Chapter III: Part 3

Sœur Marie Joseph is very fond of New Zealand. She came out, attracted by what she heard of the Maoris, and she knows the Maoris with an intimate thoroughness. She has a great admiration for them; and she gave me many instances of their chivalry and nobility of character. She has seen great changes since she has been in New Zealand. When she first came, she told me, New Zealand was covered with bush--that is to say, with magnificent forests; and the population, then, she says, was like one large family.

* * * * *

This morning at one of the Catholic churches here the priest preached a most interesting sermon. Among other things he told the following story. He said, “The other day I met a man who said, ‘I am a better Catholic than you are; because I go to all the churches: the Catholic, the Anglican, the Presbyterian, etc.’” On the following Sunday the priest passed this same man as he was working in his garden, and he said to him, “You may go to all the churches, but you don’t obey the precepts of any of them; for they all tell you not to work on Sunday.” The man laughed.

A few days after the priest met the man again in the town, and the man said to him: “I have just had the narrowest escape. I fell off a car and my legs were underneath it, and I was within an ace of being run over, when mercifully it stopped just in time.”

“Well,” said the priest, “I think that was due to me, because, when I saw you working last Sunday, I prayed for the salvation of your legs.”

_Roratonga and Tahiti: September_

I left Wellington on September 13 on the steamship Moana, one of the steamers belonging to the Union Steamship Company.

There was a great deal of excitement at the send-off, because the Rugby Union Football Team from Australia were on board. They had come from Sydney and were on their way to San Francisco, in order to play against the local teams there. These football boys had arrived the day before, and had had a respite of twenty-four hours from the inclemency of the sea, which they had greatly enjoyed (the respite, I mean, not the sea). Some of them had never been away from Australia before. Several of them, or, indeed, nearly all of them with the exception of about seven, were indifferent sailors. They remained on shore as long as they possibly could, one of them climbing up the gangway as it was actually being pulled up. The ship sailed amidst cheering and singing.

The southern Pacific, especially that part of it which is near New Zealand, is not a pleasant sea. The steamer pitched, and altogether the comfort of passengers was considerably interfered with during the first two days of the voyage. We started on Friday, and owing to the change of time we had two Saturdays running. (Let mathematicians explain that if they can.) It was not until the Sunday which followed the two Saturdays that the sea began to be smooth enough to allow the passengers to behave like human beings instead of like half-inanimate corpses.

On Sunday most of the football boys emerged from their cabins and began training on the upper deck. They boxed, they wrestled, they ran, they played leap-frog, they formed scrimmages; in fact, they displayed every form of energy which human bones and muscles are capable of.

The weather grew warmer, and on the Tuesday we got to the southeast trade winds. The day after this the steamer called at the island of Roratonga. Roratonga is an island which consists of sharp and jagged little hills entirely covered with a riotous green vegetation.

In thinking of the South Sea Islands, and of tropical islands in general, if you have never seen them, one may not realise that the general appearance of them must necessarily be green, since they are entirely covered with vegetation. One imagines a few palm-trees sticking up out of the sea, instead of a range of mountains covered with trees. As you first catch sight of Roratonga, you realise what New Zealand must have been like when it was covered with bush, only, of course, the climate of Roratonga is far milder and far warmer. The moment the steamer reaches Roratonga a great quantity of natives set out in boats from the shore and swarm on board. They are not black; they are not copper-coloured; they are a sort of dull almond colour, with very black hair and very dark brown eyes. They wear large straw hats; some of them have flowers in their hair and behind their ears.

As soon as you reach the shore the aspect of the island, which you might think disappointing at a distance, changes entirely. You are caught in a sort of warm embrace of aromatic deliciousness. Hibiscus bushes, with great scarlet blossoms, surround you on every side; cocoa palms, and all vegetation which you expect to see in a tropical island, are there before your eyes. But you will say, “If it is just the same as any other tropical island, what is the use of describing it--if it is merely what one sees in the East? You have already spoken of Ceylon.” Well, Roratonga and the islands of the South Seas are not in the least like Ceylon, and they are not in the least like anything in the Near or Far East. They have a peculiar charm which is completely individual, and totally unlike anything else. The sights and the people of these Southern places are utterly unlike the sights and people you see in the East--in Ceylon, for instance. There is nothing here of that hard, metallic element which you get in the East; nothing of that inscrutable mystery, that shadow of cruelty, which you feel in the Orient. The people are like the climate--soft and gentle; and they talk in musical tones, like the twittering of birds; and their speech is careless as the laughing talk of children. They reminded me of that race of people whom H. G. Wells describes in his book “The Time Machine,” that same people whom he imagines as living aboveground in the far, far distant future, when the industrial population of the world had grown into a sort of human flesh-eating lemur, which could only live underground and could only see in the dark. Mr. Wells represents the other and the civilized half of the population as having progressed or degenerated, whichever you like, into a race of childlike, amiable, and playful little people, who live on fruit in tumble-down houses, and who are as careless and irresponsible as butterflies. The people of Roratonga reminded me of this fancy of Mr. Wells’s.

At a little hotel where I stopped to eat some fresh bananas (and, oh, the difference between the fresh bananas and those which one buys at a store in Europe!) the woman who kept the hotel, and who had come from South Africa, talked of the natives. She said: “It is impossible to get them to work. If you find any fault with them they go away. It is we poor white people who have to do all the work. I would like,” she said, “to shambok them as they do in South Africa, so lazy and impossible they are sometimes, but we are not allowed to touch them. But then,” she added, “of course one can’t blame them, because they are quite well off without working. They have got enough to live on without doing any work.” I thought that it would, indeed, be unreasonable to blame these natives for not slaving for white people if they were not obliged to do so. The fact is that in these islands work for the natives is not a necessity; it is a hobby. It is to them what gardening must have been to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, in the days before the Fall. If Adam and Eve gardened then, they gardened for fun. After the Fall of Man, they had to garden for a living and not from choice. Well, the native inhabitants of the South Sea Islands seem to have escaped or to be exempted from the primal curse; in fact, I believe that the islands of Tahiti and Roratonga are two bits of the Garden of Eden which were allowed to remain in the world so as to show mankind what they had lost by Eve’s curiosity, Adam’s disobedience, and the Devil’s spite.

We walked along the coast of this island up to the house of the missionary, where there was a large field. The football boys wanted to practise. We certainly envied the missionary his house. It stood under a huge shelving hill covered with palm-trees, in a perfect labyrinth of flowers. When the boys began to play football, the natives came in great crowds and stood round chirping with delight like birds; and when the boys had finished practising, they threw the football to the natives and told them they might play. At first, the natives fought shy of the football,--I imagine that they thought they would have to play against these terrifically efficient and muscular representatives of New South Wales; but when they realised that the boys did not want to play with them, and that they could play among themselves, they took to the game with great eagerness, and were soon enjoying themselves greatly. It was curious that by just looking on they had picked up a very good idea of the game, the main features of which they mimicked with some skill; one little boy was an excellent tackler.

One was struck by the extraordinarily musical quality of their voices and their language, which consists almost entirely of soft open vowels, and which is, I suppose, the most melodious of all human languages.

Before going back to the steamer, which was to sail in a few hours, I bathed in the sea, in a warm azure sea, and then, after eating more bananas and a delicious bitter fruit called “Brazilian cherries,” I went on board once more.

From Roratonga it only takes two days to get to the island of Tahiti, and the steamer anchored at Papeete on Friday, the 20th September.

Roratonga gives you a kind of foretaste of the whole charm and beauty of the South Seas. It is the appetizer, the _hors-d’œuvre_, not the whole meal. Tahiti is the whole thing; the real thing; the thing one has dreamt about all one’s life; the thing which made Stevenson leave Europe forever. All tellers of fairy tales, and all poets from Homer downwards, have always imagined the existence of certain islands which were so full of magic and charm that they turned man from his duty and from all tasks, labour, or occupation in which he was engaged, and held him a willing captive, who would not sell his captivity for all the prizes of the busy world.

Stevenson in one of his books--“The Wrecker,” I think--says that if a man who was toiling in some English town were to be suddenly transported to one of the South Sea Islands, in the neighbourhood of Tahiti, and had a vision of the beauty that is there, and then were to be transported back again to his prosaic and ugly surroundings, he would say, “At any rate, I have had my dream.” That is how one feels when one has seen Tahiti. One feels one has had one’s dream.

The Bay of Papeete curves inward. As you sail into it you are sure to see several white schooners at anchor. At one side is a range of light-blue volcanic hills stretching out into the crystalline sea, reminding one of Naples, Capri, and Sorrento, and in the middle of the bay there is a tiny little island, consisting of a few cocoa palms. The sea is a transparent azure; little white houses are dotted all along the line of the beach, nestling in greenery. We got there in the afternoon and landed at once. We walked along the beach into the little town, and into the suburbs of it. It was spring in Tahiti, and every kind of imaginable blossom was flaunting its reckless and extravagant beauty. Everything grows wild in Tahiti. Nobody seems to bother about gardening or anything of that kind. It is not only the lilies who do not toil and spin, but the gardeners also. The unaided results of nature are so prodigious that the imagination is staggered to think of what might be done supposing an energetic gardener were let loose in these islands and allowed to try experiments. He would produce such a garden as the world has never seen.

I scarcely knew the names of any of the fruits or any of the blossoms which I saw. There were mango-trees, laden with mangoes which were not yet ripe; bamboo-trees, breadfruit-trees, cocoa palms, banana-trees, hibiscus bushes, a tree with a bright pink blossom which looked like a Judas-tree, but which was not one, bushes with intense mauve- and deep lilac-coloured flowers, and broad avenues of large green trees which shaded the road from the hot sun with great fanlike branches. As we walked along this avenue, on both sides of which there are little houses, we caught glimpses of wonderfully luxuriant and untrained gardens.

There seemed to be no birds except blackbirds and mina birds, which were hopping about in great quantities.

The people seem extraordinarily contented and invincibly indolent. I was walking along the main street and I wanted to get to the post-office, which I knew was somewhere along that street. I stopped at a store and asked whether I was going the right way. The storekeeper--who was a Frenchman--said, yes, I was going right. I then asked if it was far. The storekeeper said, oh, yes, it was very far; indeed, it would take me a good quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to walk there. I asked him if I could hire a conveyance, as I was in a hurry. He shook his head and thought it unlikely. I then went on my way. I thought I would just time myself and see how long it did take to reach the post-office. I walked fast; but I found, to my amazement, that it took me exactly three minutes to get there. Doubtless it would have taken a native of Tahiti twenty minutes. There is no such thing as hurry and no such thing as energy in these islands.

At five o’clock in the evening the football boys gave a display in front of the Governor’s house, and crowds of natives witnessed it. After that we all went to bathe in the bay, where sharks rarely come, although they do come sometimes.

In the evening we went to a picture-show, where there was a boxing-match between some native champions.

The people say that if you once drink of the water of Tahiti you will be bound to go there again, and I do not wonder at this. It is certainly the most fascinating and most beautiful spot I have ever seen. Its fascination lies not so much in the profusion and wealth of luxuriant vegetation and exotic colouring as in its subtle and indescribable charm. You do not feel as if you were in a hothouse. You feel as if you were in a most delicious country. You walk along by the side of streams where you see people doing their washing; you hear the cry of poultry; you see people driving oxen along the shady road. There is a wonderful fragrance in the air. Schooners come into the harbour from the other islands: the Marquesas Islands, etc. The Europeans walking about in their white clothes do not look like the Europeans you see in Ceylon, all washed out and wearied from the heat and strain; they look as if they were enjoying life, as if they were happy where they were.

There is a large Chinese population in Tahiti, but they busy themselves for the most part with agriculture. They do not do much work for the white people. The labour problem in Tahiti is consequently very vexatious for the white people. It is difficult to get work done at all; therefore, life in Tahiti is expensive. Often, for instance, the natives on market-day will bring no meat to the market, because it bothers them to do so. Of course, if white people consented to live entirely on fruit, as the natives do, the question would be solved, and certainly the fruit there is excellent. But man cannot live by breadfruit alone. He insists on sucking-pig and other more substantial delicacies; and to get these, in Tahiti, he has to pay money.

There is practically only one small hotel in Tahiti, a little two-storied house with a verandah. There are many French stores; the Governor’s House; the post-office; and a theatre. When the Panama Canal is opened, steamers, I suppose, will call at Tahiti in greater numbers than they do now, and that will be the time for speculators to build a larger hotel there. I have no fears of Tahiti ever being spoiled. It is the kind of place that will conquer civilization rather than be conquered by it. It was, at present,--I was told by people who had visited all the islands in the Pacific,--the most unspoiled of all of them. That is why I chose that route. Fiji is far more progressive, and I dare say far more satisfactory from a business and European point of view, but it is less interesting from a picturesque point of view.

I cannot imagine anything more ideal than to possess a schooner fitted with a small motor, in case of calm, and to cruise about the waters between Tahiti and the Marquesas, which, one is told, are indescribably beautiful.

I understand why Stevenson liked the South Seas above all things. I also understand why he was so loath to write descriptive articles about them. They are things to be seen; they are places to be seen and lived in; not to be written about. The pen can give no idea of their charm. Stevenson does it in his stories, and so does another well-known author, Louis Becke, who is rightly supposed to be the best writer of fiction on the South Seas.

It is possible now to take trips to the Marquesas from Tahiti in trading schooners, but I believe that is not a comfortable manner of transport. The thing would be to have a schooner of one’s own,--not an auxiliary schooner, because a schooner which is provided with steam ceases to be a sailing-vessel: the sails are never used; but a schooner fitted with a motor would ensure one against being becalmed, and, at the same time, the motor would not compete with and finally defeat the sails.

Lying at anchor in Papeete Harbour, there was a magnificent sailing-vessel which had come from San Francisco. It may not be very long before such vessels cease to exist altogether. Every day wind-jammers are being turned into steamers, and sailing-vessels become fewer and fewer. It is a melancholy fact for those who love the sea.

We stayed at Papeete only twenty-four hours. If you stay longer than that, you have to stay there a month, because the steamers only call there once a month. Tahiti is not connected by cable with any other country. Loath as I was to go, at the end of the twenty-four hours I felt it was a good thing that I was doing so; otherwise I should have been tempted to remain there for the rest of my life. Apart from other things, the climate is intoxicatingly pleasant; hot, but not too hot; prodigal, at sunset, of the most gorgeous effects of color and light; indescribably wonderful in the night-time.

The most beautiful spots in Tahiti are inland in the island, and it would take about a month to see the place properly. Papeete possesses three public automobiles for hire. I tried the whole of the morning on the day we left to get one of them, but they had all gone out. Apart from this, there are a few little carriages which act as cabs, driven by Chinamen, but they appear to go to sleep in the daytime, and only appear in the evening. The result was one had to walk about on one’s feet the whole time, and at the end of the morning I did not wonder that the inhabitants of this island are disinclined to make strenuous efforts. It is the kind of place where you are perfectly satisfied to do nothing. That morning, nevertheless, was one of the most enjoyable I have ever spent. I walked up and down the streets, looking again and again at the gorgeous-coloured blossoms and the wonderful green trees.

Between the hours of eleven and one o’clock the stores shut, and the business of life is interrupted for the midday meal and subsequent repose.

We left Tahiti in the afternoon, when the greater part of the population came down to the wharf to see us off. We left feeling like Ulysses when he was driven by force from the island of Calypso. And I for one, in any case, felt that come what might, I had had my dream. I had had a glimpse of Eden, a peep into the earthly paradise.

I have seen many of the beautiful corners of the world. A lake in Manchuria covered with large pink lotus flowers, as delicate as the landscape on a piece of Oriental china.

I have seen Linfa, the deserted ruin of the Roman Campagna, rising from waters thick with water-lilies, and a wilderness of leaves, like a castle which an enchanter has bade go to sleep for hundreds of years.

I have seen, in the Scilly Isles, that island which is a white garden set in the bluest of seas. I have seen Capri, and the Greek Islands, and Brusa in Asia Minor in the spring, when the nightingales sing all day, and the roses are in full bloom, and the noise of running water is forever in your ears.

But never have I seen anything so captivating as Tahiti, as those long shady walks, those great green trees, that reckless, untutored glory of blossom and foliage, those fruits, those flowers, and the birdlike talk of those careless natives, who wreathe themselves with flowers, and are happy without working, and who put scarlet flowers behind their ears to signify they are going to enjoy themselves: to have a good time; to paint the town red.

In Tahiti there are no snakes, and in this respect at least Tahiti is superior to the Garden of Eden, equal to Ireland.

_Across the Pacific: September 21-- October 3_

In describing the voyage across the Pacific (in “The Wrecker”), Stevenson says that there are certain periods in life which leave behind them a kind of roseate haze on the map of one’s existence. You cannot remember the details; you are merely conscious of a kind of pleasant blur. I feel the same thing about my voyage from Tahiti to San Francisco, but I have not yet forgotten and shall never forget the details. That voyage stands out for me like a kind of bath which had the power of restoring one’s youth for the time being. The trade winds blew freshly the whole time. There was a breeze even when we crossed “the line.” It was tropically warm, and yet never for one hour too hot. It was only at the end of the voyage that the freshness was overdone, that the weather grew cold, and the sea too rough for comfort; otherwise the weather was perfect. The huge clouds of the Pacific chased one another across the sky, as Stevenson describes them--“blotting out the stars” at night, and making fantastic citadels in the sunset.

Apropos of the stars in the tropics, one is always told that there is no twilight in these regions. This is not quite an accurate way of expressing it. What is accurate, is Coleridge’s line in “The Ancient Mariner,” when he says, “The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out.” He adds, “At one stride comes the dark.” The moment the sun goes down, you do see the stars at once; but the darkness that comes is not dark; the red afterglow down on the horizon, and above it the luminous mauve haze, which is peculiar to the tropics, lingers a long time, and against this the great shapes of the clouds stand out inky and black. It is a wonderful sight.

The football boys used to train twice a day. A large swimming-bath, made out of a sail, had been fixed up on the deck, so that after toying with a little amateur training, one could take off one’s clothes and splash about in the salt water. I do not think I ever enjoyed baths so much.

In the afternoon many of us used to take sunbaths, and lie half stripped on the upper deck in the sun, till our skin turned first red and then brown. At Sydney everybody takes these sunbaths, and this accounts for the bronzed complexion of the Australians.

The football boys had appetites which I have rarely seen equalled and never seen surpassed.

When I was at school at Eton, there was a phrase which was peculiar to the place, namely, “a brozier” (I am not certain that this is the right spelling). “A brozier” or “to brozier” meant when the boys ate all the food provided for them and clamored for more, until there was nothing left in the house.

There was, once upon a time, a much-venerated lady at Eton, called Miss Evans, who ruled over a house of boys. One day the boys settled on “a brozier,” and ate everything in the house, but Miss Evans was not to be defeated. She produced a large, evil-smelling cheese, and set it before the boys, and this cheese defeated them.

The football boys seemed capable of doing this every day, and the stewards were walked off their feet by the amount of fetching and carrying of dishes which they had to perform. As soon as the bugle blew, one heard a stampede of feet going down to the saloon. One felt inclined to quote Browning’s celebrated poem, and say,--

“Dinner’s at seven--
All’s right with the world.”

It is a curious thing that I got to know more about Australia and New Zealand after having left it than I did when I was there, by the presence and companionship of these football boys from New South Wales. Most of them were Australians, some had come from New Zealand. Besides being some of the best amateur football players in the world, they were the very best of good fellows, and to live with them was like being transported back again to Oxford or Cambridge and the days of one’s youth.

After dinner in the evening choruses used to be sung, and singing in chorus is the crown of good-fellowship.

In the eighteenth century in England, whenever people met together to eat, drink, and enjoy themselves, they sang. Song, alas, is now dying out of modern England, but it still lingers in the haunts of the young. Very few people now write drinking-songs, and this surely testifies to a lamentable decay in our morals.

I shall always be thankful to this trip for having afforded me a better glimpse of the new world, which I obtained through the companionship of these fine sons of Australia and New Zealand, than I might have obtained by living for months in Wellington or Sydney, because on board a small ship one gets to know people far more intimately than one does anywhere else, and it is by getting to know people that you arrive at an understanding of a country. It is not through sight-seeing that you get to know a country; it is through getting to know its people well, and through getting to know the right sort of people.

_San Francisco: October 3_

There is no subject in the world more hackneyed than American impressions. Nearly every month a writer of note discovers America over again. In spite of this, I am told, there is no stuff that is more eagerly read in the States, and outside of them, than impressions of America written by a foreigner. It doesn’t seem to matter whether such impressions are written by a writer of renown, such as H. G. Wells or Arnold Bennett, or by a totally unknown tourist; it does not matter whether they are well written or ill written, whether they are serious or flippant, amusing or dull; they are certain to be read.

I think I can understand the reason of this. People in any country like to read about themselves. They like to look upon their own image as it is reflected in the mirror of foreign observers.

It does not much matter what the mirror is like, so long as the image is there. There is no book of impressions of England, for instance, that I could not read with interest.

Nevertheless, all this does not make the task of writing about America to an American public any easier. If one is writing exclusively for one’s own native public, the task is not so difficult. One can describe an American hotel, for instance, a train, a tram-car; one can tell how one is shaved and how one’s boots are blacked; but the American public knows that already. So the task resolves itself into this: one has to write about things which are intimately familiar to the public one is addressing, in such a manner as to make it possible for them to read what one writes without being tired to death and throwing the book at some one’s head.

This being so, I revolve in my mind the different methods which could be applied to the task. First of all, there is the method to which I have already alluded, and in some cases used in these notes: the method of not writing about America at all, but about something else. You would begin writing like this: “The day I arrived at San Francisco, I was thinking about Venice,” and then you would write a chapter on Venice. But I do not think people would stand this.

Then you could use the manner of Bernard Shaw. You could write a “discussion” on America in three acts, in which an aeronaut, a milliner, a Salvation Army girl, a capitalist, a High-Church clergyman, and a lady Socialist would sit round a table and discuss America.

You would begin with a preface on trusts, Italian opera, vivisection, submarines, and prizefighting. Then you would get to the discussion. This would be prefaced by five pages of stage-directions, with regard to the room in which the discussion was to take place. Then one of the characters would enter, and there would be two pages of stage-directions in very small print about the facial expression, the clothes, the boots, the watch, the cigarette-case of that character. Then the character would do a little business,--open the window, perhaps, or shut it. More characters would enter, heralded by more stage-directions. Then the characters, having sat down, would discuss America, and incidentally every other country under the sun, especially England.

The discussion would be forbidden by the censorship in England, because one of the characters would be called Askfour, and this would be considered allusion to

(_a_) Mr. Asquith

(_b_) Mr. Balfour

(_c_) Sir George Askwith (on account of the “k”);--

and so the discussion would be acted in the Little Theatre at New York, and in London by the State Society on Sunday evenings.

Then I might adopt the method of Pierre Loti. This is called the “dot-and-dash” method. It is like the Morse code made poetic. You begin a sentence and leave it unfinished, adding a lot of dots like this:--

New York.............

I am in New York-.-...but I am not thinking of New York..-....-I am thinking of something else....-..the other places....... the East ......the desert........Stamboul............... Ispahan........Sadi......

(Then a whole line of dots.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Then you begin again.)

I am in New York............. tall buildings rise wistful and white in the pale milky sky...... They are very tall, those buildings........ They affect me with a strange longing to go away....... to be somewhere else...... anywhere else........ not here....There........ where?...... Beyond.......

Translate that into French, and you get the Loti-Morse method.

Then there is the Masefield method. That would consist in writing an enormously long poem about the Bowery, in verse full of expletives, oaths, and tough adjectives, called “Street-pity.”

“Take that, and that, and go to Hell.
Hell, Hell, Hell, Hell.”

On reflection, I reject all these methods. I will leave the matter to my pen.

The only way to write is to let the pen do the work, like what happens in planchette (except when somebody cheats). Very few writers think before they write or even when they are writing; they let their pen guide their thoughts. And I am certain that those writers who write too much suffer from a disease of the fingers and not of the brain.

Before saying a word about America, I apologize for anything I shall say which may sound or be absurd.

A wit once said that the American and English people had everything in common, except, of course, the language. There is, I think, a great deal of truth in this: the words are the same, but they mean different things and they are used in different ways.

Some day, when I have learned the American language properly, I mean to write a large book on the American language. In the mean time, the following condensed grammar for foreigners may prove useful for Americans going to England, as well as for Englishmen going to America:--

_Chapter I_

_Rule I._ (Very important.) Whenever you say “in” in English say either “on” or “to” in American.

(Note that all English people say, “on a ship,” except British naval officers. If you say, “on a ship,” to a British naval officer,--if, for instance, you say, “Jones is on the Dreadnought,” he will get very angry and correct you, and say, “_in_ the Dreadnought.”)

There are one hundred and twenty-six exceptions to this rule, the most important of which is this:--

“To be in trouble” is not translated “to be on trouble” in American.

_Rule II._ The two most important words in American are “proposition” and “stunt.”

Everything is either a proposition or a stunt.

There are no other rules.

_Exercise_

Translate the following story into American:--

THE MOUSE AND THE LION

Once upon a time a Mouse went and trod on a Lion who was asleep. The Lion, who had been late in going to bed the night before (translate “had a hang-over”), woke up, and after saying, “Bother you,” seized the Mouse, and prepared to eat it.

But the Mouse, who was as brave as a mouse, said, “Let me go, you son of a Lioness; perhaps some day I may do you a good turn.”

The Lion, having laughed the Mouse to scorn, let it go, saying: “A Mouse do a Lion a good turn. How witty!”

Some time afterwards, some hunters caught the Lion, and put it into a large net.

The Mouse, which happened to be there, hearing the Lion groan, came and nibbled away the net (translate “got busy”), until the Lion was free.

“Don’t you remember,” said the Mouse, “my telling you that I might some day do you a good turn? You see how right you were not to eat me then.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said the Lion, and it ate the Mouse.

_Conversation_

Did you hand the gardener’s niece a lemon?

Where is the son of the stockbroker?

What is the son of the stockbroker doing on the street?

Will the son of the stockbroker be stung?

Is the son of the stockbroker a cooker?

Did the son of the baker call the son of the cook a four-flusher?

Did the cousin of the carpenter make the brother-in-law of the blacksmith look like 30 cents?

Is it up to you to put it over him?

Did the son of the banker, when his father gave him his blessing for a birthday present, say it was a two-spot on the show-down?

No, but I threw a bouquet at the brother of the carpenter.

He is on the street.

The son of the stockbroker is looking for hens’ teeth.

Yes, good and plenty.

No, the son of the stockbroker is a quitter.

No, he called him a son of a gun.

No, he got his.

Sure, Mike.

Yes, and he said the gent was a piece of cheese.

Can you see anything to the daughter of the money-lender?

Did the second cousin of the tough get outside four bottles?

Is the nephew of the crook a booze-fighter?

Will the uncle of the stockbroker lend me fifty dollars?

Yes, $5,100,000.

No, the second cousin of the tough has been on the water-wagon for three moons.

No, the nephew of the crook is a Bull-Mooser.

No, the uncle of the stockbroker is a tight-wad.

What differentiates the arrival at an American port or city from the arrival at the port or city of any other country is that in America you will find a whole lot of people who are there to meet your wants and your need. When you arrive in any foreign country, you are necessarily ignorant of nearly all those things which it is essential you should know. Now, in most countries you find nobody to help deal with that ignorance and to help you out of a situation created by it. In America, on the other hand, you will find a whole lot of people who are there to find out what you want to do, and to help you to do it in the most convenient and quickest way. They make a business of it. It pays them and it helps you. It pays them to help you better than some one else helps you.

I have met in England quite a lot of people who are frightened at the thought of going to America, because they feel so ignorant of the conditions obtaining there. They need feel no such alarm. They will find a crowd of people competing among themselves as to who can best put them in the way of what they want to do. For instance, when I arrived at San Francisco, agents came on board the ship from all of the different railway lines, each of which was ready to fix up your journey for you and do anything you wanted. Each railway line wants you to travel by their line, so each line makes it his business that you should have every possible inducement to do so.

When I arrived at San Francisco, I thought I might have to proceed on my journey that same night, but I also wanted to get some money from the bank. I had arrived after the closing-time of banks. In any other country this would have been an insuperable obstacle in the way of getting money. In San Francisco, not at all. The representative of the Santa Fé Line, which I wished to travel by, immediately took me to an office where I could get money on presentation of my letter of credit. The whole business was fixed up in about ten minutes; in most other countries it takes about half a day to draw on a letter of credit in a bank; it is quite impossible to draw on it after business hours.

As a matter of fact, I did not proceed on my journey that night. Here, again, there was no difficulty in cancelling my sleeping-berth.

All these things, which are a matter of course to the American, are unheard of in European countries. Nobody in Europe has made it a fine art to meet the convenience of travellers, with the exception, of course, of Messrs. Cook & Son; but when Cook’s office is closed, it is closed, and nothing can open it. In America, as far as I can see, nothing is ever completely closed. There will always be somebody somewhere to get you what you want.

In San Francisco, to-day, it is difficult to detect any traces of the fire which followed the earthquake. The enormous high buildings look as if they had always been there.

I drove to the hotel--the St. Francis--after having finished my business in the city, in a taxi. This is an expensive thing to do, but practically the only time you need do it is when you are coming from the boat. In spite of this, one sometimes wishes that taxis in America were cheaper. I think there is only one country in the world where it is within the means of the really poor to hire a cab, and that is--Russia. A poor man can take a cab just as easily as a rich man there, because there is no standard charge. The charge depends on the cabman, and sometimes he will drive you for almost nothing. I have often seen extremely poor people take cabs in Russia.

In Moscow, the cab-drivers very often own their cabs. They bargain with you before you get into the cab, as to the price of the drive, and if the driver does not agree to your price, he will not drive you.

New York, I suppose, is the only city now where hansom cabs still exist. In London, the only place where you can find one is the British Museum.

The first thing that struck me in San Francisco, and in America altogether, was the architecture. Many years ago, when I was in Florence, I was present in the house of a famous picture expert, when he and some well-known archæologists were discussing architecture, and some one who was present said he wondered whether there would ever be a Renaissance in architecture. One of the archæologists present said that this Renaissance was already happening in America.

I do not think there are any modern buildings in Europe which can compare with the modern buildings in America, But apart from such masterpieces as the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, Pierpont Morgan’s library, and the wonderful towers and skyscrapers in New York, it struck me that all the little houses you saw everywhere in the country round San Francisco and along the Santa Fé Railway track, and again in Long Island, were remarkable for their symmetry, their good proportions, and their daintiness. For instance, the country in New Zealand is covered with little bungalows; so is the country round San Francisco; but the difference between them is immense. There is no elegance or prettiness about the bungalows in New Zealand; they are heavy, unshapely, and monotonous; there is no taste or design about them; while in San Francisco, on the contrary, they are extremely varied, remarkable for their proportion, attractive-looking, and often extremely pretty. I believe that in the American character there is a deep sense of symmetry, shape, and neatness. I think there are evidences of this in all departments of American life: in the clothes of the men and women; in their neatness; in the quickness and neatness of their phrases and their humour; in the ingenuity of their machinery. There is a constant tendency to do away with what is unnecessary. In the finest American buildings what strikes one most is the absence of unnecessary ornamentation and detail of architect’s “twiddles,” which, in England, for instance, it is impossible to get architects to leave out, do what you will.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Station and Pierpont Morgan’s library have the simplicity of Greek architecture.

To go back again to San Francisco, the climate is like champagne. There is gaiety in the air. The streets and the houses seem to radiate with amusement and cheerfulness. San Francisco is essentially a night city, and next to Paris, I should say it was the gayest night city in the world.

I have met with a great deal of hospitality all over the world, but I have never met with people who take so much trouble for the stranger as the Americans. A friend of mine in New York met a friend of his, and asked this friend if he had any acquaintances in San Francisco, and if so, whether they could do anything for me. This friend of my friend’s immediately sent a lot of telegrams to San Francisco, the result of which was that I instantly received cards of invitation to three different clubs, and that I was, that very night, entertained at the Pacific Union Club.

Here again was an example of beautiful architecture. The club is the last word of luxury, but the luxury is subordinate to taste and design. It is not over-ornamented. When new clubs are built in England, for the sheer purpose of luxury, such as, for instance, the Automobile Club, the result is ramshackle, shoddy, pretentious, and hideous. There is nothing solid about it in taste or in design--merely luxurious gaudiness. I do not think there is in the whole of the world a club to compare in luxury, solid comfort, and fine proportion with the San Francisco Pacific Union. The food is as excellent as the architecture.

I was also taken to the Bohemian Club, which is famous for its great yearly entertainment in the redwood region.

There is also a wonderful home of athletics, which I visited, called the Olympic Club, which has not long been built. It contains every kind of bath you can imagine, and an enormous salt-water swimming-bath. It is the kind of bath you can imagine the ancient Romans built for themselves, and, indeed, American cities lead one to think that in many respects they are like ancient Rome: the quantity of marble employed; the detailed supply which is ever present to meet the demands and the needs of the individual.

During my second day in San Francisco, I was taken by a friend to see a ranch. We went by train, and then drove in a machine over the beautiful hills, right into the heart of the country. There is no country more beautiful than California. At this moment, although no rain had fallen for some time, the green was still vivid, the colours of the foliage mellow and soft and indescribably varied. The atmosphere of the hills softened the tints, and the harmony of colour was soft and gorgeous.

Riding back we passed through Stanford University, which possesses in its university buildings a striking example of American genius for architecture.

Next day I went to see the Australian Football Team play a local team. I do not think the American public is very highly interested in Rugby football, judging from the gate, which was not a very good one, as the introduction of the Rugby game in America is comparatively recent. The local team played very well, but they did not seem familiar with some of the rules. The Australian boys had not yet recovered from their journey; nevertheless, they won.

After the match was over, I drove back with them to the Olympic Club, where they bathed.

The next day I went with some friends, first by ferry across the bay, then by train, till we reached the hills. We climbed up into the hills, where great vistas of gorgeous scenery lay beneath one, and then, walking down into the valley, we wandered about amongst the trunks of the huge topless redwood. A mountain railway took us down to the level again.

No words can describe the glory of the California scenery when you get up into these hills, which are covered with woods, and nothing can give you any idea of the sweetness and the freshness of the air there.

The next night I left San Francisco for Chicago. Before leaving San Francisco, I had dinner at a restaurant called the “New Franks.” It is a small restaurant, and it provides the best food I have ever eaten anywhere. When people speak in this way of a restaurant, they often mean that they happened on that day to be hungry and to have a good appetite. I was not hungry the night I went to the New Franks. I was not inclined to eat, but the sheer excellence of the cooking there excited my greed, and bade my appetite rise from the dead.

The cooking was perfect. There is no other word for it. When I say the cooking was perfect, I mean the food was perfectly cooked. I don’t mean that there were dozens of messy entrées and highly spiced sauces. The food was of the simplest. I had soup (soup _à l’oignon_, a dream!), fish, and chicken, and I never tasted anything so good in my life.

Anatole France tells somewhere the story of a king, who, powerful as he was (or rather just because he was all-powerful), was condemned to the luxury of a huge kitchen and a huge staff of cooks, who served him up elaborate tasteless dishes which meant nothing to him. And this was sad, adds Anatole France, for he liked good food (Car il aimait la bonne chère).

He would have found it at the New Franks, which is under the direction of Mr. Peter Kochely, a Dalmatian. His cook, or cooks, are Frenchmen, and I| think a part of the success which his restaurant enjoys and the greater part of the excellence which it reaches are due to his eagle eye, which detects from a distance the likes and dislikes of every customer.

The trouble about small restaurants, when they are excellent, is, that they become well known, and are then so largely patronized that they become large and ultimately bad.

Once I was walking in Normandy with a friend, and we stopped in a very small town to have luncheon at a hotel. We asked if there was any wine. Yes, there was some wine, some Burgundy, some Beaune. We tried a bottle, and it surprised us. Surprise is, in fact, a mild word to describe the sharpness of our ecstasy.

“Is not this wine very good?” we asked of the host.

“Yes, sirs,” he answered, “it is very good. It is very old, but there is not much of it left.”

Now, my friend was a journalist, who writes about French towns and French wines in the English press.

“Whatever happens,” I said to him, “if you write about this town and about this wine, which I know you will do, you must not divulge the name of the town.”

He agreed. He wrote an article about the town, he grew lyric over the wine, and looted all the poets of the world from Homer downwards for epithets and comparisons fit for it. And he did not mention the name of the place.

The year after, he returned to the same place and ordered a bottle of the Burgundy. There was no more left. Some English gentlemen, the host told him, had come on purpose from England to finish it.

Now, I am sure some very intelligent man, and a man who was desperately fond of good wine, read the article, and guessed from the description the whereabouts of the little French town and the precious liquid.

The moral of this is: “Don’t tell secrets in the newspapers; don’t even tell half a secret.”

The evening I left San Francisco, I had a small adventure. I asked a man the way to some street. He told me the way, and then, catching hold of my arm, he said, “You will stand me a drink.”

I said I would, and we went into a drinking-saloon. Then he said, “I’m a bum. I was [and he stated his profession], and I’ve been fixed. I’m a booze-fighter.” He added with engaging frankness that he was half drunk.

In the course of conversation, it turned out that we had a common friend, and had I not been going off on the train, I would have taken him off to supper.

A singular proof of the smallness of the world.

Before taking leave of San Francisco, however, I want to say a word or two more. First of all about the clubs.

To a man who is used to the staid silence of London clubs, American clubs are exhilarating. I was present, for instance, at a dinner at the Bohemian Club, the “High Jinks Dinner,” which takes place once a year. Every year the members of the club camp out in the redwood region, where the enormous trees grow which you see in pictures, and there, in an amphitheatre formed by these vast topless trunks, they give an open-air opera, written, composed, and played by themselves. Later on, when they come back to the city, they give a dinner in the club, followed by a theatrical entertainment, which is a burlesque on the opera given in the camp: also written, composed, and played by themselves. It was at this dinner I was present, and spontaneous gaiety bubbled from that entertainment like champagne out of a bottle.