That this man is making a great mistake is certain enough, but it is a mistake to which he is driven by erroneous public utterances on the subject. It is not true, in fact, that he is in any way disgraced by his ignorance of French; but it is true that he has so been told by those who write and those who talk upon the matter. To speak French well is a great advantage and a charming grace. Not to speak it at all is a great disadvantage, but it is no disgrace. Circumstances with many have not given them opportunity of learning the language; and others have no aptitude for acquiring a foreign tongue. There is no disgrace in this. But there is very deep disgrace in the consciousness of deceit on the subject,—in the self-knowledge possessed by the unfortunate one that he desires to be supposed capable of doing that which he cannot do. It is from this that he becomes sore; and how terribly common are the instances of such soreness!
From year to year we see in our guide-books and volumes of travel the silly boastings which drive silly men and women into this difficulty. Those who inform us how we should travel continually speak to us as though German and Italian were known to most of us, and talking French was as common with us as eating and drinking. But to talk French well is not common to Englishmen; it is in truth a rare accomplishment. And then these informants, armed, let us hope, with true knowledge on their own parts, jeer most unmercifully at us poor tourists who venture to come abroad in our ignorance. We are ridiculed for our dumbness if we are dumb, and for our efforts at speech if we attempt to speak. And then we are talked at, rather than addressed. The accomplished informant who intends to guide us speaks always to some brother as accomplished as himself, and warns this learned brother against the ignorance of the masses. It is not very long since a distinguished contributor to a very distinguished newspaper advised his readers that an Englishman at Rome should never know another Englishman there; and this warning of Britons against other Britons on the Continent is so common that it has reached us all. It means nothing; or, at any rate, should be taken as meaning nothing. Not one amongst twenty of English men or English women who travel, can travel, or should attempt to travel, after the fashion which is intended to be prescribed by these counsellors. A few among us may so live abroad as to become conversant with the inner life of the people with whom they are dwelling,—to know their houses, their sons and their daughters; to see their habits, to talk with them, eat with them, and quarrel with them; but to do this is not and should not be the object of the vacation tourist; and if the vacation tourist cannot save himself from being made miserable by his guide-books and pretentious informants, because he is unable to do that which he never should have regarded as being within his power, he had certainly better remain at home.
To wander along the shores of lakes, to climb up mountains, to visit cities, to see pictures, and stand amidst the architecture of the old or of the new world, is very good, even though the man who does these things can speak no word out of his own language. To speak another language well is very good also, and to speak another language badly is much better than not to speak it at all. All that is required is that there should be no humbug, no pretence, no insincerity, either as regards self or others. Let him whose foreign vocabulary is very limited use it boldly as far as it will go; and let him acknowledge to himself that he is going to see the outside of things, and not the inside. It is not given to any of us to see the inside of many things. Why be discomforted because you cannot learn the mysteries of Italian life, seeing that in all probability you know nothing of the inner life of the man who lives next door to you at home? There is a whole world close to you which you have not inspected. What do you know of the thoughts and feelings of those who inhabit your own kitchen? But in seeing the outer world, which is open to your eye, there may be great joy, almost happiness,—if you will only look at it with sincerity.
There is another grievance, cognate with this grievance of language, which much troubles some tourists,—a grievance which indeed springs altogether from that lack of language. The money of these unlearned ones will not go so far with them as it would do if they could do their bargaining in French with a fluent tongue. The imperious guide-books have not failed to throw into the teeth of monolingual travellers their disadvantages in this respect, and to do all that lay in their power to add a further heavy misery on this head to the other miseries of tourists. No doubt my friend the Italian innkeeper would be more easily pressible—what we generally call more reasonable—in his financial arrangements if you could argue out the question of your bed and supper in good Tuscan; but in this matter, as in all others, you must pay for that which you have not got, and cut your coat according to your cloth. Are you going to be miserable because you, who have to pay your railway fares, cannot travel as cheaply as your friend who has a free ticket wherever he goes? A free ticket is a nice thing; but not having one, you must pay your fare.
But there are other sources of unhappiness, independent of those arising from language, which go far towards robbing the English tourist of the pleasure he has anticipated. He always attempts to do too much, and in his calculations as to space and time forgets that his body is human and that his powers of endurance are limited. With his Bradshaw in his hand and his map before him, he ignores the need of rest, and lays out for himself a scheme of travelling in which there is no leisure, no repose, no acknowledgment on his own part that even sleep is necessary for him. To do all that can be done for the money is the one great object which he has ever in view; to visit as many cities as may possibly be visited in the time, to have run the length of as many railways as can be brought within the compass of his short six weeks, to tick off the different places one after another on his list, as though it were a duty imperative upon him to see them all, and having seen them, to hurry on to new scenes,—this is his plan of action, and with such a plan of action is it possible that he should like his work? Must it not be a certain result of such travelling that the traveller will have but one source of comfort during his journey, and that that will spring from the blessed remembrance that his labours will have an end?
If I may venture to give two words of advice to those of my fellow-countrymen who travel frequently during their vacations, and who feel on self-examination that they have not hitherto in reality liked their tourings, in those two words I will advise them both to affect less and to perform less. What matters it who knows that you cannot speak two words of French together grammatically? All whom it in the least concerns probably do know it. Be content to speak your two words ungrammatically, or, if that be beyond you, be content not to speak them at all. The mountains and valleys will render themselves to you without French. The pictures on the walls will not twit you with your ignorance. Venus and Apollo could not come to you out of their marble, though they were as many-tongued as Mezzofanti; but they will come to you if you speak to them out of your own heart with such language as is at your ready disposal. But, above all things, take your time in discoursing with these works of nature and these works of art. To be able to be happy and at rest among the mountains is better than a capacity for talking French in saloons.
London: Printed by Smith, Elder and Co., Old Bailey, E.C.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.