CHAP. I - The Opera and its Environs—1839

Summary

Thirteen years ago, the railroad travelling of Germany had features which were all its own. In England, the tendency, from the first, was to whirl “the human parcel” from place to place along with an irresistible rapidity entirely precluding the possibility of thought, or conversation, or enjoyment; and to make of the journey a disagreeable, bewildering dream, compounded of several blasts of the shrill steam-whistle—a few tunnels—a few broken clamours, timid or troublesome, of passengers on their entrance and exit —perhaps a few broken limbs— the best part of which is its close. In Belgium more time for observation has been allowed: and rich farms, stately belfries embroidered with tracery and ornament, are to be seen as you are swept—more leisurely than at home—from one town to another. But there was in Belgium, at the period under notice, an uncertainty which kept the mind anxious. So many lines meet and diverge at Mechlin, and so awkwardly was the transmission of baggage managed in 1839—40, that it was seven chances to one but, while the pilgrim was upon his road to the Rubenses at Antwerp, his “mails” might be scouring along the rails to Liege. Hood's story of the bewildered lady, strong in her own foresight, who spent the day in travelling backwards and forwards betwixt Ghent and Ostend, owing to the want of her proper understanding, and her own prudence “in never getting out” is hardly a caricature.