From Paddington to Penzance: The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's EndHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
General
From Paddington to Penzance: The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's End
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
England -- Description and travel
Ugh! the greasy paper and the broken glass of Land’s End. Let us go and
have tea at the First and Last House in England--the third of them.
Breezy, isn’t it? Rain! by all that’s holy. Don’t put your umbrella
up, you, mister, unless you want to be blown away into the sea. Come
now, hold on tightly to this wall, and take advantage of the next lull
to rush into the doorway.... That’s it.... Now, ma’am, let’s have tea,
an’--er--bring me a pair o’ bellows, will you? I haven’t a breath left
in my body.
Now, to examine the visitors’ books. I take it kindly of these good
folk, d’you know, that they have compassion upon the aspirations of the
crowd: it were hard indeed upon the Briton to deny him all means of
recording his visits here. There is no suitable substance upon which
he can carve his name, and the date upon which he honoured _Ultima
Thule_ with his presence: the common (or Birmingham) penknife makes no
impression upon granite rocks: there is never a tree for miles around:
turf is readily cut, but, by reason of its growing, affords but a
fleeting means of commemoration.
But stay, you have only to take your tea at the little tea-house to be
free of those visitors’ books. Also the interior walls of its rooms
are whitewashed. I need scarce point out the significance of _this_
fact. While you partake of tea, you can read the volumes already filled
up: other people have evidently done the same thing, for those pages
are become very horrid; rich in crumbs, flattened currants, fragments
of egg-shells, tea-stains, and transparent finger-marks. Some of
those pages stick together like Scots in London (or anywhere out of
Scotland); you can have no scruple in separating them; they--the pages,
not the Scots, are only stuck together by fortuitous fragments of
butter.
_Mem._--Napkins are not supplied by your hosts, and it would be a
pity to soil your handkerchief. Therefore, wipe your fingers in the
visitors’ book, being careful in the selection of a page, in case you
leave your fingers in worse case than before. Having done this, you
can go through the written pages and scribble insulting remarks upon
the folks whose names and observations you find there. They’ll be hurt
when next they come here, and see your comments, and any friends of
theirs will be pleased at your ribaldries--people always like candid
criticisms of their friends. Of course, you really don’t want to please
anybody; but, unfortunately, it cannot sometimes be helped.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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