The Riddle of the Ivy

More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday,
a friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded
with half-packed luggage.

"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?"

With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea."

"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me."

"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea viâ Paris, Belfort,
Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained
simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once
more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise,
somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little
island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great
white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch
travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour
that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called
Battersea."

"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend,
with an air of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?"

"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue.
I cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or
any England. I cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair:
because a cloud of sleep and custom has come across my eyes.
The only way to get back to them is to go somewhere else; and that
is the real object of travel and the real pleasure of holidays.
Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose
that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both;
but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking Battersea.
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land;
it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.
Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy,
and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your head.
I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical.
It is not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go
to England is to go away from it."

But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back
to England, I was startled to find that I had told the exact truth.
England did break on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old.
To land at Dover is the right way to approach England (most things
that are hackneyed are right), for then you see first the full,
soft gardens of Kent, which are, perhaps, an exaggeration,
but still a typical exaggeration, of the rich rusticity of England.
As it happened, also, a