I am trying to learn how to get from the Majestic Theatre to the South Station. I am convinced that in time I might be able to learn this, if I were not also trying at the same time to learn how to get from the Hollis Street Theatre to the Dennison Manufacturing Company on Franklin Street.

I suppose that trying to solve two problems simultaneously is always confusing. A student trying to compute problems with both hands at the same time—problems dealing respectively with yards and pounds—might ultimately confuse his inches with ounces. Similarly, I confuse Eliot Street and Essex, Kneeland and Otis.

My brother Geoffrey who goes with me to Boston thinks that this is funny; that is, he thinks it something appalling that should be remedied. In consequence of this, he draws for me a series of beautiful little sketches on an envelope he has about him. He letters the roads meticulously with a fountain pen, traces our route-to-be with little arrows, and then flings me heartlessly into the Boston Streets.

Boston Streets, and Boston Streets on an envelope, are not alike at all. On the envelope, the streets are simple lines, all related to each other; in reality, each street is an individual personality, distracting you from a noble grasp of the Whole, by presenting the sole gigantic unit of itself, further complicated by detail. Geoffrey is not bothered by a unit, or by a detail. He branches from one street into another with as sure an instinct as a cat who retraces on foot a journey once traversed in a bag.

This is not because he knows Boston, but because he has a capacity for Boston. He leads me patiently over one route a great many times, verifying our position at intervals with reference to his map. After a day at my books, I am faint-heartedly supposed to have comprehended a fact. When this actually takes place, it is very hard for me to conceal my pride in any trifling bit of erudition which I may have accidentally picked up about Boston. Once I distinctly remember saying to Geoffrey, “Do you want to walk down to the Colonial Theatre or shall we go by Subway?” Since we were at that time near the entrance of a suitable subway, my good brother stared at me in radiant expectation. I fear that he hoped that I was at last laying a slight hold on a working knowledge of his favorite city. But his hope was unfounded, for this glimmer of mine was one of only four facts that I have actually been able to learn about the crooked miles in Boston.

The remaining three truths are here recorded for the curious.

I know the Public Library, from any angle, without map or guide, by its fair face alone, and how to reach it from the station at Back Bay. (This, in such a meagre description of Boston, might perhaps qualify as two distinct facts.) I know that if one walks far enough past the Library, in the direction in which the lady with the black ball is looking, one will eventually come to Commonwealth Avenue, where eozoic cabbies may be seen. And now that we have unearthed, on our way back to the station, the Copley Theatre, I am sure that I could go to Boston, friendless, find this theatre, lunch across the street, and retrace my steps to some proper railway.

It may seem to the observer that I am abnormally interested in finding my way to the theatres. I am. This is my primary reason for going to Boston at all; and surely it is a quiet wish to do a little shopping and get a lunch before the play begins. Therefore, our main interest lies in locating, on each trip, one theatre and one depot. Then, if time permits, I am supposed to articulate a shop of some kind from the tangle of Butterfly Boxes, Corner Book Stores, and Florist windows, and some sort of hostelry where we can eat. If my guide is less obdurate than usual about compelling me to find my way without his assistance, he shows me the front steps of a Department Store once. Then I am supposed to know that store for all time, when viewing it from all angles—from its front door, its back door, its basement, and from its roof. I am supposed to know what store I am in from the looks of the elevator boys. It always gives me acute pain to disappoint a valued friend. Hence, in a department store, I suffer. Once inside the store, I can find my way about very easily. I merely do not know what street I am on.

There are certain things in Boston about which even Geoffrey inquires. This concession on his part, instead of bringing him down to my fallible human level, instantly elevates him to a still higher caste. He makes his inquiries of policemen, and he understands what they say. When a policeman directs me—solitary—to go up one street and down another, and mixes in a little of the Public Garden or the Common, I cannot carry his kind words in my mind, even with the aid of a mnemonic. He cannot direct me from the known to the unknown, because I know nothing. He cannot explain to me; he has to go with me. I do not know the Common from the Public Garden. They both look like gardens to me, both equally public, and neither, common. “But,” protests my brother, “the Public Garden is regular—a rectangle. And the Common is irregular—a trapezium.” This is perfectly true on the envelope (now dirty). But when you are in the park itself, you are not especially aware of its shape. Individual pigeons are more obvious. The park is too big to look square.

In just this same way, Washington Street is too big to look parallel. When you are on Washington Street, and it alone, it is not blindingly parallel to anything, unless, perhaps, the other side of itself. And if my policeman, on his pretty horse, should tell me that that was Tremont Street, I should believe him. Boston has done as bad. It would be no stranger than it is to spring miraculously from Summer Street into Winter, simply by following it across the road. In fact, I was not aware that we had changed streets at all, when on my maiden trip through this section. I preserved to the end an hallucination that I was still on Summer Street.

Perhaps a few will do me the magnificent honor of absolving me from boasting, when I say that I am capable of apprehending really nice bits of information in other walks of life;—other than Boston walks. I can pick you out a pneumonia germ from under the microscope, and count your red corpuscles for you. I can receive the Continental Code by wireless, and play on a violoncello. I can get a baby to sleep.

But I cannot tell you where you are in Boston. There are people who would not admit this. They would set themselves, with their faces steadfastly toward the Hub, to learn. Geoffrey is one of these. But I have neither the time nor the proper shoes. I readily admit that Boston is too much for me at my age. So I take my brother with me. Then I placidly relegate Boston Streets to that list of things which I am constitutionally unable to learn:—how to tat, just what is a Stock, and what a Bond, and the difference between a Democrat and a Republican.