San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-07-13
Old Modes of Travel and New.

have been designed for the transfer Of
grain and cattle. Only mediate a mo-
meat, and perceive what good times
these lightning trains have utterly abol-
ished. When that Bible youth set out
to go to the home of a certain girl
whom he knew, he was not whirled
along toward her at the rate Of 40 miles
an hour, to jump out Of sleeping-car
at last, poisoned by bad air and half
blind with headache, and thus to meet
her whom his heart had loved before it
had been SO badly shaken up, but, on
the beautifully opposite, that Old Tesla
ment soul journeyed along at perfect
leisure on foot, and had glorious visions
on the way Of palm-trees and of colored
birds, and had full communion all along
with the gentle spirit that was dwelling
at the other end of the route. He car
ried no timetable in his pocket. There
was no red check in his hat. No one
came to his beating heart every half
hour to propose to him the purchase, of
an old magazine, or some peanuts, or
some wonder in vegetable ivory. In
deed, all Nature favored his meditations
and his wanderings. When at last he
found the girl, just coming out to
great well in the open fields, and went
joyfully toward the beauty, and, as the
Bible says, kissed her, and then wept
for perfect delight, he composed a pic
ture of happy travel which no Erie or
Manchester Railroad can ever equal.
No cultivated lover, after reading that
sacred story, could of free choice make
a locomotive his companion and could
kiss his Rachel at q depot. -uorT
All through the classic ages, what
good times had all those who made
their little visits and tours on horse or
on foot! They never were in the fuss
of a hurry. They chatted by the way;
and when night came the company be-
came chatters and story-tellers, and af-
ter awhile sound sleepersin good beds.
Their train did not leave at a. m. pa %
Much in literature has come to us
from the old modes of travel. From
Homer to Hawthorne, the beloved books
have been full of the wonders and ro-
mances and speculations born out of the
old modes of roaming. The wanderings
of Ulysses and of Eneas, the Canter-
bury Tales, Don Quixote, the novels Of
Scott, Gil Bias, Froissart are some Of
the names which will recall the fact that
the old literature was deeply affected by
the old modes of going and hating.
The Wilhelm Meister assures us
that when the world made
short Journeys each day and
had no sleeping. car at night, but
unpacked and unbent at a wayside inn,
the heart found as much happiness and
the intellect as much food as those two
hungry passions can find even on a train
which has hotel-car attachment. 1t
would often have been well for Wilhelm
Meister if he could have been placed in
even freight-car and been whirled
away rapidly from his travelling theater
and pretty faces; but, after making a
few of these special exceptions, it must
be confessed that the old mode of travel
had its immense merit and its prodig-
ious fun.
In the olden times, when scholars,
philosophers, lords, ladies, and even
kings and queens, moved around on
horse or foot, each farmhouse was open
for guests at nightfall or in case of a
storm, for there was no danger that the
guests would be a tramp or q band of
tramps; but an absolute certainty exist
ed that they would be party that could
play and dance and sing and perhaps
eat and drink well. All German and
French students set apart for travel the
year or two after graduation. This
travel implies wandering over Europe
on foot. Health, happiness, and inform
alton came by it. TIL is large class o
the better sort the railway now whirls
from one hotel to another, and leaves
us to suppose that the man in the high
way is vagabond or criminal. No
body stops now at the farmhouse ex-
cept the tramp or the lightning-rod
agent. r sHe r ..l
Thus might some one bring action
against the railway system for damage
done to old forms of human happiness
and to old forms of literature. We can
have no more " Tales " of the traveller.
All that meeting of students and doc
tors and barnists and ladies and lovers