Consolations in Travel; or, the Last Days of a Philosopher

by Sir Humphry Davy

In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of pleasure and hope. It was to me as the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field of every species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis of the world of business, thought, and action. There I was sure to find the friends and companions of my youth, to hear the voice of encouragement and praise. There, society of the most refined kind offered daily its banquets to the mind with such variety that satiety had no place in them, and new objects of interest and ambition were constantly exciting attention either in politics, literature, or science.

I now entered this great city in a very different tone of mind—one of settled melancholy; not merely produced by the mournful event which recalled me to my country, but owing, likewise, to an entire change in the condition of my physical, moral, and intellectual being. My health was gone, my ambition was satisfied, I was no longer excited by the desire of distinction; what I regarded most tenderly was in the grave, and, to take a metaphor derived from the change produced by time in the juice of the grape, my cup of life was no longer sparkling, sweet, and effervescent;—it had lost its sweetness without losing its power, and it had become bitter.

After passing a few months in England and enjoying (as much as I could enjoy anything) the society of the few friends who still remained alive, the desire of travel again seized me. I had preserved amidst the wreck of time one feeling strong and unbroken: the love of natural scenery; and this, in advanced life, formed a principal motive for my plans of conduct and

action. Of all the climates of Europe, England seems to me most fitted for the activity of the mind, and the least suited to repose. The alterations of a climate so various and rapid continually awake new sensations; and the changes in the sky from dryness to moisture, from the blue ethereal to cloudiness and fogs, seem to keep the nervous system in a constant state of disturbance. In the mild climate of Nice, Naples, or Sicily, where even in winter it is possible to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine in the open air, beneath palm trees or amidst evergreen groves of orange trees covered with odorous fruit and sweet-scented leaves, mere existence is a pleasure, and even the pains of disease are sometimes forgotten amidst the balmy influence of nature, and a series of agreeable and uninterrupted sensations invite to repose and oblivion. But in the changeful and tumultuous atmosphere of England, to be tranquil is a labour, and employment is necessary to ward off the attacks of ennui. The English as a nation is pre-eminently active, and the natives of no other country follow their objects with so much force, fire, and constancy. And, as human powers are limited, there are few examples of very distinguished men living in this country to old age: they usually fail, droop, and die before they have attained the period naturally marked for the end of human existence. The lives of our statesmen, warriors, poets, and even philosophers offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion; whatever burns, consumes—ashes remain. Before the period of youth is passed, grey hairs usually cover those brows which are adorned with the civic oak or the laurel; and in the luxurious and exciting life of the man of pleasure, their tints are not even preserved by

the myrtle wreath or the garland of roses from the premature winter of time.

In selecting the scenes for my new journey I was guided by my former experience. I know no country more beautiful than that which may be called the Alpine country of Austria, including the Alps of the southern Tyrol, those of Illyria, the Noric and the Julian Alps, and the Alps of Styria and Salzburg. The variety of the scenery, the verdure of the meadows and trees, the depths of the valleys, the altitude of the mountains, the clearness and grandeur of the rivers and lakes give it, I think, a decided superiority over Switzerland; and the people are far more agreeable. Various in their costumes and manners, Illyrians, Italians, or Germans, they have all the same simplicity of character, and are all distinguished by their love of their country, their devotion to their sovereign, the warmth and purity of their faith, their honesty, and (with very few exceptions) I may say their great civility and courtesy to strangers.

In the prime of life I had visited this region in a society which afforded me the pleasures of intellectual friendship and the delights of refined affection; later I had left the burning summer of Italy and the violence of an unhealthy passion, and had found coolness, shade, repose, and tranquillity there; in a still more advanced period I had sought for and found consolation, and partly recovered my health after a dangerous illness, the consequence of labour and mental agitation; there I had found the spirit of my early vision. I was desirous, therefore, of again passing some time in these scenes in the hope of re-establishing a broken constitution; and though this hope was a feeble one, yet at

least I expected to spend a few of the last days of life more tranquilly and more agreeably than in the metropolis of my own country. Nature never deceives us. The rocks, the mountains, the streams always speak the same language. A shower of snow may hide the verdant woods in spring, a thunderstorm may render the blue limpid streams foul and turbulent; but these effects are rare and transient: in a few hours or at least days all the sources of beauty are renovated. And Nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such as depend upon the constitution of humanity; no hopes for ever blighted in the bud; no beings full of life, beauty, and promise taken from us in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and sweet; she affords none of those blighted ones so common in the life of man and so like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea—fresh and beautiful to the sight, but when tasted full of bitterness and ashes. I have already mentioned the strong effect produced on my mind by the stranger whom I had met so accidentally at Pæstum; the hope of seeing him again was another of my motives for wishing to leave England, and (why, I know not) I had a decided presentiment that I was more likely to meet him in the Austrian states than in England, his own country.

For this journey I had one companion, an early friend and medical adviser. He had lived much in the world, had acquired a considerable fortune, had given up his profession, was now retired, and sought, like myself, in this journey repose of mind and the pleasures derived from natural scenery. He was a man of a very powerful and acute understanding, but had less of the poetical temperament than any person whom I had ever

known with similar vivacity of mind. He was a severe thinker, with great variety of information, an excellent physiologist, and an accomplished naturalist. In his reasonings he adopted the precision of a geometer, and was always upon his guard against the influence of imagination. He had passed the meridian of life, and his health was weak, like my own, so that we were well suited as travelling companions, moving always slowly from place to place without hurry or fatigue. I shall call this friend Eubathes. I will say nothing of the progress of our journey through France and Germany; I shall dwell only upon that part of it which has still a strong interest for me, and where events occurred that I shall never forget. We passed into the Alpine country of Austria by Lintz, on the Danube, and followed the course of the Traun to Gmünden, on the Traun See or lake of the Traun, where we halted for some days. If I were disposed to indulge in minute picturesque descriptions I might occupy hours with details of the various characters of the enchanting scenery in this neighbourhood. The vales have that pastoral beauty and constant verdure which is so familiar to us in England, with similar enclosures and hedge-rows and fruit and forest trees. Above are noble hills planted with beeches and oaks. Mountains bound the view, here covered with pines and larches, there raising their marble crests capped with eternal snows above the clouds. The lower part of the Traun See is always, even in the most rainy season, perfectly pellucid; and the Traun pours out of it over ledges of rocks a large and magnificent river, beautifully clear and of the purest tint of the beryl. The fall of the Traun, about ten miles below Gmünden, was one of our