A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

sociable good time; and when we left we had a handshake

all around, and were receiving and shouting back LEB’

WOHL’s until a turn in the road separated us from our

cordial and kindly new friends forever.

We accomplished our undertaking. At half past eight

in the evening we stepped into Oppenau, just eleven

hours and a half out of Allerheiligen–one hundred

and forty-six miles. This is the distance by pedometer;

the guide-book and the Imperial Ordinance maps make

it only ten and a quarter–a surprising blunder,

for these two authorities are usually singularly accurate

in the matter of distances.

CHAPTER XXIV

[I Protect the Empress of Germany]

That was a thoroughly satisfactory walk–and the only

one we were ever to have which was all the way downhill.

We took the train next morning and returned to Baden-Baden

through fearful fogs of dust. Every seat was crowded, too;

for it was Sunday, and consequently everybody was taking

a “pleasure” excursion. Hot! the sky was an oven–and

a sound one, too, with no cracks in it to let in any air.

An odd time for a pleasure excursion, certainly!

Sunday is the great day on the continent–the free day,

the happy day. One can break the Sabbath in a hundred

ways without committing any sin.

We do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it;

the Germans do not work on Sunday, because the commandment

forbids it. We rest on Sunday, because the commandment

requires it; the Germans rest on Sunday because the

commandment requires it. But in the definition

of the word “rest” lies all the difference. With us,

its Sunday meaning is, stay in the house and keep still;

with the Germans its Sunday and week-day meanings seem

to be the same–rest the TIRED PART, and never mind the

other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use

the means best calculated to rest that particular part.

Thus: If one’s duties have kept him in the house all the week,

it will rest him to be out on Sunday; if his duties

have required him to read weighty and serious matter all

the week, it will rest him to read light matter on Sunday;

if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals

all the week, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday

night and put in two or three hours laughing at a comedy;

if he is tired with digging ditches or felling trees

all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in the house

on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue,

or any other member, is fatigued with inanition,

it is not to be rested by added a day’s inanition;

but if a member is fatigued with exertion, inanition is

the right rest for it. Such is the way in which the Germans

seem to define the word “rest”; that is to say, they rest

a member by recreating, recuperating, restore its forces.

But our definition is less broad. We all rest alike

on Sunday–by secluding ourselves and keeping still,

whether that is the surest way to rest the most of us

or not. The Germans make the actors, the preachers,

etc., work on Sunday. We encourage the preachers,

the editors, the printers, etc., to work on Sunday,

and imagine that none of the sin of it falls upon us;

but I do not know how we are going to get around the fact

that if it is wrong for the printer to work at his trade

on Sunday it must be equally wrong for the preacher to

work at his, since the commandment has made no exception

in his favor. We buy Monday morning’s paper and read it,

and thus encourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do

it again.

The Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,

by abstaining from work, as commanded; we keep it

holy by abstaining from work, as commanded, and by

also abstaining from play, which is not commanded.

Perhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest,

because the resting we do is in most cases only a name,

and not a fact.

These reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend