MOTORING
The Greatest Joy of All There is nothing the possession of a car gives us to com- pare with that boundless freedom of the roads of the world which we call touring—a drill phrase concealing all the joys that lie within the grasp of no other adventurers except ex- plorers: the freedom physical and spiritual which not even they can always attain. A man in his car on the other side of the Channel is bound, if he chooses, by no ties save the needs of his car itself. So long as he has the money to buy petrol and oil, he is, I think, the person the most to be envied today.
The whole business from beginning to end is, if you have only a little imagination, one of pure joy. The preparations themselves, the careful weighing and packing of luggage, the buying of maps, the studying of routes which will naturally be altered times without number, the visit to the touring department of the R.A.C. to get the car's papers and accom- modation (this place is one of the most deeply enthralling offices in the world), the final glance at the map of Europe with a dozen new courses mentally pricked out as alterna- tives, the drive down to the sea, the embarkation and the landing on some foreign quay—all these things count almost as much as the journey itself.
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