New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-08-04
AMERICANS ABROAD.

/" don't see how that can take, rnld an Eng
lishman. throwing down Daisy Miller ," the
girls very vulgar, think she does such alb
surdy unusual things" II social essayists of
The SATURDAY. ReuicC school are to be believed,
all Europe is oyerrun every summer with Amer
leans who show themselves to be very vulgar by
doing things that are absurd'y unusual. But
to tell the truth, the failing of American tour
lists in Europe Is in the opposite direction.
There arc thousands Of our country people trav-
cling abroad this season whose abiding fear Ia
lest they make themselves absurd by doing
something unusual. In the Grand Hotel, in
Paris. there ia n small and secluded restaurant
ia carte for those who do not Ike the table
dh6te, and there you may generally find half
dozen or 40 of Americans breaGfastlng heartily
CT. beefsteak and friul potatoes at the absurdly
unfashionablo hour of o'clock. But they are
new arrivals: and fresh as they are they seem
10 be conscious that they are violating French
ideas Of propriety. They give their orders with
timidity, they get out Of the room as soon as
they can, and in a day or two they learn to take
their early roll and cup of coffee, and their light
deieuner with wine at II o'clock. Everywhere
the Americans surpass all other travellers In
adautabiity to the customs of strange coun-
try. They are often impeded by ignorance Of
foreign languages but they learn foreign ways
quickly, and they are apt in conforming to them.
Unfortunately they devote SO much pains to
the acquisition of this sort Of culture, that it is
often the only knowledge they bring home.
They believe that they have passed pleasant
and profitable month in Paris when they have
caught little French peculiarities of costume,
and familiarized themselves with the routine OF
shopping at the Magasins dn Louvre, and
learned how to encounter a waiter in fashion
able restaurant without tIepidatOn. In London
they are satisfied with their experience when
they know how TO deal with Ia cabman, order a
dinner, choose hotel, and find their way from
the Bank to Pail Mall, and from Channg Cross
to Oxford ST.; wheI they have accustomed them
selves to wear silk hat when it rains and to
carry an umbrella when it doesn't; when they
understand the social laws of frock coats and
gloves and can enter and leave a railway train
without betraying that they are strangers.
They apply their minds in Switzerland to the
great subject of hotels and by the time they
have reached Rome it is their pride to pass for
cosmopolites who are at ease everywhere and
at home nowhere. They offer the strongest
possible contrast TO the English tourists whom
they are constantly meeting on the Continent.
The Engisnman travels abroad habtCally, but
he takes his own customs with him, his multi
plcity of rugs, bags, hat-boxes and bath-tubs,
his business at stations and inns, his dependence
upon guards and porters, his national bad taste
in d:ess, and his national appetites. The Amer
lean, TO whom foreign tour is not an ordinary
summer holiday, but the one recreation Of a
lifetime, has not been fortnight in strange
land before be knows how TO travel like a ma
tive In this respect he ia the best traveller in
the world.
Yet, as we said before, in bis anxiety to do
nothing unusual he often sacrifices the richest
opportunities of his tour. He misses the best
sights of Paris because he Is ashamed to be
thought ignorant, or to be seen with guide
book, ana he gathers noexperenoe in that brill
liant capital except the opportunity of compar-
ing its shops and eating-hOuses with TifaDy's
and Delmunico's. London, the metropolis of
the world, teaches him things that are equally
trivial. If he is man of moderately good edu-
cation, il he has even been q reader of good
novels, the names of London streets should be
almost as familiar to him .as those Of his own