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The same might be said of the talk which accompanied the meal. It was anything but conscious or formal, and yet I noticed that leading questions were not only allowed but expected, and that it was the custom of the entire company to listen when any conversation became generally interesting. In this way I enjoyed a whole series of descriptions of forests and mountains, rivers and deserts, of barbarous and unfrequented countries, of harbors and fortifications, cities and courts, cathedrals and colleges, libraries and museums; with anecdotes of experience and adventure, of state and society, of beautiful women and distinguished men.

The near distance of Europe was by no means forgotten, but it was discussed in a way that made me feel that I must, in Bacon’s phrase, have gone there “hooded,” or, at least, as the mythical American who checked off each city in his Baedeker after a hurried glance about him from the top of some tall building. In particular, I was possessed with successive desires to make good my deficiencies by going at once to live at a wonderful small hotel across the river in Paris, visiting a certain sculptor’s studio in Madrid, dreaming on the terraces of Lake Maggiore, and hearing the opera by telephone at Budapest. When the talk ranged more widely, as it did for the most part, I longed to observe a volcano and experience an earthquake in action, and determined to journey without delay to Damascus for the sake of its baths and cafés, “the most exquisitely luxurious in the world;” that is, if I did not decide, instead, for Shepherd’s hotel at Cairo, or, perhaps, the vale of Thingvalla in Iceland.