Thus on 10 July, 1874, he sailed from New York on the steamship Britannic, on her maiden trip eastward. Before she left her pier there were grand doings aboard—flowers, speeches, high society. For she was proclaimed “The Pride of the Seas.” She displaced three thousand tons. She was headed for Liverpool.
Prior to leaving, Louis called again upon his friend Stratton in New York, and was given further pointers—first of all, to call at the American Legation.
Louis found the ocean trip disappointing and stupid, with exception of the ship’s great vertical engines and deep stokehole, the various apparatus, and the working of the ship by officers and crew, which he studied carefully, as he had become much interested in engineering.
While Louis was leaning on the railing, watching, with vague emotion, his native land fade in the mist, and sink from sight, as though irrevocably lost, he felt a pang of nostalgia; the sea seemed so lonely—after brisk excitement. Near by at the rail were others also watching the land disappear. As it became dim, a grating voice spoke out: “Thank God we have seen the last of the damned Yankees.” The words were said in savage bitterness and contempt. Another voice agreed. Louis turned to the left and saw two short swarthy men, black bearded, black eyed. For a moment Louis thought it would be nice to throw them both overboard. He looked at them, wide-eyed, with something of the sort in view, and they talked on in lower tones. Louis was puzzled by the speech. Why “damned Yankees” he asked himself. Why this hatred, this anathema? The phrase sounded racial; it stuck in his mind like a burr. It was said with such conviction as to seem impersonal; as though included in something larger. Never had he heard such virulence addressed to his own people. He pondered long over this; were the “Yankees” a hated people? If so, who hated them?
Louis did not know a soul aboard. He was proud of the ship, proud to be on it, but he was lonesome, and no one paid the slightest heed as he prowled up and down, in and out. The weather was fair all the way. The waves seemed eternally to roll and roll—without crests. A vast expanse of water, dark blue, almost black; the circular horizon always present and only fifteen miles away. Never had his world seemed so small in fact, yet so limitless and grim in suggestion. He seemed to be always at the top of the world, always in the selfsame spot, always in the midst of deadening monotony; day after day not a sail in sight, not a sign of a storm. Day after day confined to a solitary ship moving on through a wilderness of water, the vessel rhythmically rolling and heaving in its course, night and day, night and day; would it never end? Laughter, aboard, had long since ceased. Where was the romance of the high seas? The end came in a total lapse of ten days. The waters turned blue and then green. The boat came to a stop off Queenstown. Enshrouded in heavy mist, Louis saw a coastline of mountains or high hills. This is all he ever saw of Ireland.
The way along St. George’s Channel seemed glorious. The clear, deep waters, and the glimpses of coastline restored his spirits as he felt his normal condition of clarity return. Here at last was an old world, which, as a new world he was to discover. How high his hopes, how buoyant his thoughts, as they swung into the Mersey. England came near to him, and nearer, then slowly nearer, then in contact, as the ship came to dock. Then came all the bustle and the joyous greetings about him, as Louis pressed his foot on English soil. Ah, what fluttering emotion, the overflow of bubbling youth. At last, at last, he had arrived where for years he had dreamed to come, and the broad Atlantic now lay between him and his native land. Now was to come that Great Adventure, which, as a joyous youth sans peur he faced with elation, and a confidence known only to pure fools. He stayed but a day or two in Liverpool, for his immediate objective was London. He was at pains to make it a daylight ride, for he wished to give his eyes all the treat of novelty.
And what he saw was a finished land—something that had ripened through the centuries. This finished land impressed him with a sense of the faraway. It did not seem to vibrate; and, sub audite, came to him a stream of ancient tales. He found quiet, unobtrusive charm in the countryside, he noted patches of crops arranged with a precision, an inch by inch economy of space, that gave him a feeling that the people of this Island must be crowded, as each small farm was pressed tight against its neighbors, and each crop pressed tight against the others. This tightness confirmed his impression of a finished land. It was a revelation to him, who had come from the middle west of America with its vast prairies sparsely settled. He noticed, too, the amazing solidity of the roadbed, and the smoothness with which the train flew on at high speed. He saw, too, that there were no grade crossings; that everything was immensely solid in contrast to the flimsiness with which he was familiar. And the country roads were wonderful, so sound, so smooth, as they wound their way; and the charming streams he crossed; the verdure, the lovely groves, the hamlets, the villages, the many church spires rising from masses of green; the rural air everywhere, charmed him with the softness, the velvet, the down of age and tradition. Surely it was a finished land,
