Young Smith, the Secretary of our Photographic Club, called at nine
to ask me to take him a negative of the statue of the dying
Gladiator in the Munich Sculpture Gallery. I told him that I should
be delighted to oblige him, but that I did not intend to take my
camera with me.
"Not take your camera!" he said. "You are going to Germany - to
Rhineland! You are going to pass through some of the most
picturesque scenery, and stay at some of the most ancient and famous
towns of Europe, and are going to leave your photographic apparatus
behind you, and you call yourself an artist!"
He said I should never regret a thing more in my life than going
without that camera.
I think it is always right to take other people's advice in matters
where they know more than you do. It is the experience of those who
have gone before that makes the way smooth for those who follow.
So, after supper, I got together the things I had been advised to
take with me, and arranged them on the bed, adding a few articles I
had thought of all by myself.
I put up plenty of writing paper and a bottle of ink, along with a
dictionary and a few other books of reference, in case I should feel
inclined to do any work while I was away. I always like to be
prepared for work; one never knows when one may feel inclined for
it. Sometimes, when I have been away, and have forgotten to bring
any paper and pens and ink with me, I have felt so inclined for
writing; and it has quite upset me that, in consequence of not
having brought any paper and pens and ink with me, I have been
unable to sit down and do a lot of work, but have been compelled,
instead, to lounge about all day with my hands in my pockets.
Accordingly, I always take plenty of paper and pens and ink with me
now, wherever I go, so that when the desire for work comes to me I
need not check it.
That this craving for work should have troubled me so often, when I
had no paper, pens, and ink by me, and that it never, by any chance,
visits me now, when I am careful to be in a position to gratify it,
is a matter over which I have often puzzled.
But when it does come I shall be ready for it.
I also put on the bed a few volumes of Goethe, because I thought it
would be so pleasant to read him in his own country. And I decided
to take a sponge, together with a small portable bath, because a
cold bath is so refreshing the first thing in the morning.
B. came in just as I had got everything into a pile. He stared at
the bed, and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was packing.
"Great Heavens!" he exclaimed. "I thought you were moving! What do
you think we are going to do - camp out?"
"No!" I replied. "But these are the things I have been advised to
take with me. What is the use of people giving you advice if you
don't take it?"
He said:
"Oh! take as much advice as you like; that always comes in useful to
give away. But, for goodness sake, don't get carrying all that
stuff about with you. People will take us for Gipsies."
I said:
"Now, it's no use your talking nonsense. Half the things on this
bed are life-preserving things. If people go into Germany without
these things, they come home and die."
And I related to him what the doctor and the vicar and the other
people had told me, and explained to him how my life depended upon
my taking brandy and blankets and sunshades and plenty of warm
clothing with me.
He is a man utterly indifferent to danger and risk - incurred by
other people - is B. He said:
"Oh, rubbish! You're not the sort that catches a cold and dies
young. You leave that co-operative stores of yours at home, and
pack up a tooth-brush, a comb, a pair of socks, and a shirt. That's
all you'll want."
I have packed more than that, but not much. At all events, I have
got everything into one small bag. I should like to have taken that
tea arrangement - it would have done so nicely to play at shop with
in the train! - but B. would not hear of it.
I hope the weather does not change.
FRIDAY, 23RD
Early Rising. - Ballast should be Stowed Away in the Hold before
Putting to Sea. - Annoying Interference of Providence in Matters that
it Does Not Understand. - A Socialistic Society. - B. Misjudges Me. -
An Uninteresting Anecdote. - We Lay in Ballast. - A Moderate Sailor. -
A Playful Boat.
I got up very early this morning. I do not know why I got up early.
We do not start till eight o'clock this evening. But I don't regret
it - the getting up early I mean. It is a change. I got everybody
else up too, and we all had breakfast at seven.
I made a very good lunch. One of those seafaring men said to me
once:
"Now, if ever you are going a short passage, and are at all nervous,
you lay in a good load. It's a good load in the hold what steadies
the ship. It's them half-empty cruisers as goes a-rollin' and a-
pitchin' and a-heavin' all over the place, with their stern up'ards
half the time. You lay in ballast."
It seemed very reasonable advice.
Aunt Emma came in the afternoon.
