The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

Travelling from Dover to Calais and thence to Paris, the party set off on what, in thought, Mary ever after dubbed: "that mad race across Europe."

For, the Channel behind them, Richard's restlessness broke out in a new form: it seemed impossible for him to be content in any place they visited for more than a day or two on end. In vain did Mary protest: "But, Richard, we're not seeing anything!" Within a few hours of his arrival in a town, he had had enough of it, sucked it dry; and was fidgeting to be off to the next on their line of route. Nor was this itch for movement all. The strange food did not suit him: he either liked it too well and ate too heartily of it, or turned from it altogether. Then the noisiness of foreign cities--the cobbled streets, the rattling of the loosely hung vehicles, the loud foreign voices, the singing, the tambourining--got on his nerves, and, together with the unshaded windows of hotel bedrooms, kept him awake half the night: him spoilt, for how many a year, by the perfectly darkened sashes, the ordered silence of his sleeping-room at "Ultima Thule." And all the beauties in the world could not make up to Richard for lack of sleep. Or, to turn it round: rob him of his sleep, and you robbed him of all power to enjoy fine scenery or handsome monuments. And so they sometimes arrived at a place and left it again, without having really seen very much more of it than the four walls of a room.