An Inland Voyage | Page 6

men came out of a
boat-house bearing the superscription ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE,
and joined in the talk. They were all very polite, voluble, and
enthusiastic; and their discourse was interlarded with English boating

terms, and the names of English boat-builders and English clubs. I do
not know, to my shame, any spot in my native land where I should have
been so warmly received by the same number of people. We were
English boating-men, and the Belgian boating-men fell upon our necks.
I wonder if French Huguenots were as cordially greeted by English
Protestants when they came across the Channel out of great tribulation.
But after all, what religion knits people so closely as a common sport?
The canoes were carried into the boat-house; they were washed down
for us by the Club servants, the sails were hung out to dry, and
everything made as snug and tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile
we were led upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one
of them stated the relationship, and made free of their lavatory. This
one lent us soap, that one a towel, a third and fourth helped us to undo
our bags. And all the time such questions, such assurances of respect
and sympathy! I declare I never knew what glory was before.
'Yes, yes, the Royal Sport Nautique is the oldest club in Belgium.'
'We number two hundred.'
'We'--this is not a substantive speech, but an abstract of many speeches,
the impression left upon my mind after a great deal of talk; and very
youthful, pleasant, natural, and patriotic it seems to me to be--'We have
gained all races, except those where we were cheated by the French.'
'You must leave all your wet things to be dried.'
'O! entre freres! In any boat-house in England we should find the same.'
(I cordially hope they might.)
'En Angleterre, vous employez des sliding-seats, n'est-ce pas?'
'We are all employed in commerce during the day; but in the evening,
voyez-vous, nous sommes serieux.'
These were the words. They were all employed over the frivolous
mercantile concerns of Belgium during the day; but in the evening they
found some hours for the serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong
idea of wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People
connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their days in
getting rid of second-hand notions and false standards. It is their
profession, in the sweat of their brows, by dogged thinking, to recover
their old fresh view of life, and distinguish what they really and
originally like, from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce.
And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction still quite

legible in their hearts. They had still those clean perceptions of what is
nice and nasty, what is interesting and what is dull, which envious old
gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle age,
the bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man's
soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians. They
still knew that the interest they took in their business was a trifling
affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for
nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying
Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept
your soul alive. Such a man may be generous; he may be honest in
something more than the commercial sense; he may love his friends
with an elective, personal sympathy, and not accept them as an adjunct
of the station to which he has been called. He may be a man, in short,
acting on his own instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made
him in; and not a mere crank in the social engine-house, welded on
principles that he does not understand, and for purposes that he does
not care for.
For will any one dare to tell me that business is more entertaining than
fooling among boats? He must have never seen a boat, or never seen an
office, who says so. And for certain the one is a great deal better for the
health. There should be nothing so much a man's business as his
amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing can be put forward to the
contrary; no one but
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From Heaven,
durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that would represent
the merchant and the banker as people disinterestedly toiling for
mankind, and then most useful when they are most absorbed in their
transactions; for the man is more important than his services. And when
my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen from his hopeful
youth that he cannot pluck