It is a strange fact that the more perfect do we make travelling, the more tedious does it become--I wonder whether the same may not apply to almost all progress in civilization.
The most primitive aspect of travel is that of walking, and even upon the most tedious of walks the exercise itself seldom degenerates into definite boredom, one is never far away from one's fellow men, yet even if one is quite alone the mere fact of walking is an occupation which cannot be despised; of riding similar things may be said. Coaching may have had its inconveniences, yet a coach drive cannot have been lacking in definite interest. One was in very close contact with one's fellow passengers, coaching made as strange bedfellows as any adversity, and the journey was seldom so short that one could enjoy a sort of snuffy insulation from one's fellows--mutual discomforts, even mutual terrors of footpads made a definite bond of humanity.
It is true that in all these primitive processes the act of getting from here to there is prolonged--perhaps extremely prolonged--but mere duration is not tedium. If the act itself is interesting and vivid then the act itself is worth while. To-day the act of travelling by a fast train is scarcely worth while--the traveller can almost count it out as so much time lost out of life. I fear that when the aeroplane is perfected journeys will be performed in a tedium absolutely unrelieved, and those patients who have to undertake journeys would be advised to take a mild anæsthetic at the beginning.
What is missing to-day from the act of travelling--and what lacks from much modern civilization--is the expectation of the unexpected; the sense of adventure, the true sauce of life.
Now to have the true sense of adventure it is not necessary that one should always be expecting to meet a lion round the corner. Any little thing will do, anything not before experienced, anything that will give the imagination that extra fillip of interest which will convince it that the world will always remain a Fortunatus purse of new things to learn, anything that will make positive the fact that the act of living is also the act of growing,--anything of this nature will contribute to the sense of adventure.