heaval, and
requires, in each and every instance, an entirely new and original
diagnosis.

With all its caprices, however, the automobile is the most efficient
and satisfactory contrivance for getting about from place to place,
for business or pleasure, that was ever devised.

Comparatively speaking, the railway is not to be thought of for a
moment. It has all the disadvantages of the automobile (for indeed
there are a few, such as dust and more or less cramped quarters, and,
if one chooses, a nerve-racking speed) and none of its advantages,
and, whether you are a mere man or a millionaire, you are tied down
to rails and a strict itinerary, whereas you may turn the bonnet of
your automobile down any by-road that pleases your fancy, and arrive
ultimately at your destination, having made an enjoyable detour which
would not otherwise have been possible.

Too great a speed undoubtedly detracts from the joy of travel, but a
hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty, or three hundred kilometres
a day on the fine roads of France, or a hundred or a hundred and
fifty miles on the leafy lanes of England's southern counties will
give the stranger more varied impressions and a clearer understanding
of men and matters than the touring of a country from end to end in
express-trains which serve your meals _en route_, and whisk you from
London to Torquay between tea and dinner, or from Paris to the Cote
d'Azur between breakfast and nightfall.

Just how much pleasure and edification one can absorb during an
automobile tour depends largely upon the individual--and the mood.
Once the craving for speed is felt, not all the historic monuments in
the world would induce one to stop a sweetly running motor; but again
the other mood comes on, and one lingers a full day among the charms
of the lower Seine from Caudebec to Rouen, scarce thirty miles.

Les Andelys-sur-Seine, your guide-book tells you, is noted for its
magnificent ruins of Richard Coeur de Lion's Chateau Gaillard, and
for the culture of the sugar-beet, and so, often, merely on account
of the banal mention of beet-roots, you ignore the attractions of
Richard's castle and make the best time you can Parisward by the
great Route Nationale on the other side of the Seine. This is wrong,
of course, but the mood was on, and the song of speed was ringing in
your ears and nothing would drive it out.

Our fathers and grandfathers made the grand tour, in a twelvemonth,
as a sort of topp