If there is an American who does not hate royalty, nobility, and aristocracy, in no matter what form they come to view, he either wants to be an aristocrat himself, or is grossly ignorant of what this triplet of infamy means. If there is an American who does not sympathize with the common people of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, he is either a heartless man or does not know the condition of the laboring classes of that unhappy Empire. And if there is an American who reads these pages, and does not from this time out, make politics just as much a part of his business as planting his crops, that American does not know what is good for him. Government is the most important matter on this earth. Good or bad government makes the difference between nobility-ridden England and free America.
CHAPTER XXX.
PARIS TO GENEVA
FROM Ireland with its woes, Ireland with its oppressions, through England, the world’s oppressor, to Paris, and from Paris to Switzerland—that was the route our party took; not so much because it was consecutive or in order, but because the whim so to do seized us. We were out to see, and to us all countries that were to be seen were alike of interest. We spent a few more days in Paris—everybody wants to spend a few more days in Paris—and then turned our reluctant faces southward.
A dismal, gloomy night; the fine, penetrating rain, cold and disagreeable, that chills the very marrow, half hides the dimly burning gas-lights, and makes the streets utterly forlorn. The belated pedestrian bends his head to the blast and hurries along, eager to reach the cozy room where the gloom that pervades everything out of doors cannot penetrate. The cabs roll along the stony pavements with a dead, metallic sound that adds to the general dreariness.
Everything and everybody is depressed.
So it was when the train drew out of the dimly lighted station in Paris, and plunged into the unfathomable gloom and darkness of the country beyond.
Wonderful invention—this railroad! and never so wonderful as at night. The mariner has his compass to guide him—the engine-driver has the rail. You go to sleep, or try to, in Paris; you wake in Switzerland. It makes reality of the magic carpet in the “Arabian Night’s Tales.”
Though the coarse, stuffy compartment afforded no pleasure, the dull roar of the train as it sped on through the driving storm lulled the senses, gave our memory full sway; gradually