In such family arrangements daughters of course predominate. Sons can
travel alone or with their own friends. This arrangement they generally
prefer, and for it they are always able to give substantial reasons,
in which their mammas may, or may not, put implicit confidence.
Daughters can travel alone too occasionally, as I hope to be able to
show by-and-by in a sketch of that much abused but invaluable English
lady, the Unprotected Female Tourist. But such feminine independence
is an exception to the rule, and daughters are generally willing to
submit themselves to that paternal and maternal guidance from which
the adult male tourist so stoutly revolts. Paterfamilias of course is
there, paying the bills, strapping up the cloaks, scolding the waiters,
obeying, but not placidly obeying, the female behests to which he is
subject, and too frequently fretting uncomfortably beneath the burden
of the day, the heat and the dust, the absence of his slippers, and
the gross weight of his too-matured proportions. And he has, too, other
inward grievances of which he can say nothing to any ear. Something of
the salt of youth is left to him,--something of the spirit, though but
little of the muscle,--and he thinks of his boys who are far afield,
curtailed in their exploits by no petticoats, abridged by no stiff
proprieties; and he wishes that he was with them, feeling that his
trammels are heavy. The mother, of course, is there, kind to all her
party, but too often stiff and hard to all beyond it, anxious that papa
should have his comforts, anxious that her girls should see everything,
but afraid to let them see too much, sometimes a little cross when the
work becomes too hard or the pace of the pony is too rough, somewhat
dowdy in her cotton dress, and ill-suited to the hat which she wears.
She possesses every virtue under the sun. Of human beings she is the
least selfish. Her heart is full of love, and all who know her dote
upon her. At home she is charming, at home she is graceful and sweet
to be seen. But on her travels things do not go easily with her, and
her temper will sometimes become ruffled. The daughters are determined
to do the thing well, to see everything, to be stopped by no English
prejudices, to be at their ease, or at any rate look as though they
were; to talk French boldly in spite of their little slips; to wear
their dresses jauntily, and make the best of themselves; to have all
their eyes open, and carry home with them something from every day's
work. Who will say that they are wrong? Nay, who will not declare that
they are right in all this? But they overdo the thing in their intense
desire to utilize every moment; they are, alas, sometimes a little
ashamed of papa and mamma; and as they return down the Rhine, having
begun in Switzerland, and done Baden Baden, Frankfort, and Homburg on
their way, their dresses are not quite so jaunty, nor their gloves so
neat, nor their hats in such perfect trim, as when those articles were
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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