the united englishmen who travel for fun are great nuisances to other tourists, are great nuisances to the towns they visit and the scenes they disturb, are often nuisances in a small way to the police, are nuisances to people saying their prayers in churches, are nuisances to visitors in picture galleries, are nuisances to the ordinary travellers of the day, and are nuisances to the world at large—except the innkeepers and the railway companies; but they generally achieve their own object, and have what the americans call a good time of it. a united englishman travelling for fun should not be over twenty-five[48] years of age, but up to that age what he does, though he be a nuisance, should be forgiven him. though we ourselves may be annoyed by the freaks of such travellers, shocked by their utter disregard of apparel, stunned by their noises, and ashamed of them as our countrymen, yet we are well pleased that our sons should be among their number, and are conscious that amidst all that energetic buffoonery and wild effrontery, education is going on, and that much is being learned, though the recipient of the learning would himself be ashamed to own any such fact to himself.
the men of whom i am now speaking are generally gentlemen by birth,—who have been educated or missed being educated, as education is obtained or missed by the sons of english gentlemen,—are pleasant fellows who have learned to love each other at school or college, and have nothing about them that is mean or in itself ignoble; but they are young of their age, men for[49] whom nature has hitherto done more than art, who have hardly as yet learned to think, and are still enjoying all the irresponsible delights of boyhood at a time of life at which others less fortunate are already immersed in the grievous cares of earning their bread. i do not know that any country except england produces such a crop. we see united frenchmen on their travels; but they are discreet, well dressed, anticipating the life of middle age rather than adhering to the manners of boyhood,—much given to little attentions to women, and very decorous in their language. and young german tourists are encountered everywhere, though more often alone than in union; but the german tourist is almost always a german student. life is a serious thing to him, and he is resolved that he will not lose this most precious period of it. united germans, rough in their pleasures, and noisy in their demonstrations, may no doubt be found; but they are to be found in their own cities, at[50] their universities, among their own people. it does not come in their way to go forth and exhibit their rowdiness among strangers. and as to americans, who has ever seen a young american? an american who travels at eighteen, travels because he is blasé with the world at home, tired of democratic politics, and anxious to see whether anything may still be gleaned from european manners to improve the not yet perfected institutions of his own country. among tourists of the order of united englishmen an american young man is altogether out of his element. he will attempt sometimes to live as they live, but will soon retire, disgusted partly by them and partly by his own incompetence. i have known an american who could be loud, and jolly, and frolicsome, and yet carry himself like a gentleman through it all; but i have never known a young american who could do so.
englishmen of the class in question are boys for a more protracted period of their life, and[51] remain longer in a state of hobbledehoyhood, than the youths probably of any other nation. they are nurtured on the cold side of the wall, and come slowly to maturity; but the fruit, which is only half ripe at the end of summer, is the fruit that we keep for our winter use. i do not know that much has been lost in life by him who, having been a boy at twenty, is still a young man at forty. but even in england we are changing all this now-a-days, and by a liberal use of the hot-water pipes of competition are in a way to force our fruit into the market as early as any other people. let us hope that what we gain in time may not be lost in flavour.
but we have not yet advanced so far as to put down the bands of united englishmen who travel for fun. who does not know the look of the band, and cannot at a glance swear to their vocation? the smallest number of such a party is three, and it does not often exceed five. they are dressed very much alike. the hat, whatever[52] be its exact shape, is chosen with the purpose of setting all propriety instantly at defiance. no other description can be given of it. to say that it is a slouch hat, or a felt hat, or a tom-and-jerry hat, conveys no idea of the hat in question. the most discreet low church parson may wear a slouch hat, and may look in it as discreet and as low church as he does in his economically preserved chimney-pot at home. but the united english tourist batters his hat, and twists it, and sits on it, and rumples and crumples it, till it is manifestly and undeniably indicative of its owner. and having so completed its manufacture he obtrudes it upon the world with a remarkable ingenuity. in a picture gallery he will put it on the head of a bust of apollo; in a church he will lay it down on the railing of the altar, or he will carry it on high on the top of his stick, so that all men may see it and know its owner by the sign. sitting in public places he will chuck it up and catch it, and at german[53] beer-gardens he will spread it carefully in the middle of the little table intended for the glasses. he never keeps it on his head when he should take it off,—because he is a gentleman; but he rarely keeps it on his head when that is the proper place for it,—because he is a united englishman who travels for fun. he wears a suit of grey clothes, the coat being a shooting coat, and the trousers, if he be loud in his vocation, being exchanged for knickerbockers. and it is remarkable that the suit in which you will see him will always strike you as that which he had procured for last year's tour, and that he is economically wearing it to shreds on the present occasion. but this is not so. the clothes were new when he left london; but he has been assiduous with his rumpling and crumpling here as he has been with his hat, and at the expiration of his first week out he is able to boast to himself that he has, at any rate, got rid of the gloss. he wears flannel shirts, and in warm weather goes about without a cravat. he carries[54] in his portmanteau a dress-coat, waistcoat, and trousers, which are of no use to him, as who would think of asking such a man to dinner? but, as he abhors the extra package which a decent hat would make needful, he is to be seen in paris, vienna, or florence with that easily-recognized covering for his head which i have above described. he has a bludgeon usually in his hand, and often a pipe in his mouth. he knows nothing of gloves, but is very particular as to the breadth and strength of his shoes. he often looks to be very dirty; but his morning tub is a religious ceremony, and, besides that, he bathes whenever he comes across a spot which, from its peculiar difficulties, is more than ordinarily inappropriate for the exercise.
these tourists for fun are known well by all that large class of men who are engaged in supplying the wants of summer travellers. no one ever doubts their solvency; no innkeeper ever refuses them admittance; no station-master[55] or captain of a steamboat ever takes them for other than they are. they are not suspected, but known; and therefore a certain tether is allowed to them which is not to be exceeded. they are looked after good-humouredly, and are so restrained that they shall not be made to feel the restraint if the feeling can be spared them. "three mad englishmen! they're all right. i've got my eye on them. they won't do any harm?" that seems to be the ordinary language which is held about them by those to whom falls the duty of watching them and supplying their wants. the waiters were very good-natured to them, patting them, as it were on the back, and treating them much as though they were children. but it is understood that they must have wherewithal to eat and to drink well, and that their bells must be answered if any quiet is to be preserved in the houses. sometimes there will be a row, and the english pride will flare up and conceive itself to have been insulted. the united[56] englishman who travels for fun has a great idea of his country's power, and resents violently any uncourteous interference with his vagaries. but it is so generally known that the "mad englishman" is all right, and that he won't do any real harm if an eye be kept on him, that such rows seldom end disastrously.
these united tourists often quarrel among themselves, but their quarrels do not come to much. green tells white that brown is the most ill-tempered, evil-minded, cross-grained brute that was ever born, that he thought so before and that now he knows it; that he was a fool to come abroad with such a beast, and that he was absolutely, finally, and irrevocably resolved that never, under any circumstances, will he speak to the man again. the party will be broken up, but he cannot help that. there will be difficulty about the division of money, but he cannot help that. yes; it is true that he is fond of brown's sister, but neither can he help that. it has always[57] been his wonder that such a sister should have such a brother. only for mary brown he never would have come abroad with this pig of a fellow. the quarrel while it rages is very hot, and brown tells white that green is the greatest ass under the sun. nevertheless the quarrel is made up before breakfast on the following morning, and the three men go on together without much remembrance of the language which they had used.
i have said that most of us would like to see our sons go out on such parties, and i think that we should be right in sending them. the united englishmen who travel for fun rarely get into much evil. they do not get drunk, nor do they gamble at the public tables. and undoubtedly they learn much, though it seems that they are always averse to learn anything. how education is accomplished or of what it consists, who yet has been able to explain to us? that by far the greater portion of our education is involuntary[58] all men will probably admit. we learn to speak, to walk, to express our emotions, and to control such expression; to be grave and gay, and to understand the necessity of alternating between the two, by copying others unconsciously. we exercise a thousand arts which we do not know how we acquired, and the more we see of the world the more do we learn of such arts,—even though we are not aware of the process. that our friends brown, green, and white might have learned more than they did learn on that tour of theirs, may be true enough; but for all that, they do not come back as empty as they went.
and they have had this merit,—that they have in truth enjoyed what they have done. little clouds there have been,—such as that quarrel between brown and his future brother-in-law; but they have been passing mists which have hardly served to disturb the sunshine of their tour. together they started, together they have been over mountains and through cities, performing feats which,[59] in their own judgments, are little short of marvellous, and together they return at the end of their holiday satisfied with themselves and with the world at large. they have seen pictures and walked through cathedrals; but, above all, they have stood upon the slopes of the hills and have looked at the mountains. they have listened to the little rivers as they tumbled, and have laid their hands upon the edges of mighty rocks; they have smelt the wild thyme as it gave out its fragrance beneath their feet, and have peered wondering through the blue crevasses of the glacier. they have sat in the sweet gloom of the evening and have watched the surface of the lake as it lay beneath them without a ripple, and have waited there till the curtain of night has hid the water from their view. then they have thrown themselves idly on their backs, and have counted the stars in the firmament over their head, wondering at the beauty of the heavens. they have said little perhaps to each other of the romance of such[60] moments, of the poetry, which has filled their hearts; but the romance and the poetry have been there; and they have brought home with them a feeling for beauty which will last them through their lives, in spite of their crumpled hats, their big bludgeons, their short pipes, and their now almost indecent knickerbockers.
