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CHAPTER VI
SOJOtTRN IN FRANCE AND GERMANY
CAMBRIDGE and first-illass cricket were followed by"some
residence in 1878 in France and in 1879 in Germany, to
leam something of the languages. But previously to
that I had been twice abroad on trips to the Riviera, and
learnt fruitlessly on each occasion how not to do it. The
first was in 1874, a scurry through picture-galleries which
I did not understand, nor relish, though a reading of
Kugler's Italian Painters was of course better than nothing.
The trip was marred by an incredibly foul sea-passage and
by far too many night-journeys and town racket, distasteful
and fatiguing for an ignorant country-bred youth.
Before they are made to skirmish through picturegalleries
abroad, young fellows should be taught how to
look at pictures at home. It is a very difficult thing to
do with profit, and quite impossible if the conventional
policy is pursued of prowli,ng aimlessly through the
corridors, never sitting down, and not looking at a single
picture for more than forty-five seconds, though the conception
and execution of it has cost a great artist many
months of concentrated thought and labour. r doubt if
we mortals play the fool quite so thoroughly as in picture
galleries I Why is it, too, that though we have, as a nation,
a surprising natural gift for music, one meets with people
every d.ay who profess that they are " not musical " but
yet would very rarely admit that they were bored with
pictures ' Compare the hordes who wander sadly through
Burlington House with the audience at the Old Vic I
Another great mistake is to expect profit from travelling
indolently. Many of us are too lazy to master enough
of the foreign language to talk with ease to the country-
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