Travel writing

“ Some passengers are of a studious turn, and divide their time between reading, writing, and walking, while others—notably young men from the Colonies—recline at ease during the day and become lively at night, often perambulating the decks with heavy heels till the small hours of the morning, to the great discomfort of those sleeping below. ”

“ The true traveller is unselfish. Though to him it is food, breath, a renewal of life, a fresh existence, to travel,—half his pleasure is to carry home from his wanderings, to an English fireside, a tale of other lands. ”

“ Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am thinking of travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy. Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook ”

“ When people were compelled to travel slowly, they could take with them, and had time to read and digest full narratives of all they were about to see. It was by no means impossible to carry in the lumbering carriage, or to read during the leisurely journey, a whole library of such voluminous and now forgotten books as the Modern Traveller. ”

“ This is a great virtue; for in book travels, as perhaps in other travel, it is much more desirable to make one’s own appraisal than [Pg 40] to accept another’s description of the beauties of a place. And I really have known a novelist to reject every particular travel book dealing with a certain town or region in which his scene was laid, because he felt hampered by their emotionality and their impressionism and a quality of vagueness, and turn with joy and relief to his Baedeker’s Mediterranean or Northern Italy or Spain and Portugal. ”

“ True travel is when a man or woman visits a strange country and carries back with him, or her, to be remembered forever, impressions of the people and customs of that country—valuable impressions that make his or her life fuller, wider, more in sympathy with the great world of fellow-men. ”

“ Now, I need not insist that what is most important in foreign travel is not the novel sensations to which it gives rise,—the sense of a [28] different climate, the flavor of new dishes, the fragrance of strange flowers, the sound of unfamiliar music, even the sight of ancient buildings or famous pictures—pleasurable and profitable as all of these are; and, fortunately, most of them may be enjoyed here, directly or indirectly. The fundamental value of travel is in the realization that it gives of ways of feeling, thinking, and acting, other than our own ”

“ Few of the simpler sense-impressions of travel remain more intimately and vividly associated with the memory of a strange land than sounds,—sounds of the open country. Only the traveller knows how Nature’s voices—voices of forest and river and plain—vary according to zone; and it is nearly always some local peculiarity of their tone or character that appeals to feeling and penetrates into memory,—giving us the sensation of the foreign and the far-away. ”

“ Travelling, like novel-writing, is but a modern form of activity; and tourists, like novelists, are increasing at so fearful a rate of speed that foreign countries and library shelves bid fair to be equally overrun. ”

“ Books of travel will give you pictures, Perry, of things that there are in this world only a few hours’ or a few days’ journey away, but the books of travel that you and I are reading, my boy, will give pictures of scenes that no railway train can reach, and will reveal oceans that no steamship or sailing craft can cross. ”

“ It is only when the traveler looks back over a journey that he gets the true perspective. Then only is he able to see what is of general and permanent interest. Most of the vexations of travel I have eliminated, as these lose their force once they have gone over into yesterday. What remains is the beauty of scenery, the grandeur of architecture, the spiritual quality of famous paintings and statues, the appealing traits of various peoples. ”

“ To travel to good purpose, requires a mind stored with much and varied information, in science, statistics, geography, literature, history, and poetry. To describe what the traveller has seen, requires, in addition to this, the eye of a painter, the soul of a poet, and the hand of a practised composer. ”

“ Besides, what can be so delightful as the perpetual novelty—the exhaustless current of new ideas suggested by travelling? We read, to gather thought and knowledge; travelling is a book of the Creator’s own writing, and imparts sublimer wisdom than the printed words of man. ”

“ Ah, yes, we say, travel is a good schoolmaster, and we broaden and deepen under its discipline. But there are many kinds of travelers; the mere globe trotter, hastening from one capital to another, seeing much, but perceiving little, and resembling the woman who was asked by a friend what most impressed her in one of Germany's tourist-infested cities. ”

“ It is not important that travel books should be written especially for young readers. Almost all records of travel contain some pages of interest, whatever the remainder may be like. The fact that a book describes wanderings in a far country is enough. ”

“ At the end of two years' residence he sees only the most familiar things when he takes his walks abroad, and he feels unmitigated contempt for the ingenuous globe-trotter who writes a book about the country after a month's travel over the most beaten tracks in it. ”

“ Then remembering how the traditional maxims and methods of travelling in each country differ from those of others, and how every traveller discovers some useful contrivances for himself, it appeared to me, that I should do welcome service to all who have to rough it--whether explorers, emigrants, missionaries or soldiers,*--by collecting the scattered experiences of many such persons in various circumstances, collating them, examining into their principles, and deducing from them what might fairly be called an "Art of Travel." ”

“ The only books of travel worth reading are those where a person has settled deliberately in an unknown place, really lived the life of the people, and penetrated the secret of the landscape and the buildings. ”

“ Ingram at the office of the Illustrated London News, he suddenly suggested my going out as their “special artist” with this expedition. The love of travel and the spirit of adventure are so strong in me, that without the slightest hesitation I eagerly caught at the idea ”

“ To such tourists Madame de Stael’s definition of travel—Le voyage, un triste plaisir—cannot, of course, apply. Their whole journey through life is indeed singularly placid, conducing to health, and extreme longevity ”

“ Travel is brought home to us, and we visit in spirit every grove and hamlet that tempts us in the distance. Sehnsucht—the passion for what is ever beyond—is livingly expressed in that white riband of possible travel that severs the uneven country; not a ploughman following his plough up the shining furrow, not the blue smoke of any cottage in a hollow, but is brought to us with a sense of nearness and attainability by this wavering line of junction. ”

“ The use of travelling is, that it affords us more opportunities of observation than we could have at home; but, if we do not avail ourselves of these opportunities, we may travel over the whole globe without reaping any advantage. ”

“ One may travel at home in a most literal sense, and be always learning history, geography, botany, or biography—whatever one chooses.
I have had a good deal of journeying in my life, and taken great delight in it, but I have never taken greater delight than in my rides and drives and tramps and voyages within the borders of my native town. There is always something fresh, something to be traced or discovered, something particularly to be remembered. One grows rich in memories and associations. ”

“ If you are going abroad for the first time it is advisable to confine the reading to descriptions of the countries you are about to visit, rather than to light literature, but, if you are determined to stick to fiction, you will find sea-stories more interesting than land ones, for the reason that you are on the great deep, and the pictures of the novel will be more vivid than if the book were read on shore. ”

“ We shall follow the course of the sun, but diverge wherever the peculiarities of different countries prove attractive. As the author will conduct his readers only among scenes and over routes which he himself has travelled, it is hoped that he may be able to impart a portion of the enjoyment experienced, and the knowledge gained in many foreign lands and on many distant seas. ”

“ We need to know of the means of travel, of the state of the roads and where they ran, of the inns and how one fared in them, of fashionable society and how it impressed the tourist, as well as the impression the tourist made upon society: in short, in so far as is possible in a book that must touch many things lightly if at all, we must endeavor to follow the tourist from place to place and see with him some of the sights that most interested him. ”

“ In travel, the little hardships and vexations bring the novelties and comforts into stronger relief, and make the voyager’s happiness more real. It is an excellent trait of human nature that the traveler can remember with increased vividness the pleasing features of his journey while he forgets their opposites. ”

“ The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of clear and permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would quarrel with me for saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a range of hills, that remains for ever and is fruitful of joy within the mind, or, at least, that is one and perhaps the chief of the fruits of travel.
I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for I was very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the sudden stopping of the train. ”

“ No "maid and valet affectionate in the rumble." All the pomp and circumstance, all the ease and calm, of Travel have vanished, and with them all sense of independence and [206] responsibility. The modern traveller is shot like a bullet through a tunnel, or hauled like a parcel up a hill. He certainly sees the world at very little cost, but he sees it under wonderfully uncomfortable conditions. ”

“ Travel is then, as we have seen, as old as the human race, and of travelers there are and have been many kinds, according to the motives which induced them to fare forth. The records of these many travelers form a body of literature whose interest is undying, for besides the facts which they have gathered, and the additions to our knowledge which they have made, they give us often a clear and vivid picture of the character of the travelers themselves, their courage in the face of danger, their patience in overcoming every kind of obstacle ”

“ The author’s recent tour of the world has furnished a wealth of travel material out of which she has constructed with great accuracy an informing, popular work of interest to the traveler who has covered the ground no less than the stay-at-home book tourist. The present-day phases of life and institutions appeal to her rather than the dead and buried aspects. In keeping with the heavy paper, clear type and handsome binding are numerous fine illustrations. ”

“ TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country, before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow well; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been in the country before ”

“ The fact is, that in travel one is almost as much dependent upon imagination and memory as he is at home. Somehow, we seldom get near enough to anything. The interest of all this coast which we had come to inspect was mainly literary and historical. ”

“ Readers, sated for the moment with the solid information to be gathered from our modern books of travel, may spend a refreshing half-hour in the company of this old traveller, who assumed in his public the same taste he had so strongly in himself, and was content to display undisguised a boyish delight in novelties, wonders, and adventure. ”

“ In some cases we have indicated that choice may be made of several methods of reaching a given point, and the taste or preference of the tourist, or the convenience of a party traveling in company, will often decide the route. We have endeavored to give fair and impartial description of the attractions offered by the various lines of travel,—often too painfully conscious of the inadequacy of words to do justice to the subject considered,—and leave the reader to choose for himself a route from among the variety set forth. ”

“ The place of the travellers in the move-ment known as “the return to nature” would require for adequate treatment nothing short of a dissertation; nor could one always discriminate between the literary preconceptions which the observers brought with them and the ultimate facts about man and his environment which they transmitted to the poets. Yet we recognize in the reports of American travel something ultimate, as did the poets and philosophers. ”

“ The practice of travelling abroad called forth many books on the subject, often written by travellers desiring to place their experience at the service of others. Such books usually include indications of the routes to be followed and the places to be visited, and sometimes advice as to the best way of studying abroad. Some, such as those of Coryat, Fynes Moryson, and Purchas, [615] are descriptions of long journeys. Others deal more especially with the method of travel. ”

“ The mode of travel is entirely unique, no similar method having ever been employed, though it is one which seems likely to become popular in the near future. The book is worth reading, and will furnish food for the thoughtful. ”

“ THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOREIGN TRAVEL Foreign travel is one of the most useful branches of our education, but, like a great many other useful branches, it appears to be "gone through with" by many persons merely as a matter of course. ”