Visiting

“ I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town crier. ”

“ In visiting, as is well known, the common but absurd practice, which obtains among ourselves, of urging those to stay longer, of whose company one is already tired, is obviated by the simple use of a little scented wood in a censer. ”

“ A very large part of the visiting is done by scientific bodies and societies; and then the whole place will be turned over to hundreds of eager, well-dressed men and women, anxious to see everything and to be photographed in the big courtyard around the central hero. ”

“ Sometimes they inform, sometimes they excite curiosity. If alone, they serve as society; if with others, they suggest matter for conversation.
These Volumes were thus originated. Visiting spots often described, pursuing a route such as form for the most part the common range of the tourist—I could tell nothing new, except as each individuals experience possesses novelty. ”

“ The tarriers at home can little realize the many disagreeable offsets to the pleasure one derives from visiting foreign lands; while the traveller learns, by a painful daily experience, to appreciate all the little conveniences and proprieties, as well as the thousand substantial comforts of home. ”

“ An enthusiastic desire of visiting the Old World haunted me from early childhood. I cherished a presentiment, amounting almost to belief, that I should one day behold the scenes, among which my fancy had so long wandered. ”

“ The serious minded tourist, who purposes to cover conscientiously the orthodox ‘sights’ of each city he proposes visiting would do better to trust to the meagre help of the inadequate American Baedeker. ”

“ The same kind of dreary visiting is practised on Sunday afternoons, from about two until four or five, during which hours polite and proper young men are to be seen hastening from house to house, got up in most elaborate style, and evidently making [227] a most serious business of a social duty that, if taken more leisurely, would be a pleasure. ”

“ The duty of the traveller visiting already visited countries is to not limit himself to general descriptions, but to make with particular care the kind of observations for which circumstances have fitted him best. ”

“ A young lady from the city was visiting at the home of the land steward, and, as I knew more about the woods and the inhabitants thereof than anybody else on the farm, I was often ordered to take visitors around. ”

“ For the older children it will be possible to procure a country holiday through the fresh air society or the children's country homes that are provided within easy {79} distance of all our large cities. Or, better still, the visitor may know some one in the country, or may have a summer home there, where the little ones can be entertained. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You can then visit in the private houses, see life among the peasantry, go with confidence from village to town, from city to city, learning more of the country in one day from familiar intercourse with the natives, than you would learn in a year from guide books or the explanations of your courier. The way to really enjoy a journey through a strange land, is not to roll over the high ways in your carriage, stop at the hotels, and be led to the points of interest by your guide, but to shoulder your knapsack, or take up your valise, and make a pedestrian tour through the hamlets and villages. ”

“ So that, on the whole, judging from what I have seen of tourists in Europe, I should say that those that travel do not after all, in general, really pass their time more happily than those who remain at home. ”

“ I was aware that our stayers-at-home had already something too much of churches, statues, and pictures, and yet that they cannot well imagine how much they make up the existence of tourists in the Old World. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of one thing, however, I am quite certain, and that is that travel should not be a feverish garnering of impressions, but a delicious and leisurely plunge into a different atmosphere. It is better to visit few places, and to become at home in each, than to race from place to place, guide-book in hand. ”

“ It is in some slight appreciation of this great fundamental rule, that you stay three days in any place which you really mean to be acquainted with, that Miss Ferrier lays down her bright rule for a visit, that a visit ought "to consist of three days,--the rest day, the drest day, and the pressed day."
And, lastly, dear friends,--for the most entertaining of discourses on the most fascinating of themes must have a "lastly,"--lastly, be sure that you know what you travel for. "Why, we travel to have a good time," says that incorrigible Pauline Ingham, who will talk none but the Yankee language. ”

“ Sometimes a pilgrimage seemed nothing but an excuse for a lively and pleasant holiday, and the travellers often made themselves very merry on the road, with their jests and songs, and their flutes and fiddles and bagpipes. ”

“ For the benefit of those who are privileged to travel in Europe, and the number increases yearly, a pilgrimage is suggested which may easily be made to correspond with plans laid out on the basis of historical, artistic, and scenic points of interest. ”

“ When a tourist who, having mapped out his itinerary in accordance with the time at his disposal for a European trip, arrives at a city for seeing which he has allowed two or three days at the utmost, the first question he puts to a fellow traveller, the hotel clerk, or his Baedeker is, "What must I see?" ”

“ Traveling is pleasant enough, but everybody likes to feel a tie pulling gently at his heartstrings when he steps up to a hotel register to write down the name of that little haven that means home. It is like one of those toy return-balls. ”

“ Who but a child dare approach without an introduction any one of these solemn-looking tourists? Here then is the divine source of the sweetest and purest joy. Here is that 338 one touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin. For the child, and though he be of the lowest desert tribe, standing on the veranda of a fashionable Hotel, can warm and sweeten with the divine flame that is in him, the hearts of these sour-seeming, stiff-looking tourists who are from all corners of the earth. ”

“ For the tourist there are excellent hotels and all the conveniences of a continental city, and amusements of sufficient variety to suit the most blase. For those who are merely stopping off for a day on the way to or from more distant ports it is hard to decide which of the many interesting places to visit. If it be his first visit, the mere city streets with the royal palms and other magnificent trees, the stores, the cosmopolitan crowds and other strange sights and sounds will be fascinating. ”

“ I am fond of travelling—fond of the unknown, of beautiful views, movement, the pretty, wondering eyes of the little ones, the halts, for one or two days, in hotels, all the moving of the household which reminds me of the pleasant time when I used to travel with my Kate. ”

“ A stranger, of a spare form and extremely atrabilious complexion, was seen to ride into the town at a gentle pace, and to go directly up to the principal house of entertainment for travellers, as if the way to it had been familiar to him. ”

“ Of such more modest travelers, whose little journeys lay in narrower fields, there are a host; and from the best, with their intimate local knowledge, their keen and critical observations, their sympathetic descriptions, we may gain great pleasure and be stimulated perhaps to make all the use possible of the opportunities which come to us to see more thoroughly and with a more observing eye the country and the people round about. ”

“ A familiar visit will always begin more pleasantly, if the visiter enquires of the servant at the door if the lady she wishes to see is at home, and then goes into the parlour, and stays there till she has sent her name, and ascertained that she can be received up-stairs. ”

“ This feeling that our visitors illustrate above all the close and comfortable household life, with every implication of a seated and saturated practice of it, practice of the intimate and private and personal, the securely sensual and genial arts that flow from it, has been by itself the key to a plenitude of observation and in particular to as much friendly searching insight as one could desire to enjoy. ”

“ The voice of prayer had never before been heard in many of these dwellings. Though their visits were so strange and unusual in their nature, they were everywhere kindly received, the mild, benignant face of the venerable distributor making him everywhere a welcome visitor. Where will not a face full of geniality and sunshine secure a welcome for its possessor? ”

“ To visit, is a great thing in the boy calendar;—not to visit this or that neighbor,—to drink tea, or eat strawberries, or play at draughts,—but to go away on a visit in a coach, with a trunk, and a great-coat, and an umbrella—this is large! ”

“ In truth, many of our visitors would seem to suffer from a confusion of thought. Possibly the Visitors' Books at hotels and places of public resort may have fostered this. Our guest makes a stay of a few weeks in some spot to which he has been attracted by its natural beauty: he idles and watches the inhabitants as they go about their daily business ”

“ Walk among the magnificent residences, the splendid equipages, the gilded shops, restaurants, resorts of all kinds; scent the flowers, the silks, the wines; drink of the laughter springing from the soul of luxurious content, of the glances which gleam like light from defiant spears; feel the quality of the smiles which cut like glistening swords and of strides born of place, and you shall know of what is the atmosphere of the high and mighty. ”

“ Let us suppose, for example, that you are a young gentleman of established social position in one of the many cities of our great middle west, and it is your desire to travel from your home to New York City for the purpose of viewing the many attractions of that metropolis of which I need perhaps only mention the Aquarium or Grant’s Tomb or the Eden Musee. ”

“ In these pages we pass rapidly from one great attraction to another, because we have only a limited space in which to speak of them, but the intelligent and appreciative visitor will be more leisurely in his examination. ”

“ You go upstairs, not as a visitor, but as one at home. The place is moving with well-dressed people, some passing one way, some another. You show your pass-ticket, and come not without trepidation to the actual tables. ”

“ In that land of sunshine, with the cool breeze from the sea, the constant influx of European and American travelers, keeping one in touch with the world and with the simplicity of the surroundings, one can imagine a tranquilizing life and a happy coterie. ”

“ And so, as the traveller goes out and wanders through the cities of men, among stately palaces, among the glories of art, or climbs among the aching solitudes of lonely mountains, or feasts his eyes upon green isles floating in sapphire seas, and returns to find that the old strait dwelling-place, the simple duties of life, the familiar friends, homely though they be, are the true anchors of the spirit ”

“ And in the meanwhile, where is art, nay, where is even comfort? Shall we not very soon have overshot the mark, and find our lives becoming little short of a pilgrimage from hotel to hotel? An English lady, whose husband owned estates in all parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, and who had at least six country-houses, each claiming the advantages of family residence during a short part of the year, once said to a friend less plentifully encumbered: “My dear, I envy you. ”

“ The visitor of a day recognises its wonderful attractions at the first glance, and long familiarity never allows103 one to feel satisfied that he has given to the scene all the admiration which it deserves. ”

“ Surely one advantage of travelling is that, while it removes much prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it intensifies tenfold one's appreciation of the good at home, and, above all, of the quietness and purity of English domestic life. ”

“ Neither speed, by which we miss much, nor reliance on guide-books formed any part of my programme, for, as Sir Arthur Helps says, "in travel it is remarkable how much more pleasure we obtain from unexpected incidents than from deliberate sightseeing." ”

“ A journey being so great an affair, the traveller was of course a marked man, and his arrival at an ordinary was the signal for the gathering of all who could crowd in to hear of his adventures, and also to hear the public and private news of which he might be the bearer. ”

“ But the tourist lives a life of constant disillusion, for he finds in distant lands, where he had thought to find the abiding-place of Romance, the same humdrum life218 of the commonplace that he left at home. ”

“ Occasionally, walking trips, with one or two companions, gave well-deserved vacations—trips from which the walkers returned tired and penniless, but inspired by the beauty of nature in the pleasant French countryside and thrilled with the stupendous grandeur of the Alpine scenery. ”