The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1909-04-13
WILL, sEABRooK's TRAVELS =

(Bv ". B. Seabrook.)


(By W. B. Seabrook.)
Special Of The Herald and News.
Naples, Italy-The prospective
European traveller, pressed for time,
in a hurry to gain smatterlng OF
French or Italian, IS no longer COM
to waste precious moments IN
asking himself ''Have you seen the
green umbrella Of my aunt's grand
mother9''
The old-fashioned gramarrlons,
with their multi-colored parasols and
ubiouitous female relatives, are mere
ly a humorous tradition; the modern
stmethods'' are scientific and practl-
cal. the modern "phrase books" are
, eran,rned full of useful idloms and
sentences, which come handy twenty
times a day in dealing with note
employees, guided, waibers, trade%
men and other people with whom the
tourist is thrown in contact. But the
best Of teachers and most improved
textbooks cannot supply the would
be linguist with brains. 1t IS the
same old dity to new tune,
uYou can lead a horse to water,
But YOU cannot make him drink;
You can send a boy to college,
But you cannot make him think. "
The complications which sometimes
arise from the inherent stupidity OF
tourists, who have gained parrot
like familiarity with two Or three
hundred "useful phrases, are even
/ worse than in the old days.
, Yesterday I was invited to dinner
by a young American, chance ac-
ouaintance whom I had first met at
Capri, and who was very proud OF a
certain knowledge of the Italian
tongue. which he had recently ae-
ouired by the new photographic
method at Paris. To do him
and the method justice, his ac-
cent was as nearly perfect as
that of a foreigner can ever be-
mechanically perfect-perfeet as a
talking machine more
nearly perfect than mine, which
had. picked up from a clever but IL
literate garcon-de-chambre IN Mar
seilles. The difference was that
/ could say in impure Italian anything
I chose, while he could say in pure
Italian only what he had learned by
heart. The way "he ordered oysters
on the half-shel made me think OF a
pianola. Besides, he did not care for
oysters, cared no more for them than
did the phonograph, which ne had
heard order the same dish twice DAY
successfully for three months. The
dinner was not success. My -sympa-
thies were entirely with the waiter,
who seemed to be very decent young
fellow. ertailJy he was patient and
long-sufering.
- We were in a nice restaurant at
Pausilipe, on a terrace overlooking
the gulf, with Vesuvius IN the back
ground; it was a frst-class estab-
lishment, and the service was, OF
course, immaculate, but my wooden
headed host had been accustomed to
hear his blessed talking machine
grind out complaints against every
thing, from napkins to fnger-bowls,
so he began TO make a noise like 8
tin horn:
"Waiter this tableeloth is not
clean, spread another
It was the first time that | could
recollect ever having been embarrass-
ed before a servant, but turned red
as a beet and wished myself thous-
and miles away. The waiter wilted
as if he had been struck by lightning,
but showed his splendid training by
mastering his astonishment, bowlng
his deferential assent and bringing
\ another cloth.
The next break was. if possible,
still worse.
"Waiter," he cried, with metallic
twang in his voice, "this wine tastes
eof the cork.
3 Now, as he had ordered no special
, wines, we had been served with the
ordinary red win Gu pays,' which
IS conserved not in bottles but IN
/ large casks, from which it is drawn
Adirectlv into the carafes for table
ese and. which consequently never
ZONES in even momentary contact
,,;.h enrl. Certain delicate and eX-