

Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org





                             RETURNING HOME.


IT is generally supposed that people who live at home,—good domestic
people, who love tea and their arm-chairs, and who keep the parlour
hearth-rug ever warm,—it is generally supposed that these are the people
who value home the most, and best appreciate all the comforts of that
cherished institution.  I am inclined to doubt this.  It is, I think, to
those who live farthest away from home, to those who find the greatest
difficulty in visiting home, that the word conveys the sweetest idea.  In
some distant parts of the world it may be that an Englishman acknowledges
his permanent resting place; but there are many others in which he will
not call his daily house, his home.  He would, in his own idea, desecrate
the word by doing so.  His home is across the blue waters, in the little
northern island, which perhaps he may visit no more; which he has left,
at any rate, for half his life; from which circumstances, and the
necessity of living, have banished him.  His home is still in England,
and when he speaks of home his thoughts are there.

No one can understand the intensity of this feeling who has not seen or
felt the absence of interest in life which falls to the lot of many who
have to eat their bread on distant soils.  We are all apt to think that a
life in strange countries will be a life of excitement, of stirring
enterprise, and varied scenes;—that in abandoning the comforts of home,
we shall receive in exchange more of movement and of adventure than would
come in our way in our own tame country; and this feeling has, I am sure,
sent many a young man roaming.  Take any spirited fellow of twenty, and
ask him whether he would like to go to Mexico for the next ten years!
Prudence and his father may ultimately save him from such banishment, but
he will not refuse without a pang of regret.

Alas! it is a mistake.  Bread may be earned, and fortunes, perhaps, made
in such countries; and as it is the destiny of our race to spread itself
over the wide face of the globe, it is well that there should be
something to gild and paint the outward face of that lot which so many
are called upon to choose.  But for a life of daily excitement, there is
no life like life in England; and the farther that one goes from England
the more stagnant, I think, do the waters of existence become.

But if it be so for men, it is ten times more so for women.  An
Englishman, if he be at Guatemala or Belize, must work for his bread, and
that work will find him in thought and excitement.  But what of his wife?
Where will she find excitement?  By what pursuit will she repay herself
for all that she has left behind her at her mother’s fireside?  She will
love her husband.  Yes; that at least!  If there be not that, there will
be a hell, indeed.  Then she will nurse her children, and talk of
her—home.  When the time shall come that her promised return thither is
within a year or two of its accomplishment, her thoughts will all be
fixed on that coming pleasure, as are the thoughts of a young girl on her
first ball for the fortnight before that event comes off.

On the central plain of that portion of Central America which is called
Costa Rica stands the city of San José.  It is the capital of the
Republic,—for Costa Rica is a Republic,—and, for Central America, is a
town of some importance.  It is in the middle of the coffee district,
surrounded by rich soil on which the sugar-cane is produced, is blessed
with a climate only moderately hot, and the native inhabitants are
neither cut-throats nor cannibals.  It may be said, therefore, that by
comparison with some other spots to which Englishmen and others are
congregated for the gathering together of money, San José may be
considered as a happy region; but, nevertheless, a life there is not in
every way desirable.  It is a dull place, with little to interest either
the eye or the ear.  Although the heat of the tropics is but little felt
there on account of its altitude, men and women become too lifeless for
much enterprise.  There is no society.  There are a few Germans and a few
Englishmen in the place, who see each other on matters of business during
the day; but, sombre as life generally is, they seem to care little for
each other’s company on any other footing.  I know not to what point the
aspirations of the Germans may