Southwest-sentinel. [volume] (Silver City, N.M.) 1883-189?, 1892-11-29
ne wAY 10 co SIGHTSEEING.


An OLD Philosopher Gives the nenent Of
Ills Experience.
For sightseers l will lay down two or
three rules which have guided me more
and more in my habits Of travelling, and
for which l think there is good founda-
ton:
II you will stay two or three daysin one
place you will get that sort Of affection
for it and knowledge Of its interior life,
IL one may use so large a phrase, which
makes you always remember it with
pleasure. II, 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 il up
again, only the little trials which neces-
sarily belong TO the first hours in an inn
or q lodging house, aud before these lit
tie annoyances are well over you have
gone on your way again.
Ny experience is that I have very little
recollection of any sort Of places where
l have simply spent a night or a part Of
a day, and that for filling up that great
fund Of experience and memories the
maintenance Of which is the great object
Of travelling it is always desirable to re-
main for a little while where you are
we'll off, that you may become acquaint-
ed not simply with the circumstances,
but with the real character Of what in o
certain way you may thus make a home.
l hold hat no man should travel with
the mere idea Of being amused. He has
no right to walk into q town or an inn
and say to the first person he meets
there, Come and amuse me; show me
what there Is which is entertaining"
Wherever a man goes he should carry
certain tastes Of his own, should have
certain objects which have interested
him in life, and be should inquire with
regard to those objects, as this particu-
lar place may have an answer to give to
his inquiries.
And this I say with a good deal Of hes
itation. l know 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 we'll to do Americans whom /
never should by any accident have found
in the academy at Now York or the art
gallery in Boston. I cannot see why we
should all be compelled &c see paintings
in Europe, and in every city in Europe,
when at home we donot consider the ex-
animation of paintings to be u prin1i-
pal and especial business. l like to see
a good picture, l think, as much as any
body does. But l cannot understand
why the profession of a traveller and
hat of a connoisseur in art should be
considered, as certainly they are consid-
cred, as being very much the same thing.
So 1 do not believe, as 1 say, that a per-
son gains qualifications for an art critic
by the accident of his crossing the ocean.
To young travellers | am forever say
ing, keep scrapbooks." They are even
better than journals, by which 1 mean,
preserve little queer bits of printed in
formation which will come drifting into
your hands every day, and which in
after years VIII have a value from asso-
citation which of course does not attach
to them, and by the same token what
even is written at th9 moment has a
freshness aft-rward which no recollec-
ton brought nut on rainy days can rival.
Hero is tie advantage of q fountain
pen or a half dozen sharpened pencils,
OF which you cannot very easily lose all.
Your journal may be no sort of use to
anybody else, but it will always be of
value to yourself Edward Everett Hale
in Boston Commonwealth.