The traveller of to-day is more fortunate; he expects and finds in a
modern liner all the comforts he would enjoy in a first-class hotel
ashore; and finds them too in a lesser degree on railway journeys.
The long continental tours of my father and mother in the early days
of their married life, were all made by road in their own carriages,
and as their family increased they took their elder children with them
in their wanderings, so what with children, nurses and servants, they
travelled with quite a retinue.
I think that my father must have had a sentimental attachment for the
old travelling carriages which had taken him and his family in safety
over one-half of Europe, for he never parted with them, and various
ancient vehicles reposed in our coach-houses, both in England and
Ireland. The workmanship of these old carriages was so excellent that
some of them, repainted and re-varnished, were still used for
station-work in the country. There was in particular one venerable
vehicle known as the "Travelling Clarence," which remained in constant
use for more than sixty years after its birth. This carriage must have
had painful associations for my elder brothers and sisters, for they
travelled in it on my parents' continental tours.
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