a prospective visit.
after an interval of more than fifty years, i propose taking a second look at some parts of europe. it is a rip van winkle experiment which i am promising myself. the changes wrought by half a century in the countries i visited amount almost to a transformation. i left the england of william the fourth, of the duke of wellington, of sir robert peel; the france of louis philippe, of marshal soult, of thiers, of guizot. i went from manchester to liverpool by the new railroad, the only one i saw in europe. i looked upon england from the box of a stage-coach, upon france from the coupé of a diligence, upon italy from the cushion of a carrozza. the broken windows of apsley house were still boarded up when i was in london. the asphalt pavement was not laid in paris. the obelisk of luxor was lying in its great boat in the seine, as i remember it. i did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. as for the dynasties which have overlaid each other like dr. schliemann's trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which instead of finis is constantly ending with what next?
with regard to the changes in the general conditions of society and the advance in human knowledge, think for one moment what fifty years have done! i have often imagined myself escorting some wise man of the past to our saturday club, where we often have distinguished strangers as our guests. suppose there sat by me, i will not say sir isaac newton, for he has been too long away from us, but that other great man, whom professor tyndall names as next to him in intellectual stature, as he passes along the line of master minds of his country, from the days of newton to our own,--dr. thomas young, who died in 1829. would he or i be the listener, if we were side by side? however humble i might feel in such a presence, i should be so clad in the grandeur of the new discoveries, inventions, ideas, i had to impart to him that i should seem to myself like the ambassador of an emperor. i should tell him of the ocean steamers, the railroads that spread themselves like cobwebs over the civilized and half-civilized portions of the earth, the telegraph and the telephone, the photograph and the spectroscope. i should hand him a paper with the morning news from london to read by the electric light, i should startle him with a friction match, i should amaze him with the incredible truths about anesthesia, i should astonish him with the later conclusions of geology, i should dazzle him by the fully developed law of the correlation of forces, i should delight him with the cell-doctrine, i should confound him with the revolutionary apocalypse of darwinism. all this change in the aspects, position, beliefs, of humanity since the time of dr. young's death, the date of my own graduation from college!
i ought to consider myself highly favored to have lived through such a half century. but it seems to me that in walking the streets of london and paris i shall revert to my student days, and appear to myself like a relic of a former generation. those who have been born into the inheritance of the new civilization feel very differently about it from those who have lived their way into it. to the young and those approaching middle age all these innovations in life and thought are as natural, as much a matter of course, as the air they breathe; they form a part of the inner framework of their intelligence, about which their mental life is organized. to men and women of more than threescore and ten they are external accretions, like the shell of a mollusk, the jointed plates of an articulate. this must be remembered in reading anything written by those who knew the century in its teens; it is not likely to be forgotten, for the fact betrays itself in all the writer's thoughts and expressions.
the story of my first visit to europe is briefly this: my object was to study the medical profession, chiefly in paris, and i was in europe about two years and a half, from april, 1833, to october, 1835. i sailed in the packet ship philadelphia from new york for portsmouth, where we arrived after a passage of twenty-four days. a week was spent in visiting southampton, salisbury, stonehenge, wilton, and the isle of wight. i then crossed the channel to havre, from which i went to paris. in the spring and summer of 1834 i made my principal visit to england and scotland. there were other excursions to the rhine and to holland, to switzerland and to italy, but of these i need say nothing here. i returned in the packet ship utica, sailing from havre, and reaching new york after a passage of forty-two days.
a few notes from my recollections will serve to recall the period of my first visit to europe, and form a natural introduction to the experiences of my second. i take those circumstances which happen to suggest themselves.
after a short excursion to strasbourg, down the rhine, and through holland, a small steamer took us from rotterdam across the channel, and we found ourselves in the british capital.
the great sight in london is--london. no man understands himself as an infinitesimal until he has been a drop in that ocean, a grain of sand on that sea-margin, a mote in its sunbeam, or the fog or smoke which stands for it; in plainer phrase, a unit among its millions.
i had two letters to persons in england: one to kind and worthy mr. petty vaughan, who asked me to dinner; one to pleasant mr. william clift, conservator of the hunterian museum, who asked me to tea.
to westminster abbey. what a pity it could not borrow from paris the towers of notre dame! but the glory of its interior made up for this shortcoming. among the monuments, one to rear admiral charles holmes, a descendant, perhaps, of another namesake, immortalized by dryden in the "annus mirabilis" as
"the achates of the general's fight."
he accompanied wolfe in his expedition which resulted in the capture of quebec. my relative, i will take it for granted, as i find him in westminster abbey. blood is thicker than water,--and warmer than marble, i said to myself, as i laid my hand on the cold stone image of the once famous admiral.
to the tower, to see the lions,--of all sorts. there i found a "poor relation," who made my acquaintance without introduction. a large baboon, or ape,--some creature of that family,--was sitting at the open door of his cage, when i gave him offence by approaching too near and inspecting him too narrowly. he made a spring at me, and if the keeper had not pulled me back would have treated me unhandsomely, like a quadrumanous rough, as he was. he succeeded in stripping my waistcoat of its buttons, as one would strip a pea-pod of its peas.
to vauxhall gardens. all americans went there in those days, as they go to madame tussaud's in these times. there were fireworks and an exhibition of polar scenery. "mr. collins, the english paganini," treated us to music on his violin. a comic singer gave us a song, of which i remember the line,
"you'll find it all in the agony bill."
this referred to a bill proposed by sir andrew agnew, a noted scotch sabbatarian agitator.
to the opera to hear grisi. the king, william the fourth, was in his box; also the princess victoria, with the duchess of kent. the king tapped with his white-gloved hand on the ledge of the box when he was pleased with the singing.--to a morning concert and heard the real paganini. to one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the elder mathews, who died a year or two after this time. to another theatre, where i saw listen in paul pry. is it not a relief that i am abstaining from description of what everybody has heard described?
to windsor. machinery to the left of the road. recognized it instantly, by recollection of the plate in "rees's cyclopedia," as herschel's great telescope.--oxford. saw only its outside. i knew no one there, and no one knew me.--blenheim,--the titians best remembered of its objects on exhibition. the great derby day of the epsom races. went to the race with a coach-load of friends and acquaintances. plenipotentiary, the winner, "rode by p. connelly." so says herring's picture of him, now before me. chestnut, a great "bullock" of a horse, who easily beat the twenty-two that started. every new england deacon ought to see one derby day to learn what sort of a world this is he lives in. man is a sporting as well as a praying animal.
stratford-on-avon. emotions, but no scribbling of name on walls.--warwick. the castle. a village festival, "the opening of the meadows," a true exhibition of the semi-barbarism which had come down from saxon times.--yorkshire. "the hangman's stone." story told in my book called the "autocrat," etc. york cathedral.--northumberland. alnwick castle. the figures on the walls which so frightened my man john when he ran away from scotland in his boyhood. berwick-on-tweed. a regatta going on; a very pretty show. scotland. most to be remembered, the incomparable loveliness of edinburgh.--sterling. the view of the links of forth from the castle. the whole country full of the romance of history and poetry. made one acquaintance in scotland, dr. robert knox, who asked my companion and myself to breakfast. i was treated to five entertainments in great britain: the breakfast just mentioned; lunch with mrs. macadam,--the good old lady gave me bread, and not a stone; dinner with mr. vaughan; one with mr. stanley, the surgeon; tea with mr. clift,--for all which attentions i was then and am still grateful, for they were more than i had any claim to expect. fascinated with edinburgh. strolls by salisbury crag; climb to the top of arthur's seat; delight of looking up at the grand old castle, of looking down on holyrood palace, of watching the groups on calton hill, wandering in the quaint old streets and sauntering on the sidewalks of the noble avenues, even at that time adding beauty to the new city. the weeks i spent in edinburgh are among the most memorable of my european experiences. to the highlands, to the lakes, in short excursions; to glasgow, seen to disadvantage under gray skies and with slippery pavements. through england rapidly to dover and to calais, where i found the name of m. dessein still belonging to the hotel i sought, and where i read sterne's "preface written in a désobligeante," sitting in the vehicle most like one that i could find in the stable. from calais back to paris, where i began working again.
all my travelling experiences, including a visit to switzerland and italy in the summer and autumn of 1835, were merely interludes of my student life in paris. on my return to america, after a few years of hospital and private practice, i became a professor in harvard university, teaching anatomy and physiology, afterwards anatomy alone, for the period of thirty-five years, during part of which time i paid some attention to literature, and became somewhat known as the author of several works in prose and verse which have been well received. my prospective visit will not be a professional one, as i resigned my office in 1882, and am no longer known chiefly as a teacher or a practitioner.
boston, april, 1886.
