That there are peculiar powers inherent
in ladies' eyes, this number of the Quarterly
Review was not required to establish; but
one in particular, of which we reap all the
benefit without paying the penalty, we must
in common gratitude be allowed to point out.
We mean that power of observation which,
so long as it remains at home counting canvass
stitches by the fireside, we are apt to consider
no shrewder than our own, but which once
removed from the familiar scene; and returned
to us in the shape of letters or books, seldom
fails to prove its superiority. * * *
But, in truth, every country with any pretensions
to civilization has a twofold aspect, addressed
to two different modes of perception, and
seldom visible simultaneously to both. Every
country has a home life as well as a public
life, and the first quite necessary to interpret
the last. Every country therefore, to be
fairly understood requires reporters from
both sexes. Not that it is precisely recommended
that all travelers should hunt the world
in couples, and give forth their impressions
in the double columns of holy wedlock; but
that that kind of partnership should be tacitly
formed between books of travel which, properly
understood, we should have imagined to have
been the chief aim of matrimony — namely,
to supply each other's deficiencies,
and correct each other's errors, purely
for the good of the public. * * *
To revert, therefore to the object of our
search — while regarding these unstudied
and unpretending works as some of the truest
channels for the study of the Englishwoman,
they cannot be strictly taken as a test of
comparison between her and the lady of other
countries. Whether as traveler, or writer
of travels, the foreign lady can in no way
be measured against her. The only just point
of comparison is why the one does travel,
and the other does not. And, upon the first
view of the matter, the impediments would
seem to be all on the side of our own country
woman. Her home is proverbially the most
domestic — her manners the most reserved — her
comforts the most indispensable. Nevertheless,
it is precisely because home, manners, and
comforts are what they are, that the Englishwoman
excels all others in the art of traveling.
It is those very habits of order and regularity
which make her domestic, — it is that
very exclusiveness of family life which makes
her reserved, — it is the very nature
of the comforts, to her so indispensable, — it
is all that best fits her to live in her
own country, that also best fits her to visit
others. Where is the foreign lady who combines
the four cardinal virtues of travelling — activity,
punctuality, courage, and independence — like
the Englishwoman? — where is she whose
habits fit her for that most exclusive of
all companionships, the travelling tête-à-tête with
a husband for months together? * * *
The truth is that no foreign nation possesses
that same class of women from which the great
body of our female tourists are drafted.
They have not the same well-read, solid thinking, — early
rising — sketch-loving — light-footed — trim-waisted — strawed-hatted
specimen of women; educated with the refinement
of the highest classes, and with the usefulness
of the lowest; all-sufficient companion to
her husband, and all-sufficient lady's
maid to herself — they have her not.
Of course in the numbers that flit annually
from our coasts, from one motive or other,
every shade and grade is to be found, from
the highest blasée fashionable,
with every faculty of intelligent interest
fast closed, to the lowest Biddy Fudge, with
every pore of vulgar wonder wide open; the
absurdities committed by our countrymen and
women under the name of travel are highly
significant of the national folly, extravagance,
and eccentricity; but the taste for
travel from which these abuses spring — the art of
it in which the English so excel — we
are inclined to attribute to a something
still more conspicuous and honourable in
the national life — to nothing less
than the domesticity of the English
character. Who can witness the innumerable
family parties which annually take their
excursions abroad — the husbands and
wives — brothers and sisters — parents
and children, — all enjoying them together?
Who can see the joint delight with which
these expeditions are planned, the kindly
feelings and habits they develop, the joint
pleasure with which they are remembered — without
recognising a proof of exclusive domestic
cohesion which no other people display? What,
too, is the secret of that facility with
which the Englishman adapts himself to a
residence in any remote corner of the world? — why
do we so often find him settled happily among
scenes and people utterly uncongenial in
climate and habit? Simply because he takes
his home with him; and has more within
it and wants less beyond it than any other
man in the world. * * *