Travelling, whatever may be said of it, is one of the saddest pleasuresof life. When you find yourself comfortable in some foreign city itbegins to feel, in some degree, like your own country; but to traverseunknown realms, to hear a language spoken which you hardly comprehend,to see human countenances which have no connection either with your pastrecollections or future prospects, is solitude and isolation, withoutdignity and without repose; for that eagerness, that haste to arrivewhere nobody expects us, that agitation, of which curiosity is the onlycause, inspires us with very little esteem for ourselves, till themoment when new objects become a little old, and create around us somesoft ties of sentiment and habit.
The grief of Oswald was, then, redoubled in traversing Germany in orderto repair to Italy. On account of the war it was necessary to avoidFrance and its environs; it was also necessary to keep aloof from thearmies who rendered the roads impracticable. This necessity of occupyinghis mind with particulars material to the journey, of adopting, everyday, and almost every instant, some new resolution, was quiteinsupportable to Lord Nelville. His health, far from becoming better,often obliged him to stop, when he felt the strongest desire to hastento his journey's end or at least to make a start. He spat blood, andtook scarcely any care of himself; for he believed himself guilty, andbecame his own accuser with too great a degree of severity. He no longerwished for life but as it might become instrumental to the defence ofhis country. "Has not our country," said he, "some paternal claims uponus? But we should have the power to serve it usefully: we must not offerit such a debilitated existence as I drag along to ask of the sun someprinciple of life to enable me to struggle against my miseries. None buta father would receive me to his bosom, under such circumstances, withaffection increased in proportion as I was abandoned by nature and bydestiny."
Lord Nelville had flattered himself that the continual variety ofexternal objects would distract his imagination a little from thoseideas by which it was habitually occupied; but that circumstance was farfrom producing, at first, this happy effect. After any great misfortunewe must become familiarised anew with everything that surrounds us;accustom ourselves to the faces that we behold again, to the house inwhich we dwell, to the daily habits that we resume; each of theseefforts is a painful shock, and nothing multiplies them like a journey.
The only pleasure of Lord Nelville was to traverse the TiroleseMountains upon a Scotch horse which he had brought with him, and whichlike the horses of that country ascended heights at a gallop: he quittedthe high road in order to proceed by the most steep paths. Theastonished peasants cried out at first with terror at beholding him thusupon the very brink of precipices, then clapped their hands inadmiration of his address, his agility, and his courage. Oswald was fondof this sensation of danger; it supports the weight of affliction, itreconciles us, for a moment, with that life which we have reconquered,and which it so easy to lose.