Chapter 19

Chapter 191,925 wordsPublic domain

On reaching Bourges, my attention was attracted by an object widely differing from the venerable Abbot. Judging from my own experience, I may confidently affirm that not an Englishman quits his country, but he instantly becomes sensible of the comparative plainness of the fairer sex. I need hardly say that I allude to that of the lower orders; for as I was circumstanced, I was but little qualified to estimate the attributes of the more exclusive circles, only one of whom I chanced to meet, or rather to approach, during my ramble through France. Whether it was from unexpectedly meeting with a moderately humanised countenance suddenly appearing among those I observed daily around me, or that I had met with a face exquisitely lovely, I will not determine. I had been awaiting the arrival of the Mal Poste for Marseilles, the passengers of which were expected to join the table d'hôte. For the last ten minutes I had been contemplating a dark, muddy court-yard beneath the window. The travellers having arrived and taken their seats at the table, I sat down, and was instantly startled by the face that I observed opposite to me, contrasted, as it chanced to be, with a dark unshaven one on either side of it. The salon was nearly as sombre as midnight, and there was a delicate and oval face, brightened by a pair of large soft eyes, "with fire rolling at the bottom of them!" Long, long did I deplore my deficiency of the organ of language; for with such a person for my _vis-a-vis_, I could open my mouth but to eat!

We are little aware how exclusively we derive our opinion of others from their appearance and manner, and so independently of the sentiments they utter. Until we live among those with whom we cannot converse, it is impossible to be sensible of this truth; but I am confident, from long experience, that it is the fact. I have formed as correct an opinion of a German's character, not a word of whose language was intelligible to me, as of the Englishman's beside him, and perhaps more so, as not being misled by what he might choose to advance. And in support of this assertion, I will just mention, that I have subsequently met with foreigners, whom it has given me great pleasure to meet with, again and again, and that a mutual regard has existed between us, though neither has, for a moment, been verbally intelligible to the other.

As, then, it is so possible thus to estimate a person, I will just select the one opposite to me as an interesting example, for I well remember her. She appeared to be about seventeen, and radiant with youth and freshness, but accompanied with a delicacy and slenderness, as excessive as could be consistent with health. Her manner was completely fascinating, and her voice particularly so, when you observed the lips and teeth from whence it floated. She was a sort of fond person, and yet with a great share of humour--very talented, but all in delightful subjection to a refined and delicate feeling. Alas! the morrow's sun saw us, by roads as opposite as our future paths through life, departing from Bourges for ever.

Bidding farewell, even to a disagreeable person, when you know it to be _for ever_, causes a blank, unpleasant sensation, and therefore I was now weighed down with a feeling of desolation quite oppressive. The sole thing that seemed to cling to me was my knapsack. No sooner have I ever formed any sort of regard for any sort of person, than Geoffrey Crayon's words, "Tom, you're wanted," dole upon my ear, and I must away. This is the curse of the traveller. And now what has since been the fate of this person? Confusion overwhelm the clogs and procrastination of civilised society! As Geoffrey Crayon once more bluntly states it, "Done," said the devil--"Done," said Tom Walker--so they shook hands, and struck a bargain; and why could not she and I have done the same! But she has gone, and that her days of life might be brightened with cloudless serenity, no one so ardently prayed, as a homeless and hopeless unknown; for I found that--

"The heart like the tendril accustomed to cling, Let it grow where it will cannot flourish alone, But must lean to the nearest, loveliest thing It can twine itself round, and make closely its own."

And, to make the matter worse, I had also at this time finally to separate from my oldest companions, a pair of shoes. They formed the last relic of my English wardrobe, and had borne me over a long distance. Having really an attachment for them, I placed them high up in the fork of a Spanish chestnut tree, whither I could not help again climbing up, that I might take a last look at them as they rested pale with the dust of leagues, uncomplaining though deserted.

In a few days more I had reached the heart of Switzerland; but what a contrast had I experienced in passing from one country to the other! The whole of France, with the exception of my ever happy Loire, must surely be the most monotonous and unpicturesque tract of the whole continent; while Switzerland presents, at every turn, a combination of the paradisaical and of terrific sterility. Smiling patriarchal pastures, walled in by granite mountains, frowning in eternal silence and solitude, save when thundering with the awful avalanche. I said that their piles of granite were barren; but what a moment is it to explore your way companionless, and find them to be the source and spring of richness and fertility to Europe, as the sun is of warmth and light to the world--to pick your doubtfully hazardous way across the glacier, and there read great Nature's receipt for making rivers. You find that the nearer you climb towards the heavens, the more palpable are the works of their Creator:--

"My altars are the mountains, and the ocean-- Earth, air, stars--all that proceed from the great Whole, Who has made and will receive the soul."

As to how mine was likely to be disposed of, the moment had now arrived when I was to consider; for not only had severe sickness overtaken me, but I suspected that my death-blow had been received. Severe sickness will bring the stoutest of us, and the most unthinking, to reflect soberly on the past, the present, and the future; at all events, it had this effect on me one night, among many other restless and sleepless ones, as in solitude I watched the flickering flame of the candle by my bedside. As for the present, until the moment of leaving my country, I had bestowed but little attention on it. It is the man of the world, who is wisely engrossed with that period; and, unfortunately, I had never been gifted with, or rather had never acquired, a sufficient stock of common sense to enable me to approximate that character.

We all love to contemplate and dwell on the brightest side of things, simply because that is the most pleasing to us; and having but little self-denial, I ever enveloped myself in the past, the sunniest side of my existence.

As for the future, with regard to a life to come, for that was what I was now to think about, my opinion, if it could be called such, laboured under confusion and inconsistency. Could anything have made me more miserable than another, it would have been the doubt of it; but from this I have ever been exempt, feeling assured, that were there none, our minds would no more have been created capable of entertaining an idea of it, than that our bodies would have been hampered with legs for which there was to be no need--and as these imply the function of walking, so our idea of futurity affords us the proof of it. Yet happy as I was in its belief, I always regretted that I had been born, notwithstanding that I was aware that an endless sleep and non-existence must be one and the same thing. My love of existence then, of some sort, must have been an acquired taste, like that of the opium-eater--I would that it had never commenced, but had not sufficient fortitude to relinquish it. But most probably this regret arose as I looked back through the bright and peaceful vista of my earliest days, and then fondly trusting that it could but lead to some lovely period, ere I existed here; but alas! I could recal no recollection of it, nor could any one else that I knew of, with the exception of Pythagoras, and, perhaps, my Lord Herbert of Cherbery.

But I must cut short all this absurdity, to call it by the mildest term, especially as my pilgrimage is drawing "towards an end, like a tale that is told."

I arose from my bed apparently with similar prejudices ere I was confined to it, but, with my constitution, they have happily received a fatal blow. Had I been with others, I should probably have lingered in Venice until my hour had come, but, as it was, what had I to stop for?

"Whether it was despair that urged me on, God only knows--but to the very last, I had the lightest foot in Ennerdale."

Many a weary mile have I since accomplished in a state of health almost incredible, though I am now convinced that I have performed my last; but it was a beautiful one!

On the eastern shores of the Bay of Naples rises the mountain of St. Angelo. For days had I gazed upon it with a wistful eye, and with all the eagerness of my childhood, when I never saw a distant hill but I was restless until I had reached it. Notwithstanding that my strength now daily diminished, my desire so increased upon me, that but a brief time had elapsed ere I had gratified it. This mountain protrudes abruptly into the Mediterranean, dividing the bay of Salerno from that of Naples.

I have enjoyed the grandest scenery of Europe, but never, never such as this, or at such a moment. The death stillness of the day was appalling--the air was motionless, the heavens cloudless, and the deep blue sea, far, far beneath me, without a ripple; and not a sound reached my ear but that of my own watch. There I rested on the summit, basking in the sun, and enjoying a view, if such might be so called, worthy an angel's while to fly down and witness, and which, I dare say, one does now and then among these aërial solitudes.

And now my feverish curiosity with regard to distant countries is satisfied to the full. It once was such as extended to other worlds, when I would welcome death in order to indulge it. The time is now approaching, then, when I must set out for "that bourne from which no traveller returns." My love of roaming has happily waned with the power of gratifying it, and I am now on my return, by easy stages, for the monastery of La Trappe, and I trust that a few days more will place me in its peaceful retirement, for I am weary.

T.C. Savill, Printer, 4, Chandos Street, Covent Garden.

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