The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-12-15
THE WAY TO GO SIGHTSEEING.


An Oiu Philosopher Gives the Benefit of
HIS Experience.
For sightseers viii lay down two or
three rules which have guided me more
and more in my habits of travelling and
for which think there is good founda-
ton:
I. Ifyou will stay two or three days
IN one place you will get that sort of
adection for it and knowledge of its in
terror life, if one may use so large .
phrase, which makes you always re-
member it with pleasure. If, on the
other hand, You should spend the same
three days in going to three different
places, you have, in each of them, only
the annoyance of dropping your anchor
and pulling it up again, only the little
trials which necessarily belong to the
tirst hours in an inn or lodging house,
and before these little annoyances are
well over you have gone on your way
again. My experience is that l have
very little recollection of any sort Of
places where have simply spent a
night or part of a day, and that for
filing up that great fund of experience
and memories the maintenance of which
is the great object of travelling, it is
always desirable to remain for little
while where you are well off, that you
may become acquainted not simply with
the circumstances. but with the real
character of what, in certain way,
ETss may thus make home
,. / hold that no man should travel
with the mere idea of being amused.
He has no right to walk into a town or
an inn and say to the first person he
meets there: Come and amuse me;
show mcwhat there is which is enter
tanning" Wherever man goes he
should carry certain tastes of his own,
should have certain objects which have
interested him in life, and he should in.
quire withregard to those objects, as
this particular place may have an an
swer to give to his inquiries.
3. And this say with good deal OF
hesitation. Isnow nothing in the mere
crossing of the water which should
change us all into critics of fine art.
am always a little amazed when go
by chance into a picture gallery in
Paris, in Brussels or in Antwerp, to
find there some well-to-do Americans
whom / never should by any accident
found in the academy at New York or
the art gallery in Boston. cannot see
why we should all be compelled to see
paintings in Europe, and in every city
in Europe when at home we do not
consider the examination of paintings
to be our prime ipal and especial bust
ness. | like to see good picture,
think, as much as anybody does. But
cannot understand why the profession
of a traveller and that Of connoisseur
in art should be considered, as certain.
ly they are considered, as being very
much the same thing So do not be-
lieve, as say, that a person gains quail
ifications for an art critic by the acciden,
of his crossing the ocean.
Z. To young travellers l am forever
saying, keep scrap books" They are
even better tina journals; by which
mean, preserve little queer bits Of
printed information which will come
drifting into your hands every day, and
which in after years will have value
from association which, of course, doe,
not attach to them And, by the same
token, whatever is written at the mo
ment has a freshness afterward which
no recollection brought out on rainy
days can rival Here is the advantage
of fountain pen or half dozen sharp
ened pencils, of which You can not very
easily lose all. Your journal may be
no sort Of use to anybody else but il
will always be of value to yourself.
s. Toyoung travellers, again, should
say, avail yourselves Of the local guide
books There is always a deal of in
formation in them which you canno,
get hold of in Murray or Baedeker OIL
in the cyclopadia. In fact, the business
of cyclop@dias seems to be to reject ex'
actly the points which an artist selects
as giving the broken lights or the loca
color with which he has to do. Edward
Everett Hale, in Boston Commonwealth