Our Hundred Days in Europe | Page 4

a chapter of
autobiography, this is what the reader would look for as a matter of
course. Let him consider it as being such a chapter, and its egoisms will
require no apology.
I have called the record our hundred days, because I was accompanied
by my daughter, without the aid of whose younger eyes and livelier
memory, and especially of her faithful diary, which no fatigue or
indisposition was allowed to interrupt, the whole experience would
have remained in my memory as a photograph out of focus.
We left Boston on the 29th of April, 1886, and reached New York on
the 29th of August, four months of absence in all, of which nearly three
weeks were taken up by the two passages; one week was spent in Paris,
and the rest of the time in England and Scotland.
No one was so much surprised as myself at my undertaking this visit.
Mr. Gladstone, a strong man for his years, is reported as saying that he
is too old to travel, at least to cross the ocean, and he is younger than I
am,--just four months, to a day, younger. It is true that Sir Henry
Holland came to this country, and travelled freely about the world, after
he was eighty years old; but his pitcher went to the well once too often,
and met the usual doom of fragile articles. When my friends asked me
why I did not go to Europe, I reminded them of the fate of Thomas Parr.
He was only twice my age, and was getting on finely towards his two
hundredth year, when the Earl of Arundel carried him up to London,
and, being feasted and made a lion of, he found there a premature and
early grave at the age of only one hundred and fifty-two years. He lies
in Westminster Abbey, it is true, but he would probably have preferred
the upper side of his own hearth-stone to the under side of the slab
which covers him.
I should never have thought of such an expedition if it had not been
suggested by a member of my family that I should accompany my
daughter, who was meditating a trip to Europe. I remembered how
many friends had told me I ought to go; among the rest, Mr. Emerson,
who had spoken to me repeatedly about it. I had not seen Europe for

more than half a century, and I had a certain longing for one more sight
of the places I remembered, and others it would be a delight to look
upon. There were a few living persons whom I wished to meet. I was
assured that I should be kindly received in England. All this was
tempting enough, but there was an obstacle in the way which I feared,
and, as it proved, not without good reason. I doubted whether I could
possibly breathe in a narrow state-room. In certain localities I have
found myself liable to attacks of asthma, and, although I had not had
one for years, I felt sure that I could not escape it if I tried to sleep in a
state-room.
I did not escape it, and I am glad to tell my story about it, because it
excuses some of my involuntary social shortcomings, and enables me
to thank collectively all those kind members of the profession who
trained all the artillery of the pharmacopoeia upon my troublesome
enemy, from bicarbonate of soda and Vichy water to arsenic and
dynamite. One costly contrivance, sent me by the Reverend Mr. Haweis,
whom I have never duly thanked for it, looked more like an angelic
trump for me to blow in a better world than what I believe it is, an
inhaling tube intended to prolong my mortal respiration. The best thing
in my experience was recommended to me by an old friend in London.
It was Himrod's asthma cure, one of the many powders, the smoke of
which when burning is inhaled. It is made in Providence, Rhode Island,
and I had to go to London to find it. It never failed to give at least
temporary relief, but nothing enabled me to sleep in my state-room,
though I had it all to myself, the upper berth being removed. After the
first night and part of the second, I never lay down at all while at sea.
The captain allowed me to have a candle and sit up in the saloon, where
I worried through the night as I best might. How could I be in a fit
condition to accept the attention of my friends in Liverpool, after sitting
up every night for more than a week; and how could I be in a mood for
the catechizing of interviewers, without having once lain down