I Travel the Open Road

Various

Description

“I Travel the Open Road” contains a fantastic collection of classic travel writings by a variety of notable authors, including Robert Louis Stevenson, G. K. Chesterton, and others. With pieces covering Europe, Africa, Asia, Russia, and the Americas, this collection offers the reader an insight not only into many different countries around the world, but also into history and the people and places of times past. Highly recommended for lovers of travel writing and discerning collectors of classic literature. Contents include: “Summer in Somerset, by Richard Jefferies”, “Sunday in London, by George W. E. Russell”, “Cambridge as Village and City, by John Fiske”, “The Country-Side: Sussex, by Richard Jefferies”, “Rotterdam, by E. V. Lucas”, “Amsterdam, by E. V. Lucas”, “Antwerp and Brussels, by Charles Bullard Fairbanks”, “Paris, by Charles Bullard Fairbanks”, “Nature in the Louvre, by Richard Jefferies”, etc. Read & Co. Travel is proudly publishing this brand-new collection of classic travel writings for the enjoyment of a new generation.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 08 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528790543
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

I TRAVEL THE OPEN ROAD
CLASSIC WRITINGS OF JOURNEYS TAKEN AROUND THE WORLD
By
VARIOUS





Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Travel
This edition is published by Read & Co. Travel, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose"
"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road."
— Walt Whitman


Contents
TRAVEL
By Arthur Christ opher Benson
EUROPE
SUMMER IN SOMERSET
By Richa rd Jefferies
SUND AY IN LONDON
By George W . E. Russell
CAMBRIDGE AS VILL AGE AND CITY
B y John Fiske
THE COUNTRY- SIDE: SUSSEX
By Richa rd Jefferies
ROTTERDAM
By E. V. Lucas
AMSTERDAM
By E. V. Lucas
ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS
By Charles Bulla rd Fairbanks
PARIS
By Charles Bulla rd Fairbanks
NATURE I N THE LOUVRE
By Richa rd Jefferies
FONTAINEBLEAU: VILLAGE COMMUNITIES OF PAINTERS
By Robert Lou is Stevenson
IN CORSICA
By Mo rley Roberts
A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE : A FRAGMENT
By Robert Lou is Stevenson
ON TH E MATTERHORN
By Mo rley Roberts
EASTER O N LES AVANTS
By Henry William Lucy
ROME
By Lilian Bell
OLD ITA LIAN GARDENS
B y Vernon Lee
GREECE
By Lilian Bell
GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF ATHEN S AND ATTICA
By J . P. Mahaffy
AFRICA
A DAY IN CAPETOWN
By Mo rley Roberts
ALONG TH E EAST COAST
By Richard H arding Davis
JOHANNESBURG AND PRET ORIA IN 1896
By Sarah Isabella Au gusta Wilson
CAIRO
By Lilian Bell
ASIA
THE CASPIAN— ASTARÁ—RÉSHT
By Ha rry De Windt
JOURNE YS TO BAGDAD
By Charl es S. Brooks
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA
By Ida La ura Pfeiffer
LAHORE
By Alex ander Burnes
ONE OF THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD
B y Mary Gaunt
RUSSIA
EUR OPEAN RUSSIA
By Ida La ura Pfeiffer
ST . PETERSBURG
By Lilian Bell
MOS COW MEMORIES
By Isabel Flor ence Hapgood
THE AMERICAS
ARICA TO ILO OVERLAND, VIA TACNA, TARATA, AND MOQUEGUA
By He nry Stephens
EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF RIO JANEIRO
By Ida La ura Pfeiffer
THE OLD PAC IFIC CAPITAL
By Robert Lou is Stevenson
A WEEK IN MENDOCINO
By William Chaun cey Bartlett
OLD STOCKBRIDGE IN M ASSACHUSETTS
B y Fanny Fern
INCONGRU OUS NEW YORK
By Joyce Kilmer
SOME AME RICAN CITIES
By G. K . Chesterton




TRAVEL
By Arthur Christopher Benson
There are many motives that impel us to travel, to change our sky, as Horace calls it—good motives and bad, selfish and unselfish, noble and ignoble. With some people it is pure restlessness; the tedium of ordinary life weighs on them, and travel, they think, will distract them; people travel for the sake of health, or for business reasons, or to accompany some one else, or because other people travel. And these motives are neither good nor bad, they are simply sufficient. Some people travel to enlarge their minds, or to write a book; and the worst of travelling for such reasons is that it so often implants in the traveller, when he returns, a desperate desire to enlarge other people's minds too. Unhappily, it needs an extraordinary gift of vivid description and a tactful art of selection to make the reflections of one's travels interesting to other people. It is a great misfortune for biographers that there are abundance of people who are stirred, partly by unwonted leisure and partly by awakened interest, to keep a diary only when they are abroad. These extracts from diaries of foreign travel, which generally pour their muddy stream into a biography on the threshold of the hero's manhood, are things to be resolutely skipped. What one desires in a biography is to see the ordinary texture of a man's life, an account of his working days, his normal hours; and to most people the normal current of their lives appears so commonplace and uninteresting that they keep no record of it; while they often keep an elaborate record of their impressions of foreign travel, which are generally superficial and picturesque, and remarkably like the impressions of all other intelligent people. A friend of mine returned the other day from an American tour, and told me that he received a severe rebuke, out of the mouth of a babe, which cured him of expatiating on his experiences. He lunched with his brother soon after his return, and was holding forth with a consciousness of brilliant descriptive emphasis, when his eldest nephew, aged eight, towards the end of the meal, laid down his spoon and fork, and said piteously to his mother, "Mummy, I MUST talk; it does make me so tired to hear Uncle going on like that." A still more effective rebuke was administered by a clever lady of my acquaintance to a cousin of hers, a young lady who had just returned from India, and was very full of her experiences. The cousin had devoted herself during breakfast to giving a lively description of social life in India, and was preparing to spend the morning in continuing her lecture, when the elder lady slipped out of the room, and returned with some sermon-paper, a blotting-book, and a pen. "Maud," she said, "this is too good to be lost: you must write it all down, every word!" The projected manuscript did not come to very much, but the lesson was not thrown away.
Perhaps, for most people, the best results of travel are that they return with a sense of grateful security to the familiar scene: the monotonous current of life has been enlivened, the old relationships have gained a new value, the old gossip is taken up with a comfortable zest; the old rooms are the best, after all; the homely language is better than the outlandish tongue; it is a comfort to have done with squeezing the sponge and cramming the trunk: it is good to be at home.
But to people of more cultivated and intellectual tastes there is an abundance of good reasons for the pursuit of impressions. It is worth a little fatigue to see the spring sun lie softly upon the unfamiliar foliage, to see the delicate tints of the purple-flowered Judas-tree, the bright colours of Southern houses, the old high-shouldered chateau blinking among its wooded parterres; it is pleasant to see mysterious rites conducted at tabernacled altars, under dark arches, and to smell the "thick, strong, stupefying incense-smoke"; to see well-known pictures in their native setting, to hear the warm waves of the canal lapping on palace-stairs, with the exquisite moulded cornice overhead. It gives one a strange thrill to stand in places rich with dim associations, to stand by the tombs of heroes and saints, to see the scenes made familiar by art or history, the homes of famous men. Such travel is full of weariness and disappointment. The place one had desired half a lifetime to behold turns out to be much like other places, devoid of inspiration. A tiresome companion casts dreariness as from an inky cloud upon the mind. Do I not remember visiting the Palatine with a friend bursting with archaeological information, who led us from room to room, and identified all by means of a folding plan, to find at the conclusion that he had begun at the wrong end, and that even the central room was not identified correctly, because the number of rooms was even, and not odd?
But, for all that, there come blessed unutterable moments, when the mood and the scene and the companion are all attuned in a soft harmony. Such moments come back to me as I write. I see the mouldering brickwork of a crumbling tomb all overgrown with grasses and snapdragons, far out in the Campagna; or feel the plunge of the boat through the reed-beds of the Anapo, as we slid into the silent pool of blue water in the heart of the marsh, where the sand danced at the bottom, and the springs bubbled up, while a great bittern flew booming away from a reedy pool hard by. Such things are worth paying a heavy price for, because they bring a sort of aerial distance into the mind, they touch the spirit with a hope that the desire for beauty and perfection is not, after all, wholly unrealisable, but that there is a sort of treasure to be found even upon earth, if one diligently goes in s earch of it.
Of one thing, however, I am quite certain, and that is that travel should not be a feverish garnering of impressions, but a delicious and leisurely plunge into a different atmosphere. It is better to visit few places, and to become at home in each, than to race from place to place, guide-book in hand. A beautiful scene does not yield up its secrets to the eye of the collector. What one wants is not definite impressions but indefinite influences. It is of little use to enter a church, unless one tries to worship there, because the essence of the place is worship, and only through worship can the secret of the shrine be apprehended. It is of little use to survey a landscape, u