Diary of a Pilgrimage | Page 8

go into Germany without these things,
they come home and die."
And I related to him what the doctor and the vicar and the other people
had told me, and explained to him how my life depended upon my
taking brandy and blankets and sunshades and plenty of warm clothing
with me.
He is a man utterly indifferent to danger and risk--incurred by other
people--is B. He said:
"Oh, rubbish! You're not the sort that catches a cold and dies young.
You leave that co-operative stores of yours at home, and pack up a
tooth-brush, a comb, a pair of socks, and a shirt. That's all you'll want."
I have packed more than that, but not much. At all events, I have got
everything into one small bag. I should like to have taken that tea
arrangement--it would have done so nicely to play at shop with in the
train!--but B. would not hear of it.
I hope the weather does not change.

FRIDAY, 23RD

Early Rising.--Ballast should be Stowed Away in the Hold before
Putting to Sea.--Annoying Interference of Providence in Matters that it
Does Not Understand.--A Socialistic Society.--B. Misjudges Me.-- An
Uninteresting Anecdote.--We Lay in Ballast.--A Moderate Sailor.-- A
Playful Boat.
I got up very early this morning. I do not know why I got up early. We
do not start till eight o'clock this evening. But I don't regret it--the
getting up early I mean. It is a change. I got everybody else up too, and
we all had breakfast at seven.
I made a very good lunch. One of those seafaring men said to me once:

"Now, if ever you are going a short passage, and are at all nervous, you
lay in a good load. It's a good load in the hold what steadies the ship.
It's them half-empty cruisers as goes a-rollin' and a- pitchin' and
a-heavin' all over the place, with their stern up'ards half the time. You
lay in ballast."
It seemed very reasonable advice.
Aunt Emma came in the afternoon. She said she was so glad she had
caught me. Something told her to change her mind and come on Friday
instead of Saturday. It was Providence, she said.
I wish Providence would mind its own business, and not interfere in my
affairs: it does not understand them.
She says she shall stop till I come back, as she wants to see me again
before she goes. I told her I might not be back for a month. She said it
didn't matter; she had plenty of time, and would wait for me.
The family entreat me to hurry home.
I ate a very fair dinner--"laid in a good stock of ballast," as my
seafaring friend would have said; wished "Good-bye!" to everybody,
and kissed Aunt Emma; promised to take care of myself--a promise
which, please Heaven, I will faithfully keep, cost me what it may--
hailed a cab and started.
I reached Victoria some time before B. I secured two corner seats in a
smoking-carriage, and then paced up and down the platform waiting for
him.
When men have nothing else to occupy their minds, they take to
thinking. Having nothing better to do until B. arrived, I fell to musing.
What a wonderful piece of Socialism modern civilisation has become!-
-not the Socialism of the so-called Socialists--a system modelled
apparently upon the methods of the convict prison--a system under
which each miserable sinner is to be compelled to labour, like a beast
of burden, for no personal benefit to himself, but only for the good of
the community--a world where there are to be no men, but only
numbers--where there is to be no ambition and no hope and no
fear,--but the Socialism of free men, working side by side in the
common workshop, each one for the wage to which his skill and energy
entitle him; the Socialism of responsible, thinking individuals, not of
State-directed automata.
Here was I, in exchange for the result of some of my labour, going to

be taken by Society for a treat, to the middle of Europe and back.
Railway lines had been laid over the whole 700 or 800 miles to
facilitate my progress; bridges had been built, and tunnels made; an
army of engineers, and guards, and signal-men, and porters, and clerks
were waiting to take charge of me, and to see to my comfort and safety.
All I had to do was to tell Society (here represented by a railway
booking-clerk) where I wanted to go, and to step into a carriage; all the
rest would be done for me. Books and papers had been written and
printed; so that if I wished to beguile the journey by reading, I could do
so. At various places on the route,