Diary of a Pilgrimage | Page 7

brand that is technically known over here as the "Penny
Pickwick--Spring Crop;" and he thought that I should not have time,
during the short stay I contemplated making in the country, to acquire a
taste for its flavour.
My sister-in-law came in later on in the evening (she is a thoughtful
girl), and brought a box with her about the size of a tea-chest. She said:
"Now, you slip that in your bag; you'll be glad of that. There's
everything there for making yourself a cup of tea."
She said that they did not understand tea in Germany, but that with that
I should be independent of them.
She opened the case, and explained its contents to me. It certainly was a
wonderfully complete arrangement. It contained a little caddy full of
tea, a little bottle of milk, a box of sugar, a bottle of methylated spirit, a
box of butter, and a tin of biscuits: also, a stove, a kettle, a teapot, two
cups, two saucers, two plates, two knives, and two spoons. If there had
only been a bed in it, one need not have bothered about hotels at all.
Young Smith, the Secretary of our Photographic Club, called at nine to
ask me to take him a negative of the statue of the dying Gladiator in the
Munich Sculpture Gallery. I told him that I should be delighted to
oblige him, but that I did not intend to take my camera with me.
"Not take your camera!" he said. "You are going to Germany--to
Rhineland! You are going to pass through some of the most picturesque
scenery, and stay at some of the most ancient and famous towns of

Europe, and are going to leave your photographic apparatus behind you,
and you call yourself an artist!"
He said I should never regret a thing more in my life than going
without that camera.
I think it is always right to take other people's advice in matters where
they know more than you do. It is the experience of those who have
gone before that makes the way smooth for those who follow. So, after
supper, I got together the things I had been advised to take with me,
and arranged them on the bed, adding a few articles I had thought of all
by myself.
I put up plenty of writing paper and a bottle of ink, along with a
dictionary and a few other books of reference, in case I should feel
inclined to do any work while I was away. I always like to be prepared
for work; one never knows when one may feel inclined for it.
Sometimes, when I have been away, and have forgotten to bring any
paper and pens and ink with me, I have felt so inclined for writing; and
it has quite upset me that, in consequence of not having brought any
paper and pens and ink with me, I have been unable to sit down and do
a lot of work, but have been compelled, instead, to lounge about all day
with my hands in my pockets.
Accordingly, I always take plenty of paper and pens and ink with me
now, wherever I go, so that when the desire for work comes to me I
need not check it.
That this craving for work should have troubled me so often, when I
had no paper, pens, and ink by me, and that it never, by any chance,
visits me now, when I am careful to be in a position to gratify it, is a
matter over which I have often puzzled.
But when it does come I shall be ready for it.
I also put on the bed a few volumes of Goethe, because I thought it
would be so pleasant to read him in his own country. And I decided to
take a sponge, together with a small portable bath, because a cold bath
is so refreshing the first thing in the morning.
B. came in just as I had got everything into a pile. He stared at the bed,
and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was packing.
"Great Heavens!" he exclaimed. "I thought you were moving! What do
you think we are going to do--camp out?"
"No!" I replied. "But these are the things I have been advised to take

with me. What is the use of people giving you advice if you don't take
it?"
He said:
"Oh! take as much advice as you like; that always comes in useful to
give away. But, for goodness sake, don't get carrying all that stuff about
with you. People will take us for Gipsies."
I said:
"Now, it's no use your talking nonsense. Half the things on this bed are
life-preserving things. If people