(Ebook) Cambridge English Skills Real Reading 2

with answers by Liz Driscoll ISBN 9780521702041,

9780521745154, 0521702046, 0521745152 download

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-english-skills-real-
reading-2-with-answers-42321018

Explore and download more ebooks at ebooknice.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

(Ebook) Cambridge English Skills Real Reading 1 with answers by Liz

Driscoll ISBN 9780521702027, 052170202X

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-english-skills-real-
reading-1-with-answers-42319382

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason; Viles, James

ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571, 9781925268492, 1459699815,
1743365578, 1925268497

https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

(Ebook) Cambridge English Skills Real Writing 2 With Answers by Graham

Palmer ISBN 9780521701877, 0521701872

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-english-skills-real-
writing-2-with-answers-42352750

(Ebook) Matematik 5000+ Kurs 2c Lärobok by Lena Alfredsson, Hans

Heikne, Sanna Bodemyr ISBN 9789127456600, 9127456609

https://ebooknice.com/product/matematik-5000-kurs-2c-larobok-23848312
(Ebook) Real Writing 3 with Answers ( Cambridge English Skills ) by
Roger Gower ISBN 9780521705929, 0521705924

https://ebooknice.com/product/real-writing-3-with-answers-cambridge-
english-skills-1857566

(Ebook) Cambridge English Skills Real Writing 1 with Answers by Graham

Palmer ISBN 9780521701846, 0521701848

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-english-skills-real-
writing-1-with-answers-42352330

(Ebook) SAT II Success MATH 1C and 2C 2002 (Peterson's SAT II Success)

by Peterson's ISBN 9780768906677, 0768906679

https://ebooknice.com/product/sat-ii-success-
math-1c-and-2c-2002-peterson-s-sat-ii-success-1722018

(Ebook) Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth Study:

the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition by Benjamin Harrison ISBN
9781398375147, 9781398375048, 1398375144, 1398375047

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-history-
workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-edition-53538044

(Ebook) Cambridge English Skills Real Listening & Speaking 4 with

answers by Miles Craven ISBN 9780521705905, 0521705908

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-english-skills-real-listening-
speaking-4-with-answers-43633734
Gontents
Map of the book 4
Acknowledgements 6
-7
Introduction

Un¡ñüf Is tlrerea bank? 10

UmfiüZ Airmail,pleasel 14
'lB
UnltS what'son?
Urafit4 what's in yourluggage? 22
Umfit5 Whereshallwe eatit 26

Umñt6 somewhere
to stay 30
Un¡flt? on top of TabteMorurtain 34
Un¡ñt8 lt's ringing 3B
Umfit9 Don'tworryl 42

UmfiülO what'sinthe news? 46

Umilr:l I I'll checkmy email 50
Rcmewi tr,4

Umfitl2 Is that speltcorrectty? 60

Un¡fit13 Howdo I ioin? 64
Un¡Etl4 At the sportscentre 6B
túmEtl5 I'd tiketo üuorkhere 7)

UmEtl6 Justthelobl 76

Revñew2 BO

Appendices
Appemdkl Usefullangruage 82

Appemdffi2 Learningtips 87

AppemdkO Using a dictionary J1

Answer key 96
 Unit
number Title Topic Howto ,,.

I I$ there a hanle? Shopsandother ó scana textto find particular

piecesof information
se¡vices s find outaboutservices in theareawhereyouarestaying
a readnotices in shopwindows andfindoutexactlywhat
servicesareavailable

2 Airmail, pl€as*! Sending

mail s reada postofficeleafletquicklyto geta generalideaof
abroad whatit isabout
s findtheinformationyouneedto decidewhichisthe
bestwayto sendlettersandpostcards abroad
o find outhowto sendpackets andpackages abroad

3 Vllhat's on? Theatre

and o understanda textwithoutknowingthe meaningof every
cinema word
o reada theatreprogramme andchoose a showyou
wouldliketo see
o reada cinemabrochure,andfindoutaboutpaying for
tickets
andmembership

4 Whaü'sin ycur Handand o findwordswithsimilarmeaningsin a text

Iuggage? checked-in o findoutaboutrestrictions
to yourhandluggage
ru88a8e o decideif youneedto declareanythingat Customs

5 Whereshatrl
we Foodandeating understand
descriptions
of dishesandrecommendaüons,
eát? ouf andchoosewhatyouwouldliketo eat
g
workoutthefunctionof eachsentencein a text
o understand
webrecommendations andchoose a place
to eat

6 Someurhereto Hostel useyourknowledge andexperience

to predict
the
stay accommodation contentof a text
e findoutabouta hostelandwhatit offers
c findtheanswers to frequently
askedquestions

7 On top sf fahle Sightseeing readandfindtheinformation

youneedwithoutfocusing
Mountain on unknownwords
o tryandworkoutthe meaning of unknownwords
findoutaboutanattraction
fromleaflets
aboutit

I It's ringing Telephones s usea chartto makenotesandcomparethings

o choosethe bestmobilephonepackage for yourneeds
c decidehowto payfor callsfroma publicphonebox
 Map of the book

Unit
number TiUe Topic How to .,.

ffisx*'tw*ssleq Firstaidand * identifythe mostimport¿nt partsof sentences

#
accidents * followinstructions
in a firstaidmanual andgivefirstaid
* findoutabouttreatment at Accident andEmergency
(A&E)

$# lfiiBnÉt'$
i* á*:e Newspapers useheadlines to predict
thecontent of newspaper
a¡g¡gr*? articles
understand shortnewspaperarticles
identifywordsthatareusefulto you

dd
E*
X'!$e3ce*3<
rxag Keeping
in touch workoutthemainpurpose of an email
*ra?aáE understand emailabbreviations
and'smileys'
identify
different
typesof emailanddealwiththem

12 Is rhat spelr spellings o identify

Checking BritishEnglish andAmerican
English
spellings
correctly? o addwordsto thecomputels customized
dictionary
o identifu
incorrect
-- - - - spellinss
-r - .-o-

13 How do-Iioin? Usinga library o putthesentences of a textintoyourownwords

o findoutabouta librarywhatyoucanborrowandwhat
youhaveto payfor

14 At the sports Staffnoticeboard o usea varietyof approaches whenreadingtexts

Genüre o readadvertisements on a noticeboard
anddecidewhat
youareinterested in
findoutabouttakingup a newsportandhavinglessons

f5 I'd like fo work Working

in a music usea dictionary
withEnglish
definitions
to findoutthe
here store meaning of words
o findoutaboutjobsandbenefitson a company website
0 choosea iobyouareinterested
in

t6 Jusrúheiob! a job
Finding skima pageof advertisementsin a newspaper
to find
outwhichonesaremostusefulto you
understand job advertisements
andchoosea jobwhich
suitsvou
complete a job application
form
Xs*ketre& fussrk?
read

* Lookat the listof placesagain.Whichplacesareshops?

Whichprovideotherservicesfor customers? Wntetwo lists
shops serulces
- ----"u-&y.r-'"s-
--- - .-.---_-9_s4y-_"---"
S Lookat the photographs.
Whataretheseshopsand
services?
Choosefrom the wordsin the box.
i
i bake/s
i
bank butche/s
l/eiir¡te<qan drfe}eaners hairdresser's
¡ newsagent's ontician's st¡tinneis & Add someotherplacesto the h,voiistsabove.
I ^t-^*l^+,^
i chemist's ll t; uh t' o. ^t y, +"-,,^l -^^^+'-
ilcvtrt dEct lL >
& lmagineyou are doinga languagecoursein Britain.
a -.-.---fui*d.wq lp--.-.. d Lookat yourilstof shopsand seruíces.Whichshops
b € and servicesare most importantto you?(X: not very
+I
C rmportant,/: important,'/,/ : veryimportant)

1 l m a g i n e y o u a r e d o i n g a l a n g u a g ec o u r s ei n S u m m e r t o w n Scanthe leaflet on the opposite

and you see the leaflet on the opposite page on the school page and find the answersto
noticeboard. Look quickly at the leaflet. What is ¡t about? these questions.Answer yes
Tick / one of the boxes. or no"
, . [ : : u m n e r t t w .I a ls ther-e a bikerentaislore
b .cervrces in SumrlertownI rn Sumnrefiown? . g9l .".
c :rirops ¡ird seruices in Summertown[] h l sl l e r e a p o s to f i r c e ?
c ls therean internetcaÍé?
Learning tip ,.j .cfhere¿ ctnerf¿?
e ls therea drycleaner's? """ -
We sometrrneslook througha texl to find a particularpieceof i I ' t h e r ca n o p l i t i a ns ?
rnformationThls type of readlngis cailedscanning.Whenwe scan,we
clon'treadeveryword.We f,nd the rnformatronwe're lookingfor and
then stopreading.We don't pay any attentionto the rest of the text

fg S Socialand Travel
 Is tlrere a bank? [t:]ii¡Eü't

Which of the serv¡ces¡n

Exercise2 are in Banbury
Road?Which are in South
Parade?Write BR or 5P
after your yes answers¡n
Exercise2.
We hopeyou will enjoyyour stayhere!Summertown is a busycommun¡q/
whichhasbuiltup aroundBanburyRoad,themainroadheading north from What other shops and
the centreof Oxford.lt is a mainlyresidentialarea.Here are somenotes serv¡cesare there ¡n
whichwe hopewill helpmakeyour stayenjoyable. Summertown?Write a list.
Oxford City Centreiswithin easyreach.Several buses- 7,7, 17,25,27,59 and
2 I 8 - run frequentlyto andfrom the centre.Alternatível¡you canrent or buy
a bikeandcycledown BanburyRoadin aboutten minutes.(Youcanhirea bike
at Summertown Cycles,or buyyour own.)

Shops and other serv¡ces true (T)

Are thesesentences
Youdont needto go into Oxfordfor your shopping asyou will find or false(F)?
everyth¡ng you needherein Summertown. Mostshopsarein Banbury a Thereis a good bus seruiceinto
Road.There arethreesupermarkets Co-op(at the
for food shopping.The Oxfordfrom Summertown.__J__
southernendofthe shopingarea)is openunt¡l lOpmon weekdayevenings b Mostshopsin Summertownare
andhasthe longestopeninghours.Other specialistfood shopsincludea
closedon Sundays. _--_-_
fruit shop,a delicatessen,
a Lebanese
shopandtakeawa¡a butcher'sshopand
c The Co-opsupermarket is
two bakert.Unlessotherwisestated,shoppinghoursare from 9.30amuntil
oppositethe newsagent's. _____
5.30pm,Monday-Saturday.
d The newsagent's sells
Thereusedto be three newsagent's in Summertown, but now there is only stamps._____-
one.Martinsis at the northernendof the shoppingarea.Martinscanorder e The bestdayto go to the libraryis
foreignnewspapers for you.Speakto one of the salesassistantsif you'dliketo Wednesday. --____
arrangethis.Youcanalsobuystampshere.Thereis no longera postofficein f Therearetwo hairdresse/s in
Summenown.The nearestpostofficeis in the centreof Oxford. Summertown.___---
Therearethreebanksin Summertown- Lloyds,
HSBCandBarclays.
All of themhaveATM machines
Openinghoursare 9.00am-4.30pm. outside.
Classbqrus
Other shopsin BanburyRoadincludea stationerl,a book store,a health
Writesomequestions aboutthe
shopanda cardshop.There is alsoan internetcafé,a computershopanda
branchof MAILBOXESETC.whichwill shipyour possessions homefor you textlikethosein Exercise2 or some
at the end of your stay. sllementslikethosein
IueÍalse_
Exercise 5. Civeyourquestions/
Summertown Libraryis in SouthParade, whichis at the northernendof statements to anotherstudent
BanburyRoad.The libraryis openeverydayexceptWednesday andeveryone Answer yourpartne/s questions
find lots of informationaboutthe areahere,andyou can
is welcome.You'll or decideif his/herstatements are
alsoreadthe newspapers. trueorfabe. '
Thereisnt a cinemain Summertown, but therearetwo videorental
stores.Blockbuster,
in BanburyRoad,offersthe usualma¡nstream films. Are there any other shops
in SouthParade,
Videosyncratic, on the other hand,hasa wide selectionof or servicesyou would like to
foreignfilms. find in Summertown?
Summertown's travelagent'sandlaunderetteare both in SouthParade.There
is alsoa dry cleanerlin BanburyRoad.You cangetyour photosdeveloped
E brapracbice
there too, For your medicalneeds,there are two chemist'sin BanburyRoad.
Thereis alsoan optician's. lmagine youaredoinga language
coursein anotherBritishtownor
bothfor menandwomen,in Summertown.
Thereare severalhairdresser's,
city.Lookat thevr¡ebsitefor this
T¡ro of them -Wendy Burnett'sandAnthonyLawrence- alsooffer a range
town/city.Scanthewebsiteto find
of beautytreatments.
you
outif it hasallthe services
notedin Getrecdytu reed.

tl
,*:litjt Is therea bank?

B I saw iü in tÉ¡ernrimdemr
1 Complete these sentences. Look at these noticesfrom
windows of shopsand
placesin Summertownwhich
provide other services.
Where would you see each
notice?
viA*n rexlnL sbre

lf I wantedto renta bike,

l'd go to a

raararalal
h ,pEN 7.DDam
uAar wAaH -7.DDpn
CLO5E 8,4OPN
6ERt/LcE wAail
4.7Dan - 2.3Oyn
Mondag - FrLdag

company and In order to aseLef cue{omere,

will soonbe m¿mbers
"{
.fo{f * on a voluofarg
baeLs - are wLllLng fo oamplofe
washLag
;,$b"ary, later,
whLch wLll be dallaoted
ThLs Le a prLvafe arra.^gemenf
to all our patients,
befween oqstomer a"d sta{f, a^d t4e
do aof aooepf respoasLbLlLfg {or ang t
loes ar damage fo the eaLd tlashLng, .t

@ Sociat andTravel
 Is therea bank?Un¡iltt

Scanthe noticesand answerthese questions.The 4 Look at this notice from another

question letters match the notice letters. shop in Summertown.This shop sells
canvourentfor €9?
a Whatexactlv things, but what is different about it?
-1--vptw.o..N-!cil9.2--ht--L--MY'!-a Complete this sentence.
b Canyou get takeawaymealshere? Oxlan sdls ütnqs

c How muchtime do you getfor the cheaperbudgetcard?

d Whymightsomepricesbe higher? S *xrarn

Opening
Times
andhealth?
e Dotheyonlydealwithmedicine
Monday 9.3Oam- 5.3Opm
f Whencan'tyouusetheATMmachine? Tuesday 9.3Oam- 5.30pm
Wednesday 9.3Oam- 5.30pm
g Whosephonenumberisgiven? Thursday 9.30am- 5.30pm
Friday 9.30am- 5.30pm
h Whatisthelatesttimeyoucanstartyourwashing? Saturday 9.30am- 5.30pm
Sunday CLOSED
We are very gratefulfor your donatedgoods. Please

Focuson... g'-tB help us by leavingthem when the shop is OPEN.

Leavingdonationsoutside the shop at any other time
for and from presents a fire risk, and donationsget STOLEN.
We use for Thankyou for your cGoperation,
- to showanamountof moneyandtime:2 forE7for2 nights
- whensomething canbe usedbysomeone or something:
Discounts for studentsMondoyonly
Weusefromto show Did you know ...?
- wheresomething Breodfreshfromtheoven
started: Odamwasstartedin Ig42andis the
- whensomething pricesfromApril2006
started:Revised IJK'slargestaid agency.'Oxfam'js
* the startingprice:/A/IERtuET
from90p on hour shortfor'OdordCommittee for Fa¡¿ine
Complete thesesentences withfor ar from. Relief'.Its headguarte¡susedto be in
a Thelaunderette is open---.-{tg------ 7.00am. Summertown andits fustshopis in the
b Freshfishcomes thesea. centreof Oxford.TheSummertor¡m
c Youcanbuythecheapest f5.
budgetcard----------------- shopis oneof 5001ntheUK.
d Thelaunderette peoplewithoutwashingmachines.
is --.-------------- ,t_t'd.i'l..
e Youcangoto thesupermarket freshfruit.
f A haircut -----89.
costs----"-----.-
thesetwo expressions
Complete fromthetext. 5 Look at all the noticesagain.Which of
further
R __-__--------.--. information, 01865244699.
contact the shops and serviceswould you use
h Wedo notacceptresponsibility anylossor damage. if you lived in Summertown?

$$$s$$s$$*$$$.$#*s
$s$$"$"s$ $.$#$#$sr
Can-dochecklisb
lck whatyoucando.
I canscana textto find particular
piecesof information.

in the areawhereI am staying.

I canfindoutaboutservices

I canreadnoticesin shopwindowsandfindout exactly

what
areavailable,
services
 /rinka kolea¿o
Raba, ul|-ña 5oo
zo't¿t'Pola¡d

A tam I hawea stisker?

3 How do you addressthe envelopes?
Learning tip Completethe sentences.
Weoftenlookat a text qulckiyto findout whatit is about a !t. Hgy..y?
-!?-t9-Í{!*_z _!o!
or to geta generalideaof its meaning, Welookat pictures
andheadings, aswell asthe text itself.Thistypeof read"ing g-y?rg.?.\tfu
bJf .-s-o-q..4f t9--T.s!¿_s9_{
is caliedskimñng.\ly'henwe skim,we don'treadevery
word.Wegetthe marnideaanddon'tpayattentionto the
smalldetails. "'F*
Fccuson ... u,t
pounds aneipence '.
,"
You are going to read a text from a leaflet called '!;
Lookat thelistof airmailpriceson theleaflet.
Mail made easy. Skim the text on the opposite
Círcle
thefigures fortheseprices.
page. What is it about? Tick / one of the boxes.
a onepoundforty-one (pence)
a sendingletters
andpostcards
withinthe UK f b threepoundsten (pence)
b sendingletters
andpostcards
withinEuropefl c sixty-four
pence
c sendingletters
andpostcards
allovertheworldf, d fourpoundsandh,vopence

Skim the text again.Which of these sentencesis Nowwritetheseprices

in words.Practise
saying
the
true?Tick / one ofthe boxes. prices
aloud.
e fO.72 ---?-e-y%fu:W9_-p94*_-_-__-_.--.
a Airmail
isfasterbutmoreexpensive thansurface mail.I
f 81.O2
b Surface mailis slowerandmoreexpensíve thanairmail. I g E1.79
c Airmailis cheaper andfasterthansudacemail.tr
n €2.14
t E2.7O
i F<NR

@ SociatandTravel
 Airmail, please! Lüf¡itp

Sending mail abroad Surface mail

0ureconomical forsending
service non-urgent
What are you sending? international
mail.
Lettersand postcards How to use
Lettersand postcards
to Europecanonlgbe sentbg Airmail Surface
itemsshould
beaddressed
asnormal.
- up to a maximumweightof 2kg.

Airmail
0urstandardAirmail forsending
service international
mailto Thenameof the countrgin
G?01 lllill (^lcarte)
angwhereintheworldquicklg
andcosteffectivelg. CAPITALS
mustcomelast.
How to use
Oür Surface rnaildeliveryalms are;
Stickourbranded sticker- available
Airmail freefromPost
Office@
branches- ongouritemofmailandpostit inanUpost
[email protected], dagof posting
2 weeksfollowing
'BYAIRMAIL Uoucansimplgwrite
- PARAVION'inthefronttopleftcorner.
4 weeksfollowing
dagofposting
ry siaAnalr!¿z

I¡Érnacioúal si- Bto,12weeksfollowingdagof posting

M¡rber6
6s1 ELel! (A¡cante)
Thenameofthecountrgin
SPAN
mustcomelast.
CAPITALS Surface mail prices
Our Airmail deliveryaims are:
W
3 dagsfollowingdag of posting
Pssrcai'ds
2og
@ , 6og
4 dagsfollowing
dagof posting 100g
@ '
150g
5 dagsfollowing
dagof posting
Where is it going?
Airmail pr¡ces

notin eitherEurope
1 coversallcountries orWorld
Postcards f0.44 f¡.50 f0.50 [rjldr1.".
1og ÍD:44 fu.50 f0.50
7Bg ta.44 t0,72 f0.?z
4og f0,64 f.r.a F1 1q Austmlia Philippines
6og f0,83 rl.fl ¿r.oo
B0s "f1.02 f 1.91 F7 1L
Japan
100g LT.L! Í?,31, Í2.61,
tz|/s Et.4L t2.70 f 3.08
1r';flo f 1;60 f3.10 F? qq

1609, t1,.79 f3.49 f.4.o2

How much would it cost to send the following letters and

postcardsby airmail?Write the answersin numbers.
a a postcard to ltaly -"...-.-,9.'Y-
"-.-..- Classbrus
b a letterweighing 85 gramsto Australia Choose somemoreweights and
c a letterto Argentina weighing55 grams destinationsfor mailyouwant
d a postcard to Taiwan to send.Civeyourlistto another
e a letterto the USweighing 150grams student.Canyouworkorrtthe
f a letterto theCzechRepublic weighing55 grams pricesfor yourpartner?,

Which of the postcards and letters in Exercise4 can you send by

surfacemail? How much longer would they take to reachtheir
destinations?
 Umñt2 Airnrail,pleaset

B Can you fiII this in? Did you know ...?

I lmagineyou are in Great Britain.You are Addressesinthe USalwaysinclude a zip code-
going to send the following gifts to friends
a g"roupof lettersand/ornumberswhich areat the
and family abroad. Match the gifts with the
end.Tte tIK equivalentisthepostcode.Compare
three headings under What areyou sending?
thesetwo addresses. Noticethat the housenumbe¡
Write the numbers in the boxes.
is beforethe nameof the streetin both countries.
StefanoMusetti AnnaLindaToreni
1819M¡:rdochSt Flatt,7 MiltonSt
Fitfahrrrah
! ¡uuevsv¡r
. Edinburgh
PA15217 EH8BE2
USA LK.
(PAstandsfor {Ull standsfor
Pennsyivania,) Edinburgh.)

2 Readthe section Custornsinformationbelow.

Whichof the gifts in Exercisef do you needto
senda customsdeclaration form with?

a bookaboutBritish customs to yourpenfriend

in Gustoms Information
Cermany I YouDON'Tneedto completea customsdeclaration
moneyto yourcousinin the USwhois comingto formif gou're
sending:
Britain
nextmonthn . letters,
postcards
anddocumentsalone
a T-shirtto yourbrotherin Australia
I . smallpacketsandpackages
containing
goods
to
countries
intheEuropean
UnionIEUJ.

YouDO needto complete a customsdeclaration

form
Sending ma¡l abroad if gou're
sending:
. smailpackets andpackages containing
goods to
What are You sending? countr¡es
notin theEuropeanUnionIEUJ.
1 SmallPackets
Thisservice offersgoua cheaperrateifgou'resending
gifts,goodsorcommercial Please
samples' write'SMALL
Youcan alsoincludea
F¡cxir in thetopleftcorner'
to the Where
contents' necessarg'gou
letterrelating
shouldalsoattacha customsdocument' Themaximum
weightls 2kg.
2 Printed PaPers
Youcanalsogetacheaper ratewhensending books'
maqazines,n.*.p.p.tt, leafletsandpamphlets
abriad.Youcanincludea letteruelatingt0thecontents'
'PRINTEOPAPERS' inthe topleft The
corner' What do you need to write on the envelopes
Pieasewrite
weightt0 most places is Zkgor Skgfor books' for items a and b?
maximum
andPamPhlets.
leaflets
3 Valuable items
itemsabroadisuchas.moneU'
What else do you need to find out before you
lf uou'resendingvaluable
andprecious metalsJ,9ou usethe
should can post these gifts? Complete the sentences.
ieñellerg
in
service with
conjunction a Beforeyoupostthe boo( youneedto findout how
i.tt.r, J, Stttl Packets
eitherAirsure@ or Signed
lnternational For@' much
b Beforeyoupostthe money,you needto findoutabout
*'*<t*t**_"':*4
ff -¡4rv'^..-.^.a -Y1sr*:l.-n-*-:*i-tff

16 @ SocialandTravel
 Airmail, please![:mEüZ

Readthe instructionsfor the customsdeclarationform and

complete the form for item c (TheT-shirtweighs approximately
250g). You can ignore the Frenchwords on the form.

CUSTOMS
DECIáRATION cN 22

lnstructions
description, quantitg fickane
ornorcboxes
[ 1) Givea detailed
andunitof measurement foreacharticle, conbnb
{1}
e.g.threeDVDs.
t z l ,( 3 1[,6 ) a n d[ 7 ] G i v e t h e w e i g h t
andvalueofeacharticle andthetotal
weightand value of the item. Ind¡cate
thecurrencU used,i.e.GBP forpounds
sterling.
[8JYoursignature andthedateconfirm
gourliabilitg fortheitem. p)
Value

l,üeundersigndnwhe
nameand arcgiuenonüe
addrcss prdiculars
ihn,cerlifyñaliln
giuen
inüisdedanüon and
arscorscl üat item
üh üoes nolmnhin
anydangu!$ arlioh
proh¡bited
0rertidss w!yposhlw
bylegidalion regülallom
cusluns
0aleandsender's
signatre
{8}

Which parts of the form did you

not need to complete? E brapra$ice .
Lookat thewebsiternnnnnr.royalmail.com
andfindoutabouttheAirsure@
and
SignedFor@(Airmail)
lnternational selices.Complete
thesesentences.
á -------.;----;----.----
is cheaper,
D
L to anycountryin the world.
Youcan use--------.-"--r----.-.
o Themaximum
weightfor --ís2kg.

$$-$$#.$'.$. $$$ $$$$$$$$$$.$*.$$*

$'$$s"$'$$
Can-dochecklisb
Tickwhatyoucando. Can do Need more practice
I canreada postofficeleafletquicklyto geta generalideaof
whatit is about.

I canfindtheinformation
I needto decidewhichísthebest
wayto sendleüersandpostcardsabroad.

I canfindouthowto sendpackets
andpackages
abroad.
A At Brighton Theatre Royal
3 Merve's friend Kristen has seen these shows. She is
telling Merve about them. Which show does each
sentence describe? (The shows are described more
than once.)

Merve is living in Brighton. Her sister

.B.bpL.F:Mc{-t
is coming to visit her in February
and Merve would like to take her
to the theatre. She is looking at the
programme for the Theatre Royal.Scan
the programme on the opposite page.
Are allthe shows on in February?

What kind of shows are on at the

theatre? Write three sentences.
Igp--P--oSp--!,a--s

4 What other things could Kristensayabout the shows?

Write one or two more sentencesabout eachshow.
Did you know Usethe sentences in Exercise3 as models.
Theword taphasmanymeanings. Here .B.hú.b.rM.s?--h4É--!-ü-cn.&.t4r..a!Nbr.--fu.r-.-B-p-*-lfip-q{-ü.--h--Lsn4.s
where
a typeof dancing
it describes the
dancerwearsspeelalÉhoesúrh
or91sof1etalo1,lhe bonom
which makea noise.

18 @ SocialandTravel
 What's on? i i,ij¡¡,:.fi$

-.r$ tIg,!-E

'"Tfr'Fqw'lr$Ij:i
ufttt ^vrtffE
tEf,: arm,q
mfTffrlf*."

r¡r:¡L ^^^-:-r ^,,^-¡-

v Y r L r| ) P e r ¡ d r B U E 5 L >
0ffiqE$#mffimgY
ilüSNTR]F.ffiTT lreland's
ThreeTenors
lrishin origin,this powerfulshow
A smashhit sinceits firstperformance combines lrishDancewith the sensual
in 1995,OlivierAward-winning lap Latinorhythmsof Ftamenco and RedHot
Dogsreturnsto Brightonaspartof an Salsain a thriltingproduct¡on of strength
international
tour.Dressed in Levisand andDassron.
Blundstone Boots,the exDlosive castof Spiritof the Danceisone of the most
sixstrappingAussietapdancers return successfulshows to comeout of lreland
to the TheatreRoyalstagein a feastof andhasbeenseenby morethanthirty
stylishroutines. mittionpeoptein fifteencountries around
the world.
Therawenergrof TapDogshasthrilled
andastonished audiences across
the Special guestsin thisyear'sshoware
gtobein equalmeasure.They lreland'sThreeTenon,who bringa selection
were
of songsandsomeof the greatestvoices
the toastof the SydneyOtympics,
everheardto Spiritof the Dance.
entertaining over3 billionpeopleat the
Not one lrishdanceshoestepsout of
openingceremony.
[ineastheir thunderous feet performas
Youwon'twantto missthís- the one,with an excitementthat leavesthe
hottestshowon legs! audience screaming for more.
Mon7 - Sat12 Feb Mon 28 Feb- Sat5 March

'
t"t""*. i
Giassbonus Foet¡son ... .€,
Workwitha partner. Readoutyoursentences uocabulary .
fromExercise4, but beginthe sentences
with/f Therearelotsof usefulwordsin thissectionaboutgoing .i
- for example:
It hoswonfourawardsfar Best to thetheatre.
Readthedefinitions of someof thewords.
Musicalin Londan.Workoutwhichshowyour Writeeachword.
partnerisdescribing. a actingsinging, playing
dancing, people
musicto entertain
pg-r I o r m o.n c e
Mervet sister likes dancing.Which show b a prizegivento someone/something fortheirachievement
do you think Merve will buy tickets for? a____
whv? in a play/showc
alltheaaors/performers
d the raisedareain a theatrewhereactorspedorm s
e whenpeoplestandwhenclapping to showthattheyhave
Would you like to go to any of these
enjoyed
something
verymuch
shows?Which one(s)would you
choose?Why?
the peoplewho sit and watcha performance
at a theatre
a
UmEtS Ullhat's
on?

B fne Duke of York's Picturehouse

1 Merve's friend Kristen asks her if she would 3 Merve and Kristen decide to go and see the
like to go and see lhe H¡storyBoys on Friday. film at 4.30pm. Kristen is a mémber of the
Answer these questions. Picturehouse,but Merve is not. Scanthe page
a Haveyouheardof thefilm? from the cinema brochure below. How much
b Havevouseenit? will each of their tickets cost?
c Ooyouknowanything aboutit?
4 Merve then remembers that she is going to
2 Skim what Kristen says about The History the dentist's at 4.00pm on Friday.Scanihe
Boys.Would you likato see the film? text and completé these sentences.
a Theirtickets willcosta totalof .-------,..---.-...--..
if theygo
It'sabouteightboyswhoarestudying historyat
to the latershow.
school. Theyallwantto goto Oxfordor Cambridge
- an oldEnglish b Theirticketswouldcosta totalof -_--__-__----__--_-__--
if
University.
Theyhavethreeteachers
Mervehada studentcard.
teacher,a newyoungteacherwho hasrecently left
university,
andtheonlywomanteacheron thestaff
- whotryandhelpthemto geta university place.The Did you know ...?
filmísfunnymostof thetime,buta littlebitsadas if youarea student,youcanget concessions.
well.I'veheardit'sveryenjoyable
andnottoo difficult reductionsin the priceof ficketsfor the cinema/theatre,
to understand.
buses/trains,etc,
Youwill needa validstudent
cardwith a photoin orderto provethatyou
6¡
areastUdent. ._,-ffi

Cinema
information
Ticketpr¡ces: Howto pay:
DAYTIME ¡ TheBoxOfficeopens30 minutes beforethefitstperformance
andcloses
l5 minutes
after
(Films
commencing
before5pm) thestartofthe lastoerformance.
Fullprice. .... ..f5.50 o vlsA,Masterclass,
5olo,Electron,
switchandMaestro cardsaccepted.
soloandElectron
are
Members. ......,t4.00 onlyacceptedin person.
Concessions .,...€4,50 I Pleasehaveyourcardto handwhenyoutelephone,
Advancebooking:
EVENINGS
& WEEKEND o FROM
(Films THEBOXOFFICE: Duringusualopening hours.
commencing at or after5pm
. BYTELEPHONE: 08708505465.Please havJyour cardto hand.Bookings
canbemade
weekdays,
all dayat weekends and
severalweeksin advance,butno laterthanl5 minutes beforetheperformance.
Thereisa
on BankHoliday$
f i.50bookingfee(waived formembers).Please bringyourcardto thecinema.Electron&
Fullprice. .......É6,50
5olonotaccepted overthe phone.
Members. ....,.,É5,00
o ONLI NE BOOKINC:www.picturehouses.co.uk
Concessions ..,..f5,50
Customersreceiveimmediate confirmationif seatsareavailable,
Bookings
canbemadeup
MEMBERSHIP to l5 minutes
beforethe screening.Pleasebringyourcard withyou.please
noteadvance
.I,50
webbooking feef (waivedfor members).
Single.. ....,...f25.00 .
PLEASE N0TE:Latecomers areadmitted at the manager's discretion
andnotafterl5
Joint... ,....,..€40.00
minutesfromthefilmstartinq.
Concessions .,,..É18.00
Rightofadmission
isreserved
bythemanagement.
MAILINGLIST Gettingto the Dukeof York's
PROGRAMME
Foroneyear. . . . . 8 1 0 , 0 0 BUS:5/5A,z5Bfrequent fromtowncentre; nightbuses
to Falmer.TRAIN:Brightonstation15mins;London
PLEASE NOTE Roadstation5 mins(evenings: every30 minsto Falmer
Advance web./phonebooking fee until11.35).
PARKINc: multi-storeyoff LondonRd(free
f 1.50(waived
for members), after 6pm),Please
avoidparking in surroundingstreets
¡
I as it can
t
a
cause nuisancefor residents. tuqi¡m
fifiIridffi
' krrü&I¡jl

20 I Soc¡a¡andTrayet
Friday evening is a popular time to go to the cinema,so
the girlsdecideto booktheirticketsin advance.
Scan BgCOme
'-;; a mgmbgf 0f the
":;-';.
the text on the oppositepage and completethe chart. ^-;- , ,
Duke ofYork'sPicturehouse
NOWYOUCANWATCHEVENMORE
FILMSFORLESSMONEYWITH
OUR
c'an.pag
11he4 c¿óh . BrGcER,
BETTERMEMBERsHtp
oFFER:
iNo
or bg *eAth c.o.xd".
ib i'fneA,a i : . 3 freetickets perperson(woühupto
F r qs 0 )
, c :1 h e g -. ;l^",Y:' ::::T:::.:",
81.50discount onallyourtickets,
withno
i i
; feesto pay
booking
¡.*-.-].'.---*-*'-__'****"'.*........:-.*.,-*',.]-....-'-'-*-*-
'lB
membership' f concessions
Merve thinks she might become a member of the '
picturehouse.Kristen is explainingwhat FREE previewscreenings
v." g"ilrr"" ' thebestof everything theDukeofYorrs
you join. Look at another section of the brochure on
hasto offer'including priority
booking
the right and decide if what Kristen says is rr us \(T)
,¡ true r, frr
or forspeciarevents anddiscounts onthe
farse (F). balcony box
. plusourbrochure maibdto you,email
listings,
discounts aroundtownandat all
--T_-- otherPicturehouse cinemas
. l0o/odiscount at theSanctuarv Café

Would you want to become a member

of a cinemaif you were living in
Britain?Why? / Why not?

€, brapraÉiee
FindoutwhereyoucanseeEnglishlanguage
filmsin yourtownor city.Coandseea film.
renta DVD.Thiswillprobably
Alternatively,
havesubtitlesin yourownlanguage,which
willmakethefilm easierto understand.

$.$$$.$$$s$
$$$.$$.$$
s$$$$$$#$$s,,T.$s
Can-dochecklisb
Tickwhatyoucando. Needmorepractice
I canunderstand
a textwithoutknowing
themeaning
of everyword.

I canreada theatreprogramme
andchoosea showI wouldlike
to see.

I canreada cinemabrochure,
andfindoutaboutpaying
for
tickets
andmembership.
 ñmy$ur Isnffiffffitre?
SWneffitos
resd
s Matchthe wordswith the pictures.Writethe lettersin the boxes.
bumbag@ hairdryer
I handbagI laprop
f
penknife
f rucksack
I suitcase
fl walking
stickf
* Whichof theseitemsdo you takeon holidaywith you?
6 lmagineyou areflyingabroadon holiday. Wheredo you do
thesethings?Tick/ the correctplacein the chart.

K
a checkin yourluggage
-t^^.^,.,^,
b ) i l u v v y u u r P d > > P U rL

c showyour boardingcard
d go throughSecurity
e collectyourchecked-in
f
luggage
on thrnrroh Crr<tnmc
o-' ""ó' 7
htto:/,/www.llaa.com/security

&
1 You are going to fly from
Manchesterto Athensfor the

"':,.m
weekend.The day before you T h ef o l l o w i n g i t e m sa r e p r o h i b i t e di n h a n d
fly, you hear on the news that l u g g a g e .l f y o u h a v ea n y o f t h e s et h i n g s ,y o u One bag only
securityhas been increasedat m u s tp u t t h e m i n y o u r c h e c k e d - i b naggage
all Britishairports.You decide (suitcases, etc.)or disposeof them safely.You
to look on the Internet,and cannottake these itemsthrough Security.
this is what you find. Skimthe Any itemspurchasedafter Securitycan be
webpage.What is it about? t a k e n o n b o a r d .S p e c i anl e s t r i c t i o nmsa y a p p l y
Max¡mum J6cm
Tick / one of the boxes. t o i t e m st a k e n o n t o f l i g h t st o t h e U S . dimensions
¿ checkec," ,ggug"]
b handluggage

,p
I ..:'.:.rÉ

c checked-m luggage
andhancl
In -
-r^
ruSSage Ll
l,* I¡I

'-1-./* :.lJ

Did you know ...? No liquids ruI'smet¡cs No toiletries

:. tv'tC 'uJgdqo o n db a g u , r g e IJ
aresvnonynts(theYhavelhe same !
ireanrng).Howevet,Passengers * No lighters
Not allowed through Secur¡ty
talk aboutthelr lugrgaEe
usi.iai1,¡ No gels or pastes or in luggage.Pleasethrow
includingfoodstuffs No sharp items
anil airltnesusuall\¡talk them away safely.

abcLtt.cagTgage.

22 @ SocialandTravel
 048
Learning tip http://wwwbaa.com/security

As youread,try to workout themeaniagof unlmornm

words.Useplctureswherepossible. Findotherwords
in the text whichcanhelpyou.Forexample, find
a synonym(awordwith a simiiarmeaningto the
unknownword),an antonym(awordwhichmeans Pleasenote: Othersmallbags,suchas handbags, maybe
the opposite),or an example.
Onlyusea dictionaryto carriedwithinthe singleitemof cabinbaggage,All items
checkyourguesses. caniedby passengers will be x-rayscreened,

items(e.9.hairdryer)
. All laptopsand largeelectrical must
You had plannedto take the following things be removed from the bag and placedin a trayso that such
with you to Greece.Why can't you take them itemsneitherobscurenor areobscured by the bag.
through Security?Complete the chart with the
Pushchaa i rns dw a l k i n ga i d sa r ep e r n i t t e db u t m u s tb e
singularform of words in the webpage on the
x-rayscreened. Wheelchairs areallowedbut they mustbe
opposite page. searchedthoroughly.

Before Security:All shopsand cateringoutletsareopen

2 some skincream to all passengers,
but any liquidsand gelspurchasedmust
t -ro*.
a penknife be packedinto yourluggagefor check-in.
purchases mustfit intoyour handluggage.
Any other

C nuir!"i
Oncethrough Security:All shopsand cateringoutlets
areopento all passengers.
lf you aretravelling
to any
You had also planned to take the following
exceptthe USAthen you cantakeall items
destination
things in your hand luggage.Can you take purchased loungeintothe aircraftcabin.
in the departure
them through Security?(,,/= yes, f = no)
Leavethe box empty if the answer is not clear lf you are travelling to the USA: Extrarestrictions
arein place.No toiletries or cosmetics purchasedin the
from the notice.
departure loungewill be allowedintothe aircraftcabin
a bottleof waterforthejourneyffi and anydrinksor liquiditemsmustbe consumed before
b a toothbrush andsometoothpaste I boarding. Food,however, is allowed.Passengersboarding
c a laptopI flightsto the USAand itemstheyarecarrying, including
d a cígarette lighterI thoseacquired afterthe centralscreening point,will be
subjected to secondary searchat the gateand anyliquids
Here are five words/expressionsfrom the discovered will be removed.
webpage on the opposite page. Readthe
webpage carefullyand underlinethem. Find
five other words/expressionswhich have
similar meanings(synonyms)and write them Underlinethese five words/express¡ons¡n
down. (Thewords in the list come before the the second part of the webpage. Find other
words with a similar meaning.) words/expressionsin the first part of the
a I I tcoSutc5 reslx'r.Uans webpage on the oppos¡te page which have
b items related meanings.Are the words synonyms
nrnhihita¡l (S)or antonyms(A)? More than one answer is
d ruó546c sometimespossible.
g disposeof them
singleitem of
l--
cabinbaggage one bM onw L:I
Scanthe second part of the webpage Further
b normiitorl
n
passengerínformatíon on the r¡ght. Can you
take your laptop through Security?
C evrent n
d ^.^
crc
:^ ^l-^^
il | PloLc f
Readthe second part of the webpage again. I
T
you buy the other items in Exercise3 (a, b, an
d) in the departure lounge, can you take then
onto the plane?
Umflt4 What'sin yourluggage?

B Anything to
declare?
1 Look at the countriesin the '!

box. Divide them into two -{

groups - Europeanand non- j

European.Write two lists.

¡üstria Brazil Canada

Creece Japan Poland
SaudiArabia Sweden
the Netherlands Tunisia

European Non-European
Austrt*

rerc
I IITREof spiritsor
200 cigarettes
0R strongliqueursover
100cigarillos
0R 227ovolume 0R
50 cigars0R 2 LITRES offortified
2509of tobacco lyine,sparklingwine
or otherliqueurs
Skim this customsguide for
travellersentering the UK.
Complete the sentenceswith
the numbers1-ó.
f 145worthof all
a Parts and
,.---------"- othergoodsincluding
areaboutwhatyoucan gifrsandsowenirs
bringin.
b Parts and
, --_--__-__--
areabouthowyou
shouldgothroughCustoms.

Did you know ...? HOWTOGOTHROUGH

CUSTOMS
TheEuropean Unionis an
economicand politicalalliance
betweenEuropean countrieswhich
wassetup in 1gb8.Thesix orignnal
memberswereBelgium,F?ance
WestGermany, Italy,Luxembourg
andtheNetherlands. Theywere
joinedby theUK,Denmarkand
theRepublicof Irelandin
1973.Therearenow
27members.

.'T.ry5f¡S3jf.ry.1¡$qEf;
4!rt?T:

@ SocialandTrayel
 What'sin yourluggage?Umfit4

Look at the parts of the customs Answer these questions.

guide which are about what you can a Whydon'tpeoplecomingfromtheEUpaytaxon goodswhenthey
bring in. Complete the sentences. arrivein the UK?
a Part(s) --is/areforpeople
fromtheEuropean
travelling Union(EU). b Whichgoodsdon't peoplecomingfrom outsidethe EUpaytax on?
b Part(s) --islarefor people
whoarenottravellingfromthe European
Union(EU). Look at the parts which are about how you should go
through Customs.Complete these sentences.
Complete these sentencesabout a PeoplefromtheEuroDean Unionshouldusethe
yourself. customs - if
chahnel
l'mfrom --(nameof country).
Part(s) islaremostusefulto me.
___-__,-_-". b Otherpeopleshouldusethe

Focus
on... q' FF
must,mustn? and don't hqve td*"C
Readabout these travellers.Which customgchannel
Complete theseexpressionsfrom should these people go through? Complete the chart.
thetext.
a VoU DaV anvtax
b you--.---.---.-
sellthesegoods !Cintia i i litreof spirits+ 2 litresof ,(e4

c you--,---.-.--.
declarethegoodsin theRed
Channel I 5UCCOT
ieaudetoilette
Matchtheverbswiththeirmeanings,
d must it is necessary
notto j25 crgars
asa birthday
e mustn't it is necessary
to
f don'thaveto it isn'tnecessary
to
Completethesesentences withmusf,
mustnfor donthovefo.Youwillneedto
readtheguideagain.
s You declaresiftsworthlessthan E bra pracüice
for yourcountryon the lnternet.
Checkthe customsrqgulations
h You brinein themaximum fromthe UKregulattons?
Whatarethe maindifferénces
allowancefor bothcigarettes andcigars.
i You--.--------"
declareanygoodsthatare
overtheallowances.
i lf youbringin alcohol, befor
this.--------.--
a commercial purpose.

ü$$ $,$.$$$ $$$.$$t $$ü#$s$$"s*sss*

$$$-$
i Can-docheklisb
Tickwhatyoucando. Can do

I canfindwordswithsimilar
meanings
in a text. ,',"'
I canfindoutaboutrestrictions
to my handluggage.

I candecideif I needto declareanything

at Customs
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
stalwart Auvergnats, who came from their mountains to do a work more
severe than the Parisians could do for themselves.
But another specialty, which very forcibly struck me, and which cannot
be said to have been any survival of ways and habits obsolete on the other
side of the Channel, was the remarkable manner in which the political life
of the hour, with its emotions, opinions, and passions, was enacted, so to
speak, on the stage of the streets, as a drama is presented on the boards of a
theatre. Truly he who ran through the streets of Paris in those days might
read, and indeed could not help reading, the reflection and the manifestation
of the political divisions and passions which animated the reign of the
bourgeois king, and ended by destroying it.
And in this respect the time of my first visit to Paris was a very
interesting one. The Parisian world was, of course, divided into Monarchists
and Republicans, the latter of whom laboured under the imputation, in some
cases probably unjust, but in more entirely merited (as in certain other more
modern instances), of being willing and ready to bring their theories into
practice by perpetrating or conniving at any odious monstrosity of crime,
violence and bloodshed. The Fieschi incident had recently enlightened the
world on the justice of such accusations.
But the Monarchists were more amusingly divided into “Parceque
Bourbon,” supporters of the existing régime, and “Quoique Bourbon,”
tolerators of it. The former, of course, would have preferred the white flag
and Charles Dix; but failing the possibility of such a return to the old ways,
were content to live under the rule of a sovereign, who, though not the
legitimate monarch by right divine, was at least a scion of the old legitimate
race. The “Quoique Bourbon” partisans were the men who, denying all
right to the throne save that which emanated from the will of the people,
were yet Monarchists from their well-rooted dread of the intolerable evils
which Republicanism had brought, and, as they were convinced, would
bring again upon France, and were therefore contented to support the
bourgeois monarchy “although” the man on the throne was an undeniable
Bourbon.
But what made the streets, the boulevards, the Champs Elysées, and
especially the Tuileries garden peculiarly amusing to a stranger, was the
circumstance that the Parisians all got themselves up with strict attention to
the recognised costume proper to their political party. The Legitimist, the
“Quoique Bourbon” bourgeois, (very probably in the uniform of the then
immensely popular National Guard) and the Republican in his appropriate
bandit-shaped hat and coat with exaggeratedly large lappels, or draped
picturesquely in the folds of a cloak, after a fashion borrowed from the
other side of the Alps, were all distinguishable at a glance. It was then that
deliciously graphic line (I forget who wrote it) “Feignons à feindre à fin de
mieux dissimuler” was applied to characterise the conspirator-like attitudes
it pleased these gentlemen to assume.
The truth was that Paris was still very much afraid of them. I remember
the infinite glee, and the outpouring of ridicule, which hailed the dispersion
of a Republican “demonstration” (the reader will forgive the anachronism
of the phrase), at the Porte St. Martin, by the judicious use of a powerful
fire-engine. The heroes of the drapeau rouge had boasted they would stand
their ground against any charge of soldiery. Perhaps they would have done
so. But the helter-skelter that ensued on the first well-directed jet of cold
water from the pipe of a fire-engine furnished Paris with laughter for days
afterwards.
But, as I have said, Paris, not unreasonably, feared them. Secret
conspiracy is always an ugly enemy to deal with. And no violence of mere
speculative opinion would have sufficed, had fear been absent, to cause the
very marked repulsion with which all the Parisians, who had anything to
lose, in that day regarded their Republican fellow citizens.
Assuredly the Conservatives of the Parisian world of 1835 were not “the
stupid party.” Both in their newspapers, and other ephemeral literature, and
in the never-ending succession of current mots and jokes which circulated
in the Parisian salons, they had the pull very decidedly. I remember some
words of a parody on one of the Republican songs of the day, which had an
immense vogue at that time. “On devrait planter le chêne,” it ran, “pour
l’arbre de la liberté” (it will be remembered that planting “trees of liberty”
was one of the common and more harmless “demonstrations” of the
Republican party). “Ses glands nouriraient sans peine les cochons qui l’ont
planté.” And the burthen of the original which ran, “Mourir pour la patrie,
C’est le sort le plus beau le plus digne d’envie,” was sufficiently and very
appositely caricatured by the slight change of “Mourir pour la patrie” into
“Nourris par la patrie,” &c.
 To a stranger seeing Paris as I saw it, and frequenting the houses which I
frequented, it seemed strange that such a community should have
considered itself in serious danger from men who seemed to me, looking
from such a stand-point, a mere handful of skulking melodramatic
enthusiasts, playing at conspiracy and rebellion rather than really
meditating it. But I was not at that time fully aware how entirely the real
danger was to be found in regions of Paris, and strata of its population
which were as entirely hidden from my observation, as if they had been a
thousand miles away. But though I could not see the danger, I saw
unmistakably enough the fear it inspired in all classes of those who, as I
said before, had anything to lose.
It was this fear that made the National Guard the heroes of the hour. It
was impossible but that such a body of men—Parisian shopkeepers put into
uniform (those of them who would condescend to wear it; for many used to
be seen, who contented themselves with girding on a sabre and assuming a
firelock, while others would go to the extent of surmounting the ordinary
black coat with the regulation military shako)—should afford a target for
many shafts of ridicule. The capon-lined paunches of a considerable
contingent of these well-to-do warriors were an inexhaustible source of not
very pungent jokes. But Paris would have been frightened out of its wits at
the bare suggestion of suppressing these citizen saviours of society. Of
course they were petted at the Tuileries. No reception or fête of any kind
was complete without a large sprinkling of these shopkeeping guardsmen,
and their presence on such occasions was the subject of an unfailing series
of historiettes.
I remember an anecdote excellently illustrative of the time, which was
current in the salons of the “Parceque Bourbon” society of the day. A
certain elderly duchess of the vieille roche, a dainty little woman, very
mignonne, whose exquisite parure and still more exquisite manners scented
the air at a league’s distance, to use the common French phrase, with the
odour of the most aristocratic salons of the Quartier St. Germain, was, at
one of Louis Philippe’s Tuileries receptions, about to take from the tray
handed round by a servant the last of the ices which it had contained, when
a huge outstretched hand, with its five wide-spread fingers, was protruded
from behind over her shoulder, and the refreshment of which she was about
to avail herself was seized by a big National Guard with the exclamation,
“Enfoncèe la petite mère!”
 Nevertheless, it may be safely asserted that the little duchess, and all the
world she moved in, would have been infinitely more dismayed had they
gone to the Tuileries and seen no National Guards there.
Among the many persons of note with whom I became more or less well
acquainted during that month, no one perhaps stands out more vividly in my
recollection than Chateaubriand. He also, though standing much aloof from
the noise and movement of the political passions of the time, was an
aristocrat jusqu’au bout des ongles, in appearance, in manners, in opinions,
and general tone of mind. The impression to this effect immediately
produced on one’s first presentation was in no degree due to any personal
advantages. He was not, when I knew him, nor do I think he ever could
have been, a good looking man. He stooped a good deal, and his head and
shoulders gave me the impression of being somewhat too large for the rest
of his person. The lower part of his face too, was, I thought, rather heavy.
But his every word and movement were characterised by that exquisite
courtesy which was the inalienable, and it would seem incommunicable,
specialty of the seigneurs of the ancien régime. And in his case the
dignified bearing of the grand seigneur was tempered by a bonhomie which
produced a manner truly charming.
And having said all this, it may seem to argue want of taste or want of
sense in myself, to own, as truthfulness compels me to do, that I did not
altogether like him. I had a good deal of talk with him, and that to a
youngster of my years and standing was in itself very flattering, and I felt as
if I were ungrateful for not liking him. But the truth in one word is, that he
appeared to me to be a “tinkling cymbal.” I don’t mean that he was
specially insincere as regarded the person he was talking to at the moment.
What I do mean is, that the man did not seem to me to have a mind capable
of genuine sincerity in the conduct of its operations. He seemed to me a
theatrically-minded man. Immediately after making his acquaintance I read
the Génie du Chrétienisme, and the book confirmed my impression of the
man. He honestly intends to play a very good and virtuous part, but he is
playing a part.
He was much petted in those days by the men, and more especially by
the women of the ancien régime and the Quartier St. Germain. But I suspect
that he was a good deal quizzed, and considered an object of more or less
good-natured ridicule by the rest of the Parisian world. I fancy that he was
in straitened circumstances. And the story went that he and his wife put all
they possessed into a box, of which each of them had a key, and took from
day to day what they needed, till one fine day they met over the empty box
with no little surprise and dismay.
Chateaubriand thought he understood English well, and rather piqued
himself upon the accomplishment. But I well remember his one day asking
me to explain to him the construction of the sentence, “Let but the cheat
endure, I ask not aught beside.” My efforts to do so during the best part of
half an hour ended in entire failure.
He was in those days reading in Madame Récamier’s salon at the
Abbaye-aux-Bois (in which building my mother’s friend, Miss Clarke, also
had her residence), those celebrated Mémoires d’Outretombe, of which all
Paris, or at least all literary and political Paris, was talking. Immense efforts
were made by all kinds of notabilities to obtain an admission to these
readings. But the favoured ones had been very few. And my mother was
proportionably delighted at the arrangement that a reading should be given
expressly for her benefit. M. de Chateaubriand had ceased these séances for
the nonce, and the gentleman who had been in the habit of reading for him
had left Paris. But by the kindness of Miss Clarke and Madame Récamier,
he was induced to give a sitting at the Abbaye expressly for my mother.
This arrangement had been made before I reached Paris, and I consequently
to my great regret was not one of the very select party. My mother was
accompanied by my sisters only. I benefited however in my turn by the
acquaintance thus formed, and subsequently passed more than one evening
in Madame Récamier’s salon at the Abbaye-aux-Bois in the Rue du Bac.
My mother, in her book on Paris and the Parisians, writes of that
reading as follows:—“The party assembled at Madame Récamier’s on this
occasion did not, I think, exceed seventeen, including Madame Récamier
and M. de Chateaubriand. Most of these had been present at former
readings. The Duchesses de Larochefoucauld and de Noailles, and one or
two other noble ladies, were among them. And I felt it was a proof that
genius is of no party, when I saw a grand-daughter of General Lafayette
enter among us. She is married to a gentleman who is said to be of the
extreme coté gauche.” The passage of the Mémoires selected for the
evening’s reading was the account of the author’s memorable visit to
Prague to visit the royal exiles. “Many passages,” writes my mother, “made
a profound impression on my fancy and on my memory, and I think I could
give a better account of some of the scenes described than I should feel
justified in doing, as long as the noble author chooses to keep them from the
public eye. There were touches that made us weep abundantly; and then he
changed the key, and gave us the prettiest, the most gracious, the most
smiling picture of the young princess and her brother that it was possible for
pen to trace. And I could have said, as one does in seeing a clever portrait,
‘That is a likeness, I’ll be sworn for it.’ ”
It may be seen from the above passage, and from some others in my
mother’s book on Paris and the Parisians, that her estimate of the man
Chateaubriand was a somewhat higher one, than that which I have
expressed in the preceding pages. She was under the influence of the
exceeding charm of his exquisite manner. But in the following passage,
which I am tempted to transcribe by the curious light it throws on the
genesis of the present literary history of France, I can more entirely
subscribe to the opinions expressed:—
“The active, busy, bustling politicians of the hour have succeeded in
thrusting everything else out of place, and themselves into it. One dynasty
has been overthrown, and another established; old laws have been
abrogated, and hundreds of new ones formed; hereditary nobles have been
disinherited, and little men made great. But amidst this plenitude of
destructiveness, they have not yet contrived to make any one of the puny
literary reputations of the day weigh down the renown of those who have
never lent their voices to the cause of treason, regicide, rebellion, or
obscenity. The literary reputations both of Chateaubriand and Lamartine
stand higher beyond all comparison than those of any other living French
authors. Yet the first, with all his genius, has often suffered his imagination
to run riot; and the last has only given to the public the leisure of his literary
life. But both of them are men of honour and principle, as well as men of
genius; and it comforts one’s human nature to see that these qualities will
keep themselves aloft, despite whatever squally winds may blow, or
blustering floods assail them. That both Chateaubriand and Lamartine
belong rather to the imaginative than to the positif class cannot be denied;
but they are renowned throughout the world, and France is proud of them.
The most curious literary speculations, however, suggested by the present
state of letters in this country, are not respecting authors such as these. They
speak for themselves, and all the world knows them and their position. The
circumstance decidedly the most worthy of remark in the literature of
France at the present time is the effect which the last revolution appears to
have produced. With the exception of history, to which both Thiers (?)[B]
and Mignet have added something that may live, notwithstanding their very
defective philosophy, no single work has appeared since the revolution of
1830 which has obtained a substantial, elevated, and generally
acknowledged reputation for any author unknown before that period—not
even among all the unbridled ebullitions of imagination, though restrained
neither by decorum, principle, nor taste. Not even here, except from one
female pen, which might become, were it the pleasure of the hand that
wields it, the first now extant in the world of fiction,” (of course, Georges
Sand is alluded to,) “has anything appeared likely to survive its author. Nor
is there any writer, who during the same period has raised himself to that
station in society by means of his literary productions, which is so
universally accorded to all who have acquired high literary celebrity in any
country.
“The name of Guizot was too well known before the revolution for these
observations to have any reference to him.” (Cousin should not have been
forgotten.) “And however much he may have distinguished himself since
July, 1830, his reputation was made before. There are, however, little
writers in prodigious abundance.... Never, I believe, was there any period in
which the printing presses of France worked so hard as at present. The
revolution of 1830 seems to have set all the minor spirits in motion. There
is scarcely a boy so insignificant, or a workman so unlearned, as to doubt
his having the power and the right to instruct the world.... To me, I confess,
it is perfectly astonishing that any one can be found to class the writers of
this restless clique as ‘the literary men of France.’... Do not, however,
believe me guilty of such presumption as to give you my own unsupported
judgment as to the position which this ‘new school,’ as the décousu folks
always call themselves, hold in the public esteem. My opinion on this
subject is the result of careful inquiry among those who are most competent
to give information respecting it. When the names of such as are best
known among this class of authors are mentioned in society, let the politics
of the circle be what they may, they are constantly spoken of as a pariah
caste that must be kept apart.
“ ‘Do you know ——?’ has been a question I have repeatedly asked
respecting a person whose name is cited in England as the most esteemed
French writer of the age—and so cited, moreover, to prove the low standard
of French taste and principle.
“ ‘No, madame,’ has been invariably the cold answer.
“ ‘Or——?’
“ ‘No; he is not in society.’
“ ‘Or——?’
“ ‘Oh, no! His works live an hour—too long—and are forgotten.’ ”
Now, are the writers of French literature of the present day, whose names
will at once present themselves to every reader’s mind, to be deemed
superior to those of Louis Philippe, who “lent their voices to the cause of
treason, regicide, rebellion, or obscenity,” and were unrestrained by either
“decorum, principle, or taste”? For it is most assuredly no longer true that
the writers in question are held to be a “pariah caste,” or that they are not
known and sought by “society.” The facilis decensus progress of the half
century that has elapsed since the cited passages were written, is certainly
remarkable.
There is one name, however, which cannot be simply classed as one of
the décousus. Victor Hugo had already at that day made an European
reputation. But the following passage about him from my mother’s book on
Paris and the Parisians is so curious, and to the present generation must
appear so, one may almost say, monstrous, that it is well worth while to
reproduce it.
“I have before stated,” she writes, “that I have uniformly heard the
whole of the décousu school of authors spoken of with unmitigated
contempt, and that not only by the venerable advocates for the bon vieux
temps, but also, and equally, by the distinguished men of the present day—
distinguished both by position and ability. Respecting Victor Hugo, the only
one of the tribe to which I allude who has been sufficiently read in England
to justify his being classed by us as a person of general celebrity, the feeling
is more remarkable still. I have never mentioned him or his works to any
person of good moral feeling or cultivated mind who did not appear to
shrink from according him even the degree of reputation that those who are
received as authority among our own cities have been disposed to allow
him. I might say that of him France seems to be ashamed.” (My italics.)
“ ‘Permit me to assure you,’ said one gentleman gravely and earnestly, ‘that
no idea was ever more entirely and altogether erroneous than that of
supposing that Victor Hugo and his productions can be looked on as a sort
of type or specimen of the literature of France at the present hour. He is the
head of a sect, the high priest of a congregation who have abolished every
law, moral and intellectual, by which the efforts of the human mind have
hitherto been regulated. He has attained this pre-eminence, and I trust that
no other will arise to dispute it with him. But Victor Hugo is NOT a popular
French author.’ ”
My recollections of all that I heard in Paris, and my knowledge of the
circles (more than one) in which my mother used to live, enable me to
testify to the absolute truth of the above representation of the prevalent
Parisian feeling at that day respecting Victor Hugo. Yet he had then
published his Lyrics, Notre Dame de Paris, and the most notable of his
dramas; and I think no such wonderful change of national opinion and
sentiment as the change from the above estimate to that now universally
recognised in France, can be met with in the records of European literary
history. Is it not passing strange that whole regions of Paris should have
been but the other day turned, so to speak, into a vast mausoleum to this
same “pariah,” and that I myself should have seen, as I did, the Pantheon
not yet cleared from the wreck of garlands and inscriptions and scaffoldings
for spectators, all of which had been prepared to do honour to his
obsequies?
But it must be observed that the violent repulsion and reprobation with
which he was in those days regarded by all his countrymen, save the
extreme and restless spirits of the Republican party, cannot fairly be taken
as the result and outcome of genuine literary criticism. All literary
judgments in France were then subordinated to political party feeling, and
that was intensified by the most fatal of all disqualifications for the
formation of sound and equable estimates—by fear. All those well-to-do
detesters of Victor Hugo and all his works, the “Quoique Bourbons” as well
as the “Parceque Bourbons,” the prosperous supporters of the new régime
as well as the regretful adherents of the old, lived in perpetual fear of the
men whose corypheus and hierophant was Victor Hugo, and felt, not
without reason, that the admittedly ricketty throne of the citizen king and
those sleek and paunchy National Guardsmen alone stood between them
and the loss of all they held dearest in the world. Nevertheless, the contrast
between the judgments and the feeling of 1835 and those of fifty years later
is sufficiently remarkable.
 Much has been said, especially in England, of the great writer’s
historical inaccuracy in treating of English matters. But an anecdote which
my mother gives in her book is worth reproducing for the sake of the
evidence it gives that in truth Victor Hugo was equally ignorantly and
carelessly inaccurate when speaking of home matters, on which, at least, it
might have been thought that he would have been better informed.
“An able lawyer, and most accomplished gentleman and scholar, who
holds a distinguished station in the cour royale” (in all probability Berryer),
“took us to see the Palais de Justice. Having shown us the chamber where
criminal trials are carried on, he observed that this was the room described
by Victor Hugo in his romance, adding, ‘He was, however, mistaken here,
as in most places where he affects a knowledge of the times of which he
writes. In the reign of Louis XI. no criminal trials ever took place within the
walls of this building, and all the ceremonies as described by him resemble
much more a trial of yesterday than of the age at which he dates his tale.’ ”
Georges Sand, certainly upon the whole the most remarkable literary
figure in the French world at the time of my visit to Paris, vidi tantum. That
I had an opportunity of doing on various occasions. She was a person on
whom, quite apart from her literary celebrity, the eye of any observer would
have dwelt with some speculative curiosity. She was hardly to be called
handsome, or even pretty, but was still decidedly attractive. The large eyes à
fleur de tête, and the mobile and remarkably expressive mouth rendered the
face both attractive and stimulative of interest. The features were
unmistakably refined in character and expression, and the mouth—the most
trustworthy evidence-giving feature upon that point—was decidedly that of
a high-bred woman.
She was at that period of her varied career acting as well as writing in a
manner which attracted the attention of Louis Philippe’s very vigilant and
abnormally suspicious police. She had recently left Paris for an excursion in
the tête-à-tête company of the well known Abbé de Lamenais, who was at
that time giving much trouble and disquietude to the official guardians of
the altar and the throne. His comings and goings were the object of vigilant
supervision on the part of the police authorities; and it so happened by a
strange chance that the report of the official observers of this little
excursion, which reached the official head-quarters, reached me also. And
all the watchers had to tell was that the abbé and the lady his companion
shared the same bedchamber at the end of their first day’s journey. Now the
Abbé de Lamenais was an old, little, wizened, dried-up, dirty—very dirty—
priest. It is possible, but I have reason to think highly improbable, that
economy was the motive of this strange chamber comradeship. But I was
then, and am still, very strongly convinced that the sole purpose of it was to
outrage the lady’s (and the priest’s) censors, to act differently from
everybody else, and to give evidence of superiority to conventionality and
“prejudice.”
I wrote very carefully and conscientiously some few years subsequently
a long article on Georges Sand in the Foreign Quarterly which attracted
some attention at the time. I should write in many respects differently now.
The lady in subsequent years put a considerable quantity of “water into her
wine”—and though not altogether in the same sense,—I have done so too.
To both Guizot and Thiers I had the honour of being introduced. If I
were to say that neither of them seemed to me to have entirely the manners
and bearing of a gentleman, I should probably be thought to be talking
affected and offensive nonsense. And I do not mean to say so in the
ordinary English every-day use of the term. What I mean is that they were
both of them very far from possessing that grand seigneur manner, which as
I have said so markedly distinguished Chateaubriand, and many another
Frenchman whom I knew in those days; by no means all of them belonging
to the aristocratic caste, party, or class. Guizot looked for all the world like
a village schoolmaster, and seemed to me to have much the manner of one.
He stooped a good deal, and poked his head forwards. I remember thinking
that he was, in manner, more like an Englishman than a Frenchman; and
that it was a matter of curious speculation to me at the time, whether this
effect might have been produced by the fact that he was a Protestant, and an
earnest one, instead of being a Roman Catholic. Possibly my impression of
his schoolmaster-like deportment may have been the result of his manner to
me. I was but a boy, with no claim at all to the honour of being noticed by
him in any way. But I remember being struck by the difference of the
manner of Thiers in this respect.
All my prejudices and all that I knew of the two men disposed me to feel
far the higher respect for Guizot. And my opinion still is that I judged
rightly, whether in respect to character or intellectual capacity. Not but that I
thought and think that Thiers was the brighter and in the ordinary sense of
the term the cleverer man of the two. There was no brightness about the
premier abord of Guizot, though doubtless a longer and more intimate
acquaintance than was granted to me would have corrected this impression.
But Thiers was, from the bow with which he first received you to the latest
word you heard from him, all brightness. Of dignity he had nothing at all. If
Guizot might have been taken for a schoolmaster, Thiers might have been
mistaken for a stockbroker, say, a prosperous, busy, bustling, cheery
stockbroker, or any such man of business. And if Guizot gave one the
impression of being more English than French, his great rival was
unmistakeably and intensely French. I have no recollection of having much
enjoyed my interview with M. Guizot. But I was happy during more than
one evening spent in Thiers’s house in Paris.
Of Madame Récamier I should have said the few words I have to say
about the impression so celebrated a woman produced upon me, when I was
speaking of her salon in a previous page. But they may be just as well said
here. Of the beauty for which she was famed throughout Europe, of course
little remained, when I saw her in 1835. But the grace, which was in a far
greater degree unique, remained in its entirety. I think she was the most
gracefully moving woman I ever saw. The expression of her face had
become perhaps a little sad, but it was sweet, attractive, full of the promise
of all good things of heart and mind. If I were to say that her management
of her salon might be compared in the perfection of its tactical success with
that of a successful general on the field, it might give the idea that
management and discipline were visible, which would be a very erroneous
one. That the perfection of art lies in the concealment of it, was never more
admirably evidenced than in her “administration” as a reine de salon. A
close observer might perceive, or perhaps rather divine only, that all was
marshalled, ordered, and designed. Yet all was, on the part at least of the
guests, unconstrained ease and enjoyment. That much native talent, much
knowledge of men and women, and exquisite tact must have been needed
for this perfection in the art of tenir salon cannot be denied. Finally it may
be said that a great variety of historiettes, old and new, left me with the
unhesitating conviction that despite the unfailing tribute to an éclat such as
hers, of malicious insinuations (all already ancient history at the time of
which I am writing), Madame Récamier was and had always been a truly
good and virtuous Christian woman.
Miss Clarke, also, as has been said an inmate of the Abbaye-aux-Bois,
and a close friend of her celebrated neighbour, I became intimate with. She
was an eccentric little lady, very plain, brimfull of talent, who had achieved
the wonderful triumph of living, in the midst of the choicest society of
Paris, her own life after her own fashion, which was often in many respects
a very different fashion from that of those around her, without incurring any
of the ridicule or anathemas with which such society is wont to visit
eccentricity. I remember a good-naturedly recounted legend to the effect,
that she used to have her chemises, which were constructed after the
manner of those worn by the grandmothers of the present generation,
marked with her name in full on the front flap of them; and that this flap
was often exhibited over the bosom of her dress in front! She too was a
reine de salon after her fashion—a somewhat different one from that of her
elegant neighbour. There was, at all events, a greater and more piquant
variety to be found in it. All those to be found there were, however, worth
seeing or hearing for one reason or another. Her method of ruling the
frequenters of her receptions might be described as simply shaking the
heterogeneous elements well together. But it answered so far as to make an
evening at her house unfailingly amusing and enjoyable. She was very, and
I think I may say, universally popular. She subsequently married M. Mohl,
the well-known Orientalist, whom I remember to have always found, when
calling upon him on various occasions, sitting in a tiny cabinet so absolutely
surrounded by books, built up into walls all round him, as to suggest almost
inevitably the idea of a mouse in a cheese, eating out the hollow it lived in.
Referring to my mother’s book on Paris and the Parisians for those
extracts from it which I have given in the preceding pages, I find the
following passage, the singular forecast of which, and its bearing on the
present state of things in France, tempts me to transcribe it. Speaking in
1835, and quoting the words of a high political authority, whom she had
met “at the house of the beautiful Princess B——” (Belgiojoso), she writes:
“ ‘You know,’ he said, ‘how devoted all France was to the Emperor, though
the police was somewhat tight, and the conscriptions heavy. But he had
saved us from a Republic, and we adored him. For a few days, or rather
hours, we were threatened again five years ago by the same terrible
apparition. The result is that four millions of armed men stand ready to
protect the prince who chased it. Were it to appear a third time, which
Heaven forbid! you may depend upon it, that the monarch who should next
ascend the throne of France might play at “le jeu de quilles” with his
subjects and no one be found to complain.’ ” (My italics.) On the margin of
the page on which this is printed, my mother has written in the copy of the
book before me, “Vu et approuvé. Dec. 10th, 1853. F. T.”
The mention of the Princess Belgiojoso in the above passage reminds me
of a memorable evening which I spent at her house, and of my witnessing
there a singular scene, which at the present day may be worth recounting.
The amusement of the evening consisted in hearing Liszt and the
princess play on two pianos the whole of the score of Mozart’s Don
Giovanni! The treat was a delightful one; but I dare say that I should have
forgotten it but for the finale of the performance. No sooner was the last
note ended than the nervous musician swooned and slid from his seat, while
the charming princess, in whom apparently matter was less under the
dominion of mind, or at least of nerve, was as fresh as at the beginning!
My month at Paris, with its poor thirty times twenty-four hours, was all
too short for half of what I strove to cram into it. And of course I could
please myself with an infinitude of recollections of things and places, and
occasions, and above all, persons, who doubtless contributed more to the
making of that month one of the pleasantest I have to look back on, than
any of the celebrities whom I had the good fortune to meet. But it may be
doubted whether any such rambling reminiscences would be equally
pleasing to my readers.
There is one anecdote, however, of a well remembered day, which I must
tell, before bringing the record of my first visit to Paris to a conclusion.
A picnic party—rather a large one, and consisting of men and women of
various nationalities—had been organised for a visit to the famous and
historic woods of Montmorenci. We had a delightful day, and my memory
is still, after half a century, crowded with very vivid remembrances of the
places and persons, and things done and things said, which rendered it such.
But as for the places, have they not been described and re-described in all
the guide books that were ever written? And as for the persons, alas! the
tongues that chattered so fast and so pleasantly are still for evermore, and
the eyes that shone so brightly are dim, if not, as in most instances, closed
in their last sleep! But it is only with an incident that formed the finale of
our day there that I mean to trouble the reader.
Thackeray, then an unknown young man, with whom I that day became
acquainted for the first time, was one of our party. Some half-dozen of us—
the boys of the party—thinking that a day at Montmorenci could not be
passed selon les prescriptions without a cavalcade on the famous donkeys,
selected a number of them, and proceeded to urge the strongly conservative
animals probably into places, and certainly into paces, for which their life-
long training had in no wise prepared them. A variety of struggles between
man and beast ensued with divers vicissitudes of victory, till at last
Thackeray’s donkey, which certainly must have been a plucky and vigorous
beast, succeeded in tossing his rider clean over his long ears, and as ill luck
would have it, depositing him on a heap of newly broken stones. The fall
was really a severe one, and at first it was feared that our picnic would have
a truly tragic conclusion. But it was soon ascertained that no serious
mischief had been done, beyond that, the mark of which the victim of the
accident bore on his face to his dying day.
I think that when I climbed to the banquette of the Lille diligence to
leave Paris, on the morning of the 7th of June, 1835, it was the first time
that the prospect of a journey failed in any way to compensate me for
quitting what I was leaving behind.
 CHAPTER XIV.
I left Paris a day or two before my father, mother, and sisters, though
bound for the same destination—Bruges. My object in doing so appears to
have been to get a sight of some of the towns of French Flanders by the
way. But I was not many days after them in reaching the Château d’Hondt,
outside the Porte St. Pierre at Bruges; and there I remained, with the
exception of sundry visits to Ostend, and two or three rambles among the
Flemish cities, till the 3rd of October.
One used to go from Bruges to Ostend in those days by “Torreborre’s”
barge, which was towed by a couple of horses. There was a lumbering but
very roomy diligence drawn by three horses abreast. But the barge, though
yet slower than the diligence, was the pleasanter mode of making the
journey. The cost of it, I well remember, was one franc ten centimes, which
included (in going by the morning barge, which started, if I remember
rightly, at six A.M.), as much bread and butter and really excellent café au
lait as the traveller chose to consume—and I chose in those days to
consume a considerable quantity. What the journey cost without any
breakfast, I forget, if I ever knew. I fancy no such contingency as any
passenger declining his bread and butter and coffee was contemplated, and
that the charge was always the same whether you took breakfast or not. It
was not an unpleasant manner of travelling, though specially adapted for
the inmates of the Castle of Indolence. The cabin was roomy and
comfortably furnished, and infinitely superior to the accommodation of any
of the Dutch trekschuyts of the present day. One took one’s book with one.
And a cigar on the well-seated cabin roof was in excellent keeping with the
lazy smoothness of the movement, and the flat sleepy monotony of the
banks.
And these visits to Ostend were very pleasant. Consul Fauche’s
hospitable door was always open to me, and there was usually sure to be
something pleasant going on within it—very generally excellent music. I
have already spoken of Mrs. Fauche’s charming voice. Any pleasant
English, who might be passing through, or spending the bathing season at
Ostend, were sure to be found at the Consul’s—especially if they brought
voices or any musical dispositions with them. But Mary Fauche herself was
in those days a sufficient attraction to make the whitest stone evening of all
that when no other visitor was found there. Noctes cœnæque Deûm!
But those pleasant Ostend days were before the summer ended
overshadowed by a tragedy, which I will not omit to record, because the
story of it carries a valuable warning with it.
We had made acquaintance at Paris with a Mrs. Mackintosh and her
daughter, very charming Scotch people. Mrs. Mackintosh was a widow, and
Margaret was her only child. She was an extremely handsome girl, nineteen
years of age, and as magnificent a specimen of young womanhood as can
be conceived. “More than common tall,” she showed in her whole person
the development of a Juno, enhanced by the vigour, elasticity and blooming
health of a Diana. She and her mother came to Ostend for the bathing
season. Margaret was a great swimmer; and her delight was to pass nearly
the whole of those hot July days in the water. Twice, or even thrice every
day she would return to her favourite element. And soon she began to
complain of lassitude, and to lose her appetite and the splendour of her
complexion. Oh! it was the heat, which really only the constant stimulus of
her bath and swim could render tolerable. She was warned that excess in
bathing, especially in salt water, may sometimes be as dangerous as any
other excess, but the young naiad, who had never in her life needed to pay
heed to any medical word or warning, would not believe, or would not
heed. And before the September was over we followed poor Margaret
Mackintosh to the little Ostend cemetery, killed by over bathing as
decidedly as if she had held her head under water!
This sad tragedy brought to a gloomy end a season which had been, if
not a very profitable, a very amusing one. There was a ci-devant Don
Quixote sort of a looking man, a Count Melfort, whose young and buxom
wife boasted some strain of I forget what noble English blood, and who
used to give the Consul good dinners such as he particularly affected, which
his wife was neither asked nor cared to share, though the ladies as well as
the gentlemen were excellent good friends. There was a wealthy Colonel
Dickson who also used to give dinners, at one of which, having been
present, I remember the host fussing in and out of the room during the
quarter of an hour before dinner, till at last he rushed into the drawing-room
with his coat sleeves drawn up to his elbows, horror and despair in his
mien, as he cried, “Great heaven! the cook has cut the fins off the turbot!” If
any who partook of that mutilated fish survive to this present year of grace
(which, I fear, is hardly likely to be the case) I am sure they will recall the
scene which ensued on the dreadful announcement. There was the very
pretty and abnormally silly little banker’s wife, who supplied my old friend,
Captain Smithett, with billets doux and fun, and who used to adapt verses
sent her by a still sillier youthful adorer of her own to the purpose of
expressing her own devotion to quite other swains.
It was a queer and not very edifying society, exceedingly strange, and
somewhat bewildering to a lad fresh from Oxford who was making his first
acquaintance with Continental ways and manners. All the married couples
seemed to be continually dancing the figure of chassée croisez, and I, who
had no wife of my own, and was not yet old enough to know better, thought
it extremely amusing.
When October came, and I had not heard anything from Birmingham of
the appointment to a mastership in the school there, for which I had been all
this time waiting, I thought it was time to look up my Birmingham friends
and see how matters stood there. At Birmingham I found that the governors
of King Edward’s School were still shilly-shallying; but I heard enough to
convince me that no new master would be appointed till the very fine new
building which now ornaments the town, but was then in course of
construction, should be completed.
Having become convinced of this, in which it eventually turned out that I
was right, it only remained to me to return to Bruges, with the assurance
from Dr. Jeune and several of the governors that I and nobody else should
have the mastership when the appointment should be made. I returned to
Bruges, passing one day with the dear Grants at Harrow, and an evening
with my brother Anthony in London by the way, and reached the Château
d’Hondt on the 15th of October, to find my father very much worse than I
had left him. He was in bed, and was attended by the Dr. Herbout of whom
I have before spoken. But he was too evidently drawing towards his end;
and after much suffering breathed his last in the afternoon of the 23rd of
October, 1835. On the 25th I followed his body to his grave, close to that of
my brother Henry, in the cemetery outside the Catherine Gate of the town.
The duty was a very specially sad one. When I followed my mother to
the grave at Florence many years afterwards my thoughts were far from
being as painfully sad, though she was, I fear, the better loved parent of the
two. She died in a ripe old age after a singularly happy, though not
untroubled, life, during many years of which it was permissible to me to
believe that I had had no small share in ministering to her happiness. It was
otherwise in the case of my father. He was, and had been, I take it, for many
years a very unhappy man. All had gone wrong with him; misfortunes fell
on him, one on the back of the other. Yet I do not think that these
misfortunes were the real and efficient causes of his unhappiness. I do not
see what concatenation of circumstances could have made him happy. He
was in many respects a singular man. Ill-health and physical suffering, of
course, are great causes of an unhappy life; but all suffering invalids are not
unhappy. My father’s mind was, I think, to a singular degree under the
dominion of his body. The terrible irritability of his temper, which
sometimes in his latter years reached a pitch that made one fear his reason
was, or would become, unhinged, was undoubtedly due to the shattering of
his nervous system, caused by the habitual use of calomel. But it is difficult
for one who has never had a similar experience to conceive the degree in
which this irritability made the misery of all who were called upon
habitually to come into contact with it. I do not think that it would be an
exaggeration to say that for many years no person came into my father’s
presence who did not forthwith desire to escape from it. Of course, this
desire was not yielded to by those of his own household, but they were none
the less conscious of it. Happiness, mirth, contentment, pleasant
conversation, seemed to fly before him as if a malevolent spirit emanated
from him. And all the time no human being was more innocent of all
malevolence towards his fellow creatures; and he was a man who would
fain have been loved, and who knew that he was not loved, but knew
neither how to manifest his desire for affection nor how to conciliate it.
I am the more convinced that bodily ailment was the causa causans of
most, if not of all, of this unhappy idiosyncrasy, that I have before me
abundant evidence that as a young man he was beloved and esteemed by his
cotemporaries and associates. I have many letters from college friends,
fellows of New College, his cotemporaries, several of them thanking him
for kindnesses of a more or less important kind, and all written in a spirit of
high regard and esteem.
What so grievously changed him? I do not believe that he was soured by
pecuniary misfortune, though he had more than enough. His first great
misfortune—the marriage of his old widower uncle, whose heir he was to
have been—was, I have the means of knowing, borne by him well, bravely
and with dignity. I believe that he was destroyed mind and body by calomel,
habitually used during long years.
Throughout life he was a laborious and industrious man. I have seen few
things of the kind with more of pathos in it than his persevering attempt to
render his labour of some value by compiling a dictionary of ecclesiastical
terms. He had quite sufficient learning and sufficient industry to have
produced an useful book upon the subject if he had only had the possibility
of consulting the, of course, almost innumerable necessary authorities. The
book was published in quarto by subscription, and two or three parts of it
had been delivered to the subscribers when death delivered him from his
thankless labour and his subscribers from further demands on their purses. I
do not suppose that any human being purchased the book because they
wished to possess it. And truly, as I have said, it was a pathetic thing to see
him in his room at Château d’Hondt, ill, suffering, striving with the
absolutely miserable, ridiculously insufficient means he had been able with
much difficulty to collect, to carry on his work. He was dying—he must, I
think, have known that he was; he had not got beyond D in his dictionary;
all the alphabet was before him, but he would not give up; he would labour
to the last. My mother was labouring hard, and her labour was earning all
that supplied very abundantly the needs of the whole family. And I cannot
help thinking that a painful but not ignoble feeling urged my poor father to
live at least equally laborious days, even though his labour was profitless.
Poor father! My thoughts as I followed him to the grave were that I had
not done all that I might have done to alleviate the burthen of unhappiness
that was laid upon him. Yet looking back on it all from the vantage-ground
of my own old age (some fifteen years greater than that which he attained) I
do not see or think that any conduct of mine would have made matters
better for him.
My father’s death naturally made an important change in my mother’s
plans for the future. The Château d’Hondt was given up, adieus were said,
not without many au revoirs, to many kind friends at Bruges, and more
especially at Ostend, and we left Belgium for England. After some time
spent in house-hunting, my mother hired a pleasant house with a good
garden on the common at Hadley, near Barnet, and there I remained with
her, still awaiting my Birmingham preferment, all that winter and the
following spring. The earlier part of the time was saddened by the rapid
decline and death of my younger sister, Emily. We knew before leaving
Bruges that there was but a slender hope of saving her from the same
malady which had been fatal to my brother Henry. But the medical men
hoped or professed to hope, that much might be expected from her return to
her native air. But the mark of the cruel disease was upon her, and very
rapidly after our establishment at Hadley she sank and painlessly breathed
her last.
Poor little Emily! She was a very bright espiègle child, full of fun and
high spirits. There is a picture of her exactly as I remember her. She is
represented with flowing flaxen curls and wide china-blue eyes, sitting with
a brown holland pinafore on before a writing-desk and blowing a
prismatically-coloured soap-bubble. The writing copy on the desk lying
above the half-covered and neglected page of copy-book bears the legend
“Study with determined zeal!”
Her youngest child had ever been to my mother as the apple of her eye,
and her loss was for the passing day a crushing blow. But, as usual with her,
her mind refused to remain crushed, any more than the grass is permanently
crushed by the storm wind that blows over it. She had the innate faculty and
tendency to throw sorrow off when the cause of it had passed. She owed
herself to the living, and refused to allow unavailing regret for those who
had been taken from her to incapacitate her for paying that debt to the
utmost.
And once again, as was usual with her, her new home became a centre of
social enjoyment and attraction for all, especially the young, who were
admitted to it. I do not remember that with the exception of the family of
the rector, Mr. Thackeray, we had many acquaintances at Hadley. I
remember a bit of fun, long current among us, which was furnished by the
reception my mother met with when returning the call of the wife of a
wealthy distiller resident in the neighbourhood. The lady was of abnormal
bulk, and when my mother entered the room in which she was sitting, she
said, “Excuse me, ma’am, if I keep my chair, I never raise. But I am glad to
see you—glad to see anybody,” with much emphasis on the last word. I
wish every caller was received with as truthful an expression of sentiments.
Our society consisted mainly of friends staying in the house, or of flying
visitors from London. As usual, too, my mother soon gathered around her a
knot of nice girls, who made the house bright. For herself she seemed
always ready to take part in all the fun and amusement that was going; and
was the first to plan dances, and charades, and picnics, and theatricals on a
small and unpretending scale. But five o’clock of every morning saw her at
her desk; and the production of the series of novels, which was not brought
to a conclusion till it had reached the hundred and fifteenth volume, though
it was not begun till she was past fifty, never ceased.
The Christmas was, I remember, a very merry one. We were seeing a
good deal of a young fellow-clerk of my brother’s in the secretary’s office
at the Post Office, who was then beginning to fall in love with my sister
Cecilia, whom he married not long afterwards. He was then at the
beginning of a long official life, from which he retired some years ago as
Sir John Tilley, K.C.B. Among others of our little circle, I especially
remember Joseph Henry Green, the celebrated surgeon, Coleridge’s literary
executor, who first became known to us through his brother-in-law, Mr.
Hammond, who was in practice at Hadley. Green was an immensely tall
man, with a face of no beauty, but as brightly alive with humour as any I
ever saw. He was a delightful companion in a walk; and I remember to the
present hour much of the curious and out-of-the-way information I picked
up from him, mainly on subjects more or less connected with his profession
—for he, as well as I, utterly scouted the stupid sink-the-shop rule of
conversation. I remember especially his saying of Coleridge, à propos of a
passage in his biography which speaks of the singular habit (noticed by his
amanuensis) that he had of occupying his mind with the coming passage,
which he was about to dictate, while uttering that with which the writer was
busy, that he (Green) had frequently observed the same peculiarity in his
conversation.
Some few of our guests came to us from beyond the Channel, among
them, charming Mrs. Fauche, with her lovely voice and equally lovely face,
whose Ostend hospitalities my mother was glad to have an opportunity of
returning.
Among these visitors from the other side of the Channel, I remember one
elderly lady of the Roman Catholic faith, and a strict observer of its
precepts, who was pleased to express a very strong approbation of a certain
oyster soup, which made its appearance one day at my mother’s table. She
was charmed at the idea of being able to eat such soup for a maigre dinner,
and begged that the receipt might be written out for her. “Oyster soup! Just
the thing for a Friday!” So the mode of preparing the desired dainty was
duly written out for her. But her face was a study for a physiognomist when
she read the first line of it, to the effect that she was to “Take of prime beef”
so much. Oyster soup, indeed!
It was a pleasant time—so pleasant that I am afraid that I did not regret
perhaps so much as I ought to have done the continued delay of the
Birmingham appointment for which I was all this time waiting. But pleasant
as it was, its pleasantness was not sufficient wholly to restrain me from
indulging in that propensity for rambling which has been with me the ruling
passion of a long life-time.
It was in the spring following that merry Christmas that I found time for
a little tour of about three weeks in Normandy. The reader need not fear that
I am going to tell him anything of all I did and all I saw, though every detail
of it seemed to me at the time worthy of minute record. But it has all been
written and printed some scores of times since those days—by myself once
among the rest—and may now be dismissed with a “See guide-books
passim.” The expenses of my travel accurately recorded I have also before
me. There indeed I might furnish some facts which would be new and
surprising to tourists of the present day, but they would only serve to make
him discontented with his generation.
There is one anecdote, however, connected with this little journey, which
I must relate. I was returning from southern Normandy and reached Caen
without a penny in my pocket. My funds, carefully husbanded as they had
been, had sufficed to carry me so far and no further. There were no such
things as telegrams or railways in those days; and I had nothing for it but to
go to an hotel and there remain till my application to Hadley for funds
could be answered—an affair of some ten or twelve days as things then
were. While I was waiting and kicking my heels about the old Norman city,
from which I had already extracted all the interest it could afford me, I
lounged into the shop of a bookseller, M. Mancel. I revisited him on a
subsequent occasion, and find the record of this second visit in the first of
two volumes which I wrote, and entitled A Summer in Brittany. There I find
that M. Mancel is “the publisher of numerous works on the history and
antiquities of Normandy.... M. Mancel has also an extensive collection of
old books on Norman history; but the rarest and most curious articles are
congregated into a most bibliomaniacal looking cabinet, and are not for
sale.”
 Well, this was the gentleman into whose very tempting shop I strayed
with empty pockets. He was extremely civil, showed me many interesting
things, and finding that I was not altogether an ignoramus as regarded his
specialty, observed ever and anon “That is a book which you ought to
have!” “That is a work which you will find very useful!” till at last I said
“Very true! There are two or three books here that I should like to have; but
I have no money!” He instantly begged me to take any book or books I
should like to buy, and pay for them when I got to London. “But,” rejoined
I, “I don’t know when I shall get to London, for I have no money at all. I
reached Caen with my purse empty, and am stranded here!” M. Mancel
thereupon eagerly begged me to let him be my banker for my immediate
needs, as well as for the price of any volumes I chose to purchase. And
though he had never seen my face or heard my name before, he absolutely
did furnish me with money to reach home, and gave me credit for some two
or three pounds’ worth of books, it being arranged that I should on reaching
London pay the amount to M. Dulau in Soho Square.
A few years ago on passing through Caen I went to the old book shop;
but M. Mancel had long since gone to join the majority, and his place knew
him no more. His successor, however, on my explaining to him the motive
of my visit, remarked with a truly French bow, “My predecessor seems to
have been a good physiognomist, monsieur!”
I returned to Hadley to find my mother eagerly occupied with the
scheme of a journey to Vienna, and a book as the result of it. She had had,
after the publication of her book on Paris and the Parisians, some idea of
undertaking an Italian tour, but that was now abandoned in favour of a
German journey, whether on the suggestion of her publisher, or from any
other cause of preference, I do not know. Of course I entered into such a
scheme heart and soul. My only fear now was that news of my appointment
to a mastership at Birmingham might arrive in time to destroy my hopes of
accompanying my mother. But no such tidings came; on the contrary, there
seemed every reason to suppose that no new master would be appointed till
after the following Christmas holidays. My mother was as anxious as I was
that I should be free to act as her courier, for in truth she could hardly
dispense with some such assistance; and I alone remained who could give it
to her. My sister Cecilia was to accompany my mother. She wished also to
take with her M. Hervieu, the artist who illustrated her former books; and I
obtained her permission to ask an Oxford friend to make one of the party.
We were thus a party of five, without counting my mother’s maid, an old
and trusted servant, the taking of whom, however, she subsequently
considered so great a mistake that she never fell into it on any other
occasion.
My delight at the prospect of such a journey was intense. I surrounded
myself forthwith with an amazing supply of maps and guide-books, and
was busy from morning to night with the thoroughly congenial task of
studying and preparing our proposed route.
 CHAPTER XV.
That I started on this occasion even more than on any other with the
greatest delight “goes without saying.” A longer and more varied journey
than I had ever before enjoyed was before me. All was new, even more
entirely new to the imagination than Paris; and my interest, curiosity, and
eagerness were great in proportion. We travelled by way of Metz,
Strasbourg, and Stuttgardt, and, after reaching the German frontier, by
Lohnkutscher or vetturino—incredibly slow, but of all modes of travelling
save the haquenée des Cordeliers the best for giving the traveller some
acquaintance with the country traversed and its inhabitants.
A part of the journey was performed in a yet slower fashion, and one
which was still richer in its opportunities for seeing both men and things.
For we descended the Danube on one of those barges which ply on the
river, used mainly for cargo, but also occasionally for passengers. When I
look back upon that part of our expedition I feel some astonishment at not
only the hardihood of my mother and sister in consenting to such an
enterprise, but more still at my own—it really seems to my present notions
—almost reckless audacity in counselling and undertaking to protect them
in such a scheme.
Whether any such boats still continue to navigate the Danube, I do not
know. I should think that quicker and better modes of transporting both
human beings and goods have long since driven them from their many time
secular occupation. In any case it is hardly likely that any English travellers
will ever again have such an experience. The Lohnkutscher with his thirty
or forty miles a day, and his easy-going lotus-eating-like habitudes is hardly
like to tempt the traveller who is wont to grumble at the tediousness of an
express train. But a voyage on a Danube carrier barge would be relegated to
the category of those things which might be done, “could a man be secure,
that his life should endure As of old, for a thousand long years,” but which
are quite out of the question in any other circumstances.
Here is the account which my mother gives of the boat on which we
were about to embark at Ratisbon for the voyage down the river to Vienna.
“We start to-morrow, and I can hardly tell you whether I dread it or wish
for it most. We have been down to the river’s bank to see the boat, and it
certainly does not look very promising of comfort. But there is nothing
better to be had. It is a large structure of unpainted deal boards, almost the
whole of which is occupied by a sort of ark-like cabin erected in the middle.
This is very nearly filled by boxes, casks, and bales; the small portion not
so occupied being provided with planks for benches, and a species of rough
dresser placed between them for a table. This we are given to understand is
fitted up for the express accommodation of the cabin passengers.”
In point of fact, we had, as I remember, no fellow passengers in any part
of our voyage. I take it that nobody, save perhaps the peasants of the
villages on the banks of the stream, for short passages from one of them to
the other, ever thought of travelling by these barges even in those days.
They were in fact merely transports for merchandise of the heavier and
rougher sort. The extreme rudeness of their construction, merely rough
planks roughly nailed together, is explained by the fact that they are not
intended ever to make the return voyage against the stream, but on arriving
at Vienna are knocked to pieces and sold for boarding.
“But the worst thing I saw,” continues my mother, “is the ladder which,
in case of rain, is to take us down to this place of little ease. It consists of a
plank with sticks nailed across it to sustain the toes of the crawler who
would wish to avoid jumping down seven or eight feet. The sloping roof of
the ark is furnished with one bench of about six feet long, from which the
legs of the brave souls who sit on it dangle down over the river. There is not
the slightest protection whatever at the edge of this abruptly sloping roof,
which forms the only deck; and nothing but the rough unslippery surface of
the deal planks, of which it is formed, with the occasional aid of a bit of
stick about three inches long nailed here and there, can prevent those who
stand or walk upon it from gently sliding down into the stream.... Well! we
have determined, one and all of us, to navigate the Danube between
Ratisbon and Vienna; and I will neither disappoint myself nor my party
from the fear of a fit of vertigo, or a scramble down a ladder.”
But if the courage of the ladies did not fail them, mine, as that of the
person most responsible for the adventure, did! And I find that, on the day
following that on which the last extract was written, my mother writes:
“At a very early hour this morning T. [Tom] was up and on board, and
perceiving by a final examination of the deck, its one giddy little bench, and
all things appertaining thereto, that we should inevitably be extremely
uncomfortable there, he set about considering the ways and means by which
such martyrdom might be avoided. He at last got hold of the Schiffmeister,
which he had found impossible yesterday, and by a little persuasion and a
little bribery, induced him to have a plank fixed for us at the extreme bow
of the boat, which we can not only reach without difficulty, but have a space
of some nine or ten feet square for our sole use, on condition of leaving it
free for the captain about five minutes before each landing. This perch is
perfectly delightful in all respects. Our fruit, cold meat, wine, bread, and so
forth are stowed near us. Desks and drawing books can all find place; and in
short, if the sun will but continue to shine as it does now, all will be well....
Our crew are a very motley set, and as we look at them from our dignified
retirement, they seem likely to afford us a variety of very picturesque
groups. On the platforms, which project at each end of the ark, stand the
men—and the women too—who work the vessel. This is performed by
means of four immense oars protruding lengthwise [i.e. in a fore and aft
direction], two in front and two towards the stern, by which the boat is
steered. Besides these, there are two others to row with. These latter are
always in action, and are each worked by six or eight men and women, the
others being only used occasionally, when the boat requires steering. It
appears that there are many passengers who work for their passage [but this
I take to have been inference only], as the seats at the oars are frequently
changed, and as soon as their allotted task is done, they dip down into the
unknown region beyond the ark and are no more seen till their turn for
rowing comes round again. I presume the labour, thus divided, is not very
severe, for they appear to work with much gaiety and good humour,
sometimes singing, sometimes chatting, and often bursting into shouts of
light-hearted laughter.”
It was a strange voyage; curious, novel, and full of never-failing interest;
luxurious even in its way, in many respects; which may now be considered
an old world experience; which probably has never been tried since, and
certainly will never be tried again, however many wandering young
Englishmen (of whom there are a hundred now for every one to be met with
in those days) might fancy trying it. No danger whatever of the kind which
my mother appears to have anticipated threatened any of the party. But the
adventure was not without danger of another kind, as the sequel showed.
Of course all the people with whom we were brought into contact—the
captain and crew of the boat, the riverside loungers at the landing-places,
the hosts and households of the little inns in the small places at which the
boat stopped every night (it never travelled save by daylight)—were all
mystified, and had all their ideas of the proprieties and the eternal fitness of
things outraged by the phenomenon of a party of English ladies and
gentlemen—supposed by virtue of ancient and well recognised reputation to
be all as rich as Crœsus, and who were at all events manifestly able to pay
for a carriage—choosing such a method of travelling. Nor had English
wanderers at that time earned the privilege since accorded to their
numerousness, of doing all sorts of strange things unquestioned on the score
of the well-known prevalent insanity of the race. All who came within sight
of us were utterly puzzled at the unaccountableness of the phenomenon.
And one does not mystify the whole of a somewhat rude population without
risking disagreeables of various sorts.
On looking back on the circumstances from my present lofty and calm
observatory, I am disposed to wonder that nothing worse betided us than the
one adventure of which I am about to speak. But, as I remember, the people
generally were, if somewhat ruder and rougher than an English population
of similar status, upon the whole very kindly and good-natured.
But at one place—a village called Pleintling—we did get into trouble,
which very nearly ended tragically. The terms upon which we were to be
housed for the night, and the price to be paid for our accommodation of all
sorts had been settled overnight, and the consciousness that we were giving
unusual trouble induced us to pay without grumbling such a price for our
beds and supper and breakfast as the host had assuredly never received for
his food and lodging in all his previous experience. But it was doubtless this
very absence of bargaining which led our landlord to imagine that he had
made a mistake in not demanding far more, and that any amount might be
had for asking it from so mysterious a party who parted, too, so easily with
their money. So as we were stepping on board the next morning he came
down to the water’s edge, and with loud vociferation demanded a sum more
than the double of that which we had already paid him. The ladies, and
indeed all the party save myself, who was the paymaster, had already gone
on board, and I was about to follow, unheeding his demands and his threats,
when he seized me by the throat, and dragging me backwards, declared in
stentorian tones that he had not been paid. I sturdily refused to disburse
another kreutzer. The other men, who had gone on board, jumped back to
my assistance. But suddenly, as if they had risen from the earth, several
other fellows surrounded us and dragged down my friends. The old
landlord, beside himself with rage, lifted an axe which he had in his hand,
and was about to deal me a blow which would probably have relieved the
reading world of this and many another page! But my mother, shrieking
with alarm, had meantime besought the captain of the boat to settle the
matter by paying whatever was demanded. He also jumped on shore just in
time, and released us from our foes, and himself from further delay, by
doing so.
At the next place at which we could go on shore we made a complaint to
the police officials; and it is not without satisfaction even after the lapse of
half a century that I am able to say that a communication from the police in
an Austrian town some days subsequently, and after we had crossed the
Bavarian frontier, informed us that the old scoundrel at Pleintling had not
only been made to disgorge the sum he had robbed us of, but had been
trounced as he deserved. I suspect that he had imagined from the
strangeness of our party, and our mode of travelling, that there were reasons
why we should not be inclined to seek any interview with the officers of the
police.
With that sole exception our voyage from Ratisbon to Vienna was a
prosperous, and on the whole, pleasant one, varied only by not unfrequently
recurring difficulties occasioned by shoals and sandbanks, when all hands,
save the non-working party in the bow, would take to the water in a truly
amphibious fashion to drag the boat off.
But I must not be led by these moving accidents by flood and field to
forget a visit paid to the sculptor Dannecker in his studio at Stuttgardt.
There is in my mother’s book an etching by M. Hervieu of the man and
place. I remember well the affectionate reverence with which he uncovered
for us his colossal bust of Schiller, as described by my mother, and the
reasons which he assigned (mistaken as they appeared to me, but it is
presumptuous in me to say so) for making it colossal. Schiller had been his
life-long friend, and these reasons, whether artistically good or not, were at
all events morally admirable and pathetically touching as given by the old
man, while looking up at his work with tears in his octogenarian eyes. I do
not think the reproduction of the bust in M. Hervieu’s etching is a very
happy one, but I can testify to the full-length portrait of the aged sculptor
being a thoroughly life-like one. It is the old man himself. He died a year or
two after the date of our visit.
 Uhland too we visited, and Gustav Schwab. Of the former I may say
literally vidi tantum, for I could speak then no German, and very few words
now, and Uhland could speak no other language. And our interview is worth
recording mainly for the case of the noticeable fact that such a man, holding
the position he did and does in the literature of his country, should at that
day have been unable to converse in French.
Gustav Schwab, though talking French fluently, and, as I remember, a
little English also, impressed me as quintessentially German in manner, in
appearance, and ways of thinking. He was one of the kindliest of men,
contented with you only on condition of being permitted to be of service to
you, and at the end of half an hour making you somehow or other feel as if
he must have been an old friend, if not in your present, at least in some
former state of existence.
My journey among these southern Germans left me with the impression
that they are generally a kindly and good-natured people. A little incident
occurred at Tübingen which I thought notably illustrated this. The
university library there is a very fine one; and while the rest of our party
were busied with some other sight-seeing, I went thither and applied to the
librarian for some information respecting the departments in which it was
strong, its rules, &c. He immediately set about complying with my wishes
in the most obliging manner, going through the magnificent suite of rooms
with me himself, and pausing before the shelves wherever he had any
special treasure to show. All of a sudden, without any warning, just as we
were passing through the marble jambs of a doorway from one room to
another, my head began to swim; I lost consciousness, and fell, cutting my
head against the marble sufficiently to cause much bloodshed. When I
recovered my senses I found the librarian standing in consternation over
me, and his pretty young wife on her knees with a basin of water bathing
my head. She had been summoned from her dwelling to attend me, and
there was no end to their kindness. I never experienced such a queer attack
before or since. I suppose it must have been occasioned by too much
erudition on an empty stomach!
Our route to Vienna was a very devious one, including southern Bavaria,
Salzburg, and great part of the Tyrol. But I must not indulge in any
journalising reminiscences of it. Were I to do so in the case of all the
interesting journeys I have made since that day how many volumes would
suffice for the purpose! When calling the other day, only two or three
months ago, on Cardinal Massaia at the Propaganda in Rome in order to
have some conversation with him respecting his thirty-five years’
missionary work in Africa, on returning from which he received the purple
from Leo XIII., he obligingly showed me the MS. which he had prepared
from his recollection of the contents of the original notes, unfortunately
destroyed during his imprisonment by hostile tribes in Africa, and which is
now being printed at the Propaganda Press in ten volumes quarto. His
Eminence was desirous that it should be translated into English, and
published in London with the interesting illustrations he brought home with
him, and which adorn the Roman edition. But as the wish of his Eminence
was that it should be published unabridged (!) I was obliged to tell him that
I feared he would not find a London publisher. We parted very good friends,
and on taking my leave of him he said, pressing my hand kindly, that we
should shortly meet again in heaven—which, considering that he knew he
was talking to a heretic, I felt to be a manifestation of liberal feeling worthy
of note in a cardinal of the Church of Rome.
Will the kind reader, bearing in mind the recognised and almost
privileged garrulity of old age, pardon the chronology-defying introduction
of this anecdote here, which was suggested to me solely by the vision of
what my reminiscences would extend to if I were to treat of all my
wanderings up and down this globe in extenso?
The latter part of our voyage was especially interesting and beautiful, but
tantalising from the impossibility of landing on every lovely spot which
enticed us. Nevertheless, we at last found ourselves at Vienna with much
delight, and our first glimpses of the city disposed us to acquiesce heartily
in the burthen of the favourite Viennese folk-song, “Es ist nur ein
Kaiserstadt, es ist nur ein Wien!”
I remember well an incident which my mother does not mention, but
which seemed likely to make our first début in the Kaiserstadt an
embarrassing one. There was in some hand-bag belonging to some one of
the party an old forgotten pack of playing cards, which the examining
officer of the customs pounced on with an expression of almost
consternation on his face.
“Oh, well, throw them away,” said the spokesman of our party airily, “or,
if the regulations require it, we will pay the duty, though we have not the
least desire to retain possession of them.”
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com