Intercourse

“ Light and baffling winds, with alternate calms, have made our progress slow. The tedium of the time has been relieved in part by a first interchange of dinner parties between the wardroom mess and the commodore and captain. The kindest feeling exists among the officers of all grades on board, and these reunions, where the formality of official intercourse gives place for the time 21to the free interchange of thought and feeling, and of sympathy in intellect and taste, are salutary in their influences on both mind and heart. ”

“ The sparse population, and comparatively small facilities for locomotion in the last century, rendered personal intercourse difficult, and a frequent interchange of letters was adopted as a substitute. ”

“ The increased intercourse with this country is evidently producing a most improving effect in many of the necessary and unmentionable comforts of this civilized age, which you find to predominate chiefly in those cities that have most direct intercourse with us ”

“ In a sense, of course, a traveler starts an interstate journey when he boards a conveyance near his home, office or hotel to travel to the railroad station, from which the journey is continued by train ”

“ This was in the old coaching days, when a man had time to make an acquaintance in forty miles, not as now, when you are at your journey’s end before you have looked round your company in a railway carriage. ”

“ Unlike travelling in the present day, when one may go 100 miles in a railway carriage without speaking to a fellow-passenger, the journey in the old-fashioned waggon brought all the travellers too close and too long together to admit of individual isolation, for the passengers might be associated for days together as companions, had to take their refreshment together, lived as it were in common, and it was even the custom to elect a chairman at the outset to preside over the company during the journey. ”

“ Vehicles of all kinds are in motion; stage-coach, post-chaise, and private carriage are alike filled with travellers passing in all directions to their several places of assembling, and give glimpses of faces bright with the re-awakened affections that are radiating on all sides to common centres. Everywhere hearts are stirred and pulses quickened by pleasant anticipations ”

“ A cross-country journey in a slow train, with unlimited opportunities of studying the Company's bye-laws and traffic arrangements at several admirably ventilated junctions, is not my own idea of the best way to spend a cheery Sunday, that's all. ”

“ When your Carriage is brought to take you Home, desire your Coachman to select, for this purpose, a situation where there is least danger of being blockaded in by other Carriages, rather than that which may be nearest and most convenient to get in,—it is to little purpose that you can get Into your Carriage, if that cannot get Out. ”

“ The seat of Government is by a direct route nearly six thousand miles distant, and you will have opportunity of travelling in all the different ways practised on this planet. A long land-journey in our electric carriages, with which you are not familiar, is, I think, to be avoided. The Camptâ would wish to see your vessel as well as yourself; but, on the whole, I think it is safer to leave it where it is. Kevimâ, and I propose to accompany you during the first part of your journey. At our first halt, we will stay one night with a friend, that you may be admitted a brother of our Order. ”

“ Silent recognitions pass between passengers who meet day after day in the same morning or evening train, on the way to or from work; the faces of omnibus conductors grow familiar; we learn to know perfectly well on what day of the week and at what hour the well-known organ-grinder will make his appearance, and in what street we shall meet the city clerk or the care-worn little daily governess on their way to office or school. ”

“ But now the amendments of the roads with the many other improvements of travelling have in a manner opened a new communication between the several parts of our island.... Stage-coaches, machines, flys and post chaises are ready to transport passengers to and fro, between the metropolis and the most distant parts of the Kingdom. The lover now can almost literally annihilate time and space, and be with his mistress before she dreams of his arrival. ”

“ We drove in an open carriage, through a region, the magnificent scenery of which, ever more and more assumed a delicious and beautiful character. As we rolled along in our descent, the air became ever warmer. ”

“ Passers in a thronged street, travelers meeting or thrown together on a packet boat, in a railway carriage, or around a dinner table, silent or without general conversation with one another, are grouped physically, not socially. ”

“ In place of consulting dictionaries and dead languages, had my opinion been asked, I would have settled the question at once—by saying—I am a Bona fide Traveller. Because I do really and truly travel. To be whirled along on a railway; borne down the river, up the lake, or across the ocean in a steamer or ship, or driven along the turnpike in a carriage, is not travelling—the persons are merely live cargo. ”

“ A trip of seventy miles is something of an undertaking in that region, and quite a crowd gathered around to witness our departure, not a soul of whom, I will wager, will ever hear the rumble of a stage-coach, or the whistle of a steam-car, in those sandy, deserted streets. ”

“ This point, therefore, I must leave you to arrange in accordance with your desire."
"I thank you, sir."
"In the same way it rests with you what arrangements you make for the journey itself; the providing of a suitable carriage and of an adequate escort I leave entirely in your hands." ”

“ If the gentleman is tired, we can take a carriage; yes, it’s a long way.... Yes, the air is cooler this evening; it’s been raining; a little walk after a long railway journey does one good.... No, the portmanteau is not too heavy; I can easily carry it so far.... The gentleman’s first visit to Rome? He comes from Toulouse, perhaps?... No; from Pau. ”

“ I remember having made a journey from Paris to Ville-Parisis, in that vehicle called a 'bus: distance, twenty miles: 'bus, lumbering: horse, lame. Nothing amuses me more than to draw from people, by the aid of that gimlet called the interrogation, and to obtain, by means of an attentive air, the sum of information, anecdotes and learning that everybody is anxious to part with: and all men have such a sum, the peasant as well as the banker, the corporal as well as the marshal of France. ”

“ If I am sitting in a railway carriage hugging to my heart the hope that I may have the compartment to myself throughout the long non-stop run, for a surety, at the very last moment, the Woman-with-the-squalling-brat will rush on the platform and head straight for me! ”

“ This was better than nothing, so I climbed (and climb is the proper word) aboard the first class car of the local that was soon to start. I was the only first-class passenger and I felt like a railroad president in his private car. ”

“ The carriages are so small—two-storied though they are—that one feels as if one were taking a drive in a donkey-cart or station fly, and more than once we were almost impelled to call out to our driver to stop and let us gather wild-flowers by the wayside. ”

“ Did you ever contrast one of these trains—when perhaps you were such traveller or excursionist—with the after, leisurely, comfortable one at ten or eleven; when gentlemen who only need to be in the city through banking hours, and ladies bent on calls or elegant shopping, come chatting and rustling to their seats, and hold a little drawing-room exchange in the twenty-five minutes' trip? ”

“ There is this advantage, too, sir, over the university,—the track in which you are to travel is marked out for you; you must not stray to the right or to the left,—while in 'the world' the field of direction is wide, open, and expanded; there's a path for every one, if they 'll only look for it. ”

“ We met a great number of elegant carriages on our way, and nearly all the ladies inside exchanged salutations with the countess, and nodded to my little lady mamma. All who were elegant, and [59] richly dressed, and beautiful, and in fine carriages with rich liveries, seemed to know each other, and to be upon such delightful terms of affectionate intimacy! ‘Oh!’ thought I, ‘here is a new world! Everybody seems to respect, and admire, and love everybody else! ”

“ And by the afternoon train you go, and as you are whirled along the seashore and through the open country and the tunnels, a first thought is that yesterday at the same time those three merry fellows were running along the same course, and were perhaps seated in that very carriage. They have gained a day on you in everything. ”

“ By that time all the passengers were in a bustle of excitement,—women hunting and strapping stray parcels; men standing up to stretch their cramped limbs, while smiling congratulations to one another that their three-thousand mile journey was safely accomplished. ”

“ There is only one corridor coach for first-, second- and third-class passengers, the first-class being in the middle and the passengers for the others passing to and fro through the carriage all the time. ”

“ In planning his journey to these towns he will have to weigh the relative advantages of three routes, and to consider the opportunities offered by three means of locomotion—railway, steamboat, and post-carriage. ”

“ In this quarter, you seldom meet with a carriage, scarcely ever with persons sprucely dressed, but frequently with honest citizens, accompanied by their whole family, as plain in their garb as in their manners. ”

“ So pleasant proved this little dinner participated in by the khaki-clothed ladies and stylishly attired men that at its conclusion they shook hands heartily and bade each other Godspeed for the remaining journey and hoped that, not like ships that pass each other in the night, they would again meet to renew an acquaintance so happily begun. Such is the democracy of touring. ”

“ At any rate, railway-traveling has an influence on relations of this kind to the extent that it favors the forming of acquaintances between persons living at a distance from one another, out of which family relations may grow. ”

“ If it is necessary that you should whisper your communications to this young lady—though really I see, nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely to overhear your conversation—is it, therefore, necessary that you should carry your lips forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour ”

“ Somewhat apart from the other passengers, their circle loosely but surely defined by the irregular setting of their chairs toward a common center, sat a group, evidently of the great world—most conspicuous among them a distinguished-looking couple in fresh mid-life, who led the animated discussion, and who were seen often to look in the direction of a tall and beautiful girl who stood in the midst of a circle of young people within easy call. ”

“ Gentlemen on richly-caparisoned horses dashed along between the rows of advancing and returning carriages, stopping now and then by the side of a well-known carriage to exchange salutations, or, by an exhibition of a well-timed embarrassment, proclaim the favored object of their evening's ride. ”

“ Unfortunately the wheeled carriages jolt, yet in other respects are comfortable. Three or four men seated can travel without fatigue, chatting the meanwhile, and perform the journey, enjoying the advantage of repose. ”

“ UT—Union Transport, spread the meshes of its transportation service through almost every city of Earth and the hamlets and roads and bus and railroad and airlines between—and even to the few far ports where mankind had found a toehold in space. ”

“ A party of girls accompanied by an expert rider or a teacher may start out and enjoy a lovely day's journey, or, if all is arranged beforehand, set forth for a trip of some days or weeks, under proper escort and chaperonage. But a novice must not go far from home, or risk rough roads. ”

“ When a coach came to the foot of a mountain the travellers would, however, soon find out where the difference between the classes lay, for the driver would order all first-class passengers to keep their seats, second-class passengers to get out and walk, and third-class passengers to get out and push. ”

“ If we merely write the letter and fling it out of the window, ignoring the needful conditions, most assuredly it will never reach its destination. If we wish to make a journey the conditions oblige us to go aboard whatever railroad carriage or ship will take us where we want to go. ”

“ A superb carriage, made out of the lounge with bandbox-lid wheels, and drawn by a span of spirited bay gentleman, is discovered; an elegant youth is seated on the box driving, whilst the carriage is filled with a gay and festive party of youthful ladies and gentlemen. ”

“ On the back steps and driver’s seats were hosts of footmen, swinging with the motion of the carriages, and through the carriage windows, which gleamed with the lights held by the attendants, were seen those for whom the Almighty did not make the stern law that in this world man shall earn bread with his own hands and wet it with his tears. ”

“ The traffic with which we are concerned does not move on through bills of lading, but the movement is, nevertheless, from points of origin to a foreign or coastal destination, or vice versa, and is therefore essentially through transportation. ”

“ But though the rail route, in swinging seats, is more comfortable and expeditious, if time be any consideration, the carriage-road is almost as popular with travelers, who, as a rule, are willing to make sacrifices, if by so doing they obtain the recompense of grander sights. ”