The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-10
TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.

TRAVELLERS AND TRAVELLING.
From the " y. 1Tibuqe
OF all the fine things which the always
charming Horatius Flaccus sent down to pos
terity, tkere is none finer than the satire
which describes his journey from Rome to
Brundusium. Very little the poet probably
cared for the quarrels of Octavius and An
tony, as he travelled in the train of Mmcenas,
who went to Brundusium to promote recon-
ciliation. The satire itself is one of the
pleasantest of itineraries full of the sharpest
of observations, and the most good-humored
narrative of little troubles and difficulties;
droll growls at the badness of inns and the
annoyances of fellow-travellers; the biting
of the gnats and the croakings of the frogs;
the rustic humors of the villages: boat travel
and travels by post-chaise, through the unfor-
tunate town mot to be named in verse"
(Equotuticum), through Rubri, Barium,
and Egnatia, until Brundusium at last is
reached. The journey was not very long
one and did not occupy many days; yet there
are few books of modern travel which are
equal in value and interest to this gem of
poem.
The great and long excursions which in
these days railways enable us to make and
which at least suggest the annihilation of
time and space, render the journey of Horace
small by comparison; and yet we should be
thing like the result of his insignificant trip.
Our Travellers it would seem, carry their
eyes in their pockets and only resume them
when the final goal is attained. The main
purpose seems to be to go from point A to
point B as quickly as possible; and the charm
of the feat is not in what it will produce, but
in the thrilling fact that it can be done at all.
Last week whole carload of clergymen
started from Chicago for San Francisco The
al bot, ei,, ,rlN sc
women left Boston for the same destiua-
ton. With q continuous rush, with the
scream of the whistle, eating, drinking,
sleeping each party was hurried along.
All that charm of travel which proceeds
from sense of personal danger, however
slight, will be lost-all the power of en-
durance which is strengthened by suffering,
all that discipline the result of which is
confirmed presence of mind. all those lessons
in quick decision which imminent danger
gives, will be eluded. This is travel with the
moral element left out 1t is no more than
days pleasuring. There is no stuff in it to
vitalize boys book to be read with awe and
wonder by the winters fireside. How would
the best record which could be made of it
compare with the tales of travellers from
Marco Polo to DR.. Kane? The pilgrims to
San Francisco will see ''antres vast and de-
serts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills
progress will be too swift for much observa-
tion, aesthetic or scientific, and the locomotive
has no poetical bowels of mercy. Nor will the
meanderers see any ''cannibals that each other
eat, nor any 'anthropophag," nor yet any
''men whose heads do grow beneath their
shoulders The only possibility of an ad-
venture will be in an accident, and an acci-
dent would spoil all. There will be no man
ners and customs for the travellers to observe,
e ,.,l,
other-and pretty dull work that will be
found after the first day. The Western par
sons will, of necessity, fall back upon
theology and the Boston ladies upon the
Peace Jubilee. Under these circumstances,
| the kindest wish which we can send after the
wayfarers is that they may have fine, natu-
raj, rousing scare from the Indians. Far be
it from us to desire that any clergyman should
be scalped, although a scaped clergyman
! would draw enormous houses, should he sur
vive the operation and return. But group
OF hostile aborigines upon their tough little
| ponies, seen in the distance, might occasion
| an agreeable Utilization of moderate appre-
| hension.
We hope it will not be thought that we
| speak of these excursions with undue levity,
or that we miscalculate their honest value.
The Germans have word the purport of
| which is, ''a dweller in q small town" No
from Boston to San Francisco and back again
without getting great many village notions
| out of his head; and he will begin, however
dimly, to comprehend that the world has
boundaries somewhat wider than he has
heretofore supposed. Mr.. Emerson long
ago, perhaps a little cynically, called travel
! ling ''the fools paradise" and solemnly
assured his disciples that they would find
nothing abroad which they might not
also find at home; and yet Mr. Emer-
sons practice has been somewhat different
from his preaching, since he too in his day
has been a considerable traveller, with the re-
suit of at least one delightful volume Per-
haps if Mr.. Emerson had said that the fool at
home must also be a fool abroad, he would
more nearly have hit the mark The advan-
tage of travel does not consist so much in
what is seen as in the escape from local
grooves, in the collision with different orders
of men, and in absence from the belittling
influence of a nei9hborhood too close for
self-respect and too prone to waste its social
activity in worse than proftless gossip
and chit-chat of the ea-tables-although
! it may be doubted whether this end
will be so we'll promoted when large num-
bers from the same point, and all associates at
home, travel together in a sort of caravan
| for there is dangerin such case that intellec-
lectual habits carried away may be brought
back again, possibly, like the luggage, a little
| the worse for the wear of the expedition.
| But the supreme benefit of the journeying is
in its holiday. 1t is an emancipation of the
! scholar from the volumes which he may be
! either misusing or over-usng; of the man of
merchandise from the slavery of day-book
and ledger; of the clergyman from his con-
! gregation, and of the lawyer from his client;
and it is a temporary liberation of woman