One pleasant incident followed another in quick succession during our triumphant procession over the northern Atlantic, and all the powers which control the temper of the ocean were most kind and generous to us, just as our fair oracle had prophesied it. When the cliffs of Scotland hove in sight, reminding us that our voyage was approaching its end, there was no thrill of joy such as there was when the immigrant ship, which first took me into New York harbor, approached the Long Island coast. Not even the countless sea-gulls which gracefully circled around the black cliffs, and with their shrill notes welcomed us to the hospitable shores of Scotland, were able to dispel the gloom which the sight of land produced among the members of Neptune’s table. Nobody in our congenial company seemed to be anxious to say good-by to the good old ship and to the golden atmosphere of the sweet-tempered Atlantic. Most of them had never crossed the Atlantic before, and since the voyage was practically over I thought that there was no harm in describing to them some of the terrors of the Atlantic, which I had experienced when I crossed it nine years before. The pictures of those experiences were like the pictures from another world, and not from the same Atlantic which thrilled us with its sunshine, twilight, phosphorescent glows, and glorious streamers of the northern lights. The comparison between my wretched fellow passengers on the storm-tossed immigrant ship and the radiant company on the ship which brought us to Scotland afforded me a splendid opportunity to thank Father Neptune for permitting me to join his beautiful court. His favor, I said, was almost as great as the favor of the immigrant officials at Castle Garden, who had allowed me to land with only five cents in my pocket. The professor complimented me upon my word pictures which showed the glaring contrasts between the two voyages, and then he referred to two pictures which, he said, he had in his mind. They also showed, he said, in glaring contrasts, the difference between a certain youngster on the immigrant ship to which I referred, and a Columbia College graduate, who had contributed his share to the comfort and happiness of Neptune’s court. When he suggested that he would give much to be with me when I met my mother, and that he wondered whether she would recognize me, my young friends suggested, quite seriously, that they would all go to Idvor if I joined them in their continental tour. I replied that their tour was along a meandering line through the great places of Europe, whereas mine was a straight line from Greenock to little Idvor, so little that it cannot be found on any map.
There was just one thing which delayed my straight-line journey to Idvor. A visit to Cambridge was necessary in order to arrange for my work at this university during the coming academic year, and I lost no time in reaching it. The sight of the Firth of Clyde, with its wonderfully green slopes, of Greenock, of Glasgow, and even of London made feeble impressions. My mind was centred upon one thought only: the speedy return to Idvor. This also explains why my first sight of Cambridge impressed me much less than my first sight of Princeton when, eight years before, I had enjoyed my loaf of bread under an elm-tree in front of Nassau Hall. F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, had given me a letter of introduction to Oscar Browning, a fellow of King’s College; and George Rives, the late chairman of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University, had given me a letter to W. D. Niven, a fellow of Trinity College. Rives, after graduating at Columbia College, won a prize scholarship in classics at Trinity College, and gained there many scholastic honors.
The man at the ancient gate of King’s College informed me that Mr. Oscar Browning was away on his summer vacation. At Trinity College I had better luck, and the man at the still more ancient gate of Trinity College took me to Mr. Niven, who reminded me much of Professor Merriam, the great Greek scholar of Columbia College; the same kindly expression of a most intelligent face, and the same gentle light from two thoughtful eyes. As I looked into his eyes I felt that I was catching a glimpse of a world full of those beautiful things which make life worth living. I informed Niven that I wished to come to Cambridge and study under Professor James Clerk Maxwell, the creator of the new electrical theory. Niven looked puzzled and asked me who had told me of this new theory, and when I mentioned Rutherfurd, he asked me what Rutherfurd had told me about it. “That it will probably give a satisfactory answer to the question: ‘What is Light?’” I answered, and watched for his reaction. “Did not Mr. Rutherfurd tell you that Clerk Maxwell died four years ago?” asked Niven, and when I said no, he asked me whether I had not seen it in the preface to the second edition of Maxwell’s great book which Niven himself had edited. This question embarrassed me, and I confessed frankly that Rutherfurd’s son, my chum Winthrop, had presented me with this book on the day of the sailing of my ship; that it was packed away in my bags; and that I did not have any time to examine it during the voyage, because I was too busy helping to entertain twelve beautiful schoolgirls from Washington, who were making their first trip to Europe. Niven laughed heartily and admitted, jokingly, that twelve beautiful girls from Washington were certainly more attractive than any theory, not excepting even Maxwell’s great electrical theory. He suggested then that I could study at Cambridge under Lord Rayleigh, who had succeeded Maxwell as professor of physics. I declined the suggestion on the ground that I had never heard of Lord Rayleigh before. Niven laughed again, even more heartily than before, and assured me that Lord Rayleigh was a great physicist in spite of the fact that his great fame had never reached my ears. An English lord a great physicist! The idea struck me as strange, but Niven looked so friendly and so sincere that I could not help believing that he really meant what he said. He invited me to lunch, and before we parted I assured him that I would come back to Cambridge in the following October and place myself under his guidance.
This conference with Niven sobered me up very considerably; it convinced me that my great aspiration and my small preparation in physics were far from being of the same order of magnitude. I confessed to Niven that my success in winning prizes in science at Columbia College had led to my belief that I knew more physics than I really did. “Confession is a splendid thing for the soul,” said Niven, and added: “But do not permit that anything I have said dampen your courage. A physicist needs courage, and few mortals were braver than Maxwell. The world knows only a little of his great electrical theory, but it knows even less of his great moral courage.” He gave me a copy of Campbell’s life of Maxwell; I read it from cover to cover before I left London, and it contributed much to the learning which I had promised to bring to Idvor. It certainly convinced me that Maxwell had a vastly better knowledge of physics when he graduated at Cambridge than I had picked up at Columbia. That gave me much healthy food for serious thought.
A straight line from London to Idvor passes through Switzerland, and I proposed to follow that line in my journey as closely as practicable. My ticket took me from London to Lucerne directly; the journey from Lucerne to Idvor I left undetermined until I reached Lucerne. I had no time nor inclination to explore the wonders of London, Paris, or of any other great place in Europe before I had seen Idvor again. Mother, Idvor, and Maxwell’s new electrical theory had brought me to Europe, and I wished to see them as soon as possible, and in the order named; everything else could wait. Besides, I sincerely believed that these places had little to offer to a fellow like me, who knew the great things of New York. I was much disposed to look down upon things in Europe, a mental attitude which is not uncommon among American immigrants when they go back to pay a temporary visit to Europe. I had it quite strongly, but sobering experiences like the conference with Niven in Cambridge helped me to apply suitable correction factors to this mental attitude. The following brief description of one of these experiences bears upon this point.
The London-Lucerne train crossed the Franco-Swiss frontier very early in the morning, somewhere near Neuchâtel. The delay necessary for the rearrangement of the train gave the passengers ample time to enjoy their breakfast in the garden of the station restaurant. A look to the east caught a sight which made me almost forget my breakfast. The distant snow-covered Alps, bathed in the early sunshine and projected against the background of the luminous blue sky of a July morning, furnished a picture never to be forgotten. I had never seen the Alps before, and this first view of them was of overpowering beauty. An Englishman, a fellow traveller, sitting opposite me at the breakfast-table, noticed my mental exaltation, and asked: “You have never seen the Alps before, have you?” “No,” said I. “Oh, what a lucky lad you are!” said the Englishman, adding that he would give much to be in my place. He confessed that he had to climb the peaks of the Alps in order to get those thrills which in former days, when he was of my age, he got by looking at them from the valleys below. At his suggestion we continued our journey to Lucerne in the same compartment, and the stories of his climbing exploits stirred up mightily my imagination, which was already throbbing under the inspiration of the Alpine view which had greeted me that morning. When I informed him that I was in a hurry to reach my native village of Idvor, otherwise I might try some climbing myself, he assured me that a ten days’ delay in Lucerne would suffice to prepare me for climbing one of the lesser peaks, and he mentioned Titlis, not far from Lucerne. He prescribed the training which would provide me with sufficiently steady Alpine legs. From the peak of the Titlis, he said, I could see old Switzerland where the famous legend was born which relates how Tell drove the fear of God into the hearts of the Austrians. I always loved that legend, perhaps because I did not love the Austrian tyrants. When the train had reached Lucerne I saw the wonderful Alpine panorama spread out like an amphitheatre of snow-covered Alpine peaks around its deep-blue lake, and I knew that in spite of my great haste to reach Idvor I would not leave this fairy-land before I had reached the snow-covered peak of Titlis.
I immediately hired a rowboat for a week, and, clad in a rowing shirt with blue and white Columbia stripes and thin tennis trousers, I spent that afternoon exploring the beauty spots of the meandering shore of the historic lake. The joy of rowing and the busy rays of the July sun made me yield to the invitation of the clear waters of the lake to plunge in and hug the waves, which once upon a time carried Tell to safety after he had sent his arrow through the heart of the Austrian tyrant, Gessler. As if imitating the example of Tell, I jumped in just as I was, trusting that subsequent rowing and the sun would dry my scanty attire, and they did. A glorious feeling of freedom from all earthly restraints came over me as, floating on my back, I beheld the blue sky above and the snow-covered peaks around me. It was the same sky and the same luminous peaks, I thought, which five hundred years before saw William Tell chase away the Austrian tyrants from the historic cantons surrounding the lake; from Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. I felt that I was floating in the very cradle where real freedom first saw the light of day. No other spot on earth was more worthy of that immortal fame. My admiration for it never faded after that memorable July afternoon. Europe rose in my estimation; I was much less inclined to look down upon things European.
The next day I was up very early, feeling “as a strong man ready to run a race,” the same feeling which I had experienced at Castle Garden when, nine years before, I woke up early in the morning and hurried off to catch my first glimpse of the great American metropolis. I was just as anxious to hurry off and catch from some mountain-top my first glimpse of Switzerland. Mindful of the suggestions of my English acquaintance on the train, I started with the easiest climb, the Rigi Culm. It is a very easy effort, but I made it difficult by rowing first some ten miles to Weggis, going up to the Rigi and walking down, and then rowing back to Lucerne again on the same day, in the waning hours of the afternoon. An unexpected squall upset my boat, and I had quite a struggle to get back to Lucerne, very late in the evening. The hotel proprietor noticed my mussed-up appearance, but said nothing, seeing that I was not in a communicative mood.