The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1875-04-10
Foreign Travel.

10 one fond OF travel, or 70 person OF
any degree of education and culture, the
European tour is a source Of neyer-ending
enjoyment, months and years after it is
over. With how much more interest do
you read Of events that transpire in the
Old World that are enacted in the very
streets or in the historic buildings that
I you have visited, and fixed in your mind
while sightseeing With what new beau
ty do copies Of statues, pictures, and busts
become imbued after you have seen the
grand originals With what fresh attrac-
ton is history invested, or even novels,
the scenes of which are laid in those coun-
tries, cities, or very spots that you have
crossed the ocean to see
What fund Of conversation you have
to interchange with others who have gone
over the same ground, who have had eyes
to sec and heads to understand, and how
amusing ii is to hear those who, having
both the eyes aud heads Of ordinary NOR
tails, appear to have travelled abroad for
the sole purpose OF showing
How much the ass that's sent abroad to roam
Excels the ass that has been kept at home
Enthusiasm in the returned tourist should
never be mistaken for snobbishness, as it
sometimes is by those who have never been
abroad. Iconfess, before having travelled
abroad, to have sometimes thought of those
who had and who were eloquent over the
artistic beauty Of foreign pictures, the
magnifcence of ancient architecture, and
the grand conception that created celebra-
ted statues, which they expatiated most
eloquently upon, over some wretched and
familiar plaster model, that their admira-
tion might be affectation, and their expa-
tiation but parade Of where they had
been and what they had seen more than
their less travelled listeners
On the others hand, there are foreign
travelled snobs who are as amusing to
sensible persons as the home travelled
members of the same genus The latter
will be readily recognized as those who
are continually telling when they were last
at Saratoga, or that General Bustah re.
marked to them in Washington, or that
"our carriage was ordered in season for
Senator SwyndelPs reception" They ask
you if you don't think Sharon Springs
prettier @ place than the White Sulphur,
and (if you are a native Of Maine) If you
have many friends at Long Branch.
"Chawming place, Newport; but, if you'll
believe it, we took a cottage at Niagara
Falls last season." And it turns out that
these airy puryeyors of small talk "took
cottage at hotel rates for four days to
oblige the landlord Of the Clifton House,
whose rooms were full, and said cottage
was little three-roomed ediice a dozen
rods from the house, built to accommodate
family parties when the hotel itself was
Jovererowded with visitors.
The foreign travelled snob is fond of
referring to when he vas in Vienna, or
Paris, or London; and how much Il cost
for the opera; and of his having a courier
or being in Rome with the Highbreds, or
"Came down to Geneva with the Finifines,"
or of the ride he took on the "Bowar des
Bolonc'' with Colonel Throdice. He
never refers to libraries, statues, museums,
or pictures, except that he may halt oppo-
site one perhaps in your drawing room,
squint knowingly at it through his closed
fist, and ask where you "picked that up"
This class of snob, male and female, travels
and visits celebrated places as it does at
home, not to perfect itself in knowledge,
not from desire to see localities and his
toric places of which it has read and stud
led, not from any admiration Of sculpture,
painting, fine arts, or natural scenery, but
because ii is the fashion, or, rather, il
thinks it out Of fashion not to have been
to Europe.
The Indy snob Of this class is better
posted on drcssmakers and milliners in
Paris than she is on the natural scenery Of
Switzerland, and will be better able to tell
you Of her reception at royal drawing.
room," for which she obtained tickets
through the moneyed influence of her
husband, and which cost her no end of
expense, than 10 describe an Alpine noun
tain pass that she has journeyed over, an
Italian picture gallery that she has saunt-
cred through, or cathedral that she only
remembers from having lunched with
party with whom she went to see it.
Another class Of travellers are those
whom you would say, were it not ques-
tioning the inalienable right of the uni
versal Yankee, had no right TO be abroad;
and, indeed, it might be better for our
country if they had never been permitted |
to travel. This is class of people prac-
tically ignorant Of their own country and |
its institutions, and whose only knowledge
about others is that they are in "foreign |
parts, that "Qucen Victoria lives in
palace and the Pope of Rome in St, Peters,
and who are amazed to find that the people |
of Italian cities are not dressed like the
brigands in the picture books, and those
of Switzerland like the characters they !
have seen represented in the circus or on |
the theatrical stage.
Foreign travel is doubtless most val !
liable instructor, and few Americans of |
average common sense can travel to any |
extent, either at home or abroad, without
adding to their stock Of knowledge and
receiving certain amount of practical in
struction of real value. But, certainly, | |