Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-04-08

sny circumstances. The rich unedu.
Gated idler or voluptuaryr without an
object beyond his selfish indulgence,
with no profession to employ his time
at home, no literary tastes 10 crafty in
his library, no disposition to help in
charitable, religious or educational
work, no ambition to be doer Of good
to others in any way-such as he can
90 and stay abroad for the rest of their
natural lives without injury to society,
and leaving behind none to regret them.
That a great many of the first class
passengers to Europe are Of this kind Is
ipdisputable. Their destination Is gen.
orally Paris, which is the proverblal
paradise of Americans Of that kind of
goodness. The men of that class have
no higher aspiration than lounges on
the Boulevards, strolls on the Champs
Elysees, drives on the Bots, and license
to indulge in low tastes and habits at
the Mabille or VALENTINfs-tastes and
habits tolerated in the French capital,
but that would be intolerable in their
old American abodes. American wo-
men of similar ambition first turn their
thoughts to millinery at WoRTH's or
jewelry in the Rue de la Paix. Then
comes the thirst for displaying these in
grand equipages; then the study OF
music and morality and French equiv
ogue in the polite and elegant produc-
tions of the opera bouffe. TO be well
placed in all these respects quite salts
fies many of our absent countrywomen,
some of whom can talk or write home
about nothing in Paris that interests
them so much as the follies and FASH
ions, the extravagances and vices OF
the most famous of the French in these
regards.
Then there is the more innocent class
ofmen and women, who, having money
in plenty, but nothing to interest them
in life at home, seek harmless amuse-
ment abroad, aften making the pretext
of ill-health as an excuse. Paris is a
fine city, with great institutions OF all
kinds, noble libraries and museums,
illustrating every branch of science and
art; but of these, nine out of every ten
American visitors learn and seek to
learn absolutely nothing. 1t matters
little to them that Paris is great intel
lectual city-they go to it as capital
of pleasure, dissipation and extrava-
gance; and it certainly excels all other
cities N these respects.
A bad feature of the passion for Paris
is that it is growing one, and that 1t
often spoils people who have INDUCED
it for life in other parts of Europe-for
Killarney or Windemere or the Tros-
achs, for Dublin or Edinburgh, for
Vienna, Berlin or the smaller cities Of
Austria and Germany, and for Italy
n all of which there are opportunities
for natural enjoyment and intellectual
development different from those found
in Paris or London. Visits to these
places, with boating on the lakes and
clamberings up mountain sides, or
scampers through galleries and
churches, must Of course be made; but
"the heart untraveled fondly turns" to
Paris, where is much more fun, and the
longing to get back is unresisted.
Foreign travel as means of educa-
ton for the young or Of intellectual
improvement for the older is thus made
a failure in most cases. The worst
thing about it it is that it depraves the
Americans love of country ann dis
turbs his morals and his intellect. The
silly and extravagant men and women
who are sneered at by intellectual and
refined French people as the "Ameri-
can Colony of Paris" are given to
sneering at their own country, and
many of them chuckle over the fact
that by living abroad they, as foreign
ers, escape many European taxes and
avoid the payment of most of their
home obligations. This "denationaliza-
ton" of Americans has been made the
subject of many complaining remark;
but it is a vice that seems to be beyond
the reach of laws or public opinion to
prevent or restrain.