Somewhere Else

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Title:     Somewhere Else
Author: Israel Zangwill [More Titles by Zangwill]

Before I chanced on the great discovery which has made all my holidays real boons, and pleasure trips quite a pleasure, I used to go through all the horrors of preliminary indecision, which are still, alas! the lot of the vast majority. I would travel for weeks in Bradshaw, and end by sticking a pin at random between the leaves as if it were a Bible, vowing to go where destiny pointed. Once the pin stuck at London, and so I had to stick there too, and was defrauded of my holiday. But even when the pin sent me to Putney, or Coventry, I was invariably disappointed. Like the inquisitive and precocious infant of the poem, I was always asking for the address of Peace, but whenever I called I was told that she was not in, while the mocking refrain seemed to ring in my ears: "Not there, not there, my child." And at last I asked angrily of the rocks and caves: "Will no one tell me where Peace may be found? Wherever I go I find she is somewhere else." Then, at last, one nymph's soft heart grew tender and pitiful towards me, and Echo, hardly waiting till I had completed my sentence, answered: "Somewhere Else."

A wild thrill of joy ran through me. At last I had found the solution of the haunting puzzle. Somewhere Else. That was it. Not Scotland, nor Switzerland, nor Japan. None of the common places of travel. But Somewhere Else. Wherever I went, I wished I had gone Somewhere Else. Then, why not go there at first? What was the good of repining when it was too late? In future, I would make a bee-line for the abode of Peace--not hesitate and shilly-shally, and then go to Bournemouth, or Norway, or Ceylon, only to be sorry I had not gone to Somewhere Else direct. In a flash, all the glories of the discovery crowded upon me--the gain of time, temper, money, everything. "A thousand thanks, sweet Echo," I cried. "My obedience to thy advice shall prove that I am not ungrateful." Echo, with cynical candour, shouted "Great fool," but I cannot follow her in her end-of-the-century philosophy. And I have taken her advice. I went Somewhere Else immediately, and since then I have gone there every year regularly. My relatives do not care for it, and suggest all sorts of conventional places, such as Monte Carlo and Southend, but wherever they go, be it the most beautiful spot on earth, I remain faithful to my discovery, and go to Somewhere Else, where Peace never fails to greet me with the special welcome accorded to an annual visitor. The place grows upon me with every season. Sometimes, I think I should like to stay on and die there. No other spot in the wide universe has half such charm for me, and even when I do die, I don't think I shall go to where all the other happy idlers go. I shall go to Somewhere Else.

For Cromer may be the garden of sleep, but you shall find sleepier gardens and more papaverous poppies--Somewhere Else. The mountain-pines of Switzerland may be tall, and the skies of Italy blue, but there are taller pines and bluer skies--Somewhere Else. The bay of San Francisco may be beautiful, and the landscapes of Provence lovely, and the crags of Norway sublime, but Somewhere Else there are fairer visions and scenes more majestical--

An ampler setter, a diviner air,
And fields invested with purpureal gleams.

It never palls upon you--Somewhere Else. Every loved landmark grows dearer to you year by year, and year by year apartments are cheaper--Somewhere Else. The facilities for getting to it are enormous. All roads lead to it, far more truly than to Rome. There can be no accidents on the journey. How often do we read of people setting forth on their holidays full of life and hope--yea, sometimes even on their honeymoon--and lo! a signalman nods, or a bridge breaks, and they are left mangled on the rails or washed into the river. And to think that they would have escaped if they had only gone to Somewhere Else! Too late the weeping relatives wring their hands and moan the remark. Henceforth, among the ten million pleasure-pilgrims, who will be guided by me, there will be no more tragedies by flood or field. Railway assurance will become a thing of the past, and a fatal blow will be struck at modern hebdomadal journalism. To turn to minor matters, your friends can never utter the irritating "I told you not to go there!" if you have been to Somewhere Else. And you need not label your luggage; that always goes to Somewhere Else of itself. Last advantage of Somewhere Else, you may show your face in it, though you departed last year without paying your bill. There are no creditors in this blessed haven. Earth's load drops off your shoulders when you go to Somewhere Else.

I give this counsel in a disinterested spirit. I have not made speculative purchases of land, I am not booming a generous jerry-builder. And yet I cannot help reflecting apprehensively on the consequences of my recommendation. Already I see my sweet retreat the prey of the howling mob; I hear the German band playing on the stone parade, and catch the sad strains of the comic singer. Sacrilegious feet tramp the solitudes, and sandwich papers become common objects of the sea-shore. Shilling yachts will ply where I watched the skimming curlew, and new villas will totter on the edge of the ocean and beguile the innocent billows to be house-breakers. Nay, the place will become the Alsatia of humanity, the refuge for all those men and women people would rather see Somewhere Else, and whose travelling expenses they will perchance defray. Imagination reels before the horror of such an agglomeration of the unamiable. And the terrible thing about my terrestrial paradise is that there is no escaping from it. Everything has the defects of its qualities, and this is the reverse of the dazzling medal--the drawback which annuls all the advantages of Somewhere Else in the event of its becoming popular. In vain shall I then endeavour to flee from it. Though I projected myself from the giant cannon that sent Jules Verne's hero to the moon, I should inevitably arrive--boomerang-like--at Somewhere Else.

[The end]
Israel Zangwill's essay: Somewhere Else

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