On Board Ship
WHEN you are on shore, you would like to be on the ship which is just sailing; when you are on board ship, you would like to be on the shore which is far away. When I was in England, I kept thinking of how nice it is to be home. When I am home, perhaps I shall be thinking of how much finer and better it is to be in England than anywhere else.
I have seen greatness and power, wealth, prosperity, and an incomparably high standard of achievement. Never have I felt sad at the idea that we form only a small and imperfect corner of the world. To be small, unsettled, and uncompleted is a good and valiant mission. There are large and splendid Atlantic liners with three funnels, first class steamboats which rumble along on the high seas; and there are small, unpretentious cargo tramps. 
Well, friends, it takes quite a lot of pluck to be one of those small and uncomfortable conveyances. But do not say that things in our country are on a small scale; the universe around us is, thank God, just as great as the universe around the British Empire. 
A small steamboat will not hold as much as one of those big ships; but, my dear sir, it can sail just as far or even else where. That depends on the crew.
My head is still all in a whirl; for a moment, I feel as if I had just come out of a huge factory and were deafened by the stillness outside; and then the next moment it is as if I could hear all the pious chimes of England ringing.
But already in my mind there begin to be mingled with this the Czech words which I shall hear in a short time.
We are a small nation and so each man in it will appear to me as if I knew him personally. The first one I see will be a corpulent and noisy man with a Virginia cigarette, talkative and wearing his heart on his sleeve. And we shall pass the time of day as if we knew each other.
That low strip on the horizon is already Holland with its windmills, avenues, and black-and-white cows;
an even and pleasant country, homely, cordial and cosy.
In the meanwhile the white coast of England has vanished; what a pity that I forgot to say good-bye to it. But when I am home, I shall meditate on everything I have seen, and whatever may be the topic of conversation—the education of children or transport problems, literature or the respect of man for man, horses or easy-chairs, what people are like, or what they should be like, I shall start my remarks in the manner of an expert: “Now in England . . .”
But nobody will be listening to me.
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London