About the Author
A.G. Gardiner , a distinguished Journalist and an eminent essay writer, was born in 1865 As a Journalist, he worked and edited ‘The Daily News’ for 17 years in London.He wrote sorveral volumes of essays under the pen name of ‘Alfha of the Plough’. His prominent works are, ‘Priests and Kings’, ‘Pebbles on the shore’ and ‘leaves in Wind’. He died in I946 but he will be remembered for ever throug his unique writings.
About the lesson
The lesson —‘A Fellow-Traveller’hes been selected from ‘Leaves In Wind’. It is a fine specimen of the personal essay. The author here describes he develops a feeling of affection for a mosquito regarding him as a fellow traveller and a fellow-mortal.
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I do not know which of us got into the carriage first. Indeed, I did not know he was in the carriage at all for some time. It was the last train from London to a Midland town—a stopping train, an infinitely leisurely train, one of those trains which give you an Understanding of eternity.It was tolerably full when it started, but as we stopped at the suburban stations.
The travellers alighted in ones and twos, And by the time we had left the outer ring of London behind, I was alone—or rather, I thought, I was alone.There is a pleasant sense or freedom about being alone in a carriage that is jolting noisily through the night. It is liberty and Unerstraint in a very agreeable form.
You can do anything you like. You can talk to yourself as loud as you please and no one will hear you. You can have that argument out with Jones and you please.No one will hear you. You can have that argument out with Jones and role him triumphantly in the dust without fear of a counterstroke. You can stand on your head.
And no one will see you. You can sing, or dance a two-step, or practise of golf stroke, or play marbles on the floor, without let or hindrance. You can open the window or shut. It without provoking a protest. You can open both windows or Shut both. Indeed you can go on opening them and shutting them as a sort of festival of freedom, You can have any
corner you choose and try all of them in turm. You can lie at full length on the cushions and enjoy the luxury of breaking the regulations and possibly the heart of D.0.R.A. herself. Only D.0.R.A. will not know that her heart is broken. You have escaped even D.0.R.A. On this night, I did not do any of these things.
They did not happen to occur to me. What I did, was much more ordinary. When the last of my fellow-passengers had gone, I put down my paper, stretched my arms and my legs, stood up and looked out of the Window on the calm summer night through which I was Journeying.
Noting the Pale reminiscence of day that still lingered in the northern sky; crosso the carriage and looked out of the other window; lit an cigarette, Sat down, and began to read again. it was then that I became aware of my fellow-traveller. He came and sat on my nose…. He was one of those wingy, nippy, intrepid insects the we call, vaguely, mosquitoes.
I flicked him of my nose, and he made a tour of the compartment, investigated its three dimensions, visited each window. fluttered round the light, decided that there was nothing so interesting as that large animal in the corner, Came and had a look at my neck. I flicked him off again. He skipped away, took another jaunt round the comartment, returned and seated himself.
Impudently on the back of my hand. It is enough, I said; magnanimity has it's limits. Twice you have been warned that I am someone in particular, that my august person resents the tickling impertinence of strangers. I assume the back cap. I condemn you to death. Justice demands it, and the court awards it. The counts against you are many.
You are a vagrant, you are a public nuisance, you are travelling without u ticket; you have no meat coupon. For these and many other misdemeanours, you are about to die. I struck a swift, lethal blow with my right hand. He dodged the attack with an insolent ease that humiliated me. My personal vanity was aroused. I lunged at him with my hand, with my paper;
I jumped on the seat and pursued him round the lamp; I adopted tactics of feline canning, writhing till he had alighted approaching with a horrible stealthines, striking with a sudden and terrible swiftness. It was all in vain. He played with me, openly and ostentatiously, like a skilful matador finessing round an infuriated bull.
It was obvious that he was enjoying himself, that it was for this that he had disturbed my repose. He wanted a little sport. and what sport like being chased by this huge, lumbering windmill of a creature, who tasted so good and seemed so halpless and so stupid? I began to enter into the spirit of the fellow. He was no longer a mere insect. He was developing into a personality, an intelligence that challenged the possession of this compartment with me on equal terms.
I felt my heart warming towards him and the sence of superiority fading. How could I feel superior to a creature who was so manifestly my master in the only competition in which we had ever engaged? Why not be magnanimous again? Magnanimity and mercy were the noblest attributes of man. In the exercise of these high qualities, I could recover my prestige.
At present, I was a ridiculous figure, a thing for laughter and derision. By being merciful, I could reassert the moral dignity of man and go back to my corner with honor. I withdraw the sentence of death, I said, returning to my seat. I cannot kill you, but I can repriveve you. I do it. took up my paper and he came and sat on it. Foolish fellow, I said. you here delivered yourself into my hands.
I have but to give this repectable weekly organ of opinion a smack on both the covers and you are a corpse, reatly sandwiched between an article on "Peace Traps" and another on "The Modestry of Mr. Hughes." But I shall not do it. I have reprieved you, and I will satisfy you that when this large animal says a thing, he means It .
Moreovar, I no longer desire to kill you. Through Knowing you better, I have come to feel—shall I say?—a sort of affection for you. I fancy that St. Francis would have called you “little brother.” I cannot go so far as that in Christian Charity and civility. But I recognize a more distant relationship. Fortune has made us fellow-travellers on this summer night.
I have interested you and have entertained me. The obligation is mutual and it is founded on the fundamental fact that we are fellow-mortals. The miracle of life is ours in Common and it's mystery too. I suppose, you don't know anything about your Journey. I am not sure that I know much about mine. We are really, when you come to think of it, a good deal alike—just apparitions that are and then are not coming out of the night into the lighted carriage, tluttering about the lamp for While and going out into the night again. Perhaps…..
"Going on to-night, sir? " said a voice at the window. It was a friendly Porter, giving me a hint that this was my station. I thanked him and said, I must been dozing and seizing my hat and Stick, I went out into the cool summer night . As I closed the door of the compartment, I saw my fellow-traveller fluttering round the lamp…….
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