CHAPTER PAGE
IBARFLEUR TAKES ME IN HAND[3]
IIMISS X.[16]
IIIAT FISHGUARD[24]
IVSERVANTS AND POLITENESS[32]
VTHE RIDE TO LONDON[37]
VITHE BARFLEUR FAMILY[47]
VIIA GLIMPSE OF LONDON[57]
VIIIA LONDON DRAWING-ROOM[66]
IXCALLS[72]
XSOME MORE ABOUT LONDON[77]
XITHE THAMES[89]
XIIMARLOWE[95]
XIIILILLY: A GIRL OF THE STREETS[113]
XIVLONDON; THE EAST END[128]
XVENTER SIR SCORP[136]
XVIA CHRISTMAS CALL[148]
XVIISMOKY ENGLAND[171]
XVIIISMOKY ENGLAND (continued)[180]
XIXCANTERBURY[188]
XXEN ROUTE TO PARIS[198]
XXIPARIS![211]
XXIIA MORNING IN PARIS[225]
XXIIITHREE GUIDES[238]
XXIV“THE POISON FLOWER”[247]
XXVMONTE CARLO[255]
XXVITHE LURE OF GOLD![264]
XXVIIWE GO TO EZE[275]
XXVIIINICE[288]
XXIXA FIRST GLIMPSE OF ITALY[295]
XXXA STOP AT PISA[306]
XXXIFIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME[315]
XXXIIMRS. Q. AND THE BORGIA FAMILY[327]
XXXIIITHE ART OF SIGNOR TANNI[337]
XXXIVAN AUDIENCE AT THE VATICAN[345]
XXXVTHE CITY OF ST. FRANCIS[354]
XXXVIPERUGIA[365]
XXXVIITHE MAKERS OF FLORENCE[371]
XXXVIIIA NIGHT RAMBLE IN FLORENCE[380]
XXXIXFLORENCE OF TO-DAY[387]
XLMARIA BASTIDA[398]
XLIVENICE[409]
XLIILUCERNE[415]
XLIIIENTERING GERMANY[424]
XLIVA MEDIEVAL TOWN[437]
XLVMY FATHER’S BIRTHPLACE[449]
XLVITHE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT[454]
XLVIIBERLIN[462]
XLVIIITHE NIGHT-LIFE OF BERLIN[474]
XLIXON THE WAY TO HOLLAND[486]
LAMSTERDAM[494]
LI“SPOTLESS TOWN”[501]
LIIPARIS AGAIN[507]
LIIITHE VOYAGE HOME[515]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Piccadilly Circus[Frontispiece]
FACING
PAGE
I saw Mr. G. conversing with Miss E.[8]
One of those really interesting conversations between Barfleur and Miss X.[20]
“I like it,” he pronounced. “The note is somber, but it is excellent work”[70]
Hoped for the day when the issue might be tried out physically[74]
Here the Thames was especially delightful[90]
Barfleur[156]
The French have made much of the Seine[228]
One of the thousands upon thousands of cafés on the boulevards of Paris[236]
These places were crowded with a gay and festive throng[244]
I looked to a distant table to see the figure he indicated[252]
“My heavens, how well she keeps up!”[290]
I sated myself on the house fronts or backs below the Ponte Vecchio[384]
There can only be one Venice[404]
A German dance hall, Berlin[464]
Teutonic bursts of temper[482]

A TRAVELER AT FORTY

CHAPTER I
BARFLEUR TAKES ME IN HAND

I have just turned forty. I have seen a little something of life. I have been a newspaper man, editor, magazine contributor, author and, before these things, several odd kinds of clerk before I found out what I could do.

Eleven years ago I wrote my first novel, which was issued by a New York publisher and suppressed by him, Heaven knows why. For, the same year they suppressed my book because of its alleged immoral tendencies, they published Zola’s “Fecundity” and “An Englishwoman’s Love Letters.” I fancy now, after eleven years of wonder, that it was not so much the supposed immorality, as the book’s straightforward, plain-spoken discussion of American life in general. We were not used then in America to calling a spade a spade, particularly in books. We had great admiration for Tolstoi and Flaubert and Balzac and de Maupassant at a distance—some of us—and it was quite an honor to have handsome sets of these men on our shelves, but mostly we had been schooled in the literature of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Charles Lamb and that refined company of English sentimental realists who told us something about life, but not everything. No doubt all of these great men knew how shabby a thing this world is—how full of lies, make-believe, seeming and false pretense it all is, but they had agreed among themselves, or with the public, or with sentiment generally, not to talk about that too much. Books were always to be built out of facts concerning “our better natures.” We were always to be seen as we wish to be seen. There were villains to be sure—liars, dogs, thieves, scoundrels—but they were strange creatures, hiding away in dark, unconventional places and scarcely seen save at night and peradventure; whereas we, all clean, bright, honest, well-meaning people, were living in nice homes, going our way honestly and truthfully, going to church, raising our children believing in a Father, a Son and a Holy Ghost, and never doing anything wrong at any time save as these miserable liars, dogs, thieves, et cetera, might suddenly appear and make us. Our books largely showed us as heroes. If anything happened to our daughters it was not their fault but the fault of these miserable villains. Most of us were without original sin. The business of our books, our church, our laws, our jails, was to keep us so.