An American Four-In-Hand in Britain Part 1

An American Four-In-Hand in Britain.

by Andrew Carnegie.

_PREFACE.

_The publication of this book renders necessary a few words of explanation. It was originally printed for private circulation among a few dear friends--those who were not as well as those who were of the coaching party--to be treasured as a souvenir of happy days. The house which has undertaken the responsibility of giving it a wider circulation believed that its publication might give pleasure to some who would not otherwise see it. It is not difficult to persuade one that his work which has met with the approval of his immediate circle may be worthy of a larger audience; and the author was the more easily induced to consent to its reprint because, the first edition being exhausted, he was no longer able to fill many requests for copies._

_The original intent of the book must be the excuse for the highly personal nature of the narrative, which could scarcely be changed without an entire remodelling, a task for which the writer had neither time nor inclination; so, with the exception of a few suppressions and some additions which seemed necessary under its new conditions, its character has not been materially altered. Trusting that his readers may derive from a perusal of its pages a t.i.the of the pleasure which the Gay Charioteers experienced in performing the journey, and wishing that all may live to see their "ships come home" and then enjoy a similar excursion for themselves, he subscribes himself,_

_Very Sincerely,_ _THE AUTHOR_ _New York, May 1, 1883._

AN AMERICAN FOUR-IN-HAND IN BRITAIN.

Long enough ago to permit us to sing, "For we are boys, merry, merry boys, Merry, merry boys together," and the world lay all before us where to choose, Dod, Vandy, Harry, and I walked through Southern England with knapsacks on our backs. What pranks we played! Those were the happy days when we heard the chimes at midnight and laughed Sir Prudence out of countenance. "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Nay, verily, Sir Gray Beard, and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too! Then indeed

"The sounding cataract Haunted me like a pa.s.sion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms, were then to me An appet.i.te; a feeling and a love That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye."

It was during this pedestrian excursion that I announced that some day, when my "ships came home," I should drive a party of my dearest friends from Brighton to Inverness. Black's "Adventures of a Phaeton" came not long after this to prove that another Scot had divined how idyllic the journey could be made. It was something of an air-castle--of a dream--those far-off days, but see how it has come to pa.s.s!

[Sidenote: _Air-Castles._]

The world, in my opinion, is all wrong on the subject of air-castles.

People are forever complaining that their chateaux en Espagne are never realized. But the trouble is with them--they fail to recognize them when they come. "To-day," says Carlyle, "is a king in disguise," and most people are in possession of their air-castles, but lack the trick to see 't.

Look around you! see Vandy, for instance. When we were thus doing Merrie England on foot, he with a very modest letter of credit stowed away in a belt round his sacred person--for Vandy it was who always carried the bag (and a faithful treasurer and a careful one too--good boy, Vandy!); he was a poor student then, and you should have heard him philosophize and lord it over us two, who had been somewhat fortunate in rolling mills, and were devoted to business. "Great Caesar! boys, if I ever get fifteen hundred dollars a year income!" (This was the fortune I was vaguely figured up to be worth under ordinary conditions.) "Great Caesar!

boys"--and here the fist would come down on the hard deal table, spilling a few drops of beer--"fifteen hundred dollars a year! Catch me working any more like a slave, as you and Harry do!" Well, well, Vandy's air-castle was fifteen hundred dollars a year; yet see him now when thousands roll in upon him every month. Hard at it still--and see the G.o.ddess laughing in her sleeve at the good joke on Vandy. He has his air-castle, but doesn't recognize the structure.

There is Miss Fashion. How fascinating she was when she descanted on her air-castle--then a pretty cottage with white and red roses cl.u.s.tering beside the door and twining over it in a true-lover's knot, symbolizing the lover's ideal of mutual help and dependence--the white upon the red.

No large establishment for her, nor many servants! One horse (I admit it was always to be a big one), and an elegant little vehicle; plenty of garden and enough of pin money. On this point there was never to be the slightest doubt, so that she could really get the best magazines and one new book every month--any one she chose. A young hard-working husband, without too much income, so that she might experience the pleasure of planning to make their little go far. Behold her now! her husband a millionaire, a brown-stone front, half a dozen horses, a country place, and a box at the opera! But, bless your heart! she is as unconscious of the arrival of her castle as she is that years creep upon her apace.

The G.o.ddess Fortune, my friends, rarely fails to give to mortals all they pray for and more; but how she must stand amazed at the blindness of her idolators, who continue to offer up their prayers at her shrine, wholly unconscious that their first requests have been granted! It takes Fortune a little time to prepare the gifts for so many supplicants--the toys each one specially wants; and lo and behold! before they can be delivered (though she works with speed betimes) the unreasonable mortals have lost conceit of their prizes, and their coming is a mockery; they are crying for something else. If the Fates be malignant, as old religions teach, how they must enjoy the folly of man!

Imagine a good spirit taking Fortune to task for the misery and discontent of mortals, as she gazes with piteous eyes upon our disappointments, our troubles, and, saddest of all, our regrets, charging her with producing such unhappiness. "Why have you done this?"

would be the inquiry. Listen to the sardonic chuckle of the Fate: "Hush!

I've only given them what they asked (chuckle--chuckle--chuckle)! Not my fault! See that unhappy wretch, sleeplessly and feverishly tossing on his pillow, and in his waking hours absorbing all his lofty faculties in gambling at the Stock Exchange--wife, children, home, music, art, culture, all forgotten. He was once a bright, promising, ingenuous youth. He was born among trees and green fields, spent the morn of life in the country, sensitive and responsive to all nature's whisperings; lay in cool, leafy shades, wandered in forest glades, and paddled in the 'complaining brooks which make the meadow green.' Nay, not many years ago he returned at intervals to these scenes, and found their charm had still power over him--felt the truth of the poet's words, that

"'To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.'

"He asked for enough to live honorably upon among his fellows,"

continues the Fate, "and to keep his parents comfortable in their old age--a matter of a few hundreds a year--and I gave him this and thousands more. Ha, ha, ha! Silence! Look at him; he doesn't see the joke. Oh yes, you may try to tell it to him, if you like. He has no time to listen, nor ears to hear, nor eyes to see; no, nor soul to understand your language. He's 'short' on New Jersey Central or 'long' on Reading, and, bless you! he must strain every fibre if he would save himself from ruin.

"He could commune with you in your youth, you say; he had your language then. No doubt! no doubt! so did he then know his Latin and whisper his prayers at his mother's knee. The Latin has gone; his praying continues--nay has increased, for his fears and selfish wants have multiplied since he was an innocent, ignorant child, and he has much more to ask from G.o.d for his own ends, now that he is a wise man and is supposed to know much (chuckle--chuckle--chuckle).

"There is another mortal," we hear the Fate saying to the Good Fairy.

"Look at her, decked out in all the vagaries of changeable Fashion; note her fixed-up look, her conventional air, her nervous, unmeaning, simpering smile--the same to-day, yesterday, and forever--something to all men, much to none. See her at home in her chamber! Why mopes she, looking so haggard, with features expressionless and inane? What worm gnaws at her heart and makes her life so petty? She, too, came into the world a bright and happy thing, and grew up fond of music and of birds, and with a pa.s.sion for flowers and all of Nature's sweets; so careful, too, of mother and of father, the very embodiment of love to all around her. You should have seen her in her teens, a glorious ray from heaven--'making a sunshine in a shady place'--so natural, so hearty, with a carolling laugh like the falling of waters. In her most secret prayers she asked only for a kind lover with a fair competence, that they might live modestly, without ostentation. She was a good girl and I granted her wish and more," says Fate. "Her air-castle was small, but I sent her a magnificent one. She is courted, flattered, has every gift in my power to bestow; yet she pines in the midst of them. The fruits of her rare gardens have no flavor for her--Dead Sea fruits indeed, which fall to ashes on her lips. She has entered for the race of Fashion, and her soul is absorbed in its jealousies and disappointments. You may speak to her as of old; tell her there is something n.o.ble in that domain of human life where duties grow--something not only beyond but different from Fashion, higher than dress or show. She understands you not.

"Hand her a bunch of violets. Does she learn their lesson with their odor (which her dog scents as well as she)? Comes there to her the inner meaning, the scent of the new-mown hay that speaks of past hours of purity, of the fresh breeze that fanned her cheek in childhood's halcyon days, the love of all things of the green earth and the sense of the goodness of G.o.d which his flowers ever hold within their petals for those who know their language? 'They will decorate me to-night for the ball!' That is the be-all and the end-all of her ladyship's love for flowers.

"Show her a picture with more of heaven than earth in it, and glimpses of the light that never shone on sea or sh.o.r.e. If the artist be in fashion she will call it 'pretty,' when it is grand. Give her music. Is it the opera? Oh yes, she will attend. It is the fashion. But place within her reach the soul-moving oratorio (with more religion in it than in twenty sermons) or the suggestive symphony. No, a previous engagement prevents. Why, just think of it--_one can't talk there!_ Yet this woman could once play with feeling and sing with expression, delighting her young companions. Of her one could truly say,

"'Oh! to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest-- For her looks sing too--she modulates her gestures on the tune; And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are finest, 'Tis the eyes that shoot out vocal light, and seem to swell them on.'

And now she has fallen to this!"

"Has she children?" inquires the Good Spirit.

"No," says Fate, "we are not altogether relentless. How could we give such a woman children and look you in the face? It is sometimes thought necessary even to go as far as this, but in such cases we commend the poor infants to the special care of the great Father, for mother they have none. But look! there is a man now who did so pray for a son and heir that we gave him one, and yonder goes the result. G.o.d in heaven!

why are men so rash in their blindness as to pray for anything! Surely 'Thy will be done' were best."

I am as bad as Sterne in his "Sentimental Journey," and will never get on at this rate. I started to argue that the Fates were too kind instead of not kind enough; at least, my air-castles have ever been mere toys compared with the realities, for never did I dream, in my wildest days, that the intended drive through Britain would a.s.sume the princely proportions of a four-in-hand, crowded with a dozen of my dearest friends. A modest phaeton or wagonette with a pair of horses was the extent of my dream, but the Fairy sent me four, you see, and two friends for every one I had pleased myself with imagining as sure to take the journey with me.

[Sidenote: _Embarkation._]

But now to a sober beginning of the story of the coach. It was in the leafy month of June--the very first day thereof, however--in the year of our Lord 1881, that the good ship Bothnia (Cunard Line, of course), Captain McMicken (a true Scot and bold British sailor), steamed from the future Metropolis of the World for the sh.o.r.es of Merrie England. She had many pa.s.sengers, but among them were eleven who outranked all others, if their respective opinions of each other were to be accepted as the true standard of judgment. I had received for many months before the sweetest pleasure imaginable in startling first one and then another with requests to report at headquarters, Windsor Hotel, New York, May 31st, prepared to embark. It was on St. Valentine's Day that the Prima Donna received a missive which caused her young heart to flutter. What a pretty reply came! Here is a short extract:

"Three months to dream of it; three months to live in it; and my whole lifetime afterward to think it over. I am the happiest girl alive, only sometimes I can't believe it's all going to happen."

To Davenport, Iowa, went another invitation. In due time came a return missive from the proud City of the River:

"Will I go to Paradise for three months on a coach? Agent of Providence, I will!"

Isn't it glorious to make one's friends so happy?

HARBOR OF NEW YORK, June 1, 1881.} On board Steamer Bothnia. }

Call the roll.

Queen Dowager, Head of the Clan (no Salic Law in our family); Miss J. J.

(Prima Donna); Miss A. F. (Stewardess); Mr. and Mrs. McC. (Dainty Davie); Mr. and Mrs. K. (Paisley Troubadours); Mr. B. F. V. (Vandy); Mr.

H. P., Jr. (Our Pard); Mr. G. F. McC. (General Manager); ten in all, making, together with the scribe, the All-coaching Eleven.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! The tears are shed, the kisses ta'en. The helpless hulk breathes the breath of life. The pulsations of its mighty heart are felt, the last rope that binds us to land cast off; and now see the hundreds of handkerchiefs waving from the pier fading and fading away.

But note among the wavers one slight graceful figure; Miss C. of our party, present in spirit if bodily absent on duty, much to the regret of us all. The wavings from deck to sh.o.r.e tell our friends

"how slow our souls sailed on, How fast our ship."

[Sidenote: _On the Bothnia._]

The Bothnia turned her face to the east, and out upon old ocean's gray and melancholy waste sailed the Gay Charioteers. As we steamed down the bay three steamers crowded with the most enterprising of Europe's people pa.s.sed us, emigrants coming to find in the bounteous bosom of the Great Republic the blessings of equality, the just reward of honest labor. Ah, favored land! the best of the Old World seek your sh.o.r.es to swell to still grander proportions your a.s.sured greatness. That all come only for the material benefits you confer, I do not believe. Crowning these material considerations, I insist that the more intelligent of these people feel the spirit of true manhood stirring within them, and glory in the thought that they are to become part of a powerful people, of a government founded upon the born equality of man, free from military despotism and cla.s.s distinctions. There is a trace of the serf in the man who lives contentedly in a land with ranks above him. One hundred and seventeen thousand came last month, and the cry is still they come!

O ye self-const.i.tuted rulers of men in Europe, know you not that the knell of dynasties and of rank is sounding? Are you so deaf that you do not hear the thunders, so blind that you do not see the lightnings which now and then give warning of the storm that is to precede the reign of the people?