A Tramps Sketches

A Tramp's Sketches

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Title: A Tramp's Sketches
Author: Stephen Graham
Release Date: April 10, 2004 [EBook #11980]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: NIGHT OVER THE BLACK SEA]

A TRAMP'S SKETCHES
BY
STEPHEN GRAHAM
1913
TO
"THE CELESTIALS"

PREFACE
This book was written chiefly whilst tramping along the Caucasian and Crimean shores of the Black Sea, and on a pilgrimage with Russian peasants to Jerusalem. Most of it was written in the open air, sitting on logs in the pine forests or on bridges over mountain streams, by the side of my morning fire or on the sea sand after the morning dip. It is not so much a book about Russia as about the tramp. It is the life of the wanderer and seeker, the walking hermit, the rebel against modern conditions and commercialism who has gone out into the wilderness.
I have tramped alone over the battlefields of the Crimea, visited the cemetery where lie so many British dead, wandered along the Black Sea shores a thousand miles to New Athos monastery and Batum, have been with seven thousand peasant pilgrims to Jerusalem, and lived their life in the hospitable Greek monasteries and in the great Russian hostelry at the Holy City, have bathed with them in Jordan where all were dressed in their death-shrouds, and have slept with them a whole night in the Sepulchre.
One cannot make such a journey without great experiences both spiritual and material. On every hand new significances are revealed, both of Russian life and of life itself.
It is with life itself that this volume is concerned. It is personal and friendly, and on that account craves indulgence. Here are the songs and sighs of the wanderer, many lyrical pages, and the very minimum of scientific and topographical matter. It is all written spontaneously and without study, and as such goes forth--all that a seeker could put down of his visions, or could tell of what he sought.
There will follow, if it is given to the author both to write and to publish, a full story of the places he visited along the Black Sea shore, and of the life of the pilgrims on the way to the shrine of the Sepulchre and at the shrine itself. It will be a continuation of the work begun in Undiscovered Russia.
Several of these sketches appeared in the _St. James's Gazette_, two in Country Life, and one in _Collier's_ of New York, being sent out to these papers from the places where they were written. The author thanks the Editors for permission to republish, and for their courtesy in dealing with MSS.
STEPHEN GRAHAM.

CONTENTS
I
1. FAREWELL TO THE TOWN 2. NIGHTS OUT ON A PERFECT VAGABONDAGE 3. THE LORD'S PRAYER 4. DAYS 5. THE QUESTION OK THE SCEPTIC 6. A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOR EVER 7. A STILL-CREATION-DAY 8. SUNSET FROM THE GATE OF BAIDARI 9. THE MEANING OF THE SEA
II
1. HOSPITALITY 2. THE RICH MAN AND THE POOR MAN 3. A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 4. SOCRATES OF ZUGDIDA 5. "HAVE YOU A LIGHT HAND?" 6. ST. SPIRIDON OF TREMIFOND 7. AT A FAIR. 8. A TURKISH COFFEE-HOUSE 9. AT A GREAT MONASTERY
III
1. THE BOY WHO NEVER GROWS OLD 2. ZENOBIA 3. THE LITTLE DEAD CHILD 4. HOW THE OLD PILGRIM REACHED BETHLEHEM
IV
THE WANDERER'S STORY
(I.) MY COMPANION. (II.) HOW HE FOUND HIMSELF IN A COACH. (III.) IRRECONCILABLES. (IV.) THE TOWNSMAN. (V.) HIS CONVERSION.
V
THE UNCONQUERABLE HOPE
VI
THE PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM
VII
THE MESSAGE FROM THE HERMIT
* * * * *
FRONTISPIECE
NIGHT OVER THE BLACK SEA

I

I
FAREWELL TO THE TOWN
The town is one large house of which all the little houses are rooms. The streets are the stairs. Those who live always in the town are never out of doors even if they do take the air in the streets.
When I came into the town I found that in my soul were reflected its blank walls, its interminable stairways, and the shadows of hurrying traffic.
A thousand sights and impressions, unbidden, unwelcome, flooded through the eye-gate of my soul, and a thousand harsh sounds and noises came to me through my ears and echoed within me. I became aware of confused influences of all kinds striving to find some habitation in the temple of my being.
What had been my delight in the country, my receptivity and hospitality of consciousness, became in the town my misery and my despair.
For imagine! Within my own calm mirror a beautiful world had seen itself rebuilded.