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Diary of a Pilgrimage
Diary of a Pilgrimage
PREFACE
Said a friend of mine to me some months ago: “Well now, why don’t you write a sensible book? I should like to see you make people think.”
“Do you believe it can be done, then?” I asked.
“Well, try,” he replied.
Accordingly, I have tried. This is a sensible book. I want you to understand that. This is a book to improve your mind. In this book I tell you all about Germany – at all events, all I know about Germany – and the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play. I also tell you about other things. I do not tell you all I know about all these other things, because I do not want to swamp you with knowledge. I wish to lead you gradually. When you have learnt this book, you can come again, and I will tell you some more. I should only be defeating my own object did I, by making you think too much at first, give you a perhaps, lasting dislike to the exercise. I have purposely put the matter in a light and attractive form, so that I may secure the attention of the young and the frivolous. I do not want them to notice, as they go on, that they are being instructed; and I have, therefore, endeavoured to disguise from them, so far as is practicable, that this is either an exceptionally clever or an exceptionally useful work. I want to do them good without their knowing it. I want to do you all good – to improve your minds and to make you think, if I can.
What you will think after you have read the book, I do not want to know; indeed, I would rather not know. It will be sufficient reward for me to feel that I have done my duty, and to receive a percentage on the gross sales.
London, March, 1891.
MONDAY, 19TH
My Friend B. – Invitation to the Theatre. – A Most Unpleasant Regulation. – Yearnings of the Embryo Traveller. – How to Make the Most of One’s Own Country. – Friday, a Lucky Day. – The Pilgrimage Decided On.
My friend B. called on me this morning and asked me if I would go to a theatre with him on Monday next.
“Oh, yes! certainly, old man,” I replied. “Have you got an order, then?”
He said:
“No; they don’t give orders. We shall have to pay.”
“Pay! Pay to go into a theatre!” I answered, in astonishment. “Oh, nonsense! You are joking.”
“My dear fellow,” he rejoined, “do you think I should suggest paying if it were possible to get in by any other means? But the people who run this theatre would not even understand what was meant by a ‘free list,’ the uncivilised barbarians! It is of no use pretending to them that you are on the Press, because they don’t want the Press; they don’t think anything of the Press. It is no good writing to the acting manager, because there is no acting manager. It would be a waste of time offering to exhibit bills, because they don’t have any bills – not of that sort. If you want to go in to see the show, you’ve got to pay. If you don’t pay, you stop outside; that’s their brutal rule.”
“Dear me,” I said, “what a very unpleasant arrangement! And whereabouts is this extraordinary theatre? I don’t think I can ever have been inside it.”
“I don’t think you have,” he replied; “it is at Ober-Ammergau – first turning on the left after you leave Ober railway-station, fifty miles from Munich.”
“Um! rather out of the way for a theatre,” I said. “I should not have thought an outlying house like that could have afforded to give itself airs.”