy I have not mentioned to you Dr. Stevens' book
on the Eye. The book was written originaUy in French,
and was ' crowned ' by the Royal Academy of Medicme in
Belgium some years ago. This is much, especiaUy as the
book sets forth a new principle in medical science ; a prm-
ciple never before recognized, but now for' the first time
brought forward by Dr. Stevens and iUustrated by a mass
of cases,— the principle, namely, that irritations, defects,
troubles in the eyes may produce a reflex action, mducmg
nervous disorders in other parts of the body, — chronic head
aches, sciatica, indigestion, even epUepsy ; and that the
strain on the eyes, mducing such nervous disorders, may
be lessened or removed by tenotomy, or cutting of tendons
or muscles.
It is a warm Spring morning ; 54° outdoors when I went
downstairs this morning at seven o'clock ; and the grass
is green, and the birds are singing merrUy in the Central
Park, and the sprightly crocus and the pansies are Ughting
up the flower beds in the Square ; and everybody is making
plans to go somewhere. Alas ! I can make no plans.
L

162 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
The Westminstbr Hotel, New York,
1 May, 1893.
My dear H., — ^Yes, behold me in New York on the First
of May. I came here on the Second of November, and the
eye affliction of the wife seems to be just where it was when
I came ; but I wUl not complain ; it might be worse ;
there might be no eyes at aU.
WeU our friend R. is at last to saU for Europe. It is a
great break-up, and in the whirl of it, I miss R.'s clever
letters. However, The Unheard-of wUl sometimes make
its way to the surface ; and The Unheard-of is R. writing
from Europe to me in America, — ^fancy ! the whirUgig of
Time doth indeed throw off surprises, — ^if indeed R. does
anything of the kind ; for as a rule the epistolary function
is the first to get lamed, when one is freshly thrown among
foreign scenes. But I am glad that R. has no defimite plans.
There is nothing so tiresome as a definite plan ; it takes aU
the poetry out of foreign experiences, and makes life as
prosy as it is at home. This view of course is not in con
formity with the Ethical standpoint ; and therefore I shaU
not defend it, except as an iUustration of the High Art of
Travel ; for High Art carries no moral. Stories for instance
written to express a moral are commonplace, and tiresome.
Art in any direction carries its own interpretation, — it is
Pleasure ; and the sphere of Pure Pleasure is higher than
that of Morals. Morals are a kind of spiritual poUce force ;
transcend morals and take them for granted when you
enter the High Domain of Art. And now as I said, here is
the First of May : — cloudy, gloomy, raw : with fitful rain-
ings : thermometer 50°. It is not indeed so whoUy Arctic
here as it must be with you, — with the mercury at 28°
and the grass brown and wintry ; for here the grass has
been of the greenest for weeks ; but the trees in the Square
are only just leafing, and in the Central Park the greening
does not yet predominate over the sere and withered tones
of Winter. The Spring is very backward ; it was much
greener here a year ago, when I had for the first time the
misfortune to be caught in this howling wUdemess of
Mammon.

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 163
However, we have had an exciting week : — or I fancy
there must have been excitement somewhere, — else from
aU quarters folk would not have streamed into the City
in such masses. This hotel Uke aU other hotels was fairly
swamped. Scouts were sent out to explore the neighbouring
lodging-houses, the number of which is legion, in search of
rooms : not one to be had : telephone messages were sent to
Jersey City and Brooklyn and elsewhere, inquiring for
rooms : not one to be had : finaUy after the pubhc rooms
in the house had been fiUed up with cots, the stUl remaining
wearied and belated guests put up with chairs in the corridors,
and dozed the night away with what strain they might at
an expense of a doUar and a haU for the chair !
WeU, we did not see the Grand Naval Parade on Thursday,
— ^rain poured in torrents nearly aU that morning. It was
impossible to go out. The Review was deferred for three
hours, and when it did come off, I fancy it must have been
a very sloppy affair. But the preceding day was brUUant,
and in the afternoon we salUed forth to get a view of the
fleet. It had already entered the North River, and was
lying in the River — in two long lines, stretching from
Thirtieth or Fortieth Street to One-hundr dth Street. The
Riverside Park is the grand driveway abng the River, with
a promenade its whole length along a stone embankment.
The promenade, as weU as driveway, is upon high ground
commanding a fine view of the majestic River, and of the
wooded heights of New Jersey on the other side. We struck
the driveway and promenade at One-hundredth Street ; and
there below us, in the River, were the three Caravels, which
Spain has sent over, — dupUcates of the Caravels in which
Columbus made his first voyage, so far as it was possible
to make dupUcates : extremely curious and mteresting :
I should Uke to have gone on board of them, but I didn't.
They were the oiUy things that interested me in the whole
Show. The fieet of warships of aU nations made an im
posing appearance. We walked along the promenade as
far as Seventy-second Street, and had an exceUent view
from our elevated position, of aU the ships. The biggest
was The Blake, EngUsh armoured craiser : stupendous

164 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
machine. The rest did not interest me, — American, Spanish,
ItaUan, Russian, German, French, Brazffian and so on.
It was a pretty show ; but warships are much alike, and a
mass of them as here, was a weariness. If one could have
been taken over The Blake, for instance, and shown aU the
machineries and things, it would have been interesting ;
but the mere outside of warship after warship, — this was
tiresome, — offering nothing in the awful glare of the sun
Ught lying across the gUttering surface of the waters, except
perhaps a study of fiags. On Friday there was a land
Parade of saUors and so forth, but I did not go out to see it.
I hate crowds ; and the crowds in New York this last week
were altogether phenomenal.
Yes, I am famUiar with the feeling which you describe :
the feeling of having numberless Uttle things to do when
I leave a place, and a confusing consciousness aU the time
that some of them are not getting done. It takes me at
least three weeks to get ready to leave a place where I have
spent three months and upwards. This may seem in
credible ; but there are so many Uttle things, — shaU I want
this or that, where next I aUght ? and so forth. And that
reminds me that there are some things which do not in the
least interest you, but which to me are vital ; and what I
went through here, when the SUver Scare was on, untU
Cleveland spoke his long delayed decisive word that the
Gold parity of aU the Currency should be maintained, —
this you wiU never comprehend ; but it is a part of my
gloomy New York experiences ; and comes in fitly at the
taU end of a letter.

The Westminster Hotel, New York,
1 June, 1893.
My dear H., — Last week we had some diversion, even
here in New York. Our friend R. appeared on Wednesday
afternoon, and I gave him Thursday morning. I should
also have given him Thursday afternoon and Friday, but
I became hors de combat, not long before his arrival. How
ever, we made a morning of it on Thursday : a most briUiant

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 165
day : bluest skies : cool, tonic air. We took a Fourth
Avenue Horse-Car, — this hotel is situated withm a few steps
of Fourth Avenue and Union Square, — and rode to the
General Post Office, where the Fourth Avenue line stops.
Thence we stroUed down Broadway,— extremely animated
and even picturesque in the briUiant morning light, — ¦
untU we came to WaU Street, where is the Stock Exchange,
or Bourse. This institution seemed to have a particular
attraction for R. We entered it, and ascending a flight of
stone steps came into a gaUery, from which we looked down
upon the vast and busy scene below. The shrieks and
gesticulations of the brokers, buyers and seUers, were amus
ing, at first ; but they soon became very tiresome, especiaUy
as neither of us could understand in the least what they
were aU about, from whom the shrieks came, nor to whom
the gesticulations were addressed. R. was indifferent, but
I was not. I am of an inquiring turn of mind, and when
I take the trouble to go about the world and see things, I
carry with me a rule which I estabUshed early m life, as the
first rule of travel : namely, to ask questions : also, I carry
with me a second rule, — ^ask questions : also a third rule, —
ask questions. Accordingly I braced myself for the task,
and at once lowered myself by accosting a uniformed
official who was guarding the entrance of a room, into which
I had peeped and beheld a multitude of men, aU seated in
armchairs, and apparently aU plunged in profoundest con
templation of the Infinite and Unseen. ReaUy it did bother
me to conceive what they were about : — ask questions : —
it was the Bond Room, where miUions of doUars' worth of
Bonds daUy changed hands. Then in broken intervals I
wormed out of the official what in substance doth foUow : —
the HaU below was Imed with telephones ; at each tele
phone stood a young clerk ; he was waiting with a tube in
his ear for orders,^ — from New York, or Boston, or PhUa
delphia or any other place, even Chicago : — weU, scattered
over the HaU were posts on which were signs, — such as
Missouri Pacific, Industrials and so on ; around these posts
were gathered groups ; in the technical language of the
Exchange they are caUed crowds ; the Missouri Pacific

166 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
crowd : — ^the loan crowd, around the post bearing the sign
Money to Loan, etc. There gather buyers and seUers ; the
buyers shriek their offers, Uke auctioneers, holding up their
hands ; extending one finger means that the buyer offers
one-eighth % more, and so on. But reaUy, come to think
of it, this must be tiresome : and I wUl drop the subject.
I wiU add only that what puzzles me is, how a man Uke R.
can take the trouble to go about in the world and see things ;
and yet never ask questions.
Thence we stroUed down to the Battery, and sat in the
sunUght and looked out upon the gUttering waters. It was
a radiant scene, and the Goddess of Liberty didn't seem in
the least tired of holding up her gigantic arm. The Goddess
stands directly opposite the Battery, across the water, —
affording a perennial view of her noble figure.
WeU, afterwards we took a Broadway horse-car home,
and I succumbed for a day and a half to the fatigue of this
morning excursion. You see I never go out in the.moming :
and therefore when I do, I coUapse.
On Friday afternoon Mrs. R. arrived. We dined together
at seven o'clock, and saw bubbles winking at the beaker's
brim. The next morning early, — a cold, cloudy, somewhat
raw morning, — at ten o'clock the great steamer, — the Werra
of the North German Lloyd, — slowed out into the stream.
We waved our last handkerchiefs ; and the last I saw of R,
he was brandishing a New York Tribune from the mast head :
or seemed to be doing so : which is precisely the same.
They are due a week from to-day in Genoa. It was Mrs. R.'s
first voyage, and when the last landing-plank was shoved
ashore and the last rope fiung off, she covered her face with
her handkerchief, and was altogether Ump. And now they
are gone ; everybody is gone ; aU the folk whom we have
known in the hotel are gone. But of course in aU this excite
ment I have not yet found a serene moment for going to the
Astor Library and looking into Clark on Climate ; indeed
I had altogether forgotten him ; and if your letter had not
reminded me of him, I should have continued to forget him.
Yet surely the morning wUl come, — and Clark : for who
would Uve forgetful of Clark on Climate ?

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 167
Many thanks for your explanation of the names of the
Brunswick Clubs. When I give up the Mustard Seed Qub,—
of which I have always been a sUent member, being the
least of aU seeds myself, — I shaU surely enroU myself in the
Hedonic Club ; that would suit me. And that reminds me
that New York has been very gay this week, doing festive
things in honour of Eulalie, the Infanta of Spam. She is
said to be a very sweet woman. I have not myseU been a part
of the festivities ; in fact I have seen nothing, — nor have
I heard anything, — except at this moment a distant boom
ing of cannon, m honour, doubtless, of EulaUe. However,
I did write down some verses the other day, — ' after Poe,'
They begin : ' I dwelt alone
In a world of moan.
And my soul was a stagnant tide.
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride.'
But I forget how the verses end : for I have lost the ' copy.'

The Westminster Hotel, New York,
Saturday, 10 June, 1893.
My dear H., — Dear me, my windows are open, with a Adew
to avoid suffocation ; and a dreadful hand-organ has just
' started in.' You can reaUy form no conception of what
I suffer from hand-organs. Every hour in the day there
is a fresh one. Where they aU come from, and how the
wretches aU make a Uving, — this is one of the many mysteries
of a great city. I suppose somebody must fling them
pennies ; but oh ! in the same street, precisely in the same
spot, — that is to say, directly under my windows once every
hour in the day, — this is the reaUy great mystery. I wish
I could smash aU the hand-organs m New York, but I can't ;
it 's the other way ; they smash me ; at any rate, they are
whoUy responsible for this incoherent writing.
No, I have never read Lawton's paper on ' Homer's Girls.'
But I wish I could have heard your Reading from the Poets.
The reading of ' Professionals ' is to me odious. The mere
suggestion of ' declamation ' makes me sick ; I had enough

168 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of it at school and at coUege, and never want to hear any
body ' declaim ' ; but reading Uke yours is a different thing.
And if the Brunswick girls and boys, — especiaUy the girls, —
don't ' catch on,' — is that the phrase ? — to your readings, —
they are altogether lacking in the spirit of Homer's girls,
who are never found giggling, but always attentive to wise
words from wise men, — Glistening with a certain fascinating
austerity of manner,' — even when Homer makes a joke.
Yes, ' Essays dedicated to my Pipe ' would suit me, I
fancy, — provided there were anything in the Pipe, — or
rather, in the essays ; but as you intimate that both are
empty, I wiU let them alone. However I agree with the
smoker that idling is a gift ; and that he alone knows how
to be truly idle, who is intensely busy. Isn't this the kind
of paroxysm, — I mean, paradox, which Oscar WUde has
been making the fashion ? Paradox is a capital and strik
ing thing, when occasionaUy introduced ; but a Uttle of it
goes a great way ; and a book made up of paradoxes I should
fancy to be insufferable.
We had it very hot here at the beginning of the week :
75° and 77° at seven o'clock in the morning : later in the
day, 88° and 91° : — and I did not go out of the house for
two days. I can bear a great amount of heat ; and in fact,
do not mind extreme heat so much as most folk, provided
I can sit stUl. It is not to me the heats which make New
York very disagreeable at this season of the year ; it is the
never-ending racket in the streets, — the racket begins
between four and five in the morning ; but when it dies
away I don't know, because I am asleep.

The Westminster Hotel, New York,
17 June, 1893.
My dear H., — By the way, Mr. Richard Hovey comes in
for a notice in the Evening Post. The writer speaks of him
as ' already favourably known by his Lancelot and Guinevere,'
— not ' Ginger,' as you inadvertently write ; and then pro
ceeds to criticize him for attempting a hopeless task, —
namely, an Elegy in a hundred lines on Thomas WUUam

THE BAHAMAS AND NEW YORK 169
Parsons, when Parsons himself did up Dante in fifty lines.
And the writer adds : ' Nor is it possible to make of Parsons
anything but a morbid and self-cloistered figure ; utterly out
of touch with the vigorous Ufe around him, having his own
environment, his own Puritan ancestry and yet unable to
achieve for himself an isolated repose.' But I don't under
stand the meaning of this last sentence. Poor Parsons, —
I shaU always remember him as very vigorous indeed, when
he pulled a tooth for me once in my early boyhood, — in a
pleasant Uttle back parlour, up one flight, in a very narrow
house m Winter Street, near Washington Street. I recol
lect too seeing ItaUan books lying about, — in intervals of
agony as I sat leaning back in the dental chair, with the
good doctor, — by no means as yet either a morbid or a self-
cloistered figure, — ^leaning over me, and saying suavely, —
his manner was always very suave, — ' Now, don't be afraid ;
I shan't hurt you ' ; but I am sorry to say that I was afraid,
and that he did hurt me. My recoUection of Dr. Parsons is
therefore one of the earUest recoUections of my Ufe ; I was
but a Uttle boy when I was taken to him ; and of course he
seemed to me then Uke an elderly man ; hence I was amazed
when I read an obituary notice of him, and found that he
was only seventy-four, — or was it seventy-three, — when
he died.
How deUghtful and cooUng does it sound, — studying
Icelandic Literature in hot Summer days amidst New
England landscapes, — and I reaUy hope that the Icelanders
wrote something worth reading. Fiske, — formerly a Pro
fessor in Cornell University, who used to Uve in our old
poetic Albergo di Milano in Florence, was reputed to have
had an immense Library of Icelandic Literature : — ^very
curious indeed this Literature of a people so obscure, and
of an age so remote. They were always saying wise things
too, the Icelanders ; they had plenty of time for meditation ;
nothing to distract the mind, in their far-off island ; practi
caUy shut off from communication with the rest of the race,
— ' dweUing alone, in a world of moan ' : what mighty
things they dreamed : and sang.

170 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
The Westminster Hotel, New York,
Sunday afternoon, 25 June, 1893.
My dear H., — Yes, always dip your pen into the ashes
in your pipe before beginning to write ; it is marveUous
what an effect this has upon the fiow of thought. I
condole with you upon the dullness which Du ChaUlu's
book induced in your usual cheerful mood. I was once in
Upsala, myself. I have spent two long Summers in the
Land of the Midnight Sun. But I was never bothered with
folk offering me coffee ; I paid hard cash for aU the coffee
I drank ; and at the rate of thirteen cents the cup. This
you wUl observe at once is one of the points of difference
between me and Du ChaiUu. However, it was pleasant
to read your remarks upon him apropos of smoking, I
agree with you in every word ; the sentiment does you
honour ; ' the same impulse of feUowship (which led him
to drink aU the coffee that was offered him) should have led
him also to smoke.' Dear me ! the world was younger to
me when I was in Nor'oway o'er the Foam than it is to-day.
0 that I could do it all over again ! I carrioled for weeks
and weeks ; and saUed on fjords ; and Uved on salmon
and sherry. I went as far North as Tromsoe, where the
sun at midnight is as white and high as with us three hours
after rising : — and the funniest thing was, the innkeepers
were always charging me for bougies !
It was very hot here in the early part of the week. We
ran the mercury up to within half a degree of 100°, and for
three days I never went out of the house. Latterly it has
been much cooler : that is to say, about 80° : good Southerly
breezes.

CHAPTER V
SWITZERLAND 1893-1894
Lucerne — An Litemational Hotel — ^The Murder of Carter Harrison
— ^The Tradition of Pontius Pila,te — ^Henry James — John Moriey
— ^Francis Parkman — The Boston Latin School — ^Hamerton — ^A
Play Enacted — English High Churchmen — Socialism — ^The Pass
ing World — ^Interlaken — ^Alger — Seeley's Ooethe — St. Beatenberg
— ^Thun — Grindelwald — ^Miirren — Swiss Flowers — Mrs. Ward's
Marcella — Gilie Swiss Charm — Nudlmaier d Paris — ^Lausanne —
Territet — Vevey — Wiesbaden — Oliver Wendell Holmes —
Weimar — ^The Kneipp Cure — On Fads — ^An American Philan
thropist — On Old Houses — ^The ' Demise of a very Old Friend.'
EUROPAEISCHER HOF, DRESDEN,
14 September, 1893.
My dear H., — ^Yes, I cannot help thinking how much early
rising is a matter of habit ; for six or eight months of the
year, I get about a couple of hours before morning coffee.
In the Winter I rise later, just in time for breakfast at
eight o'clock, because I do not Uke to use artfficial Ught in
the early morning hours. And I am always sorry when the
long days come to an end, as they are coming now very fast
indeed, though it is stUl broad dayUght when I get up at
six in the morning ; but the Autumn shuts down with
great rapidity in this part of the world, as you know, and
the early morning especiaUy, in a coal-smoked place Uke
this, is very gloomy indeed. Nevertheless I take my usual
morning walk before coffee. I have always found it to
have a most refreshing effect. But we have had bad weather
as a rule for a long time, — with some briUiant exceptions :
very heavy rains, — or as they were spoken of the other day
in the local newspaper, ' reichliche Niederschlagsmengen,'
how pedantic ! — And I am beginning to look forward to a
change to other scenes. There is a good deal of cholera on
171

172 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
the Italian Peninsula, — in Naples and Palermo especiaUy, —
and now I see that there is cholera in Leghorn, — and I am
afraid it wiU creep into Florence. I am not much disturbed
about the disease itself, but I am afraid of the quarantining
which its presence occasions, and especiaUy of the fumi
gation process at the frontiers. I could not stand being
fumigated ; it would suffocate me. You are put into a
big room where you breathe a disinfecting vapour : alto
gether a nasty proceeding.
I do not know S.'s books. I looked through his Life of
Dr. Howe once, but it disappointed me. S. is essentially a
journaUst, but an extremely clever journaUst ; and jour
nalists, however clever as such, make as a rule poor books.
Books require condensation, arrangement, — what you caU
perspective,- — in a word the Uterary art. JournaUsts, on
the contrary, are Umited in a way. They do not look at a
subject in aU its bearings ; they catch at one point of view
and make the most of it ; they aim to produce a single
impression in regard to one particular thing. Words are
of no value in their eyes : they shoot one arrow at a time,
and aim at one thing only. The joumaUstic style is an
awful style ; the journaUstic habit of mind is ruinous to the
Uterary faculty. A man who writes for newspapers can
never be good for any other kind of writing. The journaUst
loses all sense for literary art.

H3tel Schweizbr Hoe, Lucerne, Switzerland,
16 October, 1893.
My dear H.,^ — -Yes, I arrived here on Friday night at six
o'clock in the afternoon, having come straight through
from Dresden. It was a long puU ; but I could not arrange
the journey otherwise, and I selected the route via Frankfurt
as a lesser evU. I took the night train to Frankfurt : — and
I must say I had a bad night. There was only one First-
Class through-carriage from Dresden to Frankfurt and it
was nearly full. The carriage held five persons ; and we
were four, two women and two men. I was obUged to sit
upright ; no stretching of the limbs possible ; I writhed

SWITZERLAND 173
and wriggled ; and my poor legs ached ; and I didn't get
a wink of sleep. However, the night did come to an end
at last, and when the day came, we were in Frankfurt,
And very soon on the way again, — to Basel. It is a magni
ficent new raUway station m Frankfurt : lofty haUs : and
exceUent restaurant service : pleasant sitting and good coffee :
and aU things serene and sweet. How much better they
do this sort of thing in Germany ! WeU, aU the way from
Frankfurt, through the Black Forest so caUed, to Basel, I
had a sumptuous compartment to myself ; also I had a
package of sandwiches and a bottle of Greek wine, and on
either hand charming scenery : here and there a ruined
castle on a hUl-top : autumnal foUage : and exhUarating
sunshine. But oh ! how the train dawdled from Basel to
Lucerne. It took four hours and thirty-five minutes to run
a distance which a swift train elsewhere would have done in
something over an hour ; but the scenery was pretty : hUls
and greenest grass : and the Lake of Sempach : and a
purple sunset : and Swiss cottages, and so on : and finaUy
Lucerne. It is a vast and sumptuous hostelry this. We
had a table d'hote dinner at half-past seven o'clock, in a
grand HaU, extremely lofty, and beautifuUy decorated.
It was Uke dining in a Palace ; and under the cheering
influence of savoury dishes and electric lamps and copious
cups, I found myself reviving somewhat from the colossal
fatigue of twenty-three hours of raUroading. But luxury
costs money, and we shaU soon move on to Florence ; where
I hope to arrange myself economicaUy, for it is the worst
period of financial distress which ever I passed through, and
I do not yet see the outcome of it. It is very depressing, —
especiaUy to me who have no speculative investments ; and
who have therefore not to reproach myself with rashness or
the taking of undue risks. In time I have no doubt that I
shaU recover myself, but at my age one hasn't much time for
waiting. However, I am thankful that, bad as is the condi
tion of things, it is not worse. And I must say, the precepts
of the Stoic PhUosophy, kindly handed down to us from a
long distant past, come in very handy just now, and show
altogether a superior wisdom on the part of the ancients.

174 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
I was sorry to read in your letter that you were feeling
depressed and tired by the loneliness of your life. Seasons
of depression and gloom are appointed for us aU, — ^I am
passing through a pecuUarly acute period of anxiety and
apprehension, — but somehow we work out of them ; the
clouds lift, and Ught and cheer come to us. Oftentimes the
physical condition has much to do with our state of mind ;
and your letter read to me as if it were written at a tune
of prolonged indigestion : — a foul fiend, — this indigestion :
and responsible for much of the misery of mankind :
but this too wUl wear away. And by the way, what has
become of aU the ' girls ' : and their Clubs : and their
Essays : their walks and their Teas ? Surely they have
not evaporated. But I must stop : the day is beautiful ;
and I must go and walk ; the Lake and the mountains
make an exquisite landscape ; we look out upon PUatus ;
the air is deUcious.

HStel Schweizer Hop, Lucerne, Switzerland,
24 October, 1893.
My dear H., — ^We are intending now to linger here for a
time, — ^perhaps tUl the snow comes. So long as the weather
remains tolerable and I can enjoy long walks with my
amiable comrade, who I am sorry to say, doesn't know the
meaning of the word tired, I am very glad to be here. I
have not had any country air for a long time, and the air
here is deUghtful, and fresh, and there is hardly any wind :
a very weU sheltered place, this : I Uke a place in which
there are no disagreeable, harsh winds : no dust : the
scenery is superb : and the walks, ravishing : picturesque
and beautiful everywhere : and also one need not be always
cUmbing hUls : there are plenty of walks on the level : the
exercise refreshes and cheers me : and keeps me in good
condition. And the climate also is somewhat mUder here
than in Dresden ; as yet we have had no fire, and I have
worn no overcoat, — ^though in the last two days I have begun
to take a thin overcoat with me for use when dampness sets
in with the going down of the sun. I forget whether you

SWITZERLAND 175
have ever been in Switzerland. It is a country which I Uke
better than the Tyrol ; it is clean and sweet and pretty
everywhere ; though for that matter, the Tyrol is sweet and
clean enough, and certainly pretty enough anywhere ;
perhaps it is the living which I Uke better here. The beds
are good ; what I may caU human ; most comfortable beds.
German beds are never comfortable. But why these trivial
details ? Yet I must add that here the rooms are Ughted
by electricity. It is altogether a deUghtful way of Ughting
a room ; at the head of my bed is a knob, which I have only
to turn, at any moment in the night, and my room is aU
Ughted up. But I have not here a movable electric lamp
for reading and writing. However, I do no reading or writ
ing at night, though I often do it in the early moming, from
six o'clock on ; but then the breaking day supplements the
electric Ught and I get on very weU. The table d'hote dinner
is at 7 : 30 o'clock in the evening, and it is nearly nine o'clock
before we rise from our sumptuous banquet ; then I go into
the Smoking-room, where I generaUy find someone with
whom I can exchange a word, though I am not especiaUy
desirous of converse at that hour ; smoking is with me a
contemplative habit, and it is rather a pleasure than otherwise
when I can sit quite by myself in a comer of a sofa and pass
into the Calm of the Buddha :— but what in the world the
Buddha did with himself in his Cahn without tobacco, —
this is not yet clear to me.
The House is kept open aU Winter, and many people Uve
here up to Christmas. The place, as I have said, is so weU
sheltered from winds, that it presents great cUmatic advan
tages to elderly folk, especiaUy to retired EngUsh officers,
who have spent their Uves in India. There is always a
sprinkling of this element in the great Swiss international
hotels ; and how easUy some of them carry off their seventy
years and more ! it is reaUy beautiful to behold. But here
I am again, always on the plane of the Trivial.

176 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
H6tbl Schweizer Hop, Lucerne, Switzerland,
31 October, 1893.
My dear H., — We had a Paris Herald here yesterday,
and it contained a startling telegram, announcing the murder
of Carter Harrison, Mayor of Chicago. This is the second
instance of a person whom I had known, being murdered.
We met Carter Harrison in India in the early part of the
year 1888, — I forget now precisely where we met him first ;
and we met him at intervals in the course of our respective
wanderings ; and I often had conversation with him. And
now he is gone, suddenly and without warning, so far as
I know, — in the midst of Ufe we are in death. And I must
say, this sort of thing makes a great impression upon my
mind. If I read that the Govemor of a Russian Province
has been assassinated, — I pass on without emotion to the
next paragraph in the chapter of newspaper horrors. But
this man I knew and remember most distinctly ; I can
place him ; and reproduce the scene ; the thing becomes
vivid and real : — and what must be the state of society
which is breeding this sort of crime ? Of the murderer
we know nothing as yet, — he is caUed a madman and an
anarchist ; nothing but the mere fact of the murder was
cabled to the Herald. But it wouldn't surprise me to read
bye and bye that the people of Chicago were taking ven
geance into their own hands and slaughtering anarchists
right and left : now that no reUance can be placed upon
the machinery of the law for rootmg out this pest : —
witness the late wholesale pardoning by the Governor of
IlUnois of the wretches who were condemned to imprison
ment for life, — for that dreadful bomb-throwing m Chicago
some years ago, by which many persons lost their Uves.
Chicago seems to be in a condition similar to that in which
was New Orleans some time ago : the very basis of the
social order undermined.
We are stiU lingering in this beautiful spot, and we may
linger on for two or three weeks more. Fortunately,
of late the weather has been for the most part fine : —
altogether glorious weather : bluest skies : clear pure air.
This Swiss mountain air strikes me indeed as something

SWITZERLAND 177
exceptional ; it is immensely tonic and refreshing, and
induces profoundest and most agreeable slumbers. And
Apropos of walks, there has been sitting opposite to me
at table in the last days an EngUsh clergyman, — a smaU
stubby person ; he has his wife with him, — also a youngish
man, — who may perhaps be his brother-in-law. I should
fancy the clergyman to be, say, forty-five years of age.
WeU, he is a tremendous walker. The other day, he and
his companion (not the wife) took the steamboat to Vitznau
at the foot of the Rhigi ; thence they cUmbed the Rhigi ;
and then they walked aU the way back to this hotel, — about
twenty-two mUes in aU ; yesterday, the twain walked to
the top of the Brunig Pass, — about eighteen mUes, and came
back by raU. To-day they were to ascend PUatus ; and I
dare say, the day being supremely fine and clear, that they
are at this moment of writing, cUmbing wearily up the great
gaunt sides of that massive mountain. It is a much more
impressive mountain than the Rhigi ; also it seems much
nearer ; in fact it dominates Lucerne. According to an
English book on the Forest Cantons of Switzerland, by one
J. Sowerby, the pecuUar appearance on the mountain,
preceding and accompanying atmospheric changes, has
given rise to traditions of its being haunted by spirits, who
indignant at being disturbed by the approach of mortals,
caused storms and inundations. In the fourteenth century
decrees were issued, prohibiting persons ascending the
mountain. The legend of PUate is said to have been first
related in the middle of the thirteenth century. According
to the tradition Pontius PUate was executed by order of
Tiberius and his body thrown into the Tiber. There it
caused storms ; hence it was fished out and carried to Gaul,
where it was thrown into the Rhone. In the Rhone it pro
duced the same disturbances. Then a soUtary spot was
sought, far from human abodes, where it might be deposited ;
such a spot was found on the slopes of this great desolate
mountain, near a smaU lake. ' Here the uneasy spirit
wandered round, sometimes appearing on the shore, some
times on the rocks above the lake, producing terrible storms,
terrifying the herdsmen, scattering the cattle, and driving
M

178 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
the finest animals to destruction by faUing over the cUffs.
Then appeared in Lucerne a student of Salamanca, who was
a powerful magician. He undertook, for a large sum of
money, to exorcise the evU spirit. The magician found the
spirit seated on a high rock. His first exorcisms had no
effect. He then gained the top of a hUl opposite the spot
where the spirit was, and began to use a stronger formula.
The struggle was so violent, and the magician stamped so
violently with his feet, that that part of the hUl has since
remained bare of grass. The spirit was at last compeUed
to give way, and consented henceforward to remain quiet
in the lake. He stipulated only for two conditions : that
a spirit in the form of a black mare should be given to him,
on which he, as a Roman Knight, might retum in a worthy
manner to his dwelling-place : and, secondly, that once
in the year he might be aUowed to return to the upper world.
The conditions were granted. He rode with such fury
down into the lake that the marks of the horse's heels are
stUl to be seen. On the appointed day, — Good Friday, —
the form of the Governor of Judea, in his robes of office, is
stUl to be seen on the shore. But whoever sees it, is sure to
die before the year is out. Should anyone insult the spirit,
or throw stones into the lake, his anger is shown by the
outburst of a violent storm.'
Quite altogether deUciously amazing, — this ! There is
now a raUway up the mountain, — a most hazardous under
taking ; and the spirits which may stiU be found on the
summit are now brought up from below, and then poured
down, — to the great refreshment and strengthening of the
wearied and bewUdered tourist. I walked up the Rhigi
once many years ago ; and never shaU I forget the awful
fatigue of that occasion ; but my pecuUar form of neuras
thenia prevents me from ascending PUatus in the raUway ;
looking down into precipitous chasms, is mere agony ; I
could not endure it. We are thinking somewhat of going
to Geneva ; but the longer I Unger here the less inclined
am I to move. What I like especiaUy is the great Reading
Room: — with its newspapers and books ; newspapers not so
much ; though I do Uke to read now and then the Neue

SWITZERLAND 179
Freie Presse of Vienna. It is strange, by the way, that one
never finds, — out of Bavaria — a Munich newspaper, — the
Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten for instance, — and yet the
Neuste Nachrichten of Munich is as interesting as the Neue
Freie Presse. The books here interest me more : aU the
Tauchnitz books : also bound volumes of the Deutsche
Rundschau : and many other German and EngUsh books.
The great haU is weU warmed and briUiantly lighted, and the
armchairs are most comfortable. We come in from our
cafe and walk at half-past five to six : and I have then an
hour or more for reading. And fancy what I read last
evening, — James' Daisy Miller ! I had often heard of the
story, but had never read it : a pretty Uttle psychological
study to be sure : but a tragedy also : altogether painful, —
the struggle of the wUd free American girl with the rigid
formaUsms of European Society : and yet after aU, even in
America, the way Daisy carried on with her handsome
ItaUan, would hardly be good form, I fancy. The American
Ideal wiU certainly be a long time in forcing its way into
European society, — if mdeed it be not already losing its
character in American society. Also I read part of An
International Episode by Henry James ; but thus far the
story seems to me more after the ordinary tjrpe. However,
I could not read many such stories. Nothing is so tire
some to me as this setting off one nation against another,
American and EngUsh maimers and so forth I have heard
discussed every day for thirty years ; and now it is to me
a nauseating topic ; let us be thankful if either nation has
any manners at aU.

Hotel Schweizer Hoe, Lucerne, Switzerland,
Wednesday, 8 NoverrAer, 1893.
My dear H., — We have received inteUigence by cable that
the SUver Repeal BUl has been passed by the Senate, — there
remauiing only the formaUty of the BiU passing the House,
and receiving the signature of the President ; and now we
learn that this has been accompUshed. It is a great historic
event, this Repeal of the SUver BUl : and I celebrated the

180 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
occasion by drinking a bottle of Swiss Champagne : price
one doUar and twenty cents. I mention the price as evincing
the sincerity of the jubUation. Of course it was money
thrown away, so far as regards the vinous joy which it pro
duced ; for I do not care in the least for champagne ; I
never order it, — and never drink it — except by way of sym-
boUsm : it is purely a symboUc potation, — its effervescence
and bubbles breaking on the beaker's brim symboUzing the
hUarious mood into which one has been thrown by some
happy event. I caU the Repeal of the SUver BUl an historic
event : for it marks an Epoch, — the Epoch of the elimina
tion of SUver as a part of a dual standard, and the evolution
of gold as the one International Standard : a consummation
of vast importance.
Yes, I found the article on La Fontaine most charming :
' born in days before people thought there was any crime
in being comfortable,' — how fortunate !¦ — and, oh ! for the
monks of Orbais complaining in Winter that the short days
left them no time to get through — their meals ! And did
you ever hear before of J. C. BaUey ? I think his ' personal
note ' would be most interesting. InteUect is one thing ;
the ' personal note ' is another, and the only fascinating
thing in Literature : for Literature appeals to the aesthetic
perception of Ufe, not to the intellectual perception. In
teUect is a magnfficent machine ; Kant and Newton had
inteUect ; also the great mathematicians and Darwin and
the great men of Science have it ; but Science isn't Litera
ture. AU we care for in science are methods and results,
not men. The moment we begin to interest ourselves in
men, we pass into the " personal note ' ; and how deUghtful
is the ' personal note ' in La Fontaine — ^in Charles Lamb, —
in BosweUized Johnson and so on ! And that reminds me, —
the Essayist, whose name I had forgotten, is not John
Moriey. I remember him, too, weU. I beUeve I have read
everything he has written ; and read him with the greatest
pleasure, — his Rousseau, and Diderot and Voltaire and so on.
His style is to me altogether simpatico : an admirable EngUsh
prose style : there is none better. The Essayist whose
name I had forgotten, was that very charming writer, Myers,

SWITZERLAND 181
who is at the head of the Psychic Research Society in Eng
land. His Essays are in two volumes : among them is a
long one upon VirgU : intensely interesting, — nay, even in
some respects a revelation, I Uked very much the paper
in the Atlantic on American Fiction ; it was reaUy clever, —
fine discrimination and insight, and though I never read the
novels of WUkins, or Garland, I can see that the writer must
have characterized them justly. The fact is, I can't read
novels. I take up a novel indeed every now and then, but
before I have gone over many pages, I become altogether
sick of it ; these everlasting love stories, — how very tire
some ! I can't help regarding this craze for novel reading
as a kind of mental disease : — perhaps it isn't ; I am reaUy
no judge ; I Uve so apart from the ordinary Ufe of men, so
to speak, — in a world of my own, in lands not my own, —
that I can form no just conception of the needs of masses
of people in the matter of mental refreshment ; perhaps to
miUions of people novels are ' a blessing and a boon ' ; I
dare say they are ; they bring the imaginative element
into many a dreary life; create a world of Ught and
beauty and cleanness and sweetness for many a downcast
soul ; and I feel as if I ought not to have said that they
make me sick.
WeU, we are stiU lingering here ; and now to-day for the
first time hath snow appeared. The last two or three days
have been ' awfuUy ' gloomy and wet ; and when I pushed
back the bUnds of my window at half-past six o'clock this
moming, the earth was white and the air was crisp and cold.
The evergreens which I see from my window were aU covered
with snow, and the landscape was picturesque : but the
ground being wet in the night the snow melted as it touched
it, and the streets are now dry and hard ; only on roofs
and trees does there lie snow. However, indoors, we are
comfortable enough ; the Dining-haU and the Smoking
Room and the great Reading-room are weU warmed.
There are stUl thirty or more guests in the house, — enough to
afford diversion in the longer evenings. But they are aU
threatening to leave ; and then we shaU feel pretty well
cut up — with no one but an old German ExceUenz and his

182 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
antiquated EngUsh wife to faU back upon. ExceUenz per
sists in speaking EngUsh ; you should hear it. He assisted
at the siege of Paris, and brought away a rheumatism and
sciatica as a souvenir of the occasion. Also he was once
Stadt-Commandant of Dantzic ; this function bestows the
title of ExceUenz : and once ExceUenz, a German officer
skips upon the earUest opportunity. In fact, he is no longer
wanted; he must make way for the ever surging crowd
behind him.
We are stUl thinking of Geneva ; but I dread moving.
We are very comfortable here, and I enjoy the tranquiUity
of the place and the regular, if monotonous life. I think
you would Uke Switzerland better even than the Tyrol : —
it is aU so clean, and sweet and beautiful and cheap : good
paths in every direction : snow-capped mountains, slopes
of green pasture, — ^rivers and lakes : exceUent views : a
quiet, thrifty, honest folk. You have everything here at
aU times, except good weather ; but that you do have
sometimes ; also you have Thorwaldsen's Lion, — the Lion
of Lucerne, — have I mentioned him ? It is a wonderfuUy
beautiful country, this German Switzerland ; but it has
never produced any famous names, except of a legendary
character. TeU of course has been exploded : a mere myth :
and I beheve even Amold von WinkeUied has fared badly
at the hands of the Iconoclasts. On the contrary, French
Switzerland has been fruitful in great names, — Rousseau
and the rest. Geneva is a classic spot in many respects
and has a history ; Lucerne has no history, — I mean, none
worth reading.

HStel Schweizer Hoe, Lucerne, Switzerland,
16 November, 1893.
My dear H., — I should Uke to have heard Mazoomdar ;
there is something fascinating in the antiquity of Hindooism,
though in itself, so far as I could ever discover, it is a very
nightmare of horrible gods and colossal superstitions.
Jacob Wirth, — yes, I recaU the pleasant hours we spent
in his hospitable Beer HaUs ; and I shaU never forget the

SWITZERLAND 183
grief of his brother, who, when the news of Jacob's death in
the Fatherland arrived in Boston, — and I happening to go
there, — first and only occasion during my second visit to
Boston, — grasped me by the hand, and in a voice choking
with emotion, assured me that the business would be con
tinued at the old stand. . . . Dean Stanley draws out from
the pictures in the Catacombs ' the dyaXXcao'i'i and a^tXoVij?,
the joy and simpUcity of the primitive Church. There
is found there no crucffix, no cypress, no death's head,
no dance of skeletons, no martjrrdom of Saints ; but
the young shepherdess carrymg the lamb amid green
pastures, and dove-Uke souls that soar to heaven, — and
the mysterious gladness of the vine.' This last phrase is
truly beautiful.
We are stUl Ungering here ; and the sun is at this moment
shining, — ^for the second time in a fortnight. However,
there has been hardly any rain ; the walking has been
good ; and though one could see nothing in one's walks, —
for mountains and lake and aU things have been wrapped
in heavy clouds, a paU of gloom, — ^yet at least I got good
exercise and purest air : — and we Uve here so comfortably
that I am reaUy loth to move ; our rooms have been changed
and we are now in the main house ; sumptuously furnished
rooms. And the tranquiUity of the place deUghts me.
There is a bit of a town ; most picturesque narrow Uttle
streets with projecting roofs, in the Florentine fashion ;
and a cheerful Uttle Cafe where we wind up our walks when
darkness gathers. The company changes often ; and m
the Smokmg-room in the evening I come across aU sorts of
folk, who interest me more or less ; at any rate, I am kept
in contact with men. The last guests were three Turks.
Men coming from Italy report that the country is on the
verge of a revolution ; gold is already 20^ premium, and
the premium steadUy rises ; this means bankruptcy ; and
a bankrupt nation falls an easy prey to the demagogue and
the spoiler.

184 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
H6tel Schweizer Hop, Lucerne, Switzerland,
28 November, 1893.
My dear H., — I have read aU that the Advertisers con
tained about Francis Parkman: a most admirable char
acter and most interesting man. I had a sUght acquaint
ance with him ; and I must say, when at very long intervals
I happened to meet him, that he was most agreeable and
poUte. I often met him crossing the Common ; and I can
see him now, Umping along on a stick, and greeting me with
a smile. He was a clever writer ; and he has made most
valuable contributions to an exact and comprehensive
knowledge of our early history. But I think he had rather
a prosy way of writing, and I do not look upon him as a
great historian. Nevertheless his works wUl always hold a
place in all ' gentlemen's Libraries ' ; and it wUl be a long
time before they are superseded by anything better. He
had not the vivid imaginative style of Prescott, nor the
phUosophical insight of Bancroft, but he was painstaking
and accurate. His defects lay also in his subject, which
was hardly dramatic enough in itself to excite interest. I
have received your printed remarks upon books added to
your Public Library. They are most interesting to me ;
and I am accumulating a valuable series of comments upon
current Literature. It is an infeUcity of Life Abroad that
one misses the stream of new books. However, one cannot
have everything aU at once in this world ; yet I should Uke
to have read Ford's Tropical America, — I am much inter
ested in tropical America ; in fact, aU tropics have an in
tense fascination for me. And I should like also to have
looked through Weeden's Economic and Social History of
New England. I dare say one might find many interesting
facts in it relating to the lives and doings of the forefathers in
that dreary glacial age, which preceded the present flowering
out in New England of the Humanities, under the stimulus
of Wealth and Invention, — to say nothing of RationaUsm,
and of Psychological discoveries and so on. Years ago I
remember to have seen Weeden ; he was made a member of
our old Examiner Club ; a modest, clever man, a manufac
turer by profession, with a turn for Uterary pursuits.

SWITZERLAND 185
It is a drawback that I never have an EngUsh Diction
ary with me ; nor any other Dictionary, nor, in fact, any
grammars or aids of any kind to composition ; though as for
EngUsh grammars I can hardly remember the time when
I saw one. I was eleven years old when I entered the Latin
School and I never saw an EngUsh grammar after I entered
it. If ever I saw or studied one, it must have been before
I entered the Latin School, which by the way was then
' located ' in the old schoolhouse in School Street, on the
site of what is now Parker's Hotel ; and Dixwell, — stiU
aUve, — was Head Master ; and Francis Gardner, — dead
long ago, — was Usher in charge of Meine Wenigkeit. Gard
ner, though pecuUar in his ways, was altogether human, and
it was Gardner, who through private lessons, put me into
the class ahead of mine, so that I made the course m four
years instead of five, and entered Harvard at the age of
fifteen. Eheu, fu^aces anni. Old age is often reproached
for its garruUty ; and I feel sometimes as if I had already
entered upon Old Age, though I stffi hold firmly to the
theory that Old Age begins at eighty. But the changes
in Boston have been so prodigious in the last sixty years
that Old Age is tempted into garruUty, when the mind is
thrown back into that period of Ancient History.
This Hotel takes in the DaUy New York World : fuU of
the most horrible woodcuts. It gives indeed a good deal
of information ; but the tone of it, as is the case with almost
aU American newspapers, is very ordinary, not to say
vtdgar. What a contrast is the sedate way of writing in
the German newspapers. It pains me to speak disrespect-
fuUy of anything American ; but I must say a newspaper
Uke the New York World, — and a most copious sheet it is
too, — ^brings one into an atmosphere of dreary talk and
dreary company altogether paralyzing. I shaU send you
a copy of the Fliegende Blatter. It beats aU the comic
joilmals, in my opinion, in the exceUence of its woodcuts ;
they are all done by the best artists, and show a fund of
invention and skUl in design, or conception, altogether
remarkable. Yes, I wish I could give you some idea of the beauty of this

186 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
place, but I can't ; nothing could give you an idea of it,
not even photographs ; and I consider myself fortunate in
being here ; — yet I must add thus far : for it may be that
before long we shaU be frozen out or snowed under. Thus
far, however, we have been able to get our daUy afternoon
walks ; of course we have had a great deal of gloomy
weather, but we have had no rains in the afternoons to keep
us indoors, though in the mornings at times and especiaUy
at night the rains have been heavy ; but they make hardly
any impression upon the roads, which are stUl hard and
firm, and of late we have had several fine days. To-day
for instance is superb : a brUUant blue sky : and clear crisp
air : however, the mercury has not yet sunk below the
freezing point and our rooms are fairly comfortable : 62°
in one room, and 56° in the other. This I find to be a salu
brious temperature : to be sure I keep my legs weU wrapped
in a rug and I wear a wadded silk cap, — but I never suffer
from cold hands ; and my head remains cool ; and I feel
much better than I did in stffiing New York and Boston
Hotels, But the fact is, we are not much in our rooms.
I rise usuaUy about six, turn a button and flood my room
with electric Ught, and I have from six to eight for undis
turbed exercise of the mental faculties. At eight we have
coffee in our rooms ; and this with supplementary labours
of smoking and reading the newspaper and that kind of
thing carries me over to ten o'clock ; from ten to twelve
o'clock, I give myself again to mental exercises, — and the
day is a sucked orange, for at twelve-thirty we breakfast
with forks, as the French say ; and afterwards I am to be
found in the Smoking-room ; sometimes I fancy that I
might be caught dozing there. At two-thirty we begin a
long walk, over grassy hills, along smooth paths, great
snow-covered mountains all around us, and fir-covered
slopes, and the winding waters of the Beautiful Lake.
These walks are doing me much good ; and although
November may not seem to be a favourable month for
Lucerne, yet in point of fact I am taking walks which I could
not take in July or August ; for Lucerne is a very hot place
in those months. We sit as it were at the entrance of the

SWITZERLAND 187
Gotthard Tunnel ; and through this Tunnel there flows a
steady stream of travel into Italy and down to the Riviera,
and hence the guests are constantly changing ; many stay
oiUy over night ; some Unger two or three days. But before
I forget it, I must remark upon the wonderful anemological
character of the place. I have been here nearly seven
weeks, and in aU that time there has hardly been wind
enough to stir a leaf. The place is extremely weU sheltered ;
the air is always stiU, and inconceivably pure ; I have
almost forgotten what wind is like. I should fancy that
this extraordinary feature of the cUmate would make the
place an exceUent Winter resort for some sorts of invaUds.

H6tel Schweizer Hop, Lucerne, Switzerland,
18 December, 1893.
My dear H., — I have been very depressed of late by
the calamitous financial effect of the recent Panic, one of
the worst Panics I can remember. I should not however
mention this were it not that, in letter-writing, mood is
everything ; and a letter as such is worthless if the mood
of the writer be not apparent : a letter being like a lyric,
something subjective, — except of course a descriptive letter,
but then no one of sane mmd writes descriptive letters :
journalists do that and one reads their letters in the
newspapers. I have been reading a book entitled ' French and English :
A Comparison ' : by PhUip GUbert Hamerton. It is not a
profound work, — the comparisons are rather on the sur
face ; but it is what I caU agreeable talk ; and I find that it
has given me a more exact conception than I have had
hitherto of many points in the French character ; and it
strikes me as eminently a fair book. The author has lived
long in France ; long enough to know something about the
French, and at the same time to see his own countrymen
from a non-EngUsh point of view. He is not unjust to the
EngUsh ; neither is he partial to the French ; he holds the
scales pretty evenly, free from jingoism on the one hand, or
undue love of the French on the other. Under the title

188 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
of Manners, in the Second volume, he discusses Epistolary
Forms : ' If a superior in rank subscribes himself my
obedient servant, I know that this meaning is as remote as
possible from the dictionary sense of the words. On the
other hand, it would be a mistake to suppose that the words,
as he uses them, are meaningless. Such a form, in English,
is intended to convey the idea of distance without contempt.
It is as much as to say, in famiUar EngUsh, " I don't know
you, and don't care to know you, but I have no desire to
be rude to you." The form Dear Sir, in EngUsh has nothing
to do with affection. It means, " I know very Uttle of you,
but wish to avoid the coldness of Sir by itself," My dear
Sir means something of this kind, " I remember meeting
you in society," , . . EngUshmen hardly ever write. My
dear Friend : that is now an American form ' : — fancy !
But why shouldn't we have American forms, just as the
EngUsh have EngUsh forms ? Are we always to take our
' forms ' from the English ? The note of sneer, which marks
aU EngUsh writing about America, is perceptible in the words
' that is now an American form ' : — as much as if we should
say among ourselves — ' Oh ! they do that in Texas, but not
in Boston.'
We are enjoying very mUd weather, — 34° to 45° — but it
is very foggy and damp ; the fog has Ufted only two or three
times in the last ten days ; but the snow stiU keeps off ; and
we do our waUis over the hUls with a regularity altogether
exemplary. We have lost aU desire for Italy, and I should
not mind if I never saw either Florence or Rome again.
And we have company enough now. The wife and the
Parson and the female warrior, as I caU her, — meaning
her ExceUency von S., EngUsh woman, prodigious walker,
and a tongue Uke a shark's (do sharks have tongues 1),
amuse themselves nightly with practising Patience, making
' clocks ' which somehow never get wound up, and the days
flow by with a rapidity altogether amazing : a most tran
quU regular life. We live as it were in a Palace in the
country, — with a picturesque bit of town appended.

SWITZERLAND 189
At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
28 December, 1893.
My dear H., — We have just received the harrowing news
of the breakdown of the A. RaUway ; and for the time
being our wings are cUpped. We shaU go nowhere at present
untU this financial storm shaU have blown itself out. It is
fortunate however that this ' imtoward event ' finds us in this
deUghtful place, where we are Uving on so low a plane of
expense that we are not compeUed to retrench. Switzer
land is the best country I know for poor folk. The Pensions
are everywhere cheap and good ; you can Uve down to a
doUar a day, and stUl remain genteel and have somebody
to poUsh your boots. The Pensions are aU sweet and clean,
and you are not thrown in among vulgar people ; and there
is a great serenity in the life. I never knew untU I came to
Uve here in Lucerne how much I hate cities, — large cities
I mean. Large cities are large workshops ; they are for
men who toU, — who toU on a smaU scale or a large scale.
The contemplative man finds more satisfaction in a semi-
country place Uke this, especiaUy while the snow keeps off,
as it does here at present : an occasional flurry indeed,
which comes to nothing, except to whiten the higher
slopes of the mountains roundabout. But in the main,
though extremely gloomy for the most part, the weather
is mUd : hardly under 40° outdoors for the last ten
days, while to-day for a wonder we are enjoying a brUUant
sunshine. One of my Christmas gifts was a copy of Green's Short
History of England. I have begun the reading ; and do not
find it so duU as I had fancied it might be, — I mean, the
early EngUsh part, dealing with the ' forming ' of the
EngUsh people, the gradual crystallization of rude folk into
a sort of race or nation. At any rate I shall be able to
brush up my knowledge of English History which has become
very rusty ; and I intend to make a brief compendium, — of
leading events and other things, so that I can keep the Une
of EngUsh History in my head, and not be obUged to shut
my mouth, for fear of betraying a stupendous ignorance,
when a subject of EngUsh History is mentioned at a table

190 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
d'hdte : a thing which strange to say, does reaUy occur
sometimes. Yes, ' obitual days,' is dreadful ; except for your assuring
me of the fact, I could not beUeve that such a phrase were to
be found in an EngUsh Dictionary.

At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
7 January, 1894.
My dear H., — WeU, our Winter has come too at last.
It set in on New Year's night with a faU of snow, which
frightened me somewhat at first, but in a day or two I found
that it came to nothing ; for being foUowed by an unex
pected cold wave, the snow which was thin, became dry
and was rubbed into the earth and mixed with it by pedes
trian travel. The cold was pretty severe for this part of
the world, — 5° above Zero, rising only to 8° on the two days
foUowing ; and I did not go out of doors for severe cold
acts on my nerves. It is too tonic ; the blood goes to my
head ; and I feel excited, as if I had been drinking strong
green tea. At anything over 20° I do not experience this
effect. And now we have had a Play got up by some young
EngUsh folk ; it was rather a farce, indeed, than a Play, and
came off last night, — caUed Id an park Fran^ais. The wife
took the part of Mrs. Spriggins. The Play was given at
nine o'clock, and lasted about an hour ; a part of the great
Reading-room was set off by screens, and the stage was
admirably got up. The EngUsh chaplain was the Major,
and he did reaUy very weU. Mr. Spriggins was a yoimg
EngUsh boy, who has passed his entrance examination at
Oxford, but wUl not ' go up ' untU after another year. He
caught the spirit of the character and played with zest and
inteUigence. His two sisters, Sybil and Una (what pretty
names !) fiUed minor parts ; and there was a young EngUsh
boy at school here, who did the Frenchman. It would be
too tiresome to write out the plot of the Play. Afterwards
they had what the EngUsh caU ' musical chairs,' — or what
we used to caU when I functioned in this sort of thing, in

SWITZERLAND 191
old times at Summer resorts, — ' Stage-coach ' ; also supple
mentary dancing ; but as the parquetted fioor is very
sUppery, I abstained of course from dancing, and I am not
sure whether I didn't also abstain from the musical chairs.
In fact, we have been in a wUd whirl of excitement with these
EngUsh folk for the last ten days : games every night, to
say nothing of dancing : it is a great diversion, — not for
me, for I do not care now for this sort of thing, but for the
wife, who Ukes simple amusements of this kind.
WeU, the father of these young people is one Mr. P., a
mere bit of a man with a boyish face ; his wife is sweet and
fraU in figure. He is a younger son of a lord, and a clergy
man ; and I am sorry to add that he belongs to that treacher
ous class of AngUcan clergymen, whose only object in re
maining in the Church of England is to carry it with them
into Romamsm. He has never once attended the services
in the EngUsh Chapel in this Hotel ; on the contrary, he
and his famUy go daUy to the Roman CathoUc Cathedral
and there perform their devotions. There is an ItaUan
Prince here too, — a very nice man, altogether refined and
poUte. He speaks only French and ItaUan, and says he
quite understands everything I say to him in ItaUan. WeU,
in a conversation between him and the clergyman the
other day, the latter told him that their religion was quite
the same, except in the matter of Confession, which was not
obligatory among them as among the Roman CathoUcs ; it
was optional. This was the only difference ; and this is
where RituaUsm and High Churchism end. The EngUsh
Chaplain teUs me that there is a great deal of this kind of
thing in England, but it is counteracted by the common
sense of vast masses in the middle class ; and he does not
beUeve that this tendency to the Church of Rome wUl
become universal. But I have given a description of this
curious specimen of an ecclesiastical traitor, — -I cannot look
upon him as anything else, — fancying that it might interest
you. PersonaUy he is a very agreeable man, — this clergy
man ; and so are his two bright daughters : most agreeable !
so is his fraU wife, with the Ten Commandments written on
her sweet serious face ; so is his clever boy in breeches and

192 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
wooUen stockings, — a roUicking boy, with a young buU's
head, and an arm Uke a sledge hammer, and a leg, — ^weU,
at this point comparisons faU me. They are aU agreeable,
animated, — we are a Happy FamUy, — and beautiful Una
has even asked me to ' hunt them up ' whenever I visit
England.
To-day is bright and sunny : and not cold : in fact, we
have had a good many sunny days of late : and it makes
aU the difference in the world whether you have a sunny day
in Lucerne, or a gloomy day. The other afternoon, in a
briUiant sunUght, I had a grand walk along the Lake with
its deep green waters on one side, and before me the great
ranges of mountains white with snow, the Rhigi and the
TitUs and so on ; and returning, PUatus, with its jagged
indentations aU whitened, and its brown, black pines, as a
foil against the snowy gUtter. But it has been severely
cold ' all over the place ' so to speak. Oar friend R. writes
from Rome, ' hard snows and worse walking than I ever
saw in Boston,' — fancy ! in Rome the walking worse than
in Boston ; this must be an exaggeration ; there is no place
where the walking could be worse than in Boston in the
Winter. Lucerne is one of those places which furnish Uttle material
to the Letter-writer, however strenuous he may be : — land
scapes are hard to describe, and even when weU described,
the description isn't worth reading. ' Nobody of any real
culture ever talks nowadays about the beauty of the sunset.
Sunsets are quite old-fashioned. They belong to the time
when Turner was the last note in painting,' says Oscar
WUde ; but I have brought in this quotation rather abruptly.
The argument is : 'To look at a thing is very different from
seeing a thing. One does not see anything untU one sees
its beauty. At present people see fogs, not because there
are fogs, but because poets and painters have taught them
the mysterious loveliness of such effects. There may have
been fogs for centuries in London. I dare say there were.
But no one saw them, and so we do not know anything about
them. They did not exist untU Art invented them. Art
creates an incomparable and unique effect, and having

SWITZERLAND 193
done so, passes on to other thmgs. Nature, on the other
hand keeps on repeatmg this effect untU we aU become
absolutely wearied of it.' There is a great deal of this sort
of clever criticism in Oscar WUde's Intentions.

At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
18 January, 1894.
My dear H., — The afternoon promises to be sunny and
mUd ; extremely inviting for a walk over the hffis or along
the Lake. In fact, we have been having very mUd weather
of late : 32° and above, and no snow. What you report of
22° below Zero is altogether terrible ; such a temperature
would give me a congestion of the brain. 13° below Zero
is the lowest figure I ever saw marked on a thermometer,
a great many years ago in Boston ; and I remember walkmg
out over the milldam m order to experience the strange sen
sations which so severe a degree of cold might be expected
to cause ; but I don't remember finding anything out of
the common. Severe cold acts on my nerves, and sets the
heart beating unduly.
We take the Chaplain with us sometimes. He is a weU-
read man, and is so lucky as to have what he has read at his
fingers' ends ; but he is extremely stiff and ponderous : a
kind of tortuous icicle. Nevertheless twice in four months
I have caught him smUing at one of my inchoate jokes.
And by the way speaking of Letters, he remarked the other
night that the words commonly used in closing a letter, —
' faithfuUy,' — ' truly,' — ' sincerely,' have aU in England a
different signffication : — ' faithfuUy yours ' is extremely
distant, — the most distant phrase one can use ; truly yours
means intimacy ; sincerely yours, the utmost intimacy.
And I must say I am in favour of givmg defimte signffica
tion to such terms, and not using them indiscriminately :
slopping aU over the place, as it were.

N

194 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
17 February, 1894.
My dear H., — We are now sharing your Arctic conditions.
After several weeks of the most deUghtful weather, — sunny
skies, and soft air, it began to snow last night and has been
snowing ever since. It looks as if we were in for a ' great
snow ' ; for from what I gather from the natives, the possi
biUties of snow in this place are reaUy prodigious ; they
have it three feet high at times. However, the air is mUd
and the sun powerful.
Our warrior ExceUenz von S. has brought us Uttle bouquets
of mountain daisies and primroses and tiny ferns gathered
in morning walks over the hUls. And that reminds me, —
ExceUenz von S. has of late been in great distress, — a dis
tress which has no doubt aggravated her heart trouble, —
because a daughter of hers, married to an EngUshman and
Uving in London, is slowly ' passing over to Rome.' The
husband is a Roman CathoUc, a ' pervert.' He seems to
have money, besides having a good position under Govem
ment. Poor von S. is constantly receiving letters from her
daughter upon the subject of the Church, and she reads
them to the Chaplain, with tears in her eyes and cheeks
awfuUy flushed, almost purple ; and the two discuss the
situation with profoundest solemnity and gloom. They
are reaUy in earnest, the poor things :- — ^it is painful to see
how earnest ; and how ExceUenz takes this aU to heart ;
it has reaUy almost kUled her. To me, with my phUosophic
views, it seems indifferent what form a man's reUgion
takes, provided the ethical contents are there ; I cannot
understand aU this fuss and worry. To me it indicates a
certain narrow-mmdedness or even fanaticism. From the
political side I hate the Roman CathoUc Church as I hate
the devil ; and if it ever came to a fight and I were fit for
the job, I would lead a forlorn hope against it with aU the
fury of a musty Puritan ; but from the religious side, — ^it
is aU one to me, so long as a reUgion makes for righteousness
and love, for good works and charity.

SWITZERLAND 195
At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
17 March, 1894.
My dear H., — We have not had a frost here for now a
long time, and until lately we have been having most
briUiant weather ; but this is the fourth day of gloom and
rain and sleet. The air to-day however is mUd and the
sun is making an effort to break through the mist ; the
grass is very green ; and early buds and blossoms are visible
here and there. I hear often from our friend R. but he
writes nothing about Rome. The only sight-seeing he has
done has been confined to the Forum. He saw that, and
was laid up for weeks with an attack of influenza. His
whole thought is directed to the subject of SociaUsm, and
' the new order of society which SociaUsm is expected to
bring in, accompamed by awful cataclysms. It is a very
dreary subject. The reformation or regeneration of the
human race is too big a thing for me to grasp ; and I can't
picture to myself a state of society, from which the right of
property has been eUminated, — a state of society in which
the wolf lies down with the lamb, and everybody is co
operative and virtuous. What would the world be without
its foffies, — nay, its vices : that is, within limits : when
everythmg that we do is to be judged good or bad according
as it brings in an ' economic return ' ? This would be a
kind of Quaker Communism ; and how very dreary would
the earth become ; it is dreary enough already ; but take
away our amusements, and foUies, our Art and Literature
and Science, and reduce us aU to mere labouring machines,
bringing in ' economic returns,' — goodness, may I be gone
before that glacial phase overwhelms mankind ! However,
no soup is eaten as hot as it is cooked, according to a famiUar
German proverb ; and though you expel human nature
with a pitchfork, it wUl return — according to Horace — and
it is precisely the vice of SociaUsm and all these modern
Utopian doctrines that they overlook human nature. In
my opinion every effort to reform mankind must begin with
the individual human being ; reform him, and EvU faUs
away of itself. However it is certainly a portentous sign
of the times, — ^the rapid progress which the Socialistic

196 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
doctrine is making in the United States, as weU as in Europe ;
the doctrine that the State shaU find remunerative employ
ment for everybody, after having abolished aU private pro
perty : — of course this means Chaos : — but as mankind
cannot exist in a state of Anarchy, this means SociaUstic
despotism, and what not. Yet PoUtical Economy, for me
the dreariest of all subjects, is positively an obsession with
our friend ; he eats and drinks and sleeps PoUtical Economy ;
and even writes verses on it : — whUe overhead is the blue
sky of Rome, and aU around him Ue treasures of Art such
as the world knows not of elsewhere. WeU, we must aU
interest ourselves in something, and one hobby is doubtless
as good as another. Nevertheless his letters are interesting,
for his thought runs on an elevated plane : a man of much
reading, of incessant thinking, — and withal, permeated with
the finest ethical principle. I have the greatest esteem for
his character and striving ; indeed, I feel quite Uke a worm
when I reflect how much interest I might take, — as he and
others do, — in the welfare and fate of mankind : — and yet
don't take it. To my mind, there is an overruUng Provi
dence that guides the race as a whole. I cannot pretend
to formulate schemes for the future movements of civUiza
tion — aU I can see is that each man must work out his own
salvation ; and then aU wUl be weU with the human race.

At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
28 March, 1894.
My dear H., — Our friend R. reports having ' assisted '
at a Passion Play in a cheap theatre in Rome, where the
men wore their hats and smoked during the Agony ! and I
am watching the proceedings in Congress with ever sicken
ing disgust. There seems to be no likelihood that anything
wiU be done to bring the country out of the muddle into
which bad legislation has brought it ; business is stUl pros
trate and railway earnings do not improve, and on the
horizon of the future lowers ever the dark cloud of SUver
Inflation. Our only reliance for the present is upon Presi
dent Cleveland and his strong wUl ; but he may snap in

SWITZERLAND 197
two at any moment. Oh ! for an enUghtened despot,—
for as to the people ever being enUghtened, — that is past
hoping. The times are indeed turbid ; and aU things are
uncertain. We have each of us our own burdens to carry,
and it does no good to whine about them ; everything
passes in this world, and we and our worries shaU pass too :—
and that reminds me, I have just been reading a thin sad
novelette entitled Ships that pass in the night : — the title
being taken from LongfeUow's Unes in ' Tales of a Wayside
Inn,'— ' Ships that pass in the night, and speak to each other in passing.
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness :
So, on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another.
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.'
The scene is laid in Davos in Switzerland, — a very high
snowy spot, where consumptives do resort in the hope of
prolonging precarious days. But the title as usual has
nothing to do with the story ; and there is not much in it, —
either in the story or m the title ; but it served to fiU the
fag end of an evemng, whUe the wife played Halma with the
spectacled Chaplain. And by the way, the Chaplain is
leaving us to-morrow for GUon, above Montreux, where he
is to officiate for a month, another clergyman having been
appointed for Lucerne. I went to hear him for the first
time last Sunday, being Easter Sunday. He read the Ser
vice weU, but in what seemed to me a most unnatural voice.
I sat in the rear of the Church ; and its acoustic pro
perties are so dreadful that I couldn't make out a single
word of the Service. The Sermon, deUvered from a pulpit,
I heard somewhat better, — ^though unconnectedly ; I could
make out only a few flowery phrases. I fancied that the
Chaplain, who talks uncommonly weU, a man of wide read
ing, of scientffic cast of mind, — he got his degree on mathe
matics at Cambridge, — extremely weU informed upon a great
variety of subjects, — I fancied that his Sermon would reaUy
have something in it ; but it didn't ; it was the usual trash.
And by the way, the Enghsh have this Church, — it is just
behind our hotel, — in common with a German Protestant

198 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Congregation, — a Society which consists of ZwingUans, —
who are said to be substantiaUy Unitarians : — and there
has been a spUt in it, — a more orthodox minority wishes to
draw off and have a pastor of their own, using the same
church in common with the original society, thus leaving
the English out in the cold. Lucerne, for the rest, is an
intensely Roman CathoUc and bigoted place ; and monks
and ringing of cathedral and convent bells supplement the
picturesqueness of the old waUs and towers and Alpine
snows and forest slopes of the forest lake.
The weather of late has been most briUiant : quite Uke
Italy : bluest skies : intensely clear pure air and mUd :
budding of shrubs and carol of birds : and no wind what
ever : and then the picturesqueness of the hUls with their
viUas and white roads and gardens and trees. And the
outlook over the Lake and upon the mountains gUttering
white in the sunUght ! I sit much in the open now : in the
long glass-covered verandah in front of the hotel, where I
smoke painful Swiss cigars and contemplate the wondrous
landscape and the trim Uttle steamboats gUding in front
of me not thirty feet away : for we are close upon the water.
And then, after the Chaplain leaves, our other buffer at
table, the Prince S. of Palermo, wUl go shortly. The Prince
has been Uving for a year in this hotel : busy with mtro-
ducing into Switzerland the wines of his estate in SicUy, —
the Chateau de Mezzojuso : a most industrious man : very
sweet in his manners. He speaks French and Italian only ;
the wife chooses the French and I do the ItaUan ; but the
construction of my sentences in that beautiful language
' leaves something to be desired,' as the Germans say. One
night last winter the Prince read Dante to us,^ — ^he knows
the Inferno by heart : — it was an exquisite enjoyment.
What a deUcious tongue it is to be sure ! I wonder if
Icelandic can beat it, either for sound or for sense. If you
were here, however, you would surely grapple with the
Schwytzer Dootch spoken in Lucerne : — it sounds Uke the
gabble of gorUlas ; but the people who talk it, can't write
it : when they write letters to one another, they write in
good German.

SWITZERLAND 199
At the Schweizer Hop in Lucerne,
10 April, 1894.
My dear H., — Spring has burst upon us with unwonted
glory. I sit in my chamber with open windows ; the air
is soft and laden with perfume of flowers, and the birds sing
merrUy ; and there comes in upon me too the shriek of the
steam whistles from the busy Uttle boats on the Lake ;
and now and then from afar off the sound of a convent beU.
For weeks now we have had uninterrupted sunshine : not
a drop of rain and hardly a cloud for over a month.
WeU, we are hanging on here by the skin of the teeth, so
to speak (you wUl find this phrase in the Bible ; it struck
me always as extremely happy) : But I must confess that
the daUy rush of invading hordes is becommg tiresome and
confusing. However, we have avaUed ourselves of this
deUcious Spring weather to make a couple of excursions
upon the Lake. First, a saU to Alpnach, — through one of
the Bays of the Lake : exquisite scenery. Alpnach Ues
behind PUatus, and it is there that the raUway up PUatus
begins. I looked up the track : it was fearfuUy steep ;
I could not possibly make the ascent ; I should become
giddy at once and drop out. Secondly, we made an aU-
day excursion, from ten in the morning to half-past five in
the afternoon, up the Lake, to TeU's Platte in the Bay of Uri.
The Bay of Uri makes the end of the Lake, and is wonder
fuUy grand : mountains rising precipitously from the water.
The Platte is the only spot affording a foothold ; and it was
there that the mythical TeU sprang ashore and escaped from
the boat in which the mythical Gessler was conveying him
to prison. From the Platte we ascended by an extremely
steep path up wearisome heights untU we came out upon
the Axenstrasse, a magnfficent road skirting the Lake. We
had intended to walk to Fluelen and take the return boat
for Lucerne ; but we hadn't time to do this. We walked
therefore through a part only of the Axenstrasse,— the finest
part where are the gaUeries cut through overhangmg rocks, —
superb views down upon the green waters of the Lake and
out upon the opposite mountains gUttering white in the sun
Ught ; and then we retraced our steps and came to a neat

200 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Uttle hotel just above the Platte, where we had our lunch
in an open verandah ; and a joyous lunch it was : juicy
tenderloin beefsteaks and gerostete Kartoffeln and bottles of
good Swiss red wine : in an open verandah, looking down
upon the Lake and up to the great mountains, in the midst
of the most exquisite scenery.

H6tel Victoria, Interlaken,
2 May, 1894.
My dear H., — The other afternoon we left our beautUul
Lucerne behind us. The day was partiaUy cloudy : just
the right sort of day for travelling. We journeyed by the
raUway from Lucerne over the Brunig. It is not a grand
Pass, but the scenery is extremely picturesque, — especiaUy
just after leaving Lucerne, with its hUls, riant in the blossom
ing Springtime, and gUstening green slopes. It is a smaU
raUway, and before ascending the Brunig becomes cog-
wheeled, so to speak ; there were but two or three carriages,
but they were weU fiUed. At Alpnach we came out upon
the Lake of Lucerne again, — and there took our final leave
of it. The Brunig is not high enough to show any snow at
this season ; but the air was rather cooler at the summit
and the coffee was horrible at ten cents the cup. Thence
we descended to Meiringen, and then running through a
long stretch of level bottom land came down close to the
pier at the Lake of Brienz, where a Uttle steamboat was
waiting to take us to Interlaken. We reached Brienz at
about six-thirty o'clock, and rather more than an hour's
sail brought us to Interlaken. The saU was deUghtful,
though there was a chffi wind blowing. The Lake reminded
me of a Fjord in Norway, being shut in by lofty precipitous
mountains, their tops whitened with snow, on which the
Ungering Ught of sunset was stUl resting. It was dark
when we reached Interlaken and rumbled up to this Hotel
in a big omnibus. Alas ! what a contrast is it aU to our
sumptuous quarters in the Schweizer Hof : smaU rooms, —
and as the electric Ught is not yet instaUed we are thrown
back upon the misery of candles. We are up three flights.

SWITZERLAND 201
but there is a Uft, so that the altitude does not count : front
rooms : one has a balcony, upon which before last Friday
I could stand and contemplate the whiteness of the Jung
frau just in front of us. It looks very near, but they say it
is eleven mUes away as the crow flies. I say before last
Friday, — for ever since Friday came in aU is blank : — dark
ness and gloom and wetness. I was never so thoroughly
wrapt up in clouds, and hardly ever so uncomfortable.
The place Ues between two Lakes, — the Lake of Brienz
and the Lake of Thun : a narrow flat plain between moun
tains : you can walk from one Lake to the other easUy m
an hour I should think. Through it, close to the mountains,
behind the main street on which are situated the greater
part of the hotels, runs a green and Umpid stream caUed
the Aare.
WeU, Wednesday and Thursday were fine days, Thursday
especiaUy; and we fancied that the Summer had reaUy come,
with its wealth of greenness and its bahny air, and what not.
On Wednesday afternoon we stroUed over the place : a bit
of viUage, fuU of hotels and Pensions and shops of Swiss
wood-carvmgs and photographs : the sun broUed us Uke
a live-coal : a quaint place in some old parts of it : but the
other parts displayed only the usual features of a European
Summer resort. It is not a place that attracts me in the
least. I should not care to tarry here : we are merely
waiting untU the hotels on the Beatenberg are opened,—
or untU we can go elsewhere ; for as long as this awful
weather lasts, we are tied ; it is useless to think of going
anywhere ; and the weather gives no sign of changing : —
each day is blacker, colder, and gloomier and more rainy
if possible than the precedmg. There are no stoves in the
house, and we sit wrapped m rags : at 54° : ' sadly seemg
our own heavy breathing.' However, we did enjoy a
magnfficent walk on Thursday afternoon, aU over a moun
tain, caUed the Kleine Rugen, — a mountain upon which I
look from my balcony ; compared with the great moun
tains, it looks Uke a wooded hffi, but it made my poor legs
ache to conquer it ; deUghtful paths through the woods ;
benches here and there at the prettiest points ; extensive

202 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
views over the Interlaken plain and the Lakes at either end ;
the walks reminded me of those on the forest covered slopes
of the hUls in Carlsbad ; but alas ! we missed the right
path for the descent, and I came down over precipices,
strained and trembling ; and I must say it 's a wonder
that I didn't tear a hole in the mountain on my way down.
I am a heavy weight. There is no ' season ' in Interlaken
before the middle of June. We sit down only twenty to
thirty at dinner ; the Hotel is modern and somewhat pre
tentious ; it is stingUy kept, and the table is poor. We
shall go up and explore Beatenberg ; and if we find anything
satisfactory, we may pitch our tents there for a time. It is
a most deUghtful country, Switzerland, — in the Summer, —
in fine weather ; but when you are wrapped in a wet blanket
of clouds, and can't see a hundred yards in any direction
Switzerland is a ' different pair of shoes,' as they say here.
I have been wearing away some idle hours in reading ' A
Gentleman of France ' by one Stanley Weyman. The scene
is laid in the time of Henry of Navarre, and one is quite taken
back into the Middle Ages. This is what I Uke, — -not
particularly the Middle Ages, — but to have my mind and
imagination transferred to some distant epoch, far away
from the muddle and turmoU and grimy unrest of the
Present. The plot is one of incessant action ; it reminds
me of Scribe's plots ; it is aU narrative, — of quickly suc
ceeding events and stkring situations. There is no moral
to it ; no point ; it is simply a Uvely story ; no thought
in it ; no purpose ; no venom such as the Heavenly Twins
is steeped in ; but it is a capital story for a gloomy rainy
day, being fuU of Ufe and vacant of heavy moraUzings.
The few people in this Hotel do not interest me in the least, —
except a country doctor from near Hartford, who entertains
me vastly with his hearty undisguised whole-souled Yankee-
isms. Blood is stronger than water and I would give a
hundred tiresome Germans for one thorough-going frank
kindly countryman Uke my friend, — if only he didn't sport
such a beastly goatee !

SWITZERLAND 203
H6tel Victoria, Interlaken,
11 May, 1894.
My dear H., — Have you read The Sources of Consolation
in Human Life by our old friend W. R. Alger ? He has sent
me a copy of this book ; but as it came to hand a day or
two ago only, I have not yet had time to look into it. How
ever, it strikes me that a little of this sort of consolatory
writing goes a great way, to use a coUoquial phrase. Alger
has a rich vocabulary ; he coUects many thoughts ; but
there is a heavy monotone in his style ; it is aU in one
strain, and therefore wearisome. He has not the Uterary
faculty, — I mean from the point of view of Art, for writing is
after aU an art. There are no Ughts and shadows ; he has
a prodigious command of words, but he dumps them in
sentences without discrimination ; he is not easy nor
winning in his way : — aU this is what he isn't ; but on the
contrary there is earnestness, elevation of thought, refine
ment of sentiment ; much to cheer the afflicted mind, — and
lift the burden of sorrow and misery, by pointing out the
purpose of suffering in the Divine Plan, and so on. Also
the other day, perishing for something to read besides novels,
and happening to see in a shop window a book on Goethe by
J. R. Seeley, I bought the same ; but this is a kind of book
which I can't afford to devour as one devours books in
Uterary centres, where one has only to stretch out one's
hands and receive copious suppUes of Uterary pabulum, I
am therefore taking it slowly; and thus far, — it strikes me as
rather wordy — not to say, weak. I read Goethe thoroughly
in days long gone, when I was breaking my way into German
Literature. His style is exquisite ; he is always clear, and
to the point. There is no verbiage about him : no cloud of
words enwrapping vague thoughts. His baUads are wonder
fuUy beautiful ; and for proverbs, he is simply prodigious.
In comparing him with other great writers, Seeley makes an
interesting remark, to the effect that Scott for instance by
virtue of his birth as a Scot came into the inheritance of a
vast amount of romance and lore which had been accumu
lating from former ages : that in his brain were the stores
already received from hundreds of years of chivahy and

204 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
song : he had only by the force of his great genius to work
up the material which was thus put into his hands as it
were : — whUe on the other hand Goethe inherited nothing
from the past, — ^not even a language. He was obUged to
create everything, — his pubUc as weU as himseU. Hence
many baffled efforts, and a sum total inferior in volume of
great achievement to such prodigies as Scott or Shakespeare.
We have avaUed ourselves of a superb day for an excur
sion to St. Beatenberg. This is one of the biggest things
I have done of late years ; I mean from the pedestrian
point of view. Our hotel is situated, say ten minutes' walk
from the Lake of Thun ; there we took a smaU steamboat,
after lunch ; and a saU of half an hour or thereabouts
brought us to a point on the lake caUed Beatenbucht. At
this point we disembarked : and rode up the mountain, —
Beatenberg, — on a fumcular raUway, — Drahtseilbahn in
German — very steep : utter misery to me : sixteen minutes
for the ascent. Arrived at the top we found ourselves in
what is caUed Beatenberg, — being a winding road, three
mUes long,— ^nothing more, along the side of the mountain :
on the other side of the road precipitous slopes : which it
sometimes made me giddy to look down upon, — two thou
sand feet down to the Lake ; and of a dark night one might
easUy wander from the road and go tumbling into eternity.
This road is lined at intervals with hotels and Pensions, —
hardly any of them as yet opened for the season : — but at
the end of the road, where the descending carriage-road
begins, we found an attractive ' Hotel,' — ¦inn, or rather.
Summer boarding-house, — caUed the Alpenrose, sweet and
clean : in fact, altogether idyUic. Our Yankee doctor had
gone up to Beatenberg the day before, and we met him on
our walk along the winding road, and he kindly turned and
accompanied us as far as the Alpenrose. He is tarrying at
a house close by. WeU, from this road you have a superb
panorama : aU the Jungfrau range, gUttering white in the
sunUght : the deep green Lake at one's feet : and mountains
rising bold and grand against the sky in every direction.
The sky was cloudless, of a briUiant blue ; the slopes of the
mountains were green with grass or laughing riant with

SWITZERLAND 205
blossoming trees, — the an- was tonic ; one felt almost as if
it lifted and carried one on wings. This road took me over
an hour. Then began the descent : fine carriage-road in
endless zigzag : and oh ! the weariness of it ! two hours'
hard walking : and we arrived at our hotel in Interlaken
just at dinner-time, — I was pale, wet and trembling : three
hours and ten minutes' walk !
Another day was also a field day. We went to Thun :
cloudless sky, of a brUUant blue : cool air. RaU to Thun
in the moming : a new raUway runmng along the Lake :
one hour by raU to Thun : — quaint place. We had struck
a Market Day : place swarming with natives and cattle
tethered in the narrow streets : everything most picturesque
if smeUy : stroUed aU over the place : mediaeval Schloss :
old waUs ; inspected hotels : one, the BeUevue, in a ravish
ing garden. The sun was very hot and it was not long
before I coUapsed ; and we went for a mittagsessen in an
old Inn caUed the Freyerhof ; very good ; especiaUy the
Barbera wine which they gave us ; and afterwards I sat in
the garden of the inn over a rushing stream, and smoked
the pipe of peace and poetries, whUe the wiie went into the
town on errands. She is indefatigable and doesn't under
stand what it is to be tired, whUe I, as you know, was born
tired. DeUghtful sail back to Interlaken in the afternoon
Ught : charming scenery : — yesterday the old old gloom
and blackness and wet : raining aU day : — to-day the sun
is wrestling with the imps of blackness, but wUl probably
be worsted.

Hotel Victoria, Interlaken,
19 May, 1894.
My dear H., — ^At last we have decided to go up to
St. Beatenberg. The weather has changed for the better,
and of late we have been having deUcious Summer days,
warm and sunny. I suppose we are more than a month
in advance of you ; yet this would not express the whole
difference. The Spring is longer, — far longer here than
with us ; at home we start up suddenly in the middle of

206 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
May, whereas here in Switzerland I have been having a
Springtime for so long that I can't teU when it began. It
was SpringUke towards the end of February in Lucerne ;
and slowly, slowly the Spring worked on. It is already
Summer ; but nevertheless there are certain trees which
are only just now budding. It is a fraitful plain, this
Bodeli, as the natives caU it, though Interlaken lies nearly
two thousand feet above the sea level, speaking roughly,
and St. Beatenberg another two thousand feet higher up.
' The long grass waves in the breeze ' ; the luxuriant horse-
chestnuts are magnfficent in colour, — white and red ; the
red are superb ; there is one avenue where the red and
white alternate, producing a happy effect. The place con
sists substantiaUy of one long street caUed the Hoheweg,
on which are situated the Hotels ; and opposite them is
a great green meadow caUed the Hohematte. I look down
upon it from my Uttle balcony : most refreshing to the eye :
also fragrant. And then directly in front of me, — behind
the opening of a vaUey which breaks the mountain chain,
lies the towering Jungfrau, a mass of white snow. It is
not a place which attracts me so much as did Lucerne ;
yet after aU, there is pretty scenery, and there are many
fine walks. The viUage Ues at the end where we are, not far
from the raUway station for Thun ; also near the steamboat
pier ; for there has been made a long canal for the steam
boats through the low-lying plain leading up from the Lake
of Thun.
WeU, we made an excursion to Grindelwald in the after
noon : train aU the way : cog-wheel at times : but we were
very unlucky. The afternoon had promised to be sunny :
but nevertheless heavy black clouds soon roUed up, and it
was horribly dark and wet. We could see nothing, except
here and there through the driving rain bits of picturesque
scenery. We paddled about Grindelwald for a Uttle, but
it was no good : a hiUy place surrounded by mountains :
it was all burned down in August, 1892, through a spark
from the kitchen of a hotel caught up by the Foehn wind then
blowing and fanned into a flame. Every house in the place
seems to have been burned ; we saw many ruins, nothing

SWITZERLAND 207
but waUs left ; not a house that was not new ; and they
have nearly completed a truly magnfficent hotel ; but the
glaciers and aU that sort of thing in the neighbourhood of
Grindelwald we of course missed ; however, I don't think
I care much for glaciers. The only ice I want to see now is
what comes out of an ice-box.
But I was bent upon going to Miirren ; and a day break
ing cloudless and clear, we made the excursion : — by train
from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, through a picturesque
vaUey with dashing streamlet, and from Lauterbrunnen by
funicular to the top of the mountain. You know what these
funiculars are : a train drawn up by a wire cable by means
of the weight of the descending tram which is freighted with
water to correspond with the weight of the ascending train.
The ascent lasted for twenty-six minutes. I sat with my
face to the mountain, and never looked to the right or to
the left. It was utter misery, but I had determined to
endure it. The track is straight of course, and the grade
60 : 100 ; it seemed almost perpendicular ; and the minutes
were long. I thought that we should never reach the top,
but we did ; and then we took an electric troUey train, —
imagine a troUey train five thousand feet above the sea
level, running for two and a haU mUes along the edge of
stupendous precipices, over against massive snow mountains,
the Jungfrau and the rest, so near that one fancied one
could throw a stone at them across the awful ravine along
the edge of which we were running. This brought us to
Miirren : stupendous view : grandest in the Bernese Ober
land : vast snow mountains close to one : and fearful depth
of vaUey between. There are two or three hotels in the
place : nothmg more : a lonesome Alpine soUtude. We
took lunch in the Hotel des Alpes, on the borders of grue
some chasms : stone house : weU fitted up : and pleasant
verandah looking directly upon the gUttermg snows. We
thought before we went up that we might Uke to tarry
there for a time ; but I could not stand this sort of loneUness
and dreary glitter for long. It is a superb excursion, one
of the few finest which I ever made ; but I prefer St. Beaten
berg for a sojourn, I had determined that I would walk

208 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
down the mountain, and walk I did, but it was a fearsome
task : a narrow bridle path : stony and steep : I had to
pick my way at every step : I stumbled often, — once into
a raging torrent that crossed the path : the strain on the
knees and muscles of the legs was dreadful : it was at last
a kind of agony. However, after two hours and a haU
of misery, — not a yard of level ground anywhere : one
continuous, precipitous descent, — I reached Lauterbrunnen
and sank upon a bench in the friendly garden of a Uttle
inn : — amidst flowering shrubs and Ulacs : — and ' caUed
for soda water ' or rather, black coffee ; which under the
circumstances is the same thing, if not a better thing.
Train from Lauterbrunnen back to Interlaken, including
view of the Staubbach WaterfaU, curious and picturesque.

At the Alpenrose in St. Beatenberg,
1 June, 1894.
My dear H., — I am sorry to say that wet days are the
rule just now ; in fact ever since we came up here, we have
had most ' awful weather ' ; fortunately to-day the sun is
shining, and I am sitting with open casements and my
thermometer hanging on the waU, marking 50° whUe my
legs are weU wrapped in a heavy raUway rug. But alas !
what haven't we endured in the way of discomfort since
we have been on the top of this mount of the Saint caUed
The Happy : — snow, rain, fog, blackest clouds, mountains
and Lake aU shut in, and a temperature of say 40° to 45°
outdoors, whUe indoors except in front of a stingy fire in the
Salon we have been shivering tffi you might hear our teeth
chatter aU over the place.
I have read Seeley's book on Goethe, and I must confess
it did not interest me. I find it thin, and crotchety ; in
fact, weak. Nothing wUl ever be written about Goethe to
compare with Lewes' Life of him, which I read years and
years ago when the enthusiasms of youth were ' on,' and
German Literature was a fragrant flower, — or rather a
flowery mead ; and I wandered at wUl therein, disporting
myself in a new world of thought and fancy. Also I have

SWITZERLAND 209
read various reviews and things kindly lent me by our
friends E. and Miss D. These are the only guests here
besides ourselves : an idyffic seclusion, sweetened by good
companionship. Miss D. we became acquamted with at
the Hotel Victoria in Interlaken, and she came up here the
day after we came ; she is taU and thin and of a ' certain
age ' ; and she is one of the most thoroughly agreeable
women whom ever I met ; weU read, clever, much traveUed ;
knows everybody worth knowing, including the Anglo-
American Roman set ; for she is much and gladly in Rome.
And in her way she is an artist. She showed us one night
some of her pen and ink sketches of birds, — altogether
exquisite ; she is always amiable, never developing any
kind of friction ; and this you wiU agree with me is an
eminent attraction. And then good Uttle E., — how shaU I
describe him ? SmaU, thin, bald, sandy-whiskered : what
the EngUsh caU a Dissenting Minister : CongregationaUst, in
fact : but reaUy a good Unitarian Uke you and me : of course
a better one than I am : — -sixty-five : has had two wives, —
both dead : the second was an artist from Geneva : four
chUdren : two daughters in England : one son and a
daughter in America. He must have had originaUy a good
deal of money, but he lost much of it in bad investments in
America ; and I am sorry to say that Miss D. mentioned
having incurred the same fate ; from which I deduce the
coroUary that it is the function of America to impoverish
Europeans as weU as Americans. His son is a civU en
gineer, and studied his profession in America in Hartford,
where E. Uved with him. In fact E. has been much every
where in the ' States.' He spent a Winter in California,
and now for several years he has Uved in Beatenberg in the
Summer ; he enthuses for Beatenberg ; m fact he is the
guardian angel of the place. He has an apartment some
where, and lunches only with us, — this lunch being his chief
meal. He is a most agreeable Uttle man ; knows aU the
walks and aU the flowers ; and with his help and that of
Miss D. who is a born naturahst, I have been learning the
names of Alpine flowers. And there are no end of flowers
here ; I never saw such masses of wild flowers of every
o

210 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
name and colour : fields of pink campions : primulas :
solaneUas, — quaint little flower which E. says that Ruskin
makes much of : blue gentians, — cowsUps and many others,
too numerous to mention : and besides, I have forgotten
the names. E. has written a Uttle book about the place,
and in fine weather it is reaUy a place worth enthusing
about. From the balcony of my room I see the Alps from
the Schreckhom to the Niesen, and below me the dark green
Lake of Thun : gUttering snow-summits : and aU around
are grassy slopes, and dark fir forests : cultivation every
where : a picturesque Uttle old Swiss Church : (the place
is Protestant) : and a tiny graveyard : also a little EngUsh
Church : and hotels and Pensions strewn aU along the
highway : — it is reaUy wonderful scenery.

At the Alpenrose in St. Beatenberg,
12 June, 1894.
My dear H.,— How do you pronounce the EngUsh proper
name Cohlough 1 Miss D. gave it to me as an extreme
instance of EngUsh eccentricity or vagary, or what shall
we caU it ? — in pronunciation. It is pronounced as if
written Coakley !
. The meeting of the Pejepscot Historical Society in its new
BuUding, Ukewise mentioned in The Telegraph, at which
you read an extract from your Grandfather's Diary, giving
an account of a brief visit which he made to Brunswick in
the year 1806, — the Diary which you showed me when I
was with you in Brunswick, — this meeting must have been
most interesting. How much old diaries and letters, —
almost worthless at the time they were written, — do gain in
value by the lapse of years ! especiaUy when coming down
from a period when newspapers were rare and never minute
in their chronicUngs ; and the value is also enhanced by the
mere fact of their preservation, so very few reUcs of this
sort survive, private papers being mostly destroyed as the
years go on, — burnt up or thrown away : I fancy there are
comparatively very few private letters preserved from the
Colonial times, even down into the present century. People

SWITZERLAND 211
wrote few letters in those times ; they wrote long ones to
be sm-e, when they did write ; but there was not much
epistolary intercourse ; there were few if any folk who as
now had nothing to do but write letters ; the world was
smaU ; interests narrow ; hardly anyone traveUed ; and
over aU lay the black shadow of dreary dogmatisms. But
it is weU, after aU, that few manuscripts have survived.
The world is groaning under a mass of words written and
printed ; and the volume sweUs year by year, — tUl at last
nothing wUl be remembered. And that reminds me,- — -I
read Winsor's and Fiske's tributes to Francis Parkman
which you kindly sent me. Winsor's writing was thin and
commonplace ; but Fiske's paper was reaUy interesting, and
clever. It put Parkman's work in a new Ught ; though I
could not but think that the writer exaggerated Parkman's
place in historical Uterature.
WeU, we have been on The Mount for now three weeks ;
and if ever I had so much as dreamed of the weather and
discomfort I was coming into, I should certainly never have
come. When I opened my great green shutters this morn
ing for instance, I looked out upon a fog so dense that I
could scarcely see the raiUngs of my own balcony ; and
when a Uttle later I looked out again, behold it was snowing
fast ; of course it was a wet snow and therefore it melted
as it feU ; but nevertheless it made the air cold ; 53° in my
room. Apropos of Madame Sarah Grand and The Heavenly
Twins I have only to say that I take no interest in her.
There is nothing bad or unwholesome in the book ; but the
venom of it is prodigious, — a venom directed whoUy against
men. The authoress can see no good in men, and nothing
but good in women. The book is clumsUy written and the
style is turbid. How such rubbish can find a wide market
I don't know. I am told to read Marcella, Mrs. Humphry
Ward's last : sociaUstic, and that kind of thing. I should
be glad if I never heard again the word sociahsm. I never
knew tUl lately to what extent I am conservative and a fogy,
but this riot of new and impossible ideas and theories for
reorganizing mankind upsets me altogether ; I am thrown

212 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
off;(my feet ; the old world totters and a new world, in
which I am put to earn my daUy bread by street-sweeping,
looms on an horizon red with blood of fogies. For my part
in the brief span that is left me I prefer to keep a tranquiUity
unruffled by the Sturm and Drang of a new social order. If
I could reaUy do mankind any good, I should be proud to
do it ; but it doesn't do mankind any good to play with
these edge tools ; and unless a writer has a definite plan or
fragment of a plan, of amelioration to offer to the world,
what good does it do for him to be always echoing the cries
of discontent that go up and always have been going up
from a suffering humanity : and that is what these sociaUstic
noveUsts are doing.

At the Alpenrose in St. Beatenberg,
27 June, 1894.
My dear H.,^ — I never heard of this trouble, — appendi
citis, — untU within a year or two, and now it seems to me
as if I heard of nothing else. There was an EngUsh gentle
man laid up with it at the Victoria Hotel in Interlaken aU
the time we were there. He caught a chiU on the Lake of
Thun on his way from England with his famUy ; and his
case was very serious ; it was an even chance for two or three
weeks which way the disease would tum. The Swiss doctors,
brought from Berne, wanted to operate on him, but an
American doctor who happened to be in the Hotel at the
moment and who at the request of the famUy was taken
into a consultation persistently objected to an operation ;
and it was not performed. The gentleman has now re
covered. We saw him up here the other day with his
famUy ; they had come up for a day's excursion ; he was
stUl weak ; but he could smoke his cigar and enjoy the
views ; and I must say, this ' scored one ' for the American
doctor. He was a nice man : my neighbour at the table
d'hote. His grammar was dreadful ; he yanked his words,
as he did everything else ; but he was very clever, though
very slow and deliberate : one of those men who say more
with their eyes and a twist of the mouth than with the

SWITZERLAND 213
tongue, — that member being chiefly occupied in another
way more agreeable to the owner than in wasting words, —
the chewing of tobacco, I mean.
And speaking of colds, our Uttle E., — guardian angel
of the Mount, remarked to me yesterday, apropos of a
cough which the horrible Weather had given me, that every
cold was a fresh naU in one's coffin. This strikes me as
an exaggeration ; but nevertheless a cold does wear on one
badly, and a succession of colds and coughs may weU lead
us down the Great DecUne faster than we care to go. How
ever, we have left the horrible weather behind us ; for now
some ten days we have enjoyed sunnier skies and a mUder
temperature : 66° in our rooms. The Summer seems really
to have come at last, — at least in a measure ; and The Mount
is altogether lovely. We shaU soon once more fold our tents
and sUently steal away. And after aU we have had enough
of The Mount, my walks being extremely limited. People
who can cUmb steep slopes may find plenty of occupation,
but my one walk is to the Bakery, along the Beatenberg
Road, — though now and then I vary it by an excursion
over the slopes back of the House, up the Gemmenalp way,
through pme forests and across a rippling streamlet, over
a green Alp and down again upon the Road. There is but
one road ; and half way between the end of it at the Kur-
haus, and the Alpenrose lies the Bakery ,^ — ^nearly opposite
the picturesque old Swiss church and stiU more picturesque
old Swiss parsonage ; and there is a Uttle terrace m front
of the Bakery where are tables and a bench and awnings ;
and Mrs. Baker (I forget the husband's name) makes ex
ceUent coffee. It is pleasant sitting there, — with the great
mountains rising grandly in front and the deep green lake
below, and verdant slopes ; and just close to the parson
age is the biggest and weirdest tree, — a sycamore, — which
I ever saw. Words faU me to describe it : huge trunk,
forking in divers ways : vast boughs, moss-grown and
rough : it must be very old, this tree. The church dates from
1594, the period of the Reformation ; and the parsonage
also I fancy. It is my favourite resort, the Uttle terrace in
front of the Bakery : for it affords me something human

214 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
so to speak, by way of contrast with the dreariness of great
white snow masses up against the sky. Scenery unreUeved
by the human element does not attract me. The vast
scenery of our Rocky Mountains never touched me : — at
first, yes : but afterwards I am overcome by the loneliness
and dreariness of it, and gladly tum away to contemplate
a log hut, if happUy there may be one near. I fancy a good
many persons are affected in the same way with myself ;
hence the pecuUar charm of Switzerland : everywhere
cultivation : and grassy slopes and chalets : the tinkling
of cow-beUs, — and the yodel : and perfume of new mown
hay : and Sennhiitte ; nowhere the loneUness of an un
inhabited region : forests of spruce and fir, — with benches
here and there : and weU marked paths : and rustic bridges
over splashing streams : and for a background towering
mountains and gUttering snows : with stretches of placid
lakes, and hamlets dotting their shores at the foot of great
green slopes. AU this makes Switzerland beautiful ; and
the absence of aU this makes our grand scenery, to me at
least, depressing and dreary. But there is no accounting
for tastes ; and I wiU not quarrel with one who prefers
Pike's Peak to the Jungfrau.
E. is a kind of ' come-outer,' as we say, from among
the CongregationaUsts ; and he lent me among other thmgs
a book entitled Mark Rutherford : an Autobiography, — a
fiction of course ; and I have just seen advertised another
work of fiction, entitled Catherine Furze, by Mark Ruther
ford. The point of these books is to explain the mental
condition as it were of the lower classes in England, and the
utter inadaptability of the usual Church teachings to reach
them. The impression left on my mind was one of utter
hopelessness of any good being done to these lower classes in
England by any means or machinery whatever. They are
dreary books, — with only occasional gleams of brightness ;
but they are I fancy terribly true in their reaUsm. They
are, for nine-tenths, justification of ' come-outism ' ; and
we Unitarians got through with aU that kind of thing a
hundred years ago.

SWITZERLAND 215
Munich, Saturday, 29 June, 1889.
My dear H., — We are in a painful muddle just now
about plans : I haven't as yet the vaguest idea what we
shaU do : I am waiting for Ught to be vouchsafed. This is
the way I always do : the Socratic Aalfiav always sends me
at last in some direction or other : and if we should return
to America this year, I have a fancy for going to Seattle
for the winter. The climate is said to be deUghtful : it is
a green country : not Uke CaUfornia, a gUttermg aridity :
and there is hardly any snow. The late fire seems to have
burned up everything in the place : and perhaps there is a
chance for turning a penny (I think I might enjoy the
occupation of turmng a penny): — and by the way, I have sent
you masses of Neueste Nachrichten. In the Feuilletons of
some of them you can read of the adventures of Nudlmaier a
Paris : — How he wandered in the Schampus Elisaus ; and
saw the millionische Venus : and eat Hordowers : and went
home laden with the heimathlichen Bettschwere : how he
talked with a Frenchman who told him ' dass Bulanscho
sehr viel Schans abe, su werden Lamperor, nix Prasidant,
nur Lamperor durch Suffrasch — oder Frosch — iiniverseU ;
dass Fransass andiistriioU nix woU la gerr, aber sein frer,
eine schon Offissio wuUe ordamany macken— Bum! Bum!'
Or is the foUowing amusing, — ' Zum Schlusse brachte der
Garsson eine grosse Schale mit einem PorzeUanbecher in
dem ich eine art Grog befand, welchen ich auf emem Zuge
leerte, weU das Getranke recht angenehm gerochen hat.
Es war aber eine verzweifelt schlechte Briihe, die mir beinahe
libel gemacht hatte ; Salzberger klarte mich so fort auf ;
es sei diess ein Mundwasser, um sich nach dem Essen den
Mund zu spiilen — eine Schweinerei, die mir m memem Leben
noch nicht vorgekommen ist. (3der glaubt man vieUeicht,
es sei appetitUch fiir einen Speisenden zu sehen, wie der
Nachbar gurgelt und sprudelt und dann die Geschichte in
den PorzeUanhafen spuckt, der vor ihm steht. Wir ent-
fernten uns mit hochgerotheten Antlizen, denn der Wein
hatte uns ziemlich zugesetzt ! '
It is noticeable how aU through such adventures runs the
talk of drink. The German humor seems always to play

216 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
round the beer-glass or wme-glass : you 'U never find it, or
seldom, anywhere else : certainly never as thoroughly
genuine. You wUl see this in the adventures of Nudlmaier
m Paris, always running after drink : the phrase Heimat-
liche Bettschwere strack me as most characteristic.
I hope your celebration was a success : at any rate I
quite appreciate the deUcate irony of your remark that the
most delightful thought in connection with it was, that it
would at last be over, and you could go to bed. Such are
precisely my feeUngs. I never went into any company that
I didn't find the most deUghtful moment to be that which
sent me home : but I always supposed this to be an idio
syncrasy on my part, an idiosyncrasy which I always care
fuUy concealed : but I feel justified now in letting it out.

Lausanne, 8 August, 1894.
My dear H.,^ — I have just finished Marcella. I had a
prejudice against the book as being a SociaUstic novel ; but
I found it agreeable reading, though unnecessarUy diffuse.
It was by no means an argument in favour of sociaUstic
changes ; rather a picture of the actual state of things in
agricultural England, — a description of the fermenting
process now going on ; and one derives from it an im
pression, that given the people as the writer represents them,
it is a pretty desperate undertaking to set about reforming
them. She is a very clever writer, is this Mrs. Ward ;
altogether what one may caU a woman of masculine strength;
also of much insight into shams ; but the book is not a
classic. ItwiUpass. There is a good deal that is unnatural,
— or rather, strained, in it ; however, it is good current
literature, fresh and full of the seething problems of the
times ; and after aU, what is there that is permanent in
Literature ? Of course there is a catalogue of great names
on everyone's Ups ; we Uve in the shadow of great names ;
and rushing headlong into Chaos, — as is apparently the
case now, — who wUl have leisure or the heart to read old
books, by however big a name they may be ticketed ?
Mankind as far as I can judge, is passing into a new phase :

SWITZERLAND 217
a phase which has no likeness to any preceding phase : a
phase determined partly by the discoveries and appUcation
of science, — and partly by a new mode of thought. What
wiU be the outcome I cannot foresee. I suppose no one
can foresee, unless it be Herbert Spencer who predicts for
us ' civU war, immense bloodshed and eventuaUy mffitary
despotism of the severest type.' And then what ? The
Oracle is dumb too soon. Well, I must confess that my
mind is not adapted to a changing state of society. I cannot
in the least keep up with the times. I am confused, — I
might almost say, paralyzed by what I read about ' commg
changes ' ; and that kind of thing. I prefer to dwell in a
sheU, shunning the glare of the new day,^ — dreaming, — in
the fast fading twffight of the Past. And moreover, I am
profoundly sceptical in regard to the UkeUhood of this new
SociaUstic state ever getting launched. Theories are aU
very weU ; changes in legislation are aU very weU ; and
there ought to be a good deal of legislation made m new
directions, and made soon ; but the underlying rocks on
which Utopian schemes are finaUy wrecked are the stubborn
facts of human nature, with its passions and greeds, and all
the rest of its infirmities.
It is prodigious the number of people who come to
Lausanne for the purpose of consulting physicians and going
into Kliniks ; more than half a dozen cases have already
faUen under my observation ; and then the number of
young girls, EngUsh, American, German, Russian, — who
come here to Uve for the sake of French and study ; and
then the number of folk who come here to Uve simply for
cheapness. It is a thriving place ; but it is a tiresome
place for me. I cannot get used to this incessant climbing
of hUls. There is hardly a level walk in the place ; other
wise it is an agreeable residence : picturesque views : pretty
vUlas set in masses of verdure : clean streets : nice Uttle
shops : and Trichmopoly cigars : a wine country : good
sound wine for Uttle money : and so on. And then it is
near many pretty places : a centre for excursions, into the
Rhone VaUey especiaUy. We went over to Evian-les-
Bains the other afternoon : directly opposite Lausanne,

218 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
on the French shore of the Lake : extremely picturesque
place : a grand walk along an embankment of the Lake
under umbrageous trees : — a spring, — ^bicarbonate of soda :
Theatre, Casino : promenades : a street of shops ; — quite
altogether French : priests in flowing robes of black : nuns
and Sisters of Charity with huge flapping white caps. It
is of course a Watering-place. Lausanne is French too,
yet it is also Swiss ; and though one could hardly describe
the difference in the physiognomy of the two shores, so to
speak, — ^yet there is a difference and you feel it.

Lausanne, 19 August, 1894.
My dear H., — -We made a couple of delightful excursions
last week. One day to Territet by raU in about an hour.
Territet is just beyond Montreux ; in fact, it is one lake
shore, — aU the way from Vevey to Chillon. There is also
an electric troUey car running from Vevey to ChUlon in an
hour ; we took it from Territet to ChUlon, and then back as
far as Montreux, — whence we returned to Lausanne. It
is extremely beautiful, this shore. It was a brUUant cool
day : and the old Castle of ChUlon, I may add is stUl there.
I went over it thirty-five years ago, and therefore did not
repeat the visit. It is enough to get the picturesque ex
ternal effect, and hear someone repeat Byron's lines.
Byron, and Rousseau are ' aU over the place ' here as you
know : especiaUy Rousseau,- — who made this end of the
Lake the scene of the Nouvelle Heldise, which I remember
reading forty years ago ; but in aU that time I can't re
member meeting anyone else who did ever read it ; Magni
nominis umbra : — ^Uke almost aU classics ; for nobody seems
to read classics nowadays. We are too busy with reading
newspapers and current novels, and aU the gabble of a
turbid and disintegrating world, given over to anarchistic
and sociaUstic theories. Another day we went by raU to
Vevey, and then by the electric troUey car to Clarens, and
back to Vevey. It was the same thing aU over again : a
briUiant sky, a cool breeze, — wonderfuUy beautiful scenery,
— Lake, and mountams, and vineclad slopes. It is pro-

SWITZERLAND 219
digious, the growth of these places within a generation.
I remembered Vevey very weU, The town itself is old and
somewhat shabby stUl ; but pushmg out from the town on
either side are endless vUlas, and hotels and Pensions : —
also the same in Montreux, — which I Uked better than any
of the other points on this Lake shore, — a thrifty Uttle
place : a long Une of shops extending for a mUe perhaps :
much animation : a charming Casino : — caf6s and hotels
set in blooming gardens. There must be an immense
number of folk wintering in the region. The multitudinous
shops and hotels and pensions show it ; and everywhere a
cheap and serene Uving, and a mUd cUmate ; though I do
hear that the fogs are dreadful at times and for very long
times too. The troUey is not of the broomstick pattern, by
the way, as with us ; but two cords run along two overhead
wires ; and I was afraid to take a seat on top of the tram
for fear of catching some of the electricity on my umbreUa,
which the sun made it necessary to carry ; for though in
the shade it is cool, yet sitting directly in the sun, the same
doth burn one Uke a Uve coal.

Wiesbaden, 30 September, 1894.
My dear H., — Yes, there is always a certain confusion in
using a verb of which the present and past tense have the
same form, — for instance, read. The old writers used redde
for the past tense, and our friend R. has revived the usage
of the old writers. He writes redde. I think he is right.
Let us aU write redde for the past tense. Of course in almost
aU cases the context indicates whether read be used in the
past or present tense, but you have to stop and interrogate
the context, and this mterrupts the lucid flow of the words.
The only perfect style is a style which carries you on in
an even flow, — and gives you no occasion to stop and think
what the writer means ; or to stop and read over again a
sentence in order to put it together as it were.
I am told that Swinburne is soon to pubhsh another
volume of studies in Uterature and criticism. The Standard
caUs him ' the great artist in EngUsh prose, now that

220 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Mr. Pater has left us and Mr. Ruskin has faUen sUent.'
This reminds me to say that I read the paper on Pater by
Louis Dyer which you kindly sent me some time ago.
Dyer's style is not easy ; but I gathered from the article that
Pater is a man aU whose writings I must peruse, — or study,
as the case may be. I am sure that he wUl be a writer of
the most simpatico kind to me ; for in him The Thought of
Ancient Greece was luminous : the deepest of aU earthly
thought : outside of Hebrew inspiration I mean, which in
its sphere is matchless. I am particularly looking forward
to the Celebration of the Centenary of Gibbon's death by
the Historical Society of London, for what it may bring in
the way of Gibboniana, for I must say I agree with Niebuhr
in regarding the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as
the greatest work of erudition and phUosophy in aU his
torical Uterature. It is a matchless work ; it stands alone
in EngUsh Literature ; and there is nothing to compare
with it in any other Uterature.
Since we have been in Wiesbaden, a pleasant, sunny day
has been an exception to a dismal rule of wetness and
gloom ; and now the Autumn is closing in upon us with
shortening days and falling leaves and a damp raw air :
54° in our salon this morning. There is an excess of ver
dure in the place : deUghtful enough in hot Summer days, — -
and Wiesbaden is very hot in the Summer,— but at this
season of rain and gloom, the verdure is most oppressive, —
it makes everythmg damp and dark and triste. We take
walks, according to our usual habit, in the afternoons : but
they have not come to much. It is a very quiet town,—
though there is not wanting a certain degree of animation
in some of the streets. There is no end of beautiful viUas,
and the Apartment Houses are superior — externaUy — to
any I have seen anywhere in Germany : a kind of Ught
yellowish brick (such as we used to caU MUwaukee brick)
is much in vogue. The old part of the town, with its narrow
streets, is somewhat shabby ; but the new parts, — where
vUlas only are permitted, no blocks of houses, — are pictur
esque and beautiful. The town Ues in a hoUow between
very high hUls ; but one is hardly aware of this untU one has

SWITZERLAND 221
ascended the hUls. One of these hUls is caUed the Neroberg,
and is ascended by a funicular ; we made an excursion there
one afternoon, and had a pleasant ramble through the forests
which cover it.

Wiesbaden, 11 October, 1894.
My dear H., — It is not a pleasant season for traveUmg ;
the days are gray : cloudy and gloomy and triste ; and the
yeUow leaves of Autumn cover the earth ; and there is damp
ness and wetness everywhere. It is a very long time since
we have seen the sun ; but the air has been warm of late, —
60° in our salon. There has been a heavy fog all over the
place, however, for now five days.
I am foUowing at present the developing of two subjects
of great interest : the War between China and Japan, and
the health of the Czar. If a Japanese Army should enter
Pekin simultaneously with the death of the Czar m Livadia,
or Corfu, — there would arise a knot in Weltgeschichte, so to
speak, — very difficult to untie or even to cut : requiring
indeed the aid of a very Deus ex Machina, such as the
Ancients were always handy in flinging upon the stage at
critical moments. And by the way, I saw the death of
Doctor OUver WendeU Hohnes mentioned in the Standard
as having occurred on Monday, Oct. 8, cetatis suce 85. The
Standard has a leading article upon him : an article pecuUarly
English : that is to say, most amusing. It is said that
Holmes has left behind him an autobiography. I dare say
it wUl be entertaining reading. No life seems to be com
plete nowadays without an autobiography. I wonder what
posterity wUl do with them aU. Thmk of the vast numbers
of eminent persons, — ^poets, noveUsts, historians, scientffic
men, theologians and the Uke whom this century alone has
produced, — with aU their memoirs, autobiographies, letters
and what not ; verUy the earth groans under an accumu
lating Uterature ; but time wUl sUt it aU ; not much wUl
survive ; life is too short, and it 's too intense nowadays for
much time to be given to the past. The world wiU be taken
up ever more and more with the future, — the new future

222 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
which is looming already— and to many eyes looming
bloodred — on the horizon. Neverf<heless I think Holmes'
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table wUl interest a late posterity ;
it wUl be one of the haU-dozen Boston books that wUl be
found on the shelves of stUl curious inquirers, say in the
year 2600 ; for what wisdom and light wUl not the world
have accumulated by that time, and how very trivial wiU
seem aU the concerns of this narrow and petty age in the
electric glare of Science and Socialism in that new-created
world ! I wonder if Holmes ever bothered himseU with
SociaUsm ; the world that he knew is passing away ; its
ideals are shattered ; mankind is fast taking a new de
parture ; the age of the ' One-hoss Shay ' is already half
mythical : — that is to say, we are told aU this, as if we
carried the fate of mankind in our hands, and were re
sponsible for deUvering it purffied at a given epoch in the
future. Not at aU in my view of the subject ! the future,
near or remote, is no concern of ours ; what mankind may
be in the year 3000 is a matter of no importance to us what
ever ; we are, each, an individual, and what the individual
is here and now is the main point ; aU the content of our
Ufe is in ourselves now : infinity doesn't concern us : it is
too big a thing. If there is a raison d'etre for existence, it
must be found in each individual, in each day and hour of
his life ; not in the future of a race doomed to perish, and
of a world that is hurrying back to the nothingness from
which it emerged. Hotel Erbprinz, Weimar, 25 October, 1894.
My dear H., — ^I sent to you a pamphlet entitled Caligula :
Eine Studie iiber romischen Caesarenwahnsinn. Von. L.
Quidde. The CaUgula pamphlet has been ravenously de
voured in Germany under an impression that it drew a
paraUel in Caesarian madness between the Roman despot
and the present Uttle Emperor of Germany ; and certainly
some striking simUarities do appear ; but I do not think
there is anything in the Ukeness. CaUgula was absolute ;
there was no check whatever to his frenzy of power, except

SWITZERLAND 223
the dagger of an assassin ; whereas an Emperor of Germany
in these days is in the first place not in the possession of
absolute power, and in the second place would be at once
deposed by an enraged people were he to overstep the
bounds of his office : as witness the late King Ludwig of
Bavaria. WeU, Weimar. I hardly know what to say about it : a
very classic spot : and everybody knows aU about it. In
comparison with Cassel, it strikes me as a very poor place.
I see no signs of wealth here or of growth, such as one sees
in many German towns ; it is a purely agricultural region
hereabouts. The town is old and shabby and duU ; the
shops are feeble ; the stUlness of the place is colossal. It
is not the stUlness of the country ; that one understands
and Ukes ; but it is the stiUness, — oppressive and drowsy,
— of a town, in which you are always expecting to hear
some kind of noise, but never do. It is a quamt old inn, —
this : very old indeed : some three hundred years : smaU
windows : old fashioned staircase : rambUng backyards and
out-buUdings : smaU Dining-room : no Smoke-room : no
EngUsh newspapers : not much of anything except stiUness :
half a dozen perhaps at the table d'hote : but the kitchen is
good, and my room is immense. It was fiUed with beds and
looked Uke a hospital when we first came ; but I had the
beds taken out, and now disport myself in altogether un
accustomed space. The wife has a smaUer room adjoining,
and both rooms are weU carpeted, — fancy ! — this is much
for Germany, which, when I first knew it, couldn't show a
carpet from the Baltic to the Alps. We have been doing
the sights slowly. There is a Picture GaUery here ; it tired
me awfuUy ; also SchiUer's house ; also Goethe's house.
We went into Goethe's house yesterday : an old-fashioned
roomy place ; I saw a few rooms in it thirty-five years ago,
but the whole house is now to be seen, — ^price One Mark.
It is made into a Goethe Museum, and I suppose is umque in
its coUection of interesting Personalien. I don't beUeve
any other genius ever had such a coUection made of his
personal belongings. Goethe's study is of the most primi
tive kind ; adjoining it is his bed-chamber, where he died ;

224 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
the bed-chamber boasts of one armchair ; the washstand
arrangements are extremely meagre ; everything small
and primitive ; a kmd of Spartan simpUcity and discom
fort. But on the other hand, in other chambers and rooms
are numerous coUections of pictures, — majoUca, gems and
such : extremely interesting aU this. The day was bright
and warm, and three hours of sightseeing addled my brain ;
and by the way, I believe Goethe never smoked !
I happened to pick up in this hotel a very curious book :
It is entitled Germany : A Series of Narratives of Personal
Visits to Places therein famous for Natural Beauty or His
torical Association (Cambridge, Massachusetts : W. M.
Griswold: 1892). The book is made up of a series of papers
taken from magazines and such. This must be the Griswold
whom I knew when he was a boy, — I met him and his
Mother in North Conway, say forty years ago ; but what
troubles me, are the accents and the speffing : thus, sit (for
sight) : meados (for meadows) : vue (for view) : hiway (for
highway) : and such things : altogether repulsive : I tried
to read some of the papers : but broke down : the spelling
was so hideous.

EUROPABISCHER HoP, DRESDEN,
6 December, 1894.
My dear H., — I have received a newspaper containing
M. H.'s writing on the Kneipp Cure. It amused me very
much. Fancy M. H. or any other sane woman ' wandering
barefoot for hours at a time over the soft, damp meadows ' ;
and fancy this kind of thing curing the bUnd, the dyspeptic
and the rheumatic ! M. H. says that she saw two blind
men at Woerishofen, who had recovered their sight through
this Cure. I know of an old bUnd lady who went there
blind, tarried for months, and came away blind. Also I
know of several cases of invalidism, which stUl remain cases
of invaUdism in spite of a Kneipp Cure : dyspepsia and the
like. Also I was amused by M. H.'s account of Kjieipp
prohibiting tea, coffee, beer and wine, whUe himself smoking
' a big black cigar in a small meerschaum cigar-holder.'

SWITZERLAND 225
WeU, I 'm glad to learn that there is something human left
about him. Yet why should flannel never be worn next the
skin ; but if worn at aU, then outside of a Unen or sack
cloth undergarment ? Why shouldn't it ? and what is
sackcloth ? There is a vast deal of creduUty in this world ;
and the more it is appealed to, the more it rises to the
occasion. In order to be beUeved and foUowed you have
only to proclaim aloud the precise contrary of what every
body hitherto has beUeved and foUowed : — and there you
are : — a made man. That was a very entertaining anecdote,
too, about her mother. I can fancy poor old G. S. saying m
a kind of despair, — ' If you were on a desert island with
nobody there but one old nigger, you would give a party.'
This reminds me of what I am often saymg about the wife ;
if she were in the desert of Sahara and met nobody but one
Bedouin, she would know some of that Bedouin's relations ;
for her acquaintances make a line round the globe.
I have also read the article in The Forum about ' Teach
ing Greek as a Living Language.' It is the usual argument
in favour of combining the study of Modem with that of
Ancient Greek, and I have always been in favour of that
course. I quite agree with Gennadius and the eminent
authorities whom he quotes m his favour. StiU, there is
a good deal of truth in Lawton's brief paper in The Nation.
The Modern Greek is by no means so close to the Ancient
Greek as many enthusiasts would make us beUeve. Never
theless, it has always seemed to me that one would take a
UveUer interest m Ancient Greek, if one could fancy that
it were stUl a Uving tongue ; and besides, it must be pro
nounced somehow, — why not pronounce it after the manner
of Modem Greeks ? Agam I was interested in reading
EUot's article in The Forum. Its optimism is certainly
cheering, and its arguments are plausible ; but I can hardly
say that they were convmcing. 'What he says about re
ligious toleration is very just ; but among other reasons for
beUeving in the permanence of our American RepubUc, he
adduces for instance the fuU pubUcity which characterizes
American Ufe, — meaning especiaUy the pubUcity which
exists through newspapers. 'PubUcity exposes not only
P

226 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
wickedness, but also foUy and bad judgment. It makes
crime and poUtical corruption more difficult and far less
attractive. The forger, burglar, and corruptionist need
secrecy,' — and so forth. WeU there is not and never was
a country where the newspapers are fuUer of pubUcity, if
I may use such a phrase, — where everything, no matter
what, good bad and indifferent is dragged out and made into
newspaper paragraphs,- — ^than precisely our country ; and
there is at the same time no civiUzed country and hardly
ever was, where there is so much crime as with us, — so
many burglaries, murders, robberies and what not, and so
much political corruption and financial dishonesty. I wiU
venture to say that there are 20 murders in Boston for one
in Dresden ; ditto of burglaries ; and robberies ; and ditto
of great financial frauds : — and in Dresden there is not much
pubUcity, and there wouldn't be any if the authorities
could prevent it ; but they can't.
The Hotel continues to be fuU of Americans ; and we had
a Thanksgiving Dinner with an absurd menu, — everything
d la Chicago, Boston et cetera. Living in this hotel you
would hardly know that you were Uving in a foreign country ;
you hear nothing but EngUsh, — or rather, American ; for
there are only two English guests. We are altogether nasal ;
and go in cUques ; and each cUque glares at the other cUque.
* Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness.'

EUROPAEISCHER HOP, DRESDEN,
28 December, 1894.
My dear H., — ^I should Uke you to explain to me the
interest you find in Icelandic. Is it the mere phUological
exercise that entertains you ? or do you find thought and
imagery and iUustration of an elevating and stimulating
character ? I sympathize, however, let me add, with aU
Uterary fads. The human mind requires the stimulus of
fads ; I often regret the absence of fads in my own life.
TaUyrand had a fad for playing whist ; and hence his
exclamation, — I quote it as the most powerful of aU illus
trations showing the fascination of fads, — ' Think of an old

SWITZERLAND 227
age without whist ! ' But then fads, Uke everything else,
have a phUosophy of their own ; one may easUy find the
roots of one's own fads, upon exploring the consciousness ;
turning it inside out, as it were. I can readUy understand
a fad for Swedish, — even for Russian, — and I could under
stand also a fad for Icelandic, — but aU these fads imply to
me a sense of longer time for their proper development than
you and I are now in possession of. A fad is nothmg to me
unless I can associate with it the possibffity of fullness and
completion. But after aU, men differ so much in tastes and
habits of mind that one can hardly make clear to another
the fascination or cause of any particular fad of one's own.
Icelandic is a first-class fad from every point of view ; and
if we were thirty years younger and I had a yacht, my
first impulse would be to mvite you to accompany me in a
voyage of exploration to that far-off land of ice, — otherwise
called Iceland. I should reaUy Uke to see that frozen abode
of heroic men : men who sang Sagas and quaffed foaming
drinks from skuUs of enemies : — an extremely interesting
land and people. Where else can such a people be found 1
frugal, primitive, innocent, reading Latm, — knowing the
stars : and never a newspaper m the place ! — It is wonderful
blood, this blood of the Northern races. The Icelanders
afford the only pure specimens of it left : — elsewhere there
is nothing but degeneration ; the degeneration that comes of
newspapers frittering away the very marrow of the brain ;
of five-o'clock-Tea-gossip and stock market gamblings ; and
so on.
WeU, this is my last letter for the year 1894 ; or rather,
my last line ; 1 have ceased to write letters. It has been
a busy, muddled, tiresome week. The Germans, as you
know, celebrate Christmas with a kind of fury ; and I do
not take the least interest in any kind of fury. The wife
invited a friend of hers, — Miss S. — from PhUadelphia to dine
with us. We dine of course at the table d'hote ; but as the
hotel is a favourite resort for Americans, American ways
are creeping in, more or less, and we, Uke many other guests,
have a smaU table to ourselves : so that at our table we
were three on Christmas Day, And yesterday our guest

228 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
left Dresden for Vienna on her way to Egypt : — aU roads
lead now to Cairo, as once they led to Rome. WeU, I should
not have mentioned Miss S., nor the fact of her being a
woman of wealth and position, — except for an interesting
article which appeared lately in a magazine. This article
describes The R., — fancy, what a name ! — an estabUshment
founded by Miss S. where the working-man may find Rest,
Refreshment, Recreation, Reading, Reformation, and last
but not least, ReUgion. Hence the name. The R. ; and
certainly it is an encouraging example of what may be done
for the Working Man, even in PhUadelphia. Miss S. is a
smaU, unpretending woman : very inteffigent and alto
gether Presbyterian. However she did her duty by an
exceUent Rhine wine, which graced the occasion, though
I was pained to hear her remark that she drank wme on
festal occasions only. For my part, I have substantiaUy
given up wine, since I got so shattered m Wiesbaden.
Chocolate is my favourite drink, — next to castor oU ; but
stUl it is pleasing at Christmas-and-other-such-tides to keep
in mind the traditions of happier days, and at least to
contemplate a golden liquid in goblets of sea-green hue.
We poUshed off two flasks, — or rather, perhaps, I did the
poUshing. Phenomenal weather thus far, — this shows that I am
nearly at the end of my scriblet, — ^not a snowflake yet !
hardly any frost : but for the most part gloomy weather :
now and then a little rain : sometimes a blue sky, as to-day,
with a soft mUd air : altogether deUghtful weather : clean
streets : and pleasant walks. Have I said that the Terrace
is now adorned with reaUy beautiful structures, — ^Art
BuUdings and such : erected in recent years and lately
finished : altogether transforming the place. But alas !
I prefer the old Cafe Reale of yore and the old serenity and
shabbiness : I am tired of newness, — even of fine buUdings,
if they are new ; you get newness everywhere ; there is no
variety in it ; and of course no meUowness. And then with
newness comes increase of bustle. I like the old serene
quiet ways and picturesque bits and vistas ; newness wipes
out vistas, wherever it is introduced. There is a poetry in

SWITZERLAND 229
the grimy old houses, with their quaint roofs, which new
houses lack nowadays. There is neither poetry nor pictur
esqueness in any modern houses ; and this sudden and
prodigious growth of the place quite upsets me. I cannot
give you any idea of the new quarters, and the vast out
lying districts which have been buUt over here in the last
few years. There is nothing hke it in my experience in
America : — and the masses of people m the streets,- — ever
increasing conglomerations of men and vehicles ! The
Old World is fast becoming a new world ; and new worlds
are prosy, — except to the young, to whom aU the earth is
green ; but for the aged there is no real joy even in a suc
cession of gUttering fagades however indicative of opulence
and Dampfheizung. They have it in this hotel, — Central
Heating they caU it ; but I am happy to say that it has not
been introduced into the rooms which we occupy. Steam-
heat, it strikes me, wUl finaUy kUl off the human race. I
do not beUeve that mankind anywhere can long survive the
prevalence of it. It must have m the long run a most dele
terious influence upon the health, drjdng up the lungs and
the brain. Fancy commg over to Germany and findmg the
curse here too. In the old days we had furnaces, heating
a flood of fresh cold air and passing it on warmed. They
were bad enough ; but now steam merely heats the air
already in a room ; you get no fresh air ; hence the curse.
And now alas ! I am reading in a Boston newspaper of
the demise of a very old friend : — not less a friend because
it was a house and not a human being : yes, on Saturday
night December 1, the Tremont House was closed : — and
presently it wUl have vamshed forever from the face of the
earth. It was a cheerful old inn and I was much attached
to it ; the new inns do not attract me ; and besides, Boston
is now an Inferno of troUeys. Why should I ever go back
to it ?

CHAPTER VI
ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS
1895-1898
' My Father's Article ' — BirreU — ^Idleness Elpropos of Thoreau —
' Words, Words, Words ' — Ballou's Equatorial America —
' Hooker's ' — More Words — Collectivism — President Cleveland —
A University in America — Football at Harvard — Gteorg Brandes
— On Old Age — ^A Visit to St. Gallen — Boston La-wyers — ^The
Idle Man and his Contemplative Lite — ^The A'ppenzeller Mundart —
From Zurich to Lugano — A StroU about the Streets — ^A Gale —
Lake Como — La Certoso— Genoa — Sir George Bowen — A German
Menu — Carlyle's Friedrich — ^Arrival on the Azure Coast —
Surnames — Lamb's and other Letters. EUROPAEISCHER HOP, DRESDEN,
24 January, 1895.
My dear H., — The doctor has made a thorough exam
ination of me, stethoscoped and hammered me, and finaUy
pronounced me to be a most healthy subject : heart, lungs,
Uver, etc. aU strong and in good condition : but, — alas for
the but, — I was Uned throughout, inside, with too much
fat. Hence he put me on a diet, and I am rigorously
observing it : no sugar : no butter : no wine : no tea :
no soup : no beer : no potatoes : no starch-containing
foods : no beets, peas nor beans : no sweets whatever :
and the doctor would also have shut me off from coffee and
tobacco, but I can't get on without my morning tipple.
However, I have reduced the quantity by one half, and that
I take without sugar, and with only a few Zwieback. At
dinner I am aUowed to eat aU the fish and meat I want ;
fortunately we always have fish for the first course ; and
for supper I am aUowed meat, hot or cold, and dry toast
(without butter) ; also a drop of white wine in much water.
This is all I am aUowed to drink, except Bilinerwasser, which
230

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 231
I may take ad libitum at fifty pfennigs the bottle, and also
Citronen Linionade. Strange to say, I find no difficulty in
dropping wine ; wine has quite faUen away from me ; and
as for sugar and butter they are mere bagateUes ; but I
can't give up tobacco, — yet, although I have already very
much reduced the quantity. And besides, as this wUl be
with me a permanent change of diet, I don't see the necessity
of being fanatical on the subject. My doctor is a specialist
for stomach troubles, and he is altogether a fanatic upon the
subject of diet. He teUs me that he never drinks beer or
wine, or tea or coffee ; he drinks nothing but water ; and
never uses tobacco : weU, for my part I am a weak vessel,
and besides, I don't beUeve m fanaticism of any kind :
modus in rebus, as the Romans said,— moderation in aU
things : and I must say I am very curious to observe what
wUl be the effect of this limited diet after, say, three or four
months, and whether it wUl result in my friends seeing
much less of me by that time.
It is one of the mUdest Winters which I ever knew in
Dresden ; nevertheless the stream of travel is already turn
ing Southward. Miss B., with her troop of maidens, leaves
on Monday for Italy. She is a sister of Miss Sarah B. of
Boston. Sarah B., though now aged, is a most interesting
woman : conversation with her was reaUy a luxury. One
of the earUest things I remember from boyhood is how I
used to see the B. famUy, with poor lame Sarah in the
middle, traveUmg every Sunday up and down FrankUn
Place on their way to and from Dr. Gannet's Church ;
Boston streets were quiet in those days ; and I can stUl hear
the clink of poor Sarah B.'s cane on the pavement as she
Umped past our house. It is reaUy wonderful that a person
with such an infirmity, — so prodigious a lameness, — can
hold out so long and keep an untarmshed brightness of
mind, — fuU of life and wit stUl. The fact is women never
grow old ; men, do ; that is, almost aU men ; a few don't ;
and I have not yet made up my mind whether you and I
are to be classed among the many, or whether we can take
a place, and keep it, among the few. This we shaU know
before long.

232 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
EUROPAEISCHER HOF, DRESDEN,
9 February, 1895.
My dear H., — One of my earUest associations with Rome
is connected with the Banking House of McQuay & Paken
ham, — ^in later years McQuay & Hooker. I never had much
to do with this House, as I preferred ItaUan bankers. I
avoided bankers patronized by Americans, as I thus escaped
running into green Americans, — who are my bete noire, —
loud talking, ignorant, conceited creatures ; you know the
species. But Americans who have been in Europe long
enough to grow meUow and learn wisdom, it is always a
pleasure to meet. This Banking house was in the Piazza
di Spagna ; I passed it every day ; and every day somebody
or other told me what rate of exchange Hooker was giving,
or spoke of having just found letters at Hooker's, and so
on, so that ' Hooker ' became reaUy the most famffiar name
to me in aU Rome ; and this began thirty-five years ago.
And now last year in that great whirlwind of panic which
swept away hah the banks in Italy, the House of McQuay
& Hooker went down, and recently Hooker himself has
passed away. The very name has vanished from Rome,
for the House is now known by another name ; and there
remains nothing of Hooker, but a pleasant mention of him
in a recent newspaper. He was a New England man by
birth, but went abroad in 1847 for his health and was told
by the Roman physicians that ' with great care he might
Uve a year.' De Mortuis nil nisi bonum, and it is sweet in
M. H. to narrate so much that is good ; I feel as if I had
neglected my opportunities in not cultivating his acquaint
ance ; ' a good man, — simple, and lovable ' : I dare say,
but he did give a very low rate of exchange. Also I have
read with pleasure an article in the Advertiser relating to
the estabUshment of a Professorship of Russian Language
and Literature at Harvard. It is reaUy disgraceful that
such a Professorship should not have existed aU these years.
It is a dreadful language, to be sure, the Russian ; and
dreadful are aU the Slavic tongues ; and there is not much
Uterature in any of them, except of late some dreary, outre
Russian novels, of a morbid and whoUy unnatural char-

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 233
acter. But nevertheless from the point of view of phUo
logical science it is a tremendous tongue, the Russian, when
taken in connection with aU its Slavic affiUations ; and it
is certainly befitting our great University, — the only Univer
sity in the country, for such I hold Harvard to be, — to
possess a Chair of Russian ; to do that, it could afford to
let go a good deal of its bric-a-brac.
I am at present an invaUd. I have had more attacks of
pain, and am now under medical care. I have already lost
six pounds (EngUsh). I do not go out anywhere, except
for a walk in the afternoon, and I never go out at night ;
I am in a state of apprehension aU the time, for I can never
be sure that I may not have a fresh attack of pain at any
moment. These pains are very trying, and altogether
disheartening. To be free from pain seems to me some
times the only thing worth Uving for in this world ; cer
tainly Ufe is not worth having when these pams are on : —
and there seems to be no reUef . At any rate I have found
none, — not even in hypodermic injections. However, my
physician bids me be of good cheer, and assures me that
the diet he has prescribed, — ^the Cur as he caUs it, — wUl add
ten years to my Ufe ; let us hope so, but I don't beUeve it ;
there is a hitch somewhere in my machinery ; the works
are shattered ; and henceforth, I fancy, it is but a kind of
wobbling to the end ; but I shaU know betimes.
The last odd word I have come across is skringe ! It is
very singular indeed, what curious words and phrases one
may find here and there in EngUsh books. Those you give
me from Raleigh's book on the English Novel, — ' educating
the pubUc to distaste plays,' ' but one soul bUocated,' —
show that neologisms, — by which I understand new words,
or new phrases, — are sprmgmg up aU the time. Sometimes
they take root and abide in use ; sometimes, they don't ;
and when they don't, and we come across them, hke so
many corpses of words once possessed of Ufe,^weU, they
look very odd, not to say dreary. I am always extremely
entertained by the specimens in this line which you send
me ; singly they are very amusing and often most instructive
but I fancy a collection of them filling a book would quite

234 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
overturn the brain of an ordinary reader, — else I should
suggest to you to make and put forth such a coUection.
You are so admirable a critic of EngUsh Uterature, and so
weU versed in EngUsh words and etymologies, that it seems
to me a pity you don't puU yourseU together, and make a
raid on the attention of the pubUc in this matter ; you
might make a happy deUvery of something useful. And
yet I know that the impulse to deUver oneself wffi take form
of its own accord ; and that aU attempts to force an im
pulse are proUfic of futffities only, — burdensome to all men.
Therefore confine yourseU to sending me the plums you may
pick out of these half baked puddings, which in a dried
state flU the shelves of Ubraries. That will be something ;
for these plums are valuable to me, who never get hold of
any puddings at aU.
We have had varied weather of late : — much gloom : duU
skies and heavy coal smoke : and now at last a reaUy
severe cold, — one night the mercury sank to 18° below Zero,
and it has not been higher than 15° above Zero since. How
ever, this reaUy Icelandic wave wiU I hope soon pass, for I
do not beUeve that an extreme cold is good for man or
beast. I look upon extreme cold as extremely inimical to
the vitaUty ; its bracing properties I think are much over
rated ; and contrary to the popular notion, statistics show
that a mUd, so-caUed open Winter, is more favourable, so
far as the death-rate is concerned, than a severely cold
Winter. At any rate, I hate the cold and I hate the snow,
and ice, and aU the gloom of these Northern regions ; and
if by chance I get another Winter I shaU put it somewhere
in the South. We have just had a letter from her ExceUency,
the Prussian Warrior, — of whom I wrote you last Winter,
when we were in the Schweizer Hof in Lucerne. The cold
and snow there this Winter proved too much for her and
her comrade ; and so the two Warriors, now feeble and
weU-worn, did puU themselves together, and journey
Southward through the Gotthard. They found aU Northern
Italy under snow : from MUan to Genoa one mass of snow :
snow all along the Riviera even to San Remo, where the
orange trees were white with this unaccustomed powder.

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 235
However, the sun soon came out bright and strong, and
the snow in San Remo disappeared ; and warmth set in ;
and the aged Warriors' hearts did melt in the same. And
speaking of snow, a train from Geneva to Lausanne stuck
nine hours in a snowdrift the other day, — on the vine-clad
shores of the placid Leman Lake ! The Winter has tumed
out to be relentless everywhere ; but I wUl not bore you
with this topic any longer, though in a way it is always a
justffiable topic in a letter, for letters spring directly from
the superficial personaUty, so to speak,— from the totaUty
of that personaUty, — and not from profound workmgs of
the mental faculty on any lines of thought. Now weather
is one of the environments of the superficial personaUty, —
more or less important to the person who writes, according
to the nature of his temperament ; and hence weather as I
say, is a justffiable topic, provided it be not avaUed of as in
the present case, merely by way of padding.
Dresden is very far from bemg now a cheap place pro
vided one wants to Uve weU and partake of the frivoUties
of the world. It may be no dearer than other places, but
it is no longer cheaper than other places. Three marks
used to be the ordinary price of a music lesson ; now fifteen
marks is considered a low figure for the same thmg. The
natives brag that Dresden is a Weltstadt ; and in spite of the
higher level of expense, it is reaUy incredible, — the number
of EngUsh and Americans here. They swarm everywhere ;
there is more Enghsh heard in the Pragerstrasse than
German ; in almost every house in this quarter there is a
Pension — in many houses, two Pensions. What wiU become
of this horde of Umited-income Americans, when that gang
of pestiferous poUticians in the Senate has succeeded m
blocking aU financial reform, and has plunged us mto the
Abyss of the SUver Misery,— when a doUar wUl buy only
two marks instead of four ? It is reaUy sickening, this
spectacle of a debauched Senate ruthlessly sacrfficing the
good of the country to partisan and personal interests, or
rather, greed, of its own members. You can't think what
an impression aU this makes upon Germans accustomed to
an honest and an inteUigent government.

236 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
EUROPAEISCHER HoP, DRESDEN,
5 March, 1895.
My dear H., — Send me any paragraphs you may see
in the newspapers about the old Tremont House. I do
not care anything about the new buUding which is to be
erected on its site, — a fourteen story monstrosity, I suppose,
like aU the rest of these recent creations of architectural
and capitaUstic wickedness in our crowded cities. Fancy
a long street lined on either side with buUdings from four
teen to twenty stories high ! What kind of Ught and air
would there be for toiling humanity in such a street ? And
yet we rather brag of these big things as we do of other
noxious things : shutting our eyes to the fact that they are
aU a curse.
I have read an article by one Denison on ' The Survival of
the American Type.' It is very sound, — many wholesome
truths ; and I should be glad if it could serve in a measure
to counteract the false, inflated writing which is now pre
valent in regard to the working classes. As someone said
to me the other day, ' we hear a great deal about men's
Rights nowadays, but nothing about their Duties.' —
Denison reminds men of their Duties. But it won't do any
good, — ^nothing wiU do any good ; there is a Utopian craze
abroad and it wUl have to run its course, Uke any other
disease, mental or physical ; we shaU be lucky if it do not
cause an explosion and drown us, or those that come after
us, in seas of blood. Take for instance the so-caUed
NationaUsts, — a party formed on the Ideals set forth in
BeUamy's novel. Was ever anything so idiotic taken up
by men of sense and a common school education ! as if
introducing new institutions could effect, from the outside
so to speak, a thorough-going reform of the moral nature.
And besides, what tyranny is mvolved in a social order such
as the NationaUsts would bring in ! — This social order is
caUed Collectivism, is it not ? It strikes me as the dreariest,
most brutal order ever dreamed of ; for suppression of the
individuaUty is in itseU and always must be something
dreary and brutal. To have your Une of work chosen for
you, and to work in that Une under dictation aU your Ufe,

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 237
or rather tUl you are forty-five years old, — BeUamy lets you
go at forty -five, — what is this but an aU-devouring tyranny !
fatal to aU spontaneity of effort and to aU joy in Ufe ? I
mention this particular sect mer ?ly as an iUustration of the
Utopian craze, which under one form or another is per
vading men's minds : the result of a mawkish sentimen-
taUsm and a profound misconception of the fundamental
laws of human nature : aggravating the umversal dis
content which is ever present in aU society : making the lot
of the poor and hard-worked stUl worse by filling their
minds with a fatal notion that the Utopian Ideal, — an Ideal
if possible at aU, possible only after five thousand years of
continuous regeneration, — ^may be reached to-morrow, and
that to-morrow they might aU be having a good time, could
they but escape to-day from the clutches of the Rich, who
are sucking their Ufe-blood. It is this kind of thing that
is bringing us to the verge of Chaos.
The other day I came across the foUowing anecdote of
JuUa Ward Howe. In a conversation with Sumner she had
invited him to a party to meet Booth, the actor. Sumner
was disinclined to come : ' the truth is,' he said, ' I have
got beyond taking an interest in individuals.' Mrs. Howe
made no reply : but in her diary that mght she wrote :
' Charles Sumner has got beyond takmg an interest in indi
viduals. God Almighty has not got so far.' Poor Sumner :
what a conceited, arrogant maUgnant creature, he was,
to be sure ! I wonder if anyone ever reads now his
drivel about ' The Fathers.' We pass quickly in these
days from one phase to another. ' Abolitionism ' didn't
bring m the MUlennium ; we are now trymg if BeUamyism
won't do it ; and as we pass from phase to phase, we forget
the old idols, in bowing before the new ones. AU the old
names pass away, and aU that they stood for ; and we run
about in quest of ' some new thing.' Alas ! if we could only
stick for a time to some of the old things, such as Justice
and Wisdom and Common Honesty.
WeU, I have been keeping strictly to the regimen pre
scribed to me. But I should be glad if I could soon bring
myself down to two hundred EngUsh pounds, and feel that

238 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
I might with impumty put one lump of sugar in my one cup
of moming coffee ; and eat a sweet at dinner, — or at any
rate, a helping of haricots verts. From this you may see
what I have come to : a thimbleful of cold water at dinner :
no more of ' the mysterious gladness of the vine ' for me :
no joy in ' cups ' : and only four cigars a day : however,
I am not particular to teU the shopman to give me mUd
cigars. Of the dreadful muddle in which the country is waUow-
ing, — ^through poUtical obstinacy and narrow-mindedness,
and fraud and greed in high places, — of aU this I wiU say
nothing, — it makes me sick, — as does a writer in The Nation
who uses the word timeously for timely : I wUl add only that
the spectacle of one of our Massachusetts Senators black
guarding President Cleveland : the only pubhc Mas in the
country, who possesses Character and WiU : and of whose
efforts to save us from a dreadful perU we may justly be
proud :¦ — ^is it not altogether disheartening ? . . . And to add
to aU this misery, the peril of SUverism is as imminent as
ever : in fact, I do not see how we can escape for many
months longer the catastrophe of the SUver standard. Was
there ever a country misgoverned like ours ! when it needs
but haU a dozen able men to come together and puU us in
a twinkling out of this bog.
WeU, Lent has come, and the wife being a good Church-
woman I am kept in mind of it ; formerly I never knew
anything about it. In my young days Lent was never men
tioned among Unitarians. I remember looking the word
out in a dictionary occasionaUy. There is an Americanische
Kirche here (Episcopal) and during Lent services are fre
quent. In the Englische Kirche there are services every
day, — sometimes two or three times a day : High Church
and very crowded : not a seat to be had : aU England seems
to be running to High Churchism. Our Uttle parson, how
ever, having nearly danced his legs off, and quite worn him
self out with midnight whiskies and soda, is at last on the
eve of departure : — exit the funniest little man who ever
wore ' cloth ' in England. He is very smaU of stature : and
bis tiny patent leathered feet would raake a TrUbyish study.

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 239
EUROPAEISCHER Hop, DRESDEN,
21 March, 1895.
My dear H., — WeU, now about Universities, — when I
said that I looked upon Harvard as ' the only University
in the country,' I was not thinking of the methods of study
pursued, nor in any way of the greater or less strictness of
the undergraduate arrangements ; I was thinking only of
its freedom from Sectariamsm, — in that respect a university,
— universal, — taking m aU, of whatever creed. AU other
coUeges are tied to a sect or creed. Yale, for instance, would
never appoint a Jew to be a Professor, nor even a Umtarian ;
Harvard appoints both. I must confess, however, that I
had quite forgotten the existence of aU the great young
Universities, such as Johns Hopkins, Chicago and so forth.
Perhaps they are also Universities in the sense m which I
caUed Harvard a University. You see I don't in the least
keep up with the times ; I can't ; the times outrun me.
I ought to go into a Monastery and Uve m a ceU far away
from this harrowing, addUng world of turbulence that is
turbid ; but then the monastery must be situated on some
sunny strand, festooned with vines of grape and with groves
and glow of orange and lemon in the background.
I am very glad mdeed that EUot has expressed himself
clearly in condemnation of footbaU. I look upon it as a
wretched, demorahzing game, sure to bring out aU the beast
in those who take part in it. But whether his opinion as to
its evU character wUl prevail, is doubtful. The craze for
' athletics ' which possesses the young of aU classes nowa
days must run its course, Uke other crazes ; we are a race
given to crazes, in politics, in finance, m religion, and every
thing else, — always seeking some new thing, but always
finding some very old thing : to wit, human nature, in one
phase or another, and altogether unregenerate. I am
glad to learn that T. enjoys toboganning ; it is my favourite
pastime, when not occupied in reading Arabic ; but ' coast
ing on skees ' — I have not come to that yet ; not even in
the dictionary.

' 240 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
EUROPAEISCHER HoP, DRESDEN,
16 April, 1895.
My dear H., — I am doing aU I can in the way of walking;
but I get tired very easUy, an hour and a haU's walk is
enough for me. My doctor recommends me to walk up-
hiU, — this sort of exercise being beneficial for the heart ;
but it is very tiresome. How very true is it, as the Roman
poet remarked, non est vivere sed valere vita ! If one must
give aU one's time and energy and thought to the conser
vation of one's health, to the end that one may avoid the
pams which do wait upon a disturbance of the bodUy
machineries,— weU, I wUl not fiU up the other half of the
sentence. It doesn't help us to moraUze ; such as we are,
we are ; and we are here and can't help ourselves and it
remains only to make the best of what is left of us. And
that remmds me to recommend to you an interesting volume
entitled Menschen und Werke, Essays von Georg Brandes.
Brandes is a Danish litterateur — who Uves in Copenhagen I
beUeve. At any rate he writes in German ; and I am in
debted to this book for an Essay on Nietzsche, which gives
me aU the knowledge in relation to Nietzsche which I ever
wish to have. The man is hopelessly mad now ; and I
fancy he must always have been more or less msane. Yes,
Biographies are almost always interesting reading ; in fact
any Life if properly set forth is worth reading, — at any rate,
so old Doctor Johnson used to say ; and I hope some day
to come across the Life of Symonds ; I fancy he wUl prove
a simpatico subject. At any rate he was a European ; and
I must say I never took much interest in Lives of Americans,
— it is such a dreary country, America, and the Uves of
Americans are aU so prosy. But I must explain, adscititi-
ously, that what I say does not apply to ' Boston.' ' Boston '
is not ' America.' Boston stands for itself as the Seat of
aU Culture ; or at any rate it wUl be such at last, if not
wrecked by outcomes of diaboUsm. However, I must make
an exception. I fancy a Life of Dr. Holmes written in
Bosweffian fashion, giving his Table Talk and other talk,
and aU his witty sa3dngs would make interesting reading ;

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 241
but I despair of seeing such a Life, biographies are so serious
and prosy nowadays.
The Spring races are ' on ' here, and the Hotel is swamped
with the jeunesse doree and other doree'd folk of Berlin and
Vienna ; also with folk wearmg good clothes and speaking
strange tongues. What idiocy is aU this ! and besides, I
beUeve one of the riders broke his neck yesterday by a faU
from his horse. I never saw a horse-race in my Ufe ; and
what is stiU more satisfactory, I never kicked in a footbaU
game but once in my life, — in that memorable game which
came off in the ' Delta,' — between Freshmen and Sopho
mores in the autumn just after I entered CoUege nearly
forty-nine years ago, when I kicked everybody sore, and
everybody kicked me sore. I made up my mind then that
it was a vUe game, — footbaU ; at any rate, as it was played
in my time ; and I have never seen any reason to alter my
opinion. Hence my regret when I redde in the newspapers
the other day that the Board of Overseers of Harvard had
overruled EUot's wise decision and were permitting the
playing of IntercoUegiate FootbaU games.

Heiden, Canton Appenzell, Switzerland,
26 August, 1895,
My dear H., — ^No, I don't remember that you ever told
me you were writing an autobiography. I have no doubt
that your descendants wUl prize it highly. Sixty-three I
look upon as a respectable age, and altogether ripe for
reminiscences ; and I must confess that for myseU I do not
share in that feeUng of confidence with which you seem to
look forward to ' later periods.' The only wonder to me is
that I have Uved so long ; and though it may be aU very
true that modem civUization by its superior arrangements
for salubrious Uving has extended the old Jewish term of
seventy years to eighty years as the proper limit of Ufe,
yet after aU, how very smaU a percentage of those who
attain seventy years have any comfort in their age, — rather
are the years a weariness and a burden, the inevitable in
firmities of senescence pressing upon the springs of life and
Q

242 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
overwhelming the mind with gloomy forebodings of suffering
and decay. At best, after seventy, life is but a prolonged
flickermg of a candle, which any sudden gust of disaster or
disease may blow out altogether. There are mdeed excep
tions to this precarious senescence,— -men of a strong innate
vitahty which runs them buoyantly up into the eighties ;
and it is these exceptions which make an impression, whUe
the vast mass to which they are exceptions is forgotten :
just as people look only upon the successful rich and forget
how many fortunes have been swaUowed up through in
numerable faUures, leaving the successful few swimming
upon the surface of a great pool of misery and ruin. Yet
there is something interesting in Uving long. How many
careers now closed can we already overlook from their begin
ning to their end ! and very commonplace after aU is the
tenour of life for the most part in aU of them. But so it is,^ — -
nature wraps u^ in Ulusions in our youth, and carefuUy veUs
the future from our eyes, and we never once suspect that
it wUl be to us as it has been to countless numbers before
us. We fancy that we stand for ourselves, whUe we are in
fact but the flitting shadows so to speak of a WUl that rules
aU things by everlasting laws.
The weather has been very hot : soft balmy air blowing :
the Fohn (or South wind). In the shade, however, there was
a deUcious coolness, and aU the air aromatic with perfume
of new mown hay coming in through the open windows,
and altogether refreshing, when borne on the damp cool
air of night ; for m the whole region, on the slopes of aU
the hUls is nothing but grass, and hay-making has been
going on for mUes roundabout (the second crop) with much
vigour, in these dry sunny days.
We took a drive to St. GaUen one gloomy wet day. The
road lay over roUing hUls, giving wide panoramas, — ^ravines
and streams and grassy slopes : houses everjrwhere : a
thrifty people, this, but in this region without agriculture :
a people sUent, mdustrious, — in fact, altogether monoton
ous and humdrum. It rained aU the time we were in
St. GaUen, and we did none of the sights, the museums and
such being mercifuUy closed. The ladies paddled about in

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 243
the wet, and tried to find embroideries, but couldn't ;
St. GaUen deals in embroideries by wholesale only. How
ever, I got some money and some tobacco, — which I beUeve
are mentioned by the classic authors as being, even in their
time, the nerves of things. We drove home by another
road, fuU of wUdness and picturesqueness and gloom ; but
no rain, either going or coming ; rain only in St. GaUen ;
yet the very air was wet, and the skies seemed almost to drop
upon the earth.
The house has kept pretty fuU ; but it is a mixed lot of
Alsatian Jews and other Jews, of French folk and German
folk : mostly in famffies : and we have had nothing to do
with these Sommer frischlers as a rule, barring a few excep
tions, such an utterly uninteresting 'crowd,' the greater part
of them being patients of a physician here, a German, who
has a reputation for massage and electrical treatment and
such : several pitiable cases of paralysis.

Heiden, Canton Appenzell,
9 September, 1895.
My dear H.,^ — -WiUard's book interested me more than
I fancied would be the case. I knew personaUy, or at any
rate by sight, almost aU the lawyers and judges whom he
mentions ; their physical appearance and characteristics
are aU famffiar to me, and therefore their jokes and such,
however rude and often idiotic, have a signfficance which
they could not possibly have to one to whom their names
are nothmg but names. As you say, many of the anecdotes
' iUustrate nothing but the habit of the old-time lawyers
of hurling brutal personal insults at one another, and even
at unoffending witnesses.' Also, it is amazmg to me that
lawyers and judges could indulge in the idiocies, — I cannot
think of an apter word, — which crop up in the pages of
WiUard's book. In the paragraphs which make up the
' funny column ' of an American newspaper such idiocies
may pass ; though to me they iUustrate in a painful manner
the low level of thought and talk which prevaUs in the
pubUc to whom they are addressed. You rarely find such

244 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
absolute idiocies in foreign newspapers. But that men of
education, indeed of severe inteUectual training, can take
pleasure in such empty absurdities, — this is humffiating
to the Boston man of decorous demeanour, ambitious of
culture. However, the book did reaUy interest me. It
carried me back, quite forty years, into a world altogether
buried out of sight and out of mind now ; and I Uved over
again the days when I used to haunt that miserable old
Court House in Court Square, — and Usten to Choate's fervid
harangues to a jury, — what a head he had to be sure ! —
and what a vocabulary ! — or to Ned Sohier's cross-examina
tion of a witness, always a masterpiece of skiU. In fact,
in reading the book, I felt as if I were walking in a dream of
the past, altogether phantasmal. In fifty years everything
changes,— men, streets, edifices ; a world disappears, and
another world rises in place of it. It seems to me a different
race which peoples Boston in these days. We are aU
different in our temperaments and in our attitudes to the
external world. To those to whom the external world is
stUl a vital reaUty, — something to be compassed, some
thing to cUng to, — the old places, however changed, wiU
always appeal with a kind of pathos. But there are others
to whom places are indifferent, and old associations a
weariness ; let each for himself stand on his own feet,
and respect the individuaUty of his brother. It takes aU
kinds of people to make a world ; no two human beings
wUl ever see or think or remember precisely aUke. It is
this diversity which makes the charm of Ufe, such as it is.
Dogmatic uniformity, such as bigots and despots have tried
at times to introduce and support, — what a curse has it
been to mankind ! so with aU varying conceptions of duty, —
all ethical standpoints for the time being made into rules
by which to judge others, — to what narrow-mindedness and
dreariness do they lead ! No, I affirm that the tramp and
the idler, — I need hardly add that I do not mean by tramp
a vulgar vagabond Uving on honest folk, nor by idler, one
who neglects his plain duty of taking care of himself and of
others who may have claims on him, — I affirm that the
tramp and the idler, in the higher sense, — in short, that the

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 245
' contemplative Ufe ' has its justffication in the nature of
man, quite as much as the ' always doing something ' kind
of Ufe, which is a frequent ideal in New England. Great
thoughts, great enterprises, great world-shakmg revelations
never came from ' always doing somethmg ' folk : no, such
things sprmg from the ' contemplative hfe.' As for me, I
never do anythmg whUe I am smoking ; I can't ; smoking
is therefore for me a ' contemplative habit.' Yet I have not
yet passed out of the earthly into the contemplative life
properly so caUed ; I am stUl wrapped in vapours of the
weeds that perish in the using. What you say of Mar-
tineau's Study of Religion makes me desirous to get hold of
the book. There is nothing I Uke so much as suggestive
writing. It is an ineffable charm of the ' Contemplative
Life ' that it lends itself to aU inspirations, rejoicing above
aU things in the words of the ' Seers.' Stffi readmg on ih
your letter, I come to what you say of the bUnd. I have
observed with more or less attention the characteristics
of the bUnd woman who is with us ; but doubtless owing to
my own want of faculty for tffis kind of study, I have not
coUected from this observation any items of psychological
or other interest. I remember only that one afternoon, when
I was sitting with her on a bench in front of a house where
Embroideries were sold whUe the other ladies were makmg
purchases, I said to her there had been a clear sky aU day
up to that moment, — ' Clouds are gathering overhead and
I am afraid we may get rain before night.' ' Yes,' she
repUed, ' I know it ; I can teU by the sounds ; it 's just as
if a roof had been made over us.' This struck me as show-
mg a wonderfuUy sensitive ear for sounds.
I cannot teU you anythmg about the dialect spoken here,
for it is impossible to make it out. I cannot understand it
when a person uses it in speaking to me. As a rule, the
natives, when addressing a stranger here, use the German
of the educated classes. I do not know if there are any
printed specimens of this dialect. Years ago in Lucerne
I saw printed specimens of the Lucerne dialect. They are
aU different, — ^these dialects, — and aU horrible, except to
the student of phUology ; for they do reaUy make hideous

246 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
noises, — these people when they talk among themselves.
We have had an uninterrupted succession of heats : 98° in
Paris, 101° in Dresden, the crops drying up, the earth aU
over Europe parched and withered ; it is reaUy prodigious.
Here, my thermometer has not marked above 78° in our
rooms. From half -past five to six a coolness sets in, and
then we walk tffi seven or after. But even in the hottest
afternoons, it is deUghtfuUy cool in the shade of trees ;
there is generally a sUght breeze ; hence the heats are not
inclement. On the contrary, taken aU together, it is the
most Summery Summer which I can remember to have
passed in Europe : a deUcious New England Summer :
uninterrupted sunshine : bluest skies, soft balmy air : no
mosquitoes : hardly a fly : altogether a serene and beautiful
season. Of Heiden I have reaUy nothing more to teU you :
it is a mere Dorf : often noisy : school chUdren running
about, whooping : and Swiss boys firing at targets aU over
the place, after the manner of TeU : a tiresome place : but
the air, — ^yea, it is the air of Paradise.

Hotel du Parc, Lugano,
27 September, 1895.
My dear H., — I posted^ to you in Heiden a Uttle book
entitled Sang und Kiang aus Appenzell, bemg eine Sammlung
alter er Lieder fiir vierstimmigen Manner chor : herausgegeben
von Alfred Tobler : Wolf haiden 1892 ; also two smaU books
(unbound) out of a Ubrary of Schwizer-DUtsch pubUcations,
entitled Aus den Kantonen St. Gallon & Appenzell. I made
some inquiries about the Appenzeller Mundart of a native.
Her father was a Pfarrer (ZwingUan) in a Dorf just under
the Santis. She told me that although among themselves
the AppenzeUers always speak their native dialect, yet that
it was difficult for her to read it, for she never sees it in
print ; nor does she write it ; in writing letters, she, Uke
the rest, uses the German Schriftsprache. Also in the schools
the Mundart is forbidden to be used ; a chUd must always
speak with its teacher in good German. Hence this Mun
dart, as was the case m Lucerne, is almost whoUy an un-

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 247
written language, — and as such, I fancy it must, Uke aU
purely oral languages, vary and change from age to age.
And how incredibly minute are the subdivisions of these
dialects is shown by the fact which this lady mentioned to
me, that her brother, — who is a physician m charge of the
hospital in Heiden, — can distmguish between a native of
Wolf haiden, — a Dorf just below Heiden, and a native of
Rehetobel, a Dorf just above Heiden on the other side of it,- — -
both AppenzeUer Dorfs : and each having a sUghtly differ
ent dialect ! Also in the matter of CathoUcism and Protes
tantism, it is very curious how sharply the Unes are drawn.
There is for instance the vffiage of Oberegg, not quite an
hour's walk from Heiden. It belongs to Inner-Rhoden and
is entirely CathoUc, although whoUy surrounded by Ausser-
Rhoden which is Protestant, — Inner and Ausser Rhoden
bemg the two halves of the Canton AppenzeU. Also, the
Canton of AppenzeU is entirely surrounded by the Canton
of St. GaUen. St. GaUen is CathoUc ; AppenzeU Ausser
Rhoden is Protestant. Heiden is in Aiisser Rhoden. Our
only level walk was on the road leading to St. GaUen, —
most picturesque walk, along the base of great grassy
slopes. Now, a mUe out from Heiden on this road, you
come to the dividing Une between the Cantons of St. GaUen,
and AppenzeU Ausser Rhoden ; and on one side of this
dividing Une is a smaU Protestant Church with a sharp sUm
spire, — on the other, a CathoUc Church with that red
bulbous spire with which one is famffiar in Southern Bavaria.
The Dorf on each side of the Une is caUed Grub : — Protestant,
AppenzeU Ausser-Rhoden Grub, and CathoUc, St. GaUen
Grab! WeU, finaUy we left Heiden, and descending to Rorschach
on top of a raUway carriage, took the tram to Zurich. It
was a deUghtful Summer day, — ^altogether radiant, and the
ride gave us picturesque scenery. Arrived m Zurich, we
walked across the street from the RaUway Station to the
Victoria Hotel, where we passed the night. Opposite us
at the table d'hdte seven o'clock dinner sat that popular
noveUst, Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes,
and such. Youngish man : large : and less bibulous than

248 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
I should have fancied a popular and successful noveUst to be.
The next moming we left Zurich m a through carriage for
Lugano, via Rothkreuz and Arth-Goldau : brUUant sunny
day. Indeed we have not had a cloudy day anywhere for
now these six weeks. The scenery of the Gotthard is
wonderfuUy fine ; but the tunnels are trying, — I beUeve
there are fifty-six of them. We did the great tunnel, nine
and one half mUes, in seventeen minutes by my watch :
very hot and a tremendous noise. The loops by which the
raUway is brought up to Goschenen, where is the entrance
to the Tunnel on the Northern side, are reaUy stupendous.
At five o'clock we reached Lugano, and aUghted at a nice
hotel close to the station and high above the town. I was
sorry that we could not remain there, but the house was too
full ; we could not get satisfactory rooms. We descended
therefore to the Lake by a funicular, and ' arranged ' our
selves here : in an old Palace, very sumptuous : a De-
pendance of the Hotel du Parc. We are directly on the Lake
and aU surrounded by mountains : the air is deUcious :
soft ItaUan air : hot in tbe sun : and the town is smeUy :
but that too is deUcious, for is it not Italy ?

H6tel du Parc, Lugajto,
7 October, 1895.
My dear H., — I was out aU this moming, — a very rare
occurrence for me, and an occurrence wMch always breaks
me up for the day. It was a most brUUant moming : an
azure sky : stimulating air : breeze blowmg in from the
Lake. The bit of a town Ues along the Lake : narrow
gloomy streets, aU arcaded, runnmg back from the sparkling
water of the Lake : aU in a picturesque setting of green
mountains, rising steep out of the water : shabby shops :
dirty streets : very musty : everybody looking as if out at
the elbows. We wandered about, in and out, aU over the
place. I bought ItaUan paper money at the bankers at
the rate of 104' 70 francs in ItaUan paper rags for one
hundred francs in French gold, — 4 7/10 premium. When
I was in Lucerne two years ago, the premium on gold in

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 249
Italy was from 18% to 20% ! and we thought at one tune
of going down there and Uving on the premium !
Yes, ' Things ' are dreadful tyrants if one does not possess
a house in which they may find a home ; even my trunks,
stored here and there, are a constant bore. Books indeed
are different ; they can be stored with safety ; but unless
one has a definite outlook for sufficient space somewhere
in which to dweU among them, it is better to let even books
go by the board. I have found aU along that it is wiser
to accept unreservedly the conditions of one's lot in this
particular, even though I cannot suppress now and then a
sigh of regret for the many sacrifices which they entail :
but cui bono ? Regrets never did any good ; what one
can't help is there to be accepted ; aU is wisely ordered
doubtless, — at any rate it is ordered ; and so the pleasant
Ubrary of which I once dreamed that I might be the pos
sessor has gone to some other ' feUer ' ; and I hope he wffi
enjoy it as much as I might have enjoyed it. WeU, then we
did fidner, as the French say, and looked over masses of
photographs. It is astonishing how much ' dry shoppmg '
as I caU it, women have the face to do : — aU kmds of idle
errands, in the Uttle vaulted, dark, stone shops, — always
' dry shopping ' : — untU at last we came out upon the lake
front, and reveUed m the sunUght and sight of the soft green
mountains rising straight out of the sparkUng waters. I
wish I could describe the geographical configuration of the
mountains and the slopes and such that make the situation
of Lugano and aU these places so picturesque ; but I can't
give you the least idea of the scenery by the use of words.
I have no faculty in that direction ; and I never met with
any writer who could do much that was satisfactory in this
kind of word-painting. But then of course much depends
on the reader. I dare say there are persons who can catch
a fair conception of a landscape, from a few Unes of de
scription, I never could. I can't describe scenery myself,
nor can I understand other folk's descriptions of scenery :
a mere mass of unmeanmg words. I suppose this comes
from a lack of imagination on my part ; it comes from
something no doubt.

250 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Grand Hotel Villa D'Este, Cbrnobbio, Lake op Como,
18 October, 1895.
My dear H., — ^Yes, that Monday afternoon became
gloomier and wetter as the hours went on ; and in the night
arose a great gale, which I fancy might have swept us into the
Lake, had we not been anchored on the rocks, — or I should
say, imbedded among rocks ; for the houses in these parts
of course are aU of stone, and being aU old, are of portentous
thickness of waUs. However, the windows and shutters
rattled wUdly and the winds swept through their cracks as
if all in a rage ; for two days and nights without ceasing did
the winds howl and the rams faU in torrents. Such black
ness of skies ! such preternatural gloom ! It aU remmded
me of those days of fiood in Cortma in the September month
of 1882 : except that in Cortina the waters feU in masses,
like dead weights dropping from the near skies with a thud
on the earth, for there was no wind in Cortina, — an awful
stffiness and blackness : not a leaf stirred : not a sound
was heard : a downpour of water for four days and four
nights, steady, uniform, without ever the sUghtest thinnmg
of its immense and aU devastatmg mass :— I say, four days
and nights, — this was the period of the awful mass of water,
but heaviest rains stffi contmued, — rams that anywhere
else would alone almost have excited consternation,^ — ^con
tinued for at least a week longer, day and night. But I am
wandering. WeU, on Thursday morning the storm passed away ; the
sun shone victorious from out of the black clouds, — and
with a supreme effort we puUed ourselves together, and
abandoning Cadenabbia, came straight to this place, passing
Cadenabbia and BeUagio on the way down the Lake of
Como from Menaggio. From Lugano we went by steam
boat to Porlezza, which is across the frontier in Italy, —
ItaUan Customs officer coming on board at one of the landing
places, the name of which I have forgotten. The officer was
young and wore a smart uniform ; also he was civil and
lenient, and spoke German ; German speaking folk I have
always found more human than other-speaking folk. The
' revision ' was easy. At Porlezza, — after an hour's uneasy

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 251
sailing, we embarked in a tmy train for Menaggio : two
cars only : one, first class : the other, second class : charm
ing ride of an hour across the intervening country, through
a pretty vaUey, — finaUy ascending mountains and then
descending upon the Lake of Como, radiant in the sunUght,
with its shores, under overhanging mountams, Uned with
gay vffias. The tiny train came down close to the landing-
place of the steamboat and we embarked at once on a fine,
large boat for Cemobbio. The scenery was very pretty,—
quite up to its reputation. I should guess that the Lake
was nowhere more than a couple of mUes broad : moun
tains, not very high to be sure, on either side : and Uttle
towns and scattered vffias stretched aU along the water,
at the base of the hffis, — struggUng to hold on, as it were,
and often apparently having a precarious hold, as if a heavy
ram might wash them mto the Lake. I have discovered
however that, m many cases at least, there is a good deal
more space on these mountain sides, and especiaUy along
the narrow ledges at the base, than there seems to be to
one looking from the Lake. WeU, our boat was late as
usual, and it was after dark when we reached the landing-
place at Cemobbio. However, we were m time for the
table d'hote dinner at seven o'clock ; and the change from
the blackness of the outside world to the bright mterior of
the hotel, with its electric-Ughted marble-pffiared corridors,
and the great white dinmg-haU, brUUant with pendant chan-
deUers, the spotless Unen of the dinner-table, and the ruddy
tinge of an exceUent Chianti, — ^this was altogether gladsome :
not to say, expensive. However, these are frivolous detaUs ;
but then one cannot be on the Lake of Como without
' dUating with the proper emotions,' and certainly this
hotel, and the situation of it, are altogether rniique even
in my experience, who have seen many hotels and many
fine sites.
It is an historic site too, and the hotel was once a vffia
occupied by historic characters ; the Manager gave us a
pamphlet in French, setting forth its history, and I meant
to have picked out of it aU the mteresting facts I could find
regarding its origin, and its subsequent ownership, but I

252 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
can't at this moment lay my hands on the pamphlet ; and
the wife has gone to MUan for the day in company with a
blind lady and her friend who came with us from Munich
to Heiden.

Genoa, 7 Ncmember, 1895.
My dear H.,— It was hard to tear ourselves away from
the Vffia D'Este, and besides, as the weather became rainy,
we thought it better to wait for a fine day ; and we waited
until the house became emptied of everyone except ourselves
and three New York Butterflies. They were very amiable
Butterflies, and we enjoyed their company in the stiUness
of the great marble haUs ; but we found the ghostly sUence
of the house, and its vast corridors, hung with great por
traits of departed old heroes and heroines, somewhat un
canny, especiaUy in the fading twffight, and at night the
sepulchral gloom of the deserted haUs was even depressing.
However, the clouds Ufted at last, and a bright sun Ughted
up the hidden mountains, disclosing a white mantle of snow
aU along their summits, opposite the Vffia and far up the
Lake. A crisp, tonic air came in place of the wet or humid
atmosphere of the preceding days, and the landscape was
radiant, as we rattled down to Como in the hotel omnibus,
taking our last look at the beautiful ItaUan Lake. We left
Como by rail at three in the afternoon and at halt-past five
we were in MUan. The next mornmg we left MUan at 9:50
o'clock : and in about an hour reached Certosa, where is
the famous Carthusian Monastery, to which it is the fashion
to make a pUgrimage. The Monastery is now suppressed ;
but owing to the wonderful beauty of its architecture and
sculptures, it has been preserved by the ItaUan Govemment
as a National Monument. The fagade of the Church is
exquisitely beautiful. What work must have gone into aU
its scffiptures ! an inconceivable richness and beauty in every
minutest detaU ! The interior is also wonderfuUy beautiful :
exquisite chapels : but I can use only these general phrases.
To obtain even a faint idea of the architecture one must
resort to photographs. Adjoining the Church is a great

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 253
open enclosure, around which are ranged twenty-four ceUs,
formerly mhabited by the twenty-four Trappist Monks,
who seem to have made up the Brotherhood : very sUent
aU now, and deserted.
FinaUy we caught the great Gotthard express for Genoa,
where we arrived at 6:15 o'clock.

EUROPAEISCHER HoP, DRESDEN,
10 October, 1897.
My dear H., —Yes, Sir George Bowen is ' an entertaining
man to meet once,' as you remark ; and if you had met
him as many times as I have, you would emphasize the
word oriA:,e. The man has a wonderful memory, and is in
many respects good dinner company. We met him in the
Wmter of 1889-1890 at the Hotel Royal in Rome. He was
there for a good whUe. We were there for about six months ;
and there was also an AustraUan famUy there, from Mel
bourne, exceUent people who knew a good deal about Sir
George Bowen, but they had nothing to say in his favour : in
fact they hated him bitterly. His wife was a Greek (she
is dead now) from the Ionian Islands where Sir George was
formerly Governor before they were ceded by England to
Greece. He is very clever m languages and talked ItaUan
fluently, and French also. I think he was once Governor
of the Mauritius. But I am not sure. At any rate he
bothered us a good deal ; and for reasons too disagreeable
to set down — de mortuis nil nisi bonum, — we were glad when
he took himseU off.
The cook here has been giving opposite the usual French
menu a German translation of the same, so that I have had
an opportunity of making interesting studies in German
cuUnary terms. And I have made the foUowing notes :—
Consomme a la Royale becomes Kraftsuppe nach Koniglicher
Art. We have no word in Enghsh for Consomme : or could
we too, say ' Power-soup after the fashion of Kmgs ' ?
Charlotte Russe, — this is most interesting and wonderful, —
becomes Kalte Eierspeise mit Schlagsahne vermengt. Sandre
au Gratin becomes Sandor ueberbacken. ReaUy the Germans

254 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
have no aesthetic sense for words. Take the heading of one
of the columns in a Dresden newspaper : Fernsprech- und
Fernschreib- Nachrichten : did you ever ? ' far-spoken and
far- written news ' : how does that sound in EngUsh ?

Genoa, Italy, 2 December, 1897.
My dear H., — It is aU true what you say of Carlyle's
Friedrich. I read the book when it first came out, now
nearly forty years ago. In those days I was equal to read
mg even Carlyle, but I could not read this kind of thing
now. One can, to be sure, pick out of his volumes a good
deal of information, but the verbiage is colossal. One feels
with every word the utter absence of the aesthetic sense in
the writer, — for Uterature is an art ; there must be propor
tion, perspective, in the conception of the subject, as weU as
style m the construction and flow of sentences. Carlyle
was whoUy lacking in the literary sense, as I may caU it ;
he could heap up pUes of stuff, — and is often good at puUing
it to pieces and throwing out the chaff ; but he had no con
structive faculty, no Uterary sense ; his mind was coarse ;
his perceptions never went beyond the outside. Events
he could analyze, and also describe battles ; everything
with him was objective, — -he had no subjective faculty, no
intuition into character and soul ; hence he is at times
picturesque, but never phUosophic. Stffi, I suppose he
had a work to do in the world ; and whatever it may have
been, he did it ; but such a book as his Friedrich is dead
matter now ; there is no vitaUty in it ; no one wffi trouble
to read it in the future ; life is too short. Fancy mankind
bemg burdened by a dozen such heavy works ! What a
contrast to the ' luminous page ' and the tremendous grasp
of Gibbon ! Gibbon wUl never go out of date ; Carlyle has
already had his day and is now drowned in his own muddy
torrent of words, — ^words.

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 255
On THE Italian Riviera,
14 December, 1897.
My dear H., — Here I am agam on ' the Azure Coast,' and
I feel as if I had reached at last the Kmgdom of Light ;
so blue is the sky, so clear the air, so aU-irradiating is the
sun ; and as it is offiy seven and a half months since we
were here last, I feel as if I had never left the place. We
came down from Genoa by the mornmg tram : a briffiant
day and the air mUd as m the blossoming Springtime : but
we had no sooner descended from the train than out of the
blue Empyrean came a furious Orkan that, speaking figura
tively, might have swept us into the sea. We took a cab
and rode m terror up the hffi on wffich our Uttle hotel is
situated. They are reaUy terrible, these occasional gales.
One caimot stand up against them. We had three in the
three months we were here last year. The wind comes m
gusts, and every gust breaks upon the windows and the case
ments with a furious rattle ; one feels as if the house itself
might go ; but I look at the stone walls of our rooms, —
at least two feet thick, — and feel reassured ; nothmg but
an earthquake can throw over those waUs. But I am not
sure that an earthquake won't do it some day ; for it 's an
earthquake region ; and I have seen several houses here
standing desolate and shattered these many years, wrecked
by earthquakes. But one can't have everything aU at once
m this world ; and besides, everythmg one enjoys must be
paid for m one form or another, — ^if not in money, yet
in cyclones or earthquakes, or somehow ; and even sun
shine is growing dearer from year to year on the Riviera
strand. The House was sUent : not a sound to be heard, except
the distant moamng of the sea — moanmg as if weary of
lashing the shores these mfiUons of years under its mercUess
taskmaster, the Wmd, — for there is not a guest in tMs vffia,
except ourselves. In a vffia close to us, however, is an
interesting famUy, — that of Garibaldi : — Garibaldi's second
wife. Donna Francesca, and her son Manlio, Garibaldi's
youngest chUd, and daughter Clelia. Menotti Garibaldi,
the General's eldest son, is also there off and on. Manlio

256 NEW LETTERS OP AN IDLE MAN
Garibaldi is a young officer in the Navy, but he is very ffi,
and was brought here on that account. It is a case of quick
consumption.

On the Italian Riviera
11 January, 1898.
My dear H., — I picked up at our pleasant Uttle Ubrary
here the other day a book entitled Surnames as a Science
by one Robert Ferguson (London 1883), who writes himself
M.P. and as ' author of the Teutonic Name-System.' WeU,
I used to think that my name Hermann came from that of
the old German hero Arminius, for so the derivation was
always set down in the books, but Ferguson writes :
' The old idea that Armin is properly Herman, leader or
warrior, has long been given up by the Germans. The
name, of which the most correct form is considered to be
Irmin, is formed from one single word of which the root is
irm, and the meanmg of which is, as Grimm observes,
entirely obscure.'
And so we are flung about from one thing to another by
the etymologists ; and then flung back into darkness, from
which we fancied we had emerged. This comes from over
much learning, — altogether a weariness of the flesh to the
deluded reader. However, it is not a book to read, this of
Surnames as a Science : one can only durchblattern it and
pick up odd things here and there : — for instance, how
Swearing, Gambling and even Gumboil and Earwig, — all
surnames, — are not half so hideous as they look, when one
comes to inquire into their origin. The proper form of
Gumboil is Gumbald, signifying ' bold in war ' : 'a name
borne by many a Prankish warrior, and by a Burgundian
King fourteen centuries ago.' And in the case of Earwig,
' the animal which it represents is not the insect of invidious
repute, but the sturdy boar so much honoured by our
Teuton forefathers, — ear being a contraction of Eoor, boar ;
so that Earwig is ' the boar of battle.' Also Bugg (a sur
name) is very ancient and respectable ; Ukewise Flea (also
a surname). But stUl I don't wonder that a man named

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 257
Bugg changed his name not long ago for Howard : — and the
wife was teUing me this morning that she had just seen in
her PhUadelphia newspaper a notice of the death of an old
acquaintance of hers, a widow named Mummy. Mrs. Mummy
bore the name bravely and carried it to her grave ; but the
chUdren aU changed their names to Worthington. In the
chapter entitled ' Ancient Compounds,' — I find, under the
rubric of ' Wern, m the sense of " nationaUty " ' the foUow
ing : ' {Hari, warrior), O.G. Warenher, Warner, Eng. War
rener, Warner. Also m the chapter entitled ' German Origin
of Great ItaUans,' I find, ' among those who were accessory
to music as instrument-makers, we have Stradivarius and
Guarnerius (Old German Guarner for Warinhar), corre
sponding with our own names Warriner and Warner, and
present French names, Ouarnier and Guernier.' Again,
under the heading of ' Names Apparently from Office or
Occupation,' a Ust of names is given, in which the name
Warner is mentioned ; further on, it is said, ' Warrener and
Warner may be taken to be from an Old German Warne'har
{Warin, Wern).' But what 'nationaUty' does Wern in
dicate ? However, I seem to have the choice of fancying
that the name Warner means either warrior or maker of
fiddles ; this is something ; but I must add that Robert
Ferguson M.P. his learning seems to me to be of an alto
gether uncertain and tentative character. He is certainly
very clever in his conjectures ; but it is a cleverness that
muddles whatever he touches. And did you ever read
HazUtt's Essays ? They too are clever ; but every now
and then he flmgs out a rubbishy remark for the sake of
effect — -a kind of pothouse, or Bierkneipe effect, — ^which
makes one sceptical of his inteUectual soundness in general ;
— as when he says for instance, — ' No coUege-man writes a
good style, or understands it when written. Fine writing
is with him aU verbiage and monotony, — a translation into
classical cantos or hexameter lines.' Fancy !

258 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
On the Itahan Riviera,
3 March, 1898.
My dear H., — There is only one other man in the House,
and he is a German, a wiry, whiskered Uttle man from Kiel,
here for his nerves : insomnia and such : a judge in Kiel :
his wife is with him : mce people : most mteffigent and
friendly: finds everything pleasant and wholesome: I have
not met a German, — man or woman, — ^in these parts whom
I was not glad to meet, and sorry to lose ; they are truly
human ; always inteffigent, cordial in their manners,
talkative, incurious (they used to be curious and ask ques
tions, but they don't do that any more), nothing disagree
able about them ; and they never try to make you beUeve
that they are related to a Lord, and never sneer at poor
people ; they are sane and wholesome, and above aU, free
from cant, and aU infection of caste. Of Americans I don't
speak, because there are none here, with the exception of a
couple of ladies whom we know and who Uve permanently in
their own vffia ; but as a rule I prefer Germans even to
Americans, — I mean such Americans as I come across ;
for it is abstird to generalize upon such topics, and I never
generaUze. The concrete case is enough for me ; often too
much. WeU, I have just fimshed reading Charles Lamb's Letters :
a new and I fancy exhaustive edition in two handy volumes,
which I picked up in our charming Uttle Library here, —
compUed and edited by Alfred Ainger. I had anticipated
much pleasure from the perusal of them, but I must con
fess I have been disappointed. There is less humour than
I looked for ; and even the puns (I am fond of puns, and
occasionaUy make one myself, though as a rule of course
the practice is detestable) even the puns are not whoUy
satisfactory. In writing to Southey upon one occasion,
he says : ' You 'U know who this letter comes from by
opening slap-dash upon the text as in the good old times.
I never could come into the custom of envelopes ; [this
was in 1825] 'tis a modern foppery ; the Plinian corre
spondence gives no hint of such.' In this I agree with him.
How much more interestmg and stateUer the old letters look,

ROUNDABOUT JOURNEYS 259
— written on broad large quarto sheets, nicely folded, and
sealed with one's crest (we aU have crests) or a motto I
Receiving a sending of that kmd one must have felt reaUy
set up, as if something of importance had come ; not a mere
idle note scribbled hastUy and shoved mto an envelope,
Ucked with crude saUva, as nowadays. And now that the
domestic rate of postage with us carries one ounce, I wonder
that old-fasMoned leisurely people, — who have time for
letter-writing, — do not recur to the old mode, write them
selves out at length on large sheets, and fold and seal the
same with wax. But they won't : writing notes and
shoving them into envelopes is easier, by humouring in
dolence, and besides, m these days of newspapers and rapid
posts one fancies that one has Uttle to say beyond person
alities. But this is a mistake ; there is just as much or just
as Uttle to say as ever. The mistake however wffi remain
chronic ; letter-writing has gone out of fashion and wffi
never be revived ; note-scribbUng has taken the place of
it — and it wffi not be long' before even that passes away
under the cUck of the typewriter, and one wffi know a
friend's handwritmg no more than one knows one's friend's
middle name. There is ever so much criticism in Lamb's
Letters of the poetry sent him by Southey and Wordsworth
and others : but it is aU of a verbal kind, and excessively
tiresome, at least to me. In fact, I found but Uttle m these
Letters that interested me ; but after aU, it may be my own
fault, or defect. Perhaps I am beyond being interested,
except by a thoughtful Essay now and then ; but in order
to ascertain whether this be so, I am thinking of reading
Madame de Sevigne's Letters carefuUy if I can get hold of
them anywhere. Once in my youth I read through the
whole of Voltaire's volummous correspondence, and found
it excessively interesting and stimulating ; but I don't
beUeve I could do that reading again. Cowper's Letters
too were deUghtful ; but I couldn't even do them again, —
nor the vast masses of memoirs, French and EngUsh, chiefiy
French, — St. Simon and Grimm and the rest which used to
please me. Did you ever read Grimm — I don't mean the
German Brothers Grimm, but the Grimm who wrote in

260 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
French and from Paris in the last century, though a German
by birth 1 He is extremely volummous ; but there is much
interesting matter in him. Letters of our own time I detest ;
I hate anythmg that has to do with this present. The news
paper of the day is enough for the day ; for the rest let me,
if I can, bury myself in the ' quiet annals of the past.'

CHAPTER VII
AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER
1898-1899
A French Railway Wreck — ^The Spanish-American War — ^Hove
and Brighton — Charles Francis Adams and Anti-Imperialism —
The Tar- Walk — Still more Words — ^A Memory of Brunswick,
Maine — ^EngHsh Libraries — English Prices — English Monotony
— Caedmon's Monument — ^Adulterated Milk — A Visit to Paris —
The Fundbureau at Basel — Idling in the Riviera— Julia Ward
Howe — John Holmes — Jowett and Freeman — The Powder
Explosion at Toulon — ^Histories of Literature — ^Mark Twain —
A Voyage from Naples to New York. Hove, Sussex, England,
17 May, 1898.
My dear H.,- — -I have been passmg through weary days,
and am at this present m a house of mournmg, under very
sad and dreary circumstances, I left Genoa on Sunday
moming. May 8, at 8:35 o'clock, and rode to MUan which
I reached at noon. At 12:30 I went on in the superb
First Class express over the Gotthard to Lucerne. It was
the last train that got out of MUan for a week, for terrible
riots had broken out there on the preceding Friday, and
they were stffi raging. The raUway station was guarded
by troops, as were also several stations on the way up to
MUan from Genoa, — Pavia and others. The riots were aU
over Italy ; but in MUan the outbreak was more than a riot,
— it was almost a Revolution, — with a big R. Had I waited
untU the foUowmg day, Monday, as I had thought of doing,
I could not have got on by this route at aU, for the raUway
service North from MUan was suspended. I reached Lucerne
on Sunday mght somewhat before seven, and slept the
night there. The next mormng, Monday, I stroUed about
the place, — delightful May morning, sunny and fresh, and
renewed the pleasant associations of former years. And
261

262 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
it was weU I tarried the moming there, for had I gone on
by the moming train to Paris, you would probably never
have received tMs letter. I took the night train to Paris,
though traveUing at mght is much against my incUnation ;
but I was desirous to ' get on.' I left Lucerne on Monday
night (May 9) at seven o'clock ; at nine we were in Basel,
and at ten I embarked on the Rapide for Paris. There were
not many passengers and I had a fine first-class Smoking
Compartment aU to myself, — a corridor carriage, — that is
to say, a passage down one side, out of which the compart
ments open. I rode on restless and tired, hardly dozing,
through the night untU half-past three o'clock in the morn
ing, when the train stopped. It was a bright moonUght :
and looking out I saw that the train had been shunted on
a siding, as I supposed in order to let another train pass ;
but we stopped so long that finaUy I felt sure that something
must have happened. I went out into the corridor ; and
to my dismay I learned that the Rapide of Monday moming
from Basel to Paris had run into an ommbus train coming
down from Troyes to BeUort on the preceding afternoon
at two o'clock m a tunnel, near the entrance to which our
train had stopped ; that the tunnel was blocked with debris
and that we shoffid have to descend and go on foot over the
mountain or hffi, through which the tunnel ran. This was
harrowing. However, we didn't have to go over the hffi ;
it turned out that the debris had been cleared away so far
as to make it possible to go on foot through the tunnel.
But this was bad enough, — at least for me ; for the tunnel
was seven hundred feet long, and so clogged with the wrecks
of the shattered trains that it took two men to get me
through it. The Rapide was going at the rate of eighty
Kilometres (fifty English mUes) the hour, and the shock was
awfid ; half a dozen persons were kffied and no end of
persons bruised and wounded. I never saw a raUway
wreck before : a ghastly sight : the Rapide had simply
telescoped the weaker ommbus train. The tunnel was a
black darkness, alternating with glow of torches, the smoke
from which nearly suffocated me. However, at last we
reached Paris at ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, three

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 263
hours late ; but the luggage did not arrive untU seven
o'clock that mght. I ' descended ' at the great Hotel
Terminus at the Gare St. Lazare, passmg two nights and
one rainy day there, and on Thursday moming at 10 o'clock
I took the train for Dieppe : four hours and a half steammg
across to New Haven : comparatively smooth sea : sat on
deck — ^not a qualm — and enjoyed the salt air. In New
Haven at five the wife met me and brought me to this
house of woe.

Hove, Sussex, England,
30 May, 1898.
My dear H.,^ — ^There was one paper in The Forum which
I found especiaUy mterestmg, — ^by Sidney Low on ' The
English Governing Oligarchy.' I was struck by the superi
ority of style m EngUsh writing of this kind (Low is an
EngUshman) over * the American style. Take up some
EngUsh Review and compare it with a simUar American
Review, and you wffi see what I mean. To be sure, the
papers in an EngUsh Review read as if they were aU written
by the same hand, but the style is uniformly good for that
kind of writing : no flippancy : soUd and clear thinking :
faultless grammar : no coUoquiaUsms : no eccentricity :
no effort at smartness. In aU our American writing, — or
rather in the greater part of it, — there is an immaturity of
style, a superficiaUty of thought, a thinness so to speak, —
a kind of watery flow of words, characteristic of young and
rapid writers. But to go from one thing to another, — ^there
was an old EngUsh lady taking tea one afternoon here with
us. We were served with some nice toast, cut into smaU
pieces and heavUy buttered ; she ate it with zest, — or to
speak precisely, with voracity, — saying it was ' scrumptious.'
She is from the North of England and ' scrumptious ' is the
word they use in those parts for anything especiaUy good.
I take in here the Morning Post for reading after break
fast. It comes at about nine o'clock, and we breakfast at
half-past nine. The breakfast hour is most unseemly. I
am in the habit of taking coffee at eight, and to wait tffi

264 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
half-past mne is very tiresome. At this season of the year
I am in the habit too of rising at six, but I can't do it here.
I tried it one moming, and almost feU over from sheer
exhaustion before the breakfast hour came round. The
Lunch and Dinner hours are weU enough. I Uke dining
late, because I am not able to do anything of an evening,
except smoke and talk tffi I go to bed. But I observe that
everything is late in the morning in England. The day
' seems ' to begin two hours later than it does anywhere
else. The milkman comes late : ditto, baker : ditto every
thing and everybody : result in my case, premature ex
haustion before entering upon the business of the day, —
and no sufficient recovery afterwards, for I find myself
drowsy aU the time. They say it 's the Uver, and that Hove
is notorious for bruigmg on a bad state of that organ. In
the evening I take in the Globe. They say it 's the best of
the London evening newspapers, but it 's very poor. I take
it in merely m order to catch any war news that may be
coming during the day, but for a good whUe now there has
been no news of any kind : mere rumours and surmises : no
one even knows whether the Spanish Fleet is ' bottled up '
in the Harbour of Santiago in Cuba, — no one knows any
thing. Hence a wUd rumour that the American Fleet had
been destroyed and Admiral Sampson kffied. However,
commg events cast their shadows before, and I am in great
fear lest we run mto a fatal catastrophe in Cuban waters : a
catastrophe the more to be deplored, because it does seem to
me that if we could at one blow destroy the Spanish Fleet off
Cuba, the war must come to an end: — a war that ought never
to have been entered upon : a stupid, senseless war,- — ^a
war made by a scurrUous press and by demagogues, a war
in my opinion altogether disgracefffi to our inteffigence,
and whatever may be the issue, a lasting dishonour to the
nation : a war too that is sure to bring upon us disasters
and miseries in the future. But I wffi not dweU upon the
subject. I quite lose control of myself when I contemplate
this colossal idiocy of the American People. On the Sunday
I buy at breakfast time from a newspaper hawker, the
Sunday Times, and this only with a view to war news. The

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 265
American ' Sunday newspaper ' has not yet reached this
side of the Atlantic. But I think it wffi have a howUng
sale when it gets here, for the EngUsh are a newspaper-
reading folk : witness Hove, — that is, Brighton, — ^three
hundred churches and not one Library ! the nearest thmg
you can get to a Library is a stationer's shop advertising
to be ' in connection with Mudie's.' Brighton however is
not the town in which I am Uving : I am Uving in what is
caUed Hove, — a distmct municipaUty, adjoining Brighton,
and hence popffiarly caUed West Brighton : mostly a resi
dential quarter,- — long, broad avenues, stffi as the grave, Uned
on either side \vith two to three storey houses, — detached
' vffias,' or semi-detached, — that is, m separate blocks of
two, or in continuous uninterrupted blocks : — and aU very
dreary, except for the white strand of the sunUt sea,
which somehow seems to me to belong to another world.
Horribly cold month of May too, — the first week I was here
was colder than we ever had it aU Winter on the Riviera ;
now it is somewhat warmer, 60° in my room, in the early
morning, but for the most part cloudy and gloomy : now
and then a bit of sunshme. However, we get good walks
of an afternoon, chiefly along the water Front : an Imperial
promenade, — they say it is four mUes long : most comfort
able benches everywhere, and if the air be not too raw I
often take a sitting, — sittmg is my strong point, — and
respire the salt sea breeze, and gaze upon the restless
waves, and watch the fishmg-boats, and foUow afar off the
trailing smoke of some great Atlantic Lmer,

Hove, Sussex, England,
27 July, 1898.
My dear H., — There is a meagre report of C. F, Adams'
speech at the Harvard Alumni Association Dinner in a news
paper you sent me, and a fuU report of President EUot's
answer to it. It is a pity that Adams' speech was not re
ported m fuU. AU that is said of it is, — ' It was keyed in
a tone of bitter contempt for the " gUttering ffiusion of
imperiaUsm," and contrasted the motives of the men of

266 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
1861 with those of to-day, whom he accused of going to
war for conquest,' It is not good taste to go into people's
motives in a crisis Uke the present, for motives are very
much mixed ; some men may have gone into this war with
Spain in the spirit which Adams reproved, and many may
have gone into it out of a conscientious sense of duty ;
many also for the mere pay or hope of glory or love of excite
ment. But it is cowardly to suppress the remarks of a
man Uke Adams upon the danger which the country is
running in evoking and encouraging a spirit of conquest
and imperiaUsm, — fatal ffiusions both of them. President
EUot's reply is of course in Une Avith popular opinion and
altogether goody-goody ; but I must say I Uke the spirit
of a man who has the courage to say things that he knows
wffi be disagreeable to the people who hear him, when he
feels that the good of the country requires him to do so.
I Uke a bold vigorous man who is not afraid to speak out
his convictions, though the populace may hoot him, or even
though his audience may receive his speech in solemn
sUence. And by the way, there is an article in the July number
of the Atlantic entitled A Soul's Pilgrimage : Extracts from
an Autobiography by C. P. B. Mffi, which interested me, — ¦
not at aU because of the account of the Soul's PUgrimage,
which was of the usual kind, reUgious doubts leading a priest
of the Roman CathoUc Church to throw off his priesthood
and take to the pure theism of Theodore Parker and such.
That story is told often enough, though it would be weU
for the world, I think, if this kind of pUgrimage took place
oftener, — even en masse. However, the story of such a
pilgrimage has never been told better, with more searching
psychological scrutiny, than by Zola in the study which
he has given in his Rome and Paris, of the tortured Abb6
Froment. But the article above-mentioned interested me
solely by reason of the Boston remmiscences of the writer ;
and I take it for granted that you must have seen or heard
of him in the years from 1855 to 1860. He must be now
about eighty years old, having gone up, as he says, from
his native vffiage to Paris in 1843, in his twenty -fifth year.

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 267
From the United States whither he came, apparently Uke
the old Puritans to worship God in the wUdemess, he was
sent by Seward to Paris at the outbreak of the Rebeffion,
in order to work upon the Paris press and bring it round to
our side. And when that mission was accompUshed, he
turns up in San Francisco under the wing of Thomas Starr
King, where he rings down the curtam upon his reminis
cences at the date of King's death in 1864. And apropos
of the Atlantic Monthly, in the May number, there was an
extremely clever article which entertained me very much,
entitled The Evolution of the Gentleman by S. M. Crothers.
It was capital, and who is S. M. Crothers ? I hope you
know him, for then you might ask him to write some more
such clever things.
We have been having warm and pleasant weather for
now a good whUe : deUghtful Summer days : about 70° m
our rooms for the most part : out-doors in the sun of an
afternoon it might be caUed hot. But of the dreadful heat
which you report and which I have so often experienced,
there is no question. I shaU never forget the July month
two years ago, which I passed in New York : 95° mght
and day : a nasty, humid, sticky heat. No, the air here of
late is trffiy Summer air : soft and pure : odorous of green
fields and fiowers, as it were. In the very early morning, it
is an exquisite air, moist and fresh as the verdure which
gutters in it. In fact, the Summer in England is warmer
and far more deUghtful than I had fancied ; or rather, I
should say, such is the case this Summer ; for I remember
two Summers in my Ufe, in which I set out to see England,
failing each time, — the Summers of 1860 and of 1879 : —
wet and cold and gloomy, — in a word, horrible. But long
afterwards I happened to faU in with a copy of The Times
in which was a leading article upon the Weather of England ;
and curiously enough, I read therein that the worst Summers
of this whole Century were precisely those Summers of
1860 and 1879. Truly, this was the irony of fate. How
ever, it is only on the side of the sea as it were that Brighton
is at aU inviting ; the rest of it is duU and sodden and
wearisomely hffiy ; but the sea front is superb. We walk

268 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
and sit there every afternoon, cooled by the breezes which
have traveUed straight from Boston across three thousand
mUes of Ocean. This sets us up : — and what a busy strand
it is, — four mUes of ' shmgles ' : breezy, merry Brighton, —
it is aU to be seen on the ' Tar-walk ' where we sit and look
out upon the water. This is indeed joyous ; but behind
us is nothing but dreariness and TampUn's Entire.

Hove, Sussex, England,
8 August, 1898.
My dear H., — I am interested, as always, by the curious
words and phrases which you give me, cuUed from various
recent books. Let me add to your Ust a few others, which
I have come across and noted of late. In an article in The
Speaker it is remarked that a short story is unfitted for a
close and meticulous ' study of smaU variations ' ; also the
phrase ' pawky deUberation ' occurs. Meticulous and pawky,
— do you know these two words off-hand, without having
recourse to a Dictionary ? I don't. In an article m the
Atlantic Monthly entitled ' EngUsh Literature and the Ver
nacular ' the author speaks of ' ears stffi tortured with (by ?)
the griding screech of the troUey cars.' Is there snch a
word as griding, or is it a misprint for grinding ? Also there
is the phrase ' clear, forthright EngUsh writing.' The word
forthright is also used in several other cases by the same
writer. I suppose forthright means something Uke out
spoken, or downright : clear, vigorous. But it must be a
very old-fashioned word. Mr. LiddeU is now a Professor
of EngUsh Literature or of the EngUsh Language somewhere
in the State of Texas. Articles by him on EngUsh language
and grammar, have been appearmg of late in the Atlantic
Monthly. He seems to me to have some exceUent ideas,
but to labour under unusual difficulty in making his mean
ing clear. One point which I remember he makes, is the
necessity of studying the language historicaUy in order to
understand even so comparatively late a poet as Shake
speare. In fact, he makes out that the language has altered
so much, even in the course of two or three centuries, that

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 269
it would probably be difficult for us to understand a person
talking now as a person of Shakespeare's days would have
talked, and I am incUned to think he is right in this.
Another unfamffiar word may be found in a late number
of the Spectator, in the notice of a novel entitled The Lake of
Wine by Mr. Bernard Capes (the Lake of Wine by the way
is merely the name of a famous ruby). The reviewer says,
' There is good portraiture, again, m the raffish Baronet,
sobered by his gambUng losses,' et cetera. Also in the same
notice, the foUowmg choice passage is cited : ' She glinted
at him with adumbrated pupils.' Agam, in the Spectator
dpropos of monopoUes and " comers,' a writer says : ' we
can see no moral objection to laws to prevent the regrating
of necessary articles, except of course the difficulty, long
since proved of carrying them out.' Regrating is I suppose
a term used m PoUtical Economy ; but I should have to
go to a Dictionary in order to understand the passage
quoted — ' He who sups with the DevU must have a long
spoon.' WeU, at tffis writing, you are in Brunswick, and I have
pleasure in placmg you once more in the famffiar ways of
that qmet old town. I remember how six years ago this
Summer we sat out of doors near the Library, on chairs
borrowed from the Librarian. I remember the shade and
the rustUng wind and the whirUng leaves, and the stiUness ;
and also the sUence and musty air and twiUght darkness of
the Library HaUs as we poked about among them : a
ghostly place, — m fact, Uke many another quiet New
England vffiage : aU Brunswick seemed to me to be fuU
of ghosts of departed worthies. But I dare say the place
is aUve enough in Term time ; vacation was on when I was
there, and there was a temporary suspension of vitaUty.
This place too where I Uve is deadly quiet : a residential
quarter. I could drop a pm out of my third-storey wmdow
and hear it cUck upon the pavement, — Amerikanisch, side
walk ; and when I first came here, accustomed as I had been
for so long to the infernal noises which the ItaUans make,
I reaUy couldn't sleep, — so stffi was it : and one mght I
dreamed that I was assisting at my own funeral !

270 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Hove, Sussex, England,
23 August, 1898.
My dear H., — ^I have not much just now to contribute
to your coUection of curious words and phrases, but I have
made a note of the two foUowing cases. In a notice of
Tolstoy in one of the EngUsh journals, the reviewer remarks :
' Tolstoy has various of the quaUties that define a consum
mate actor ! ' — fancy, — various of I Agam, one day I had
my hair cut, and I told the Barber to cut it short, — especiaUy
the whiskers, remarking that the wife always scolds if the
whiskers be not trimmed close. The barber said he would
do so, and thereupon inquired whether I came from York
shire, or the North of England. I parried the question, and
said that I Uved m Italy. But then it immediately occurred
to me to be very odd, — his taking me for a Yorkshire man ;
and I asked him why he did so. He repUed, 'why you said
that your wife calls you, if your whiskers ain't cUpped short.'
' No,' I said, ' scolds me.' ' Oh, beg pardon, I thought you
said calls ; in the North of England they say calls instead
of scolds ; a man would say of another for instance, he 's
been caUing me, — meaning, he 's been scolding me,' —
funny, isn't it ? But the funniest thing I have read lately
is the suggestion of an anonymous journaUst that in view
of the fact that the term America is a misnomer as appUed
to the Umted States, the abbreviation U.S.A. might give
the word Usans, to distmguish the inhabitants of the United
States from the other peoples on the American Continent.
But after aU, this is not perhaps so supremely ridiculous
as it might seem ; for Americans is a confusing term. We
do need some one term for the inhabitants of the United
States, — for to say that Americans means par excellence the
inhabitants of the United States is assuming a good deal m
the way of conceit, in view of the mUUons, constantly in-
creasmg, of Canadians and Mexicans and such ; and especi
aUy as Canada, geographicaUy speaking, occupies a larger
part of the North American Continent than does the United
States. It has been hot here for now a long time. I cannot write
very hot, for the thermometer has never marked above

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 271
79° in our rooms, and that offiy once ; but 76° has been a
standing figure : a long, long speU of pleasant sunny weather.
I shoffid not have fancied that the EngUsh climate coffid
have produced the ideal Summer days which we have been
enjoymg for now at least a fortmght, — perhaps longer. We
are Uvmg here m entire seclusion, and so far as I am con
cerned, pleasantly enough ; but the place is tiresome. In
fact, any place m wffich I am obUged to Uve woffid be tire
some ; for it is altogether an unaccustomed sensation, this
of bemg tied down, — after having been for so many years
entirely my own master, to go or to come. To be sure we
often Uve for months together m the same place ; but then
we have the consciousness that we are free to depart the
next day if we wish. You wffi hardly understand this
state of mind ; but I fancy it is mainly this state of mmd
which makes me hate Brighton. Yet not entirely, for apart
from its sea front, as I must already have told you, Brighton
is not m the least an interestmg place. It is aU hffis, closely
buUt over : no walks whatever except along the sea : the
outlymg country is a mass of bare, swelling hffis, — not a
tree visible on the horizon : in fact, nothmg but dreariness
and an occasional picturesque begrimed old wmdmffi on
the summit of a vast grassy slope. Cowper belonged to
the Lowland region in England, and it is related of him that
' he was appaUed when he saw the Sussex scenery owing to
the size of the hffis.' I shoffid think so. There are the
Southdowns, where famous mutton is grown ; they are
mostly laid down m grass, and where not grass, with tumips
or such. They are a beef-eatmg, mutton-eatmg race, — ^the
English : and their animal food disposes them, accordmg
to an article which I read the other day, extracted from the
Medical Journal, the Lancet, — disposes them I say, to cancer,
when the use of meat is accompanied by msufficient exercise.
At any rate, the mcrease of cancer has been prodigious
in the last twenty years, — the statistics are harrowing, —
especiaUy as to the increase of the disease among men,
which has been in a much greater ratio than among women.
I can't say that I take to England. I disUke it I suppose for
much the same reason that I dislike American cities, — it is

272 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
too expensive. One can Uve cheaply enough, I dare say,
even in London ; but how ? Cheapness m England as with
us is nastiness, whereas m Germany or Italy one can be
cheap and genteel at the same time. In England that is
impossible ; also m Boston. So at least the case strikes
me. In Boston, however, one can at least get books ; but
there seem to me to be no Ubraries in England, wffich are of
any practical value to the average man : of course there is
the British Museum, a tremendous storehouse. But what is
the good of it to me ? I must Uve close by it, if I woffid
avaU myseU of it ; for it lets out no books ; and how
awfuUy depressmg it is to read books m a big Library ! Of
course for people who are makmg researches the case is
different ; the British Museum is for such a prodigious
treasure ; elsewhere, there are no Libraries worth taUring
about. Yes it is an admirably printed newspaper. The Times, and
I must say it is a pleasure to open a fresh copy of it, after
mornmg coffee and kippered herrmgs, — and havmg stuck
a long (India) Dmdigffi cigar mto my long Carlsbad cigar-
holder, to roam over its ample pages, surveymg mankind
from Pekmg to Peru, whUe perfumed breezes from the
garden blow gently in through the open wmdow, and the
bottle-fly may be heard puffing himself together for the work
of the day. This is what I look forward to, maiffiy : m fact,
I might almost say that this is aU I Uve for at this present.

Hove, Sussex, England,
5 Septeniber, 1898.
My dear H., — Did you ever come across the word
snippet ? also the slang phrase, much in vogue m England,
a large order ? WeU, in a recent Spectator is a notice of a
magazine entitled the Girl's Oum Paper ; and the reviewer
writes that an article by ' Darley Dale,' on ' Modem Slang '
in that magazme ' manages to condense mto one page a
great number of snippets of out-of-the-way knowledge, such
as that when a person uses the popffiar phrase ' a large
order,' he is probably unconsciously quotmg an AristoteUan

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,^AND AFTER 273
phrase which has degenerated mto modern slang from Attic
Greek.' After aU, there is trffiy nothmg new under the
sun !
We have been enjoying a long, long Summer here : day
after day, fine brUUant weather : somewhat warm m the
sun of course, but in the shade altogether deUghtfffi : ideal
Summer days. Yesterday was one of the hottest days we
have had, but the thermometer m our rooms did not mark
above 92° ; and the mghts are cool and comfortable: no
mosqffitoes by mght and hardly a fly by day. But there is
a cry for ram aU over the land. It is very long smce we
have had any ram to speak of, — now and then a spasmodic
downpour, but no contmumg wetness ; and ffi London there
is almost a Water Famme ; whUe here m Brighton grouse
are ten shillings a brace and partridges six and sixpence,
and the poffiterers' shops are fuU of both ; showmg what
opffience there doth exist ffi this Land of England. Fruit
too is plenty here, but it is mostly of an expensive kmd :
muscatel grapes (hot-house) at one and sixpence the pound,
for mstance : peaches and nectarmes, — how superb they
look, — at a shilling and more each : pears of a common
kind, imported, come at one ha'penny apiece : the reaUy
fine pears, — dear me, I don't know what they cost: I have
never had the cheek to ask : but there are melons of a good
size, brought from Spam, — which I Uke very much, and
fortunately they are cheap, — sixpence apiece. But my
previous impression that England was a cheap country
has been considerably modffied. I do not beUeve that on
the whole it is any cheaper than Germany, — dear as Ger
many has grown m recent years. House rent to be sure is
comparatively cheap, except m fashionable quarters. Con-
fiffing myself to Brighton, I have seen large, double houses
here, three-storied, in eUgible parts of the town, which may
be hired for £200 per annum, exclusive of taxes which woffid
add I suppose from ten to fifteen per cent, to the rent. There
are no such houses to be had at aU ffi Boston, — or certainly
not under three to four thousand doUars. Even on the
'front,' — the grand esplanade runnmg along the sea, — I
know of a large, three-storied house, which may be had for

274 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
£300 a year. The party that formerly occupied it having
come to grief was obUged to retrench. Fifteen hundred
doUars for a house like that would be a bagateUe ffi Boston, —
and think of the situation, the most fasffionable ffi the
place. Nevertheless were I to settle here, wffich Heaven
forbid, I shoffid not care to Uve on ' the front,' — one has no
idea untU one has actuaUy experienced the force of a gale
here, how terrible is the wmd that blowing m from the sea,
laden with spray, thunders agamst the front windows of
these houses. Twice I have tried to reach the front whUe
a gale was on, in order to see the dash of the waves upon the
esplanade, and was foUed each time. I coffid not make
head agamst the drivffig spray and peltmg ram. Yet what
a front it is, — of fine houses, — fine houses in a Une fuUy
three mUes long : a trffiy Imperial esplanade. Of late the
wife has been gomg down there at mght with one of the
ladies, after dinner, from mne to ten : moonUght ffights :
they say the scene is superb : moonUght bright upon the
sea, and the Tar Walk aU life and gaiety. Hove, Sussex, England,
19 September, 1898.
My dear H., — ^You speak of the word trolley as if you had
never heard of it except ffi connection with our system of
overhead electric traction ; but it is a word ffi common use
m England, bemg appUed to large, low four-wheeled carts
drawn by two or four horses, bearmg a fiat platform, on
which are roUed aU sorts of heavy merchandise, — barrels,
casks and such. It was some such four-wheeled vehicle
with flat platform that Lady Burton intended to designate
when she spoke of gettmg on ' by dmt of mffies, walkmg,
ridmg and occasional " troUeys." ' I note an odd phrase
here now and then. The offiy one I can remember at this
moment being ' doing the cloth,' — for ' settmg the table.'
The first time I heard it I was talking with the maid one
afternoon about her gomg on an errand, an errand which
woffid take up some time ; she repUed that she couldn't
very weU go just then, for it was late, and she wouldn't have

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 275
time ' to do her cloth ' when she returned ; she meant, ' set
the table ' for dinner.
I agree with you that somethmg ought to be done to the
man who ffivented the word biograph. It is odd that
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations should give so much bibUo-
graphy m respect to the saymg about ' havmg a long spoon '
if one woffid sup with the devU, and yet not convey the
sUghtest hmt as to its meanmg. I have never heard of
Green Harbour ' on the shore beyond Cohasset.' When a
boy I used to spend my vacations m Cohasset ; but it was
then a secluded far-away vffiage, — ^nobody there but the
natives, — who were mostly farmers or fisher-folk, — and
occasional Sommerfrischlers. How changed is it aU now !
I do not like the place at aU ffi its character of fashion
able Summer resort ; and when now and then I have paid
a visit there I have felt almost heartsick at the dese
cration, as it were, of aU the secluded picturesqueness of
the place by the mvasion of a rude opulence.
Thanks for information m regard to dago. I dare say
your etymology of the word is correct. It is a word that
must have come into general use smce I was in Boston two
years ago, for I do not remember ever to have heard or seen
the word used when I was there. It is amazffig with what
rapidity a word wffi spring up and grow mto famffiar use.
But the word Hobo I never heard of at aU before.
Yes, the heat ffi U.S. A. seems to have been dreadfffi ;
but strange to say, we have been experiencmg here what
no man now Uving ffi England has ever experienced, to wit, —
the hottest September on record ; and it strikes me as an irony
that I shoffid come ffi for this kind of thmg, — I who have
had experience of just the opposite, to wit, — -the two worst
Summers known ffi England ffi the present century, the
summers of 1860 and of 1879 : yet, after aU, this great heat
has been confined chiefly to London. The thermometer ffi
our rooms has never marked above 78°, and even that figure
once offiy, rangffig mostly from 70° to 74°, often steady,
ffight and day, at 72° : — week after week of blue skies and
soft an? : altogether ideal Summer days : but I must say
the air has been rather debffitating and I feel much run down.

276 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
But then to spend six months ffi one place is enough to run
anyone down. And Brighton is surely a tiresome place :
nothmg whatever mterestmg about it, except of course the
grand promenade by the Sea, of which I never tire. We
go there every afternoon and sit on a bench on the Tar Walk,
and breathe the soft air fresh from the sea, and watch the
Bath-chairs that ffie ffi slow procession before us, and the
young men and maidens that skip laughmg by, and the white-
robed nurses trundUng chubby red-faced cherubs ffi peram-
bffiators draped with white musUn. Nursery-maids by the
way ffi England are always robed ffi white from head to
foot. Summer and Wmter. There is a uiuform of some
kffid for every class and condition of men ; house-maids aU
wear a wMte cap, — ^yet I beUeve it is not a cap after aU, —
but I hardly know how to describe it, — somethffig wMte
on the top of the head,— and long wffite aprons with wffite
streamers ; and I must say it improves their appearance,
and gives them a jaunty picturesque look. Saleswomen
dress all ffi black ; and the gentlemaffiy male ' assistants,' —
they never use the word clerk to mdicate salesmen, — aU
wear very large long flowmg black frock coats. Every
possible employment and condition of Ufe is marked ffi
some way by an outward sign ; every possible circumstance
of Ufe, so to speak, is thought out and arranged for. A
widow's mourffing is prescribed by strictest rffies, and is to
last one year ; for another year there is a mitigated mourn
ing prescribed ; a brother-ffi-law is to wear mourffing for
three months, and so on. But aU this produces a deadly
monotony of life, — a monotony positively depressmg : every
thing just the same, — houses, maids, moumffigs : Monday
you have a certain thffig for dinner : Tuesday another thmg :
and so on through the week untU you get round to Monday
again when the same order begffis once more. And then
Sunday, — oh ! the drearmess of Sunday ffi England ! In
Brighton one goes to Church in the morning, and afterwards
parades on the green turf of the Brunswick Lawns by the
sea, where the ladies display their prettiest toUettes, Tffis
is de rigeur. There are no services ffi the afternoon ; but
there is an eveffing service at six-thirty o'clock, and those

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 277
who frequent this service dffie in the middle of the day ;
and those who don't, dine as usual at seven-thirty. I
am speakmg of the EstabUshed Church. What non-con
formists, dissenters, chapel-folk do or don't do is a matter
of no mterest to the EstabUshed Churchman ; such folk are
mere rabbish — the existence of which is an uffinteUigible
fact ffi the social organism.

Hove, Sussex, England,
5 October, 1898.
My dear H., — Thanks for your Classified List of a German
Dialect Collection — a most usefffi coUection certaiffiy, — ffi
fact, ffidispensable from the point of view of scientffic
phUology, and of the evolution of language. But I must
confess I have no great sympathy from a Uterary poffit of
view with dialect writffig. I cannot reaUy enjoy, as Utera
ture, writmg wMch I cannot read fluently, with fuU know
ledge of aU the words used. I can study anythmg, — ^for the
sake of facts or of ideas ; but Uterary form is a thffig to be
enjoyed ; and I cannot flnd Uterary form in dialect writmg.
I sent you a copy of The Times containmg an account of
the unveffing of a monument ffi Whitby ffi commemoration
of Caedmon, the first English Christian Poet. The monu
ment is ffi the form of a cross, twenty feet ffigh, of hardest
sandstone. Wffitby is the place ffi which Caedmon dwelt,
ffi a Saxon Monastery under the rffie of St. HUda ; he died
A.D. 680. Wffitby is near Scarborough, wffich is a noted sea
side resort on the East coast of England, ffi harsh and gloomy
Northumbria. I went over there once, — it was ffi the
Summer of 1879,— from Scarborough, where I was spending
some weeks : a wUd, rocky, gloomy, forbiddmg, dangerous
coast, — scenery, wffich Alfred Austm, the Poet Laureate,
prettily describes ffi his Uttle oration deUvered at the un-
veiUng of this monument. It aU comes back to me ffi the
picturesque passage where he says : ' here the sea-guU yet
wheels and waUs, here the eagle stffi screams and towers,
here the heather blushes and the bracken meUows : and
here the mffititudinous horses of the northern mam stffi

278 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
flash and fling themselves agaffist the long dark Une of yon
Northumbrian Coast.' The EngUsh caU white caps, horses
as you know. So do the ItaUans ; or rather, the Itahans
caU them little horses (cavalotti).
Also ffi The Times is a notice of a biography of Sir Frank
Lockwood by your favourite author Augustme BirreU. I
must confess that I never heard of Sir Frank Lockwood.
How many Uves there are of which biograpffies are pub
Ushed, — and one never heard of the subjects of them whUe
they Uved ! Yet a weU-written biography of any clever
man written by another clever man cannot faU to make good
reading for a leisure hour ; for after aU, I think the majority
of mankffid are far more mterested ffi the Uves of their feUow-
men, — if one can only once get at them,— than in what they
did ; for it is not so much what they did, — it is given to
but a few to do much of anythffig, and they of course are
heroes — as how they Uved and did it.
We made an excursion one day to Hastings and St. Leo
nard's : contiguous towns, like Brighton and Hove. We
walked along the water front, — magnfficent promenade, —
from Hastffigs to St. Leonards, where as the time had come
for the wife to take her afternoon Tea, we looked about for
a place where that absolutely imperative function of EngUsh
life might be celebrated. We found it at once, — a fiine Cafe
as one would say ffi Germany ; but here they caUed it The
Healtheries, — fancy ! ' However ' did they come to make a
word Uke that, if as stated a few days ago in The Times, one
third of aU the cows ffi England are tubercffious, and one
half of aU the mUk sold contaffis the bacUU of tubercffiosis !
It 's a terrible country for the adulteration of foods, is Eng
land. I don't beUeve there 's a thffig commg on the table
ffi this country, that isn't adffiterated. In The Healtheries
one can have most deUcious cream with one's coffee, — I
speak from experience,— and it is not dear ; nor shoffid it
be, for as I have learned, it is made from a chalk. It leaves
a fflthy taste ffi the mouth : I have tried it but once, and it
kept me ffi a fearfffi quantity of superfluous saUva for at
least two hours afterwards.

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 279
Grand Hotel Terminus, Gare St. Lazare, Paris,
13 November, 1898.
My dear H., — We were thinkmg of tarrjdng here for a
few days offiy ; but Paris has a great fascination for the wife.
She has a good many old friends and acquamtances here,
whom she has not seen for a long time ; and besides, shop
ping is a special attraction of the place ; and she has been
toucffing up her wardrobe ; and also partaking of those
pecuUar deUghts which are to be found in the animation and
gaiety of the street life of Paris ; and I was very glad that
she shoffid have a Uttle pleasure and diversion after aU the
dreariness of our wearisome sojourn ffi Brighton. We have
roamed through the great gaUeries of the Louvre too, and
worshipped once more at the shrffie of the Venus of Melos.
What deUght and refreshment it was to me, — to gaze once
more at the old famffiar marbles : Socrates and Nero and
Augustus and aU the Satyrs and Nymphs and Muses ! I
am extremely fond of beautifffi marbles. And the Luxem
bourg gaUery we did also. But walkffig through gaUeries
fatigues me beyond words. The streets fatigue me too,
prodigiously ; the traffic is dreadful. It was always bad
enough, but ffi the last dozen years it seems to me to have
increased a dozen fold; such crowds on the boulevards; such
a mass of vehicffiar traffic : huge, electric trams : huge
steam trams : huge omffibuses drawn by three horses har
nessed abreast : two-horse omffibuses : bicycles, — tricycles,
— steam (petroleum) bicycles : ditto tricycles : hideous,
shriekffig automobUe wagons : equestrians, pedestrians, —
a vast and fearfffi jumble. Bedlam is no word for it. I am
fiUed with terror every time I go ffito the streets ; and I do
not know whether it be a greater misery to walk or ride ffi a
cab. An old friend of the wife, a widow lady who has Uved
here for years, told her that not long ago she saw with her
own eyes a cab upset on the Place de la Concorde, and a
lady thrown out and kffied on the spot. I tried cabs at
first, but soon gave them up, — feeUng safer ffi an omffibus ;
but now I have just learned that even an omffibus was upset
the other day, and its occupants aU spffied ffito a wme-shop.
There is really no safety ffi Paris, and I expect to take offiy

280 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
one more drive in the place ; it wffi be the most agreeable
drive of aU, since it wffi be to the raUway station : for we
are leaving soon for Lucerne. It is to me a deUghtfffi place,
— Lucerne : the prettiest spot in Europe : serene and
beautifffi : I beUeve I shoffid become delirious if I stayed
much longer ffi Paris. However, the streets are quiet here,
except for the noise and coffiusion of traffic, — ^the NUe
VaUey storm havmg passed over ; but it has left the French
in a very bitter, rankling mood. A young man whom we
met here, — an Episcopal clergyman who has come abroad
for a sojourn of several years with a view to a thorough
acqffisition of the French and German languages, — was
going along the streets the other day when he encountered
a Company of French soldiers on the march ; he stopped to
look at them, and as they passed, two or three of them
knocked off his hat, shriekffig to ffim to salute the flag ; also,
they hustled ffim. In this hotel I hardly ever hear the sound
of the EngUsh tongue. It is crowded with French folk ;
and I must say I reaUy disUke the French language ; it
makes one nervous to hear it ; and to hear it aU day long
adds another weariness to the place. I fancy the EngUsh
have been pretty weU shaken out of Paris, but the war-
clouds have not yet been aU dissipated by any means ; and
I observe that Lord SaUsbury ffi a recent speech has
adopted my view of the situation, — ^ffi fact, he has borrowed
my very words, — ' war may come nowadays between any
of the great Powers suddeffiy, — nay over ffight.' And then
m France is this dreadfffi dissension over Dreyfus. I hope
you have not read over much about the case, for the more
you read, the less you wffi understand it ; reaUy, it fur-
mshes a study ffi the psychology of the Volkerseele. But
I am glad to see that with us the Goldbug is slowly eatmg
up the Silver-viper.

Hotel Schweizer Hop, Lucerne, Switzerland,
27 November, 1898.
My dear H., — ^The ride to the raUway station ffi Paris,
beffig my last ride, and hence the pleasantest, as I fancied

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 281
woffid be the case, proved to be a turbid kffid of enjoyment.
On account of the mass of our impedimenta I was obUged
to engage a smaU two-horse raUway omnibus to convey us
from the Hotel Termffius at the Gare St. Lazare to the Gare
de I'Est, where the traffi starts for Lucerne. It came at
eight o'clock ffi the mormng, accompaffied by a raw, dense
fog. However, we were soon rattUng away from the hotel, —
it is a long ride, — and when we had come withffi, say, ten
mffiutes' walkffig distance of the Gare de I'Est, the horses
jibbed, or as we say, balked and refused to function. The
driver was furious ; he lashed them with his wffip ; and
then began turmng the vefficle round and round ; he was
altogether beside himself with passion, and I feared a cata
strophe. It was a narrow street, and ffi spite of the early
hour, was jammed with traffic ; a crowd soon coUected ; and
I am sorry to say there were jeers and screams of laughter
as I managed somehow to drop out ffito the mud. The wife
foUowed me with a bound, and we hurried to the raUway
station as best we could through the sUppery streets and
crowds of pedestrians and rattUng cabs, and great steam
trams loomffig out of the fog. It was a bad ten mffiutes.
However, the wife somehow got me through it aU safely, —
carrymg her mandoUn ffi one hand and holdffig up her
draperies with the other. We reached the Station ; the
omnibus came up finaUy with the baggage ; and at nffie
o'clock we were bowlffig out of the place ffi the Rapide for
Lucerne : — and as the taU houses of the neighbourhood
loomed up through the fog, when we passed out of the station
I uttered a pious ejacffiation, — ' if so it shaU please the
Lord, may I never see Paris agaffi ! '
WeU, we had an easy ride ; but as the day wore away
and ffight came on, I became very tired, and when we
reached Basel I decided to remaffi there for the night.
We left the traffi therefore and crossffig a wide, deserted,
sUent street on foot came ffito the Hotel Euler, opposite
the station : a poor hostehy : but it answered for the mght,
and besides, was I not out of Paris ? It was deUciously
stffi,  a heaveffiy sereffity ffi the place, after aU the tumffit
and worry of the last two weeks ; I felt that I had come to

282 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
myself ; and though it was a wretched beefsteak they gave
me for supper, I washed it down with joy ffi the red wme
of the Land of TeU, — ' redeemed, emancipated, disen-
thraUed,' — Uke Ireland ffi the Speech we used to spout at
School. I slept Uke an infant, though I had smoked my
last two French cigars before goffig to bed. And the next
mornffig we set out gaUy to explore the town, ffi order to
find the Fundbureau of the RaUway. I caU your attention
to the term Fundbureau, — beautifuUy concise : is there any
language except the German which could put out so short
a word to signify ' Magazme of Lost Articles ' ? We went
first to the RaUway Station and made mqffiries ffi regard
to an umbreUa and two canes which I had left standmg on
the platform of the RaUway Station ffi Basel upon the de
parture of the ten o'clock ffight Express for Paris on Monday,
beffig the Nffith day of May last past. An official there
hunted up the books and found an entry corroborative of
above loss. He gave me a minute on a sUp of paper, con-
taffiing particulars of the case, and sent me to the Fund-
bureau, where the articles were deposited. It was a long
way off, and the search for it took us all over the place. It
is the first time I can be said ever to have seen Basel. For
tunately it was a sunny morffing ; the air was fresh and
tome, and the stiUness of the streets altogether a joy : and
we wandered on and on, asking questions at every tum,
untU at last we brought up ffi front of what I fancy must
have been an old patrician Palace on the Hirschberg, — a
narrow street paved with cobble-stones, — old-fashioned
and dffigy. They took us ffito the Fundbureau. It was
the oddest sight one can imagme : cords of canes and
umbreUas : piles of hats, baskets, shawls, — ffi fact, every
conceivable thffig : fficludffig my old umbfeUa and two
canes. The umbreUa was of no value ; I hated it ; but of
course by the usual irony of fate, that which is lost is sure
to come back, — provided it be not wanted. However, I
must admit that the irony of fate is sometimes kffider ; for
with the umbreUa I have now also recovered a precious
reUc, — ^to wit, a cane which my Mother brought me from
Niagara FaUs ffi the Sprffig of 1846. It bears a sUver plate

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 283
inscribed with my name and the year, 1 846. The other cane
IS wortffiess, and beffig worthless I might have expected to
see it agaffi. WeU, we have the same two sumptuous
rooms,— one of them frontffig upon the Lake and PUatus,
and the snow-covered mountains, — which we occupied in
that calamitous Wffiter of 1893-1894 when everythffig in
' U. S. A.' seemed to be goffig to pieces. You may re
member the whirlwffid of paffic which swept over the
country at that period, wreckffig many fortunes, and
leavffig me ffi particffiar ffi fragments, as yet ffi-patched
together. It is a deUghtful spot,- — Luceme, and for me it is a joy
to be here, even ffi a fog ; for untU day before yesterday ffi
the afternoon there has been a heavy fog aU over the place
ever sffice we came here, hidffig the mountaffis and throwffig
a prodigious gloom over the face of Nature. Yesterday
was the first sunny day we have had : with a soft balmy
air : altogether deUghtfffi and exhUaratffig. It is indeed
a grand scenery here : the beautiful Lake and the snow-
covered mountains and PUatus directly ffi front of us.

On the Italian Riviera,
28 January, 1899.
My dear H., — I forget whether I told you that when
we were ffi Lucerne, on our way Southward, we bought a
Kodak, — Eastman's : largest size : I fancied that it would
be an agreeable occupation for the wife to take pictures, —
for she is an extremely active person : never restffig : always
doffig somethffig. But alas ! on account of the sad con
dition of her eyes, there are few things that she can do; she
cannot read for more than half an hour at a time, and
though she has a considerable faculty for paffitffig and
embroidery and such, she is now absolutely precluded from
engagffig ffi any of these mteresting occupations. She can
play the mandoUn however, and in that art she has made
considerable progress, though I am no judge ; for though
(like Charles Lamb) ' I even tffink that sentimentally I am
disposed to harmony, yet organically I am mcapable of a

284 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
tune.' She can also ride a bicycle ; and cUmb mountams ;
and also she takes an ffiterest ffi fiowers and plants, especi
aUy now that I have shown her the difference between an
agave and an aloe. But these are offiy occasional excite
ments to activity. The kodak offers a steady busffiess ;
for though pictures can be taken offiy when the sun shmes,
yet there is no end of indoor work, ffi the way of develop
ing films and prffitffig them when developed. WeU, I en
close a specimen of her handiwork, beffig a picture of my
self standing in the Piazza di Caricamffito ffi Genoa. It is
one of the first pictures she took; and it seems to me credit
able work for a mere beginner. The statue, to the right as
you look at the picture, represents the ItaUan Merchant,
Rubattino, founder of great ItaUan Steamship Lines to South
America and elsewhere.
But before I forget it, let me set down the few notes
of odd thffigs which I have made : — in San Remo, a sign
over a shop reads, — ' Specialty of confectionery for Ladies'
Jackets ' : ' Pure and styptic style,' — said by some one of
Cardffial Newman's writffig : ' umbrageous and altogether
patffious ' : ' facund joys of the Cafe ' (speakmg of the
French). I shaU soon have to begffi and learn English,
such is the torrent of new words, — or at any rate of words
of which I am ignorant, — that pours ffi upon me daUy from
newspapers, books and magazmes. In The Nation I
noticed the phrase ' summary evaluation of the book ' I
And that remffids me, — did you ever know what word the
Ancient Romans used to express ' yes.' I found the
foUowffig in a Uttle book pubUshed last year ffi Manchester
ffi England, entitled Riviera Nature Notes. The name of
the author is not given: but I learn that he is Mr. C. Casey.
The book was lent to me by Mr. Baker, formerly Keeper
of the Herbarium at Kew Gardens ffi London. He has just
resigned after thirty-three years of service, and is now as
he says ' a free man ' ; and of course as a free man he did
at once the most sensible thffig he coffid do ; he came to tffis
vffia on a forty-five days' round trip ticket, and he wishes
now he had made it a ffinety days' ticket. He is a most
interestffig and agreeable man, an enthusiast for plants

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 285
and flowers, — always telUng me somethmg worth knowffig.
However, he amazed me by remarkmg one day that at Kew
they say agave, — ^three syllables : second, short, whereas it
shoffid be long. The agave is ' aU over the place here ' ; one
often sees wonderfuUy fine specimens of it. The agave is
monocarpic, you know ; and I have just seen a prodigious
flower of an agave shootffig up Uke a tree from the dyffig
plant, at least twenty feet ffigh. But I am wandering.
What I was about to quote is tffis : ' As Dante caUed ItaUan
the language of "si," the word for "yes," so the Southem
French took the name of the Langue d'Oc from the Latffi
" hoc," used for " yes," and the northem Dialect that of
Langue d'Oil from the Latffi " illud." ' But I fancy that
Mr. Casey is not much of an authority ; for ffi speakffig of
the word mesembryanthemum, the name of the beautifffi
creeper wffich hangs down from many an old waU ffi these
parts, coverffig it ffi the springtime with gorgeous flowers of
every hue, he caUs it ' flower of the midday ' : and tffis
rightly, — mesembris-anthemum : but he goes on to add, —
the same root ' occurs ffi ephemeral et cetera,' — fancy !
DeUghtfffi weather here for the most part : 64° to 66°
in our rooms without fire : but just now cloudy and gloomy
and wet.

On the Italian Riviera,
23 February, 1899.
My dear H., — Have you read JuUa Ward Howe's Re
miniscences now goffig on ffi the Atlantic 1 I must coffiess
I am disappoffited ffi them ; they seem to me very thin.
But having been for several years ffitimate with the Howes,
first ffi Chestnut Street and afterwards ffi Boylston Place, —
also at the BUnd Asylum ffi South Boston, and once for a
week with them as their guest ffi Newport, — of course I take
a personal ffiterest ffi what Mrs. Howe relates of herseU,
especiaUy of her earUer years of which I did not know much.
The writmg is sprightly enough, and possibly it might afford
entertaffiment even to a person unacquainted with the
Howes or their circle. But Mrs. Howe's writmg is not

286 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
picturesque ; her Remiffiscences have nothing ffi them
which Ufts them above mere personal notes, ffiterestmg offiy
to those who know her ; and she is not a sufficiently im
portant Uterary character, either as a poetess or prose
writer, to make these notes valuable ffi the way of ffius-
tratffig her ffiteUectual development. Do you fancy that
a century or two hence, when she and her circle have faded
into nothffigness and not a human beffig Uves who ever met
her in the fiesh, and hardly anyone cOffid be found who ever
heard even of her name, — do you fancy, I say, that these
remiffiscences coffid be ffi themselves ffiterestffig reading ?
But perhaps this is pressffig the matter too hard. What any
one wffi care for, two centuries hence, it is difficffit to con
ceive, — ^nor is it worth thinkffig of. However, there are
very few people whom I have known in Ufe more attractive
to me than Mrs. Howe ; I always Uked her ; she was geffial
and sweet : much common sense, though she lacked, Uke
many men, a knowledge of the Umitation of her facffities.
She was too discursive ffi every direction, tryffig to grasp
too many thmgs, — Greek for ffistance. At her request I
sent her from Dresden some thirty years ago a lot of Greek
books, together with some of the German classics. What
good to take up Greek for the first time after one is forty !
and so on ffi many other Unes. I beUeve ffi tryffig to grow,
inteUectuaUy as weU as moraUy all along the years ; but
the growth, to be of any real good, must be along certain
estabUshed Unes, runnffig a priori as it were out of the very
essence of the character, and cast of mffid. I do not beUeve
in misceUaneous fishing after new things, simply because
the thffigs have a name which it flatters vaffity to be sup
posed to possess. There is a fearfffi frittering away of
valuable time in this quest, and a weakenmg of the moral
fibre as weU : at any rate of the ffiteUectual energy.
And now it so happens that the recoUection of another of
the few people whom I have known comes back to me ffi an
obituary notice prffited ffi one of the Transcripts you sent
me, — John Holmes, brother of OUver WendeU Holmes. But
it is many many years since I have seen him, and I did
not know that he was stffi living up to this late time. Years

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 287
ago I had an office ffi Court Street, — a street which has been
buUt over agaffi sffice my day. WeU, my office was up one
flight : up two ffights ffi the same buUdffig was an office
occupied by one Storey, and there were others with him ;
one of them was John Holmes, — who, though he did not
practise law, — used to come there regffiarly, and somehow
I made ffis acquaffitance and he used often to come ffito
my office and chat with me. I remember very pleasant
talks upon aU possible subjects. He was a most cheerfffi
Uttle man: always jokffig and laughmg; but I can't recaU
anythmg particular ffi connection with him ; I can re
member offiy a general impression of ffis personaUty. And
so he has Uved to fiU up eighty-seven years ; it is a great
age ; but I did not know that he ' wrote verse and short
sketches,' and I hope they won't do him the ffijustice to
prffit any of either ; for if a man's lucubrations are not
worth findmg their way ffito prffit ffi the course of a Ufe of
eighty-seven years, they are surely not worth printffig when
he is gone forever.
WeU, I have fimshed the readffig of the second volume
of Jowett's Life, — or rather, I shoffid say, I have fiffished
turmng the leaves of it ; for to read such a mass of words
as are set down ffi the nearly five hundred octavo pages
making up the volume is altogether impossible, — at least
for me ; and besides, there is not enough ffi the volume
to reward so prodigious an effort. I can offiy say that the
general impression left upon my mffid in regard to Jowett's
character and aims is most favourable ; a reaUy remarkable
man ; not offiy for what he did as a CoUege Professor, —
though that is a branch of life ffi which I have never taken
much ffiterest, Professors always seemffig to me to be pedants
or prigs ; of course they aren't, at least not aU ; many are
most estimable men, but estimable men are very tu-esome
compamons, I fancy. A certaffi effervescence of humour
and an underlyffig knowledge of the world and its absurdities
and foffies are needful to make a man an ffiterestffig com-
paffion, except of course a man is capable aU the time of
unparting knowledge ; or capable, Uke our good old friend
Dr. Hedge of clothing abstract phUosophical themes in an

288 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
ffiteffigible and fascffiatffig style ; to such men I Usten with
reverence. But then such men do not make compamons
precisely ; they are talkers ; and as there was never any
talk ffi me I cherish a profound respect for good talkers.
But as a matter of fact, I never come across any ; certaiffiy
not ffi these parts, where the proportion of men to women
is hardly one to five. But, as I was goffig on to say, Jowett
seems to me remarkable, — remarkable I mean for a man ffi
ffis position, for the freedom of ffis thought. He was no
more a Church of England man than I am ; evidently he
did not beUeve any more than any free-thinker, so caUed,
beUeves nowadays ffi miracles. ' You cannot base reUgion
any more upon miracles,' he says somewhere. He did not
believe ffi the Old Testament story of creation, and aU the
rest. He said that ' Voltaire had done more good than aU
the Fathers of the Church put together.' ' The spiritual
is an echo of the past,' he writes, ' derived from great
prophets and leaders, hardly anywhere to be found at
present in the human bosOm ; yet somethffig like tffis is
what the better mffid of the age is seekmg — a reUgion
ffidependent of the accidents of time and place.' 'A man
of sixty shoffid lead a qffiet, open-air life. He ought at
sixty to have acquired authority, reticence and freedom
from personality.'
This strikes me as profound : and hence I have under
scored the last three words. The foUowffig ffi regard to
style seems to me noteworthy : ' Jowett had a number of
curious Uttle rules about writing ; he would not, for ffistance,
aUow an abstract word to be the nomffiative to a verb of
action ; the balance of the clauses and the cadence of the
sentences were also most carefuUy considered ; and in this
respect he woffid contrast the majestic sounds of the classical
languages, — the long words and constantly recurring asson
ance of cases ffi agreement, — with the large number of
monosyUables and comparative poverty of sound ffi EngUsh.
Sentences were more likely to attract the mffid if they
attracted the ear, and at times a ' jffigle ' was permissible if
it caught the reader's attention. The resffit of tffis mffiute
care was that Jowett was more successfffi with sentences

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 289
than with paragraphs,— the exposition of his thoughts was
sometimes clearer than the connection of them ; and he was
better at an epigram than an argument.' In 1893, Jowett
writes to a friend : ' I have read lately a book which has
greatly deUghted me: Captain Mahan's Influence of Sea
Power in History, and on the Napoleonic power especiaUy.
The book is American and yet quite faultless in point of
taste,' — fancy. He adds, ' it is also perfectly impartial and
shows immense knowledge of the subject.'
WeU, I have been reading too Edward A. Freeman's Life
and Letters. He was a tremendous journaUst and wrote
hundreds of articles for the Saturday Review, and for aU
possible other journals, magazines and what not. He wrote
a History of the Norman Conquest which I never read, and a
Uttle book of sketches of French Cathedrals and towns and
sites of towns which I tried to read ; but anything drier I
fancy could not be found in any Uterature. His life was a
strUdng contrast to Jowett's. Jowett was a man of spirit :
Freeman was a man of facts, — facts the minutest which it
is possible to conceive, facts historical and archaeological.
He spent months and months at a time in Sicily, working
out aU kmds of obscure archaeological conundrums, of no
mterest, it seems to me, to any human being ; yet I wffi
not say that deUberately ; for after aU, I suppose any. fact
ffi the past may somehow turn out to be of ffiterest in some
way, when the right Ught is thrown upon it, however
ridicffious may seem to be the search for it. His letters are
almost umnteffigible to me and I fancy to the ' general
reader ' also ; at any rate I cannot conceive of anyone
readmg through those two closely prffited volumes word
for word. I coffid offiy tum the pages ffi the hope of pickffig
up an item or two of interest, and the hope was constantly
disappoffited. There is offiy one letter which I could make
out fairly weU ; it was written at Taormina in SicUy on
March 30, 1890 (I wish he had given the name of his inn and
then I could have placed him, but he doesn't). He says :
'I have been lookffig at tffings here again, and revising aU
that I had written about Tauromeffion. I have altered a good
deal in order to bring in your view that the ijt,la dKpoTro\i<;
T

290 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
that Dionysius took was not the Castle hffi as I thought at
first and as Hohn thinks, but the hffi of the theatre ; and
that the two aKpoiroKei'i are the hill of the theatre and
the Castle Hffi, — ^not the Castle hffi and the Mola,' and so
on. This I can understand, because I was ffi Taormffia, —
for a fortffight in AprU, 1896, when we made a Uttle tour ffi
SicUy ; but nevertheless I can't see that it is ffi the least
worth understandffig. Taormffia is situated on a crag six
hundred feet above the sea, and that suffices, — basta ; but
observe, — not a word about the ruffis of the old Greek
Theatre, on a high hffi, directly above our inn, the Hotel
Timeo : most ffiterestffig ruffis : the stage better preserved
than any that survives : a wonderful site, lookffig over the
Tyrrheffian sea : crags risffig aU around it, — among them
the Mola, which I ascended haU way and then gave out :
and on the top of the Mola a town stffi ffihabited : a most
extraordffiary and picturesque situation : not a word about
the entrancffig views from Taormffia, over across to .(Etna
towering white and threateffing ffigh up towards the blue
sky, and aU along the whole sweep of the coast down almost
to Syracuse. Nor ffi any of the letters is there a word upon
Greek art or architecture ; nothing but dreary ffiquiries into
the sites of hffis, and towns and parts of towns and waUs and
such : archaeological ffivestigations of greater or less worth,
but who cares for such outside the pages of Fach-Schriften ?
— a very dreary book. Freeman was a free-thinkffig lance
however ; and I fancy was as far adrift from the orthodox
EngUsh Church standpoffits as even Jowett. He was also
a partisan in poUtics, but on the right side for the most part.
He did not beUeve ffi Royalties and such ; rather, in Leagues
and Confederations. He went over to the Uffited States ffi
the Autumn of 1881, and gave lectures. I was amused by
some of the remarks upon American ways ffi his letters
from the Umted States. Among other thffigs he mentions
the foUowing three Illaudabilia Americana (unpraiseworthy
things of America) : 1st — They give you no drffik-water in
your bedroom (of course not, for no one woffid drink it :
the American drinks offiy pitchers of ice- water) : 2nd — They
sit with the door of the room open (of course they do, the

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 291
whole house beffig heated ; hence it is not manners to
shut a door carefuUy upon enterffig a room, as in England
and Germany, where the entries (they caU them -passages
m England) are as cold as out-doors ffi Siberia) : 3rd — They
eat their meat raw, wffich they caU rare (and so do at least
one haU if not two-thirds of the EngUsh people, though they
use the word underdone ; but our word is better, beffig
more expressive).
And that remmds me, one of the few agreeable EngUsh
women whom we have seen here this Wffiter, told me that
the EngUsh were now droppmg the word clever and takmg
up the American word smart ffi the sense of clever ; guess
wffi come next, I fancy ; though it wffi probably be a good
whUe before they get over beffig sick ffi their restricted use
of that word. In the latter haU or third of his ffie Freeman
was fficessantly traveUmg on the Contffient, chiefly in
Eastern Europe, — the coasts of the Adriatic, and especiaUy
in SicUy. He died of smaUpox in AUcante in Spaffi on
Wednesday March 16, 1892, at the age of about sixty-ffine.
It is very odd that about the time you were readffig Dr.
Birbeek Hffi's Johnsoffian MisceUaffies, — that day when the
snowdrifts lay heavy about your house, and a good old-
fasffioned New England snowstorm was ragmg agaffist
your wmdow-panes (how much I used to enjoy that kffid
of thmg when I was young ; but now, — ^no, not for worlds !)
I was makmg a note of that very book, — here, with wmdows
open, and a blue sky overhead and a bahny an: makffig the
sunUght even more joyous ; for I was readffig a book en
titled Studies of a Biographer, By LesUe Stephen, and ffi the
first volume of it was a paper upon Johnsoniana for wffich
Dr. Bkbeck Hffi's work served as the text. I have sffice
read the second volume of LesUe's book, and I commend
it to you ; there are many clever and ffiteresting studies
in it. On the Italian Riviera,
9 March, 1899.
My dear H.,— You may have noticed in the newspapers
the announcement of the death of ' our old friend,' Sir George

292 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Bowen. He died in Brighton on Tuesday evemng, Feb
ruary 21, after two days' iUness offiy, — from bronchitis.
There was a brief obituary notice of him ffi the Morning
Post, containing mention of the leadffig events of his life.
He was born in 1821, and ' ffi 1856 he married the Countess
Diamantina, only survivffig daughter of his Highness Count
Candiano Roma, G.C.M.G., President of the loffian Senate
(she died in 1893) ; and secondly, in 1896, Florence, widow
of the Rev.' H. White, and daughter of the Rev. T. Luby,
D.D.' He was therefore seventy-five years of age when he
married a second time ; this was characteristic.
It was most ffiteresting, the account which you give
of your snowbound state. The last great snowstorm m
Boston at which I ever assisted was ffi the early pari of
1867, and I must confess I rather enjoyed it ; but I was
32 years younger then. I coffid hardly bear up agamst such
a horror now ; yet I could fancy you repeatffig serenely
Heffie's lines. I came across them on the very day on
which I received your letter, ffi a rubbishy Uttle book by
Sir John Lubbock, entitled The Pleasures of Life, which,
seduced by the title, I had borrowed from our Uttle Library,
eager to see what could possibly be made out of that pleasmg
theme. These are the Unes :
Outside fall the snowflakes lightly ;
Through the night loud raves the storm ;
In my room the fire glows brightly.
And 'tis cosy, silent, warm.
Musing I sit on the settle
By the firelight's cheerful blaze,
Listening to the busy kettle
Humming long forgotten lays.
And these Unes, by the way, are set down in Lubbock's Uttle
book under the rubric of ' Pleasures of Home.' But apropos
of the night, — ffi the night between Saturday and Sunday
last, — it must have been between two and three o'clock ffi
the morffing (of Sunday) as I guessed, and it turns out that
I guessed correctly, — ^beffig haU awake for a moment I heard
a tremendous sound as of a cannon or an explosion. I could
not conceive what it might be, for I knew there were no

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 293
cannon ffi the neighbourhood. Then a terrible thought
occurred to me,— it might be the boom of an earthquake,
for I have often read of loud sounds, as of explosions,
accompanyffig or precedffig earthquakes. I waited and
Ustened in terror ; the house was firm ; the bed did not
rattle : — the momentary terror died away. I tumed over
and went to sleep. But I remembered the next mormng
to ask everyone whom I saw whether he had heard the noise.
The wife had heard nothing ; several persons ffi the house
however had heard it, and they aU ascribed it to an earth
quake ; but no tidffigs had come of any earthquake. In
the afternoon, however, there came over from Nice copies
of French newspapers, and we knew what had occurred : —
that terrible explosion ffi the Powder Magazffies at Toulon,
one hundred and twenty-three mUes distant by raU ! Some
said that the vibration had run along the mountain tops ;
others that the sound had traversed the Mediterranean, the
greater distance by land beffig occasioned by the fficessant
windffigs of the coastUne. It seems that these Powder
Magazffies were situated at a distance of three kUometres
from the town. Had they been situated ffi the town, not one
stone woffid have been left upon another ; as it was, every
thmg ffi the neighbourhood was shattered and tom, ffity
persons kffied, and several hundred wounded. New kffids
of powder were stored ffi these Magazines ; and I have no
doubt that the explosion was spontaneous, — precisely the
same kffid of thffig which happened to our warship the
Maine, ffi the Harbour of Havannah : an explosion which
it baffled the acutest American researchers to trace to an
act of malevolence, and yet the whole American people
believe firmly to this day that the Spaniards blew up the
Maine. The guests ffi this house are women, — elderly women;
I shoffid say, musty old women, except that such a phrase
is impoUte, and besides I am old enough ffi aU conscience
myself, not to say musty. Yet there are even older folk
here than I. There is a Coloffial Bishop in an adjoinffig
vffia, eighty-five years old ; and last night there arrived
at this house a sprightly old German lady, aged eighty-six,

294 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
accompaffied by her daughter, — ^the daughter is a pious
Baroness from BerUn who goes about distributffig tracts
to the wicked. She gave me a tract ffi German, — one of
the tracts which she scatters broadcast among the other
sinners, — beffig a spinster of sixty. The wife goes now and
then into the Salon, and has some conversation with the
Americans ; she reports them however to be a very sUent,
secretive lot. You see, this is what I mean by the term
musty : no frank talk : no responsive manner : on the con
trary, wariness, secretiveness, monosyllabicalness, in mere
trifies : no sense of compaffionsffip, — cold isolation : the
barren side of New Englandism, not its sunny side : for
ffi spite of the Puritan taffit ffi our blood, there is stffi a
sunny, cheerful, frank, and wffiffing side to the New England
character, — if one offiy understands how to get at it.
We have had more or less bad weather lately ; for the
last three days a most disagreeable tramontano has been
blowmg, followed to-day by the usual change to a soft air,
and wetness and gloom. Yet we ought not to complam,
for as a rule the days have been briffiant and the air mUd
ever sffice we came here in December. And this gloom wffi
not last for more than a day or two longer ; already the
fig trees are budding, and the peach is blossomffig, and there
is a deUcious perfume of orange fiowers ffi the air. The
almond trees blossomed long ago ; but the fragrant mimosa
is stffi everywhere : and sweet smeUffig thyme : radiant
landscapes and a shining sea. Mon verre n'est pas grand,
mais je bois dans mon verre, as Musset said.
And by the way, I have been lookmg through a History of
Italian Literature By Rich and Garnett. It is one of the
short histories of the Literatures of the World series edited
by Edmund Gosse ; but I found Uttle in it that was either
interestffig or useful, though I dare say this may have been
partly my faffit. It begffis at the beginffing Uke aU these
Literature-Histories, and goes on briefiy, and with an awful
wearisomeness through succeedmg centuries. The art of
book-making seems never to have been extended to Literatur
Geschichten ; if it had been, the world would be richer in
entertainmg books. Take the beginmngs of a Literature :

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 295
they run through a long period as a rffie, and the first period
is just as different from the last period as a man ffi the nffith
century is different from a man ffi the ffineteenth. Of
course a good book on the man of the nffith century is
mterestmg, but the man of that century should stand by
himself and not be mixed up with the man of the ffineteenth.
Oh, tffis bother of the beginnffigs of Literature ! can any
one but a speciaUst understand them, or be ffiterested ffi
them ? how painfuUy dreary is it aU ! And as for recent
ItaUan Literature I can't find anythmg — or hardly any
thffig, — that I did not know before, except ffi regard to
D'Annunzio (bom 1863), who seems to be the risffig geffius
of the country : Poet and novel-writer. WeU, I do not
care for ItaUan Poetry ; there never seemed to me to be
anythffig ffi it, — or if there were anythffig, it was somethffig
nasty, as a rffie. Of course there are exceptions, — and of
course I do not speak of Dante whom I coffid never more
than half understand ; though I reaUy can recognize ffi a
way the splendour of his geffius ffi the Divina Commedia,
but not ffi his other things, the Vita Nuova and such, which
impress me as mere drivel. I suppose there is some mental
infirmity which prevents me from seeffig ffito this kffid of
thffig, or comprehendffig it otherwise than as an ocean of
drearmess. WeU, D'Annunzio has written novels : and I
find it written of him ffi this book of Garnett's :
' As an artist, D'Annunzio is ahnost as admirable ffi prose
as ffi verse : and if with ffis descriptive he combffied the
creative gUt, aU his immoraUties coffid not bebar him from
permanent renown. D'Aimunzio's novels are important
Uterary events. They have earned him renown and cir-
cffiation ffi France and the Uffited States. The most cele
brated are II Piacere, II Trionfo della Morte, La Vergine
delle Rocce, the last of which is exempt from most of the
objections justly urged agamst the others.'
I have an mdistinct impression that one of his recent
novels was prohibited by the poUce somewhere : is he reaUy
so bad as that ? And by the way, the wife is now reading
aloud More Tramps Abroad by Mark Twain. I do not
remember ever to have read any of ffis writffigs, though

296 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
I have a vague recoUection of once lookmg mto his Tramps
Abroad, and the part that I looked at seemed to me sUly.
However this book is worth readmg for the sake of the vivid
flashes it throws not merely upon the physical character
of many countries, AustraUa and India ffi particffiar, but
also upon the ways of people, — customs and superstitions,
especiaUy ffi India. Stffi I must confess that two volumes
of this humorous, semi-serious style of writffig are somewhat
tiresome, though I am often struck by the happy way he
has of putting profound truths. He is always ffi a certaffi
vein ; there are no contrasts ffi ffis writmg, no Ughts and
shadows ; always a froUcsome bubble of witticisms, of
wffich a Uttle goes a great way. Some of ffis stories how
ever, like Huckleberry Finn, are said to be inimitable ; but
I have not yet come across them.

The Murray Hill Hotel, New York,
26 June, 1899.
My dear H., — We left Genoa at ten o'clock on the morn
ing of Thursday, June 8 : and ffi the afternoon of Wednes
day June 21, — a day late, — we were landed on the Pier
at Hoboken. It was a smooth voyage, — ^placid saUmg o'er
Summer seas : offiy one bad day, — but that was very bad :
a dreary, gloomy day : sea runmng very high : ship roffing
and pitcffing, and screw racing. I was not ffi the least sea
sick, but in great perU, through beffig flung about. The
stewards however were very kmd and somehow managed
to get me ffito my chair on deck, — which was lashed to the
railings ; and I sat there the greater part of the day reading
Trevelyan's Life of Charles James Fox, and aU about the
American Revolution from Pox's point of view : an inter
estffig narrative : also watching the ship roU, and wonderffig
whether the taffraUs would finaUy get mto the water. There
were somewhat less than forty First Class Passengers, and
they mostly went under during that uncanny day. But it
was a singffiar experience, — how the storm rose and spent
itself in a period of precisely twenty-four hours : for the
preceding day the sea was smooth, as it had been aU the

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 297
days sffice we left Genoa up to that sickening Monday,
June 19, And on the foUowffig day, — the sea goffig down
as fast as it had come up, — there was also smooth water :
and so it remaffied untU we landed. ' Racks ' on the tables
but once offiy — that stormy Monday, — or ' fiddles,' as the
EngUsh caU them ; the German term is Schlangeneisen but
it is not much used, rack being generaUy adopted on the
German Atlantic boats.
We had a deUghtfffi run down to Naples, which we reached
early on Friday morffing (June 9). I was on deck from
five o'clock ffi the morffing, wishing to enjoy a sight of
Vesuvius and aU the beautUul , scenery round about; but
unfortunately there was a heavy veU of mist over the land,
and I coffid but dimly make out shadowy forms of moun
tains, and Vesuvius hardly at aU. By eight o'clock we were
made fast to the quay in front of the Custom House ffi
Naples ; and there we remained until half -past five ffi the
afternoon, taking on board coals and cargo (oranges mostly,
so far as I could see) and eight hundred and thirty-seven
ItaUan emigrants 1 Emigration from Italy is now going
forward on a tremendous scale. The day we left Genoa,
three great ItaUan steamers sailed from that port for South
America, laden with emigrants. Indeed tte emigration is
chiefly to South America, — so much so that ' America '
means to the ordmary ItaUan, not North America, but
South America (BrazU or the Argentffie). It was pretty
hot m Naples, although not by any means as hot as it is
now ffi New York, where it is 80° in our rooms ffight and
day, — and I did not go ashore. There was a cool breeze
blowffig ; and I sat ffi the shade under an awnffig on deck
and read novels, and watched the sffippffig of the emigrants.
The Company gave each emigrant on comffig on board a
wooUen blanket, a pewter basm, mug and kffife and fork ;
and I dare say these poor creatures Uved better on the
Saale than ever they did before ffi then- Uves. There have
been great abuses connected with the emigrant traffic, and
the ItaUan Government is now very soUcitous to see that
the emigrants are weU treated. It compels the German
Company to carry an Italian physician, and also a Royal
u

298 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
Commissioner whose duty it is to see that the steamship
company fuffils its contract with the emigrant m regard to
the quantity and quaUty of his food, and the necessary ven
tilation and such things. The Uttle ItaUan physician whom
we had on board amused me very much. He was m fuU
uniform and spent almost aU ffis time on deck, buzzmg
about, smokmg cigarettes and tryffig to talk EngUsh.
Whereas, the regffiar German physician wore offiy a uniform
cap, and never showed himself ; m fact I could never
make him out untU in the last two or three days of the
voyage. On Monday mormng (June 12) I went on deck as usual
between five and six o'clock, and there was Gibraltar,
massive and frownmg in fuU view. However, it is by no
means so imposffig a sight as I had always fancied it to be.
There was an early breakfast, — at seven, — and at eight a
tender came alongside, ready to take the passengers ashore
at fifty cents a head. I did not go ashore ; it was too
troublesome ; but of course the wife went. They had but
two hours ashore ; she brought back for me a dozen ManiUa
cigars, price a penny each. I have no doubt that such
cigars woffid cost at least ten cents each ffi this country ;
I have stffi one left, which I am keepffig for the Fourth of
July ; I shall show my patriotism — one must do somethmg
for one's country, — by smoking it on that historic occasion
and wishing. I were stffi off Gibraltar. Also great black
figs and tiresome apricots, and sweet-smeUmg carnations
did she bring with her ; and at haU-past ten o'clock we
steamed out upon the broad Atlantic : sea smooth as a
mirror, aU the way from Genoa to Gibraltar, and on to the
Azores, which we sighted early on the moming of the foUow
ing Thursday (June 15). It was a briUiant mormng ; but
there was a cold wind blowing, and later, it became some
what cloudy. We ran in very close to the shores, — some
times hardly half a mUe distant. The great mountam Pico
(7600 feet) was invisible, wrapped ffi clouds, except once
when the clouds feU away from the summit, and we caught
a glimpse of it gUttering in the sunUght. We passed also
very close to Horta, the Capital of the Island of Fayal :

AN ENGLISH SOJOURN,— AND AFTER 299
charmmg situation, ffi a Uttle bay, with green hilla behffid it;
and refreshmg ffideed, after so many days upon the water,
was the sight of the white houses scattered aU over these
islands, and the green fields carefuUy cultivated, for com
and wme, and here and there a white church, — and a big
monastery. And so the voyage went smoothly on until
the foUowmg Monday, June 19, — that sickenmg Monday of
which I have already spoken ; and then smooth again aU
the way up to the Pier ffi Hoboken.
The Customs mspection on the Pier had been a great
bugbear to everybody on board the ship, though I stUl
cherished an underlyffig conviction that I shoffid go in easUy,
as I had done many times before ; and I was right. We
went through easUy : four trunks, two traveUmg bags, and
a mandoUn ffi a wooden case, very handsome case too : aU
chalked free at once : nothing examined. We have always
had good luck with Customs Houses ; there must be some
thffig ffi my venerable appearance which inspires a beautifffi
trust and respect ffi the average Customs Official. Also
there is somethmg ffi beffig on old hand, and knowffig how
to do it. There was no talk of one hundred doUars' worth
of wearing apparel, and no questions that I can remember
were asked. You know a Customs Officer boards the
steamer as she is comffig up the harbour, and seats himself
in the Saloon and each passenger in turn goes up to him,
and receives a card with a number on it. This card is to
be given to an officer on the Pier, who assigns an Inspector.
But before you get tffis card one makes a declaration before
the Officer ffi the Saloon, as to whether one has any dutiable
goods ; also saymg where one is goffig and whether one has
been abroad more than two years and so on. Of course I
declared nothffig, having nothmg to declare. I tffink the
Officer must have asked me a dozen questions, but I didn't
hear any of them distffictly, and he didn't wait for any
answers, but scribbled away rapidly in a great blank form,
which he gave me to sign ; and I signed it. Our baggage
as usual was the last to be brought on the Pier, and whUe we
were waiting for it, an Inspector came up to me with my de
claration in his hand, and entered into friendly conversation.

300 NEW LETTERS OF AN IDLE MAN
He was a very ffice man : extremely poUte : and even came
round outside of the shed to the street where our carriage
stood, and saw us off in a heavy-laden five-doUar landau.
But when we reached this hotel, I found that I must have
lost a five doUar bffi somewhere on the pier, or in the street
whUe waitmg for the baggage to be loaded upon our carriage,
— fancy ! !

Printed by T. and A. Oohbtabls, Printers to His Majesty
at the Bdinburgh Uniyeraity Press