Visitor

“ 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. ”

“ Here, so long as the visitor wishes to be merely housed, no questions are asked; no one is refused admittance, except for some obviously sufficient reason; it is like getting a reading ticket for the British Museum, there is practically but one test—that is to say, desire on the part of the visitor—the coming proves the desire, and this suffices. ”

“ The visitor however who has the opportunity to see it thus, lingers long before each separate forge, pleased with the ingenuity of the contrivances which he witnesses, and admiring the wonderful dexterity of the workman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When this signal is made, no husband dare intrude. The visitor may stay the whole night, or as many hours as he chooses; it is all one. No person can enter the house, nor is such a thing ever thought of, till the visitor's shoes disappear. ”

“ Next to the interest and beauty of the places to be visited, perhaps the two things in which a visitor to a new country has most concern are the means of moving from point to point and the accommodation provided for him at his nightly stopping-places—in brief, its conveyances and its inns. ”

“ At night, when all the buildings are glittering with their myriads of electric lights and great showers of fireworks soaring heavenward; when the great lake itself fairly blazes under the glare of illuminated craft and the stupendous carnival is at its height, the visitor may be pardoned, if, in the excitement of the moment, he fancies that he has fallen off the earth and stepped into another world, peopled by fairies and decked with palaces reared by the magicians’ wand. ”

“ So the visitor who does not want to encounter disappointed faces and puzzled inquiries, looks out old gloves to go a-walking with, and burns them, once he or she is settled in the place, and no longer a novelty. ”

“ She scratches and bites like a Chinaman and swears like several fiends. Strange people may be unearthed in the lock-ups. Here is a perfectly true story, not three weeks old. A visitor, an unofficial one, wandered into the native side of the spacious accommodation provided for those who have gone or done wrong. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A visitor will seek the acquaintance of the inhabitants of the town or village by calling on any gentlemen to whom he may have letters of introduction, while his wife or female relatives visit the ladies. ”

“ But if one does not stay while staying, better let him go where he is [125] gone the while. One enjoys a visitor who has much leisure in him, in her especially,—likes to take his friends by sips sweetly, not at hasty draughts, as they were froth and would effervesce forthwith and subside. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If your resources are ample, live in such a way that an unexpected visitor shall occasion no difference. The less alteration made in family arrangements on account of visitors, the happier for them as well as for you. ”

“ All the people who frequent this place are considered highly respectable. The visitor is furnished with ice for his water decanters, with the best attendance at dinner, and with all the english and foreign newspapers. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Whereas they were easy of innocent solution apart,—as, for instance, some diner out or diner at home, who had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have strayed to my staircase and dropped asleep there,—and my nameless visitor might have brought some one with him to show him the way,—still, joined, they had an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the changes of a few hours had made me. ”

“ The visitors represent all sorts and conditions of men and women. The old woman who has never ridden on a railroad train and the old man who attended the first fair fifty years ago, the veteran who helped defend the town during the civil war and the business man who is taking his first vacation in twenty-four years—these divide interest with the principals in the runaway [221] marriages, of which there are two or three daily. ”

“ There is a fourth class of persons answering to our spectators, who come from another land to look at ours. In the first place, such visits will be rare, and the visitor should be at least fifty years of age ”

“ Many houses were filled with visitors the greater part of the year, usually remaining two or three weeks. Visiting tours were made in our private carriages—each family making at least one such tour a year. Nor was it necessary to announce these visits by message or letter, each house being considered always ready, and “entertaining company” the occupation of the people. ”

“ Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them; comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not unfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. ”

“ Much time has been spent in the villages by systematic visitation, by the distribution of literature, and by seizing upon any and every opportunity of speaking to the people. Street meetings have been constantly held, visitors received on the boat, the gospel preached from the Mission-boat to the people sitting on the banks of the river, and also proclaimed to the people in their homes, in the villages, and in the fields, and on the fishing stations. ”

“ It not infrequently happens that visitors take advantage of the excellent opportunities afforded and make one or two voyages that they remember with pleasure long after their return to their homes in the country. ”

“ It is impossible to describe the hospitable welcome we received, every one placing their houses at our disposal. Up to 9 P.M. visitors were constantly received, all expressing a most hearty, encouraging sympathy for our cause, and speaking hopefully for our prospects. Still the same enthusiasm prevails: visitors of each sex and every class coming on board, officers and men going on shore, and receiving the most flattering attentions. ”

“ All we need remark is that each and all of these have special attractions that are sought out and enjoyed by multitudes of delighted Visitors.
The busy scene we have depicted, of life and animation, of good temper and well-earned enjoyment may be witnessed through the entire season in propitious weather. The whole assembled multitude may be divided into two classes, the pleasure seekers and those who minister to their gratifications. ”

“ As departure draws near, the visitors increase, as do the number of invitations, until at last every waking minute of every day is filled and only the nights are left for worrying over things-to-be-done and things-to-be-bought. ”

“ The results are good in every way. Visitors are pleased at what seems a cheap holiday, and the letters of the rooms save money for the winter, and realise in a pleasant way that their later years have fallen on good times. ”

“ Is naturally a place of special interest in any watering place. Visitors are no sooner settled in their summer quarters than they become interested in the incomings and outgoings of their fellow men, watching eagerly if perchance any old acquaintance may turn up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the host and hostess, and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as they choose. ”

“ A third stumbles on a congenial spirit, who receives him with open arms, offers him servants, horses, perhaps even his purse, to enable him to pursue his journey, and parts from him with regret. In all these cases, the traveller feels more or less under obligation, and is accordingly grateful. But, kind reader, the hospitality received from the inhabitant of the forest, who can offer only the shelter of his humble roof, and the refreshment of his homely fare, remains more deeply impressed on the memory of the bewildered traveller than any other. ”

“ These men hover about the doors of the hotels, and gather in front of all the celebrated churches, and in all public places [Pg 29] where travellers are expected to go; and as soon as they see a gentleman, or a party of gentlemen and ladies, coming out of their hotel, or approaching any place of public interest, they immediately come up to them, and offer their services. Sometimes their services are valuable, and the traveller is very ready to avail himself of them, especially when in any particular town there is a great deal to see, and he has but little time to see it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The greater part of travellers tell nothing, because their method of travelling supplies them with nothing to be told. He that enters a town at night, and surveys it in the morning, and then hastens away to another place, and guesses at the manners of the inhabitants by the entertainment which his inn afforded him, may please himself for a time with a hasty change of scenes, and a confused remembrance of palaces and churches; he may gratify his eye with a variety of landscapes, and regale his palate with a succession of vintages ”

“ You tourists, who only meet 'em on the street, and see 'em grinning and bowing and shaking hands, and embracing you as though you was a long-lost brother, and telling you their house is yours, and their wives and daughters, and everything they own, is at your disposal, you only see one side of 'em. ”

“ Here, for instance, is a traveler who, arriving at night in a small unknown town and walking along the ill-lighted dock in the direction of an hotel of which he roughly knows the position, at a given moment tech an irresistible impulse to turn and go the other way. ”

“ The tourist, however, more and more declines to stick to Europe, a large number of him having seen Europe pretty thoroughly anyway. As for the tourist in fancy, he goes everywhere. The business man is another traveller who is omni-itinerant. I suppose the widest audience for the series of books called “Carpenter’s World Travels” is composed of what one commentator rightly describes as “the incalculable company of stay-at-home travellers.” ”