Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

James Vincent

James Edmund Vincent

Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

INTRODUCTION

This book, the first volume it is hoped of a series, was undertaken because the existing Guide-books were, through no fault in their writers, by no means adequate to the needs of the traveller by motor-car. A new method of travel, in fact, brings in its train the need for a new species of guide-book, and the truth of this observation becomes clear when we consider an authoritative definition of the term "Guide-book." It is "a book of directions for travellers and tourists as to the best routes, etc., and giving information about the places to be visited." All which needs to be added to this definition by way of explanation is that the information given may justly be of almost any kind so long as it is not tedious.

Substantially, all the existing guide-books, some of them of admirable quality, were written before the motor-car had entered into our social system. Except a small number of accounts of tours by horse-drawn carriages, they were compiled by men who travelled by train from place to place, obtaining no view of the country often—for deep cuttings destroy all joy of the eye for the railway passenger—and at best only a partial view, for the use of men and women condemned to the like method of travel. In them it is vain to seek for any appreciation of the pleasure of the road, of the delight of travel itself. The motor-car has changed all that. The act of going from place to place is at least as essential a part of the enjoyment of a tour as the sojourn at the new place when it is reached, as the leisurely survey of its features of beauty or interest, or the inquiry into its history and its associations. Many matters, too, are of moment to the motorist which are of none to the traveller by rail. He desires to know something in advance of the nature of the roads to be traversed, of the gradients to be climbed, of the facilities for housing his car when his destination of the day is accomplished, and last, but certainly not least, where he can submit it to a skilled artificer for repair if occasion should unhappily arise.

Does the motorist need, or desire, more than has been set forth in the preceding sentence? The anti-motorist will think not, will remain convinced that the motorist is a dust-raising, property-destroying, dog-killing, fowl-slaying, dangerous and ruthless speed maniac. But, of course, the anti-motorist is quite wrong. The rational motorist, who is in the overwhelming majority—but black sheep are sadly conspicuous amidst a white flock—passes through certain regular stages of evolution. At first he revels without thought, or without conscious thought, in the sheer ecstasy of motion. The road which seems to flow to meet him, white, tawny or grey as the case may be, and to open before him as if by magic, the pressure of the cool air on his face, even the tingling lash of the rain as he dashes against it, result in a feeling of undefinable, almost lyrical, exaltation. In the next stage he begins to take in broad impressions of great stretches of country, impressions similar in some respects to those obtained from a mountain top, but secured in rapid succession. Soon—for the faculties of man adapt themselves rapidly to his needs—the man in the car begins to observe more rapidly and more minutely than in the early days. The man at the steering-wheel finds that he can watch the road up to the farthest visible point in advance, manipulate his throttle, use accelerator or decelerator, and, most important of all, be in vigilant sympathy with his engine, subconsciously. At the same time he can take an intelligent interest in the scenes through which he is passing, can carry on a conversation with her or with him who sits by his side, can tell a good story or listen to one, can impart information or receive it, without in the slightest degree neglecting his primary duty of driving and humouring the car. In this is nothing of novelty. The same state of doing instructively and witho