FROM LUXURY TO HUNGER
Recollections of a jail sentence in the Pantheon were enough to make any man leave town. The next morning I was riding through northern France gazing at the beautiful fields and gently rolling hills from the window of a third-class coach. I was bound for London. At Calais I filed by the immigration officials with the rest of the third-class passengers before I was allowed on board the ship sailing for Dover. This is an indignity which the American tourist who travels first- or second-class does not have to undergo.
The soft outline of England's shore appeared through the mist of the channel, and as I stood on the deck of the steamer I turned over in my mind the fact that my trip would soon be over. A few weeks' roaming in the British Isles and I thought I would be on my way across the Atlantic. But with a foot-loose traveller anything is likely to happen—and England proved no exception in having a surprise for me which upset my vague plans and entirely changed my course.
It is only a few hours from Dover to London and the road passes through picturesque country scenery. The green fields and meadows, the fat, wholesome sheep, peaceably grazing, the quaint windmills and zig-zag fences and the substantial village houses all made me fall in love with England at once. At dusk I was one of London's seven million. I was now in a land where the people speak a language I had not used very much for some time, and where I would be able to make myself understood without using my hands. I could also eat in almost true American style. England is the only country in Europe where one can get a real breakfast. It was certainly a pleasure to sit down to a bowl of porridge, bacon and eggs and even pancakes after the monotonous rolls and coffee, and occasional jam, of the continent.
That evening I sat in a comfortable arm-chair before a cheerful fire, in a cozy dormitory study of Lincoln College, Oxford. I was the guest of a California friend, an undergraduate of the University. It was a bit of luxury that I thought I had well earned and I looked forward with pleasure to a week of rest and comfort, which I badly needed after my illness in Paris. I felt that such a rest would put me in proper physical trim for resuming my travels.
For seven days I led the life of a plutocrat. I could hardly believe it. I arose each morning at nine o'clock and climbed into a tub of hot water, prepared by a servant; then (among other articles) into a pair of shoes polished by the same individual. After breakfast, served in my room, I would take a stroll about the college grounds with an English cap on my head, a brier pipe in my mouth and a walking stick in my hand.
Oxford is an ideal place in which to take the rest cure. Beside its academic atmosphere, which one feels immediately, the historic buildings of the several colleges with their graceful spires and sacred associations, the miles of green turf fields for sport and the winding river languidly pursuing its course among the drooping elms, made a scene to which it is easy to become passionately attached, and one in which I lost myself, or rather found myself, completely. Such environment would cure the most helpless invalid. It made a new being of me.
In the afternoon I would watch a game of football, hockey or tennis. I was much impressed by the universality of sport in England, and especially at Oxford. All the students take part in some form of athletics, and the University has provided dozens of hockey, cricket and football fields in addition to many boat houses and facilities for rowing and water sports. I attended the four hundredth meeting of the Davenant Society, a literary organisation of Lincoln College undergraduates, and heard a paper read by the Rev. Dr. Carlyle on William Morris. The members of the society took part in a free discussion of the subject afterwards and many admirable impromptu speeches were made. I heard a debate on Socialism in the Oxford Union, one of the speakers for the negative being a Hindu student. It was the close of the University term and several of the students were giving celebrations in their rooms. I was a guest at one of these at which the most striking feature was—to me—the large number of empty bottles that were lined up in rows on the centre-table at the close of the function. I was told that this room had been occupied by John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Society, when he was an Oxford undergraduate!
In the chapel of Magdalen College I heard the famous male choir, probably the best in England. I called, one afternoon, on the Cowley fathers—or Society of Saint John the Evangelist, a monastic order of the Church of England—at their mother house in Cowley, a suburb of Oxford. I visited the village of Iffley and saw the ancient church of Saint Mary the Virgin. This edifice is one of the few Norman churches in England, and is a typical example of the twelfth-century village church. I got an insight into English home life by making a trip to Shipton-under-Wychwood to visit relatives of a friend in America. Shipton-under-Wychwood is a representative English village of about eight hundred souls, with an ancient parish church, squire's court and park, and many quaint old English homes. My host lived in a substantial old house with the proper quota of servants. Everything was carried on with, what seemed to an American, an undue amount of ceremony. These good people shunned all modern conveniences, such as telephones, electric lights, and up-to-date plumbing appliances, considering them vulgar and commonplace.