Visitors' book

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Artists, botanists, travelers, and hunters, from the busy world outside the wilderness, frequently claimed the companionship, if not the hospitality of the fur companies, in their wanderings over prairies and among mountains. Up to the year 1835, these visitors had been of the classes just named; men traveling either for the love of adventure, to prosecute discoveries in science, or to add to art the treasure of new scenes and subjects. ”

“ The information necessary for the comfort and convenience of the Tourist, down to the most minute particulars, is exact and satisfactory; and the general reader will find poetry, romance, and legendary lore sufficient to rouse his imagination and gratify his curiosity, though he should never visit the scenes to which they belong. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 reading taste could easily be developed in this and other countries if every community, regardless of its size, would place a book shelf containing interesting literature in the country store, village post office, community hall, school house, or somebody’s home. ”

“ The stray customers have hardly any connection with the growing taste for reading, being people a little outside the general run—gentlemen with archaeological or controversial tendencies, who never pass a dingy cover without going as far as the title-page—visitors, perhaps, at houses in the neighbourhood wandering round to look at an ancient gateway or sun-dial left from monastic days. ”

“ People who visit a great city, and explore it with a curious eye, generally overlook the most remarkable things in it. They "do it up" in Guide-Book fashion, going the stereotyped rounds of custom-ridden predecessors. If my chain were a little longer, I would write you a book of travels that would at least have the merit of ignoring the usual finger-posts that challenge travellers. I promise you I would cross conservative lots, and climb over conservative fences, and leave the rags and tatters of custom fluttering on them, behind me, as I strode on to some unfrequented hunting-ground. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I desire rather to supply the tourist who wishes to use his travel as a means of culture with such historical and antiquarian information as will enable him to understand, and therefore to enjoy, the architecture, sculpture, painting, and minor arts of the towns he visits. ”

“ Upon visiting a new city in any part of the world, the writer has learned more of its people, their national characteristics and all local matters worth knowing, by mingling with the throng, watching their every-day habits and conventionalities, observing and analyzing the stream of life pouring through its great thoroughfares, reading the expression upon human faces, and by regarding now and again chance domestic scenes, than from all the grand cathedrals, art galleries, show palaces, and guide-books combined. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In visiting the interior the usual course pursued by visitors is curious and unsatisfactory, leaving but a confused impression upon those who have not read the story of the building, and killing what may be called its humanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If our visitor enters the residence of a thriving, thoughtful citizen, the same peculiarity strikes him. Every thing, however humble, is of the same Anglo-Saxon type and stamp. On the book-shelves or tables, are Bibles, Prayer or Hymn Books, Hervey's Meditations or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Young's Night Thoughts or Cowper's Poems, Walter Scott's Tales, or Uncle Tom's Cabin. ”

“ Traveling salesmen or others whose work takes them back to a city occasionally will find great help in keeping a written list of the names of those whom they have met in each city. Carry the book with you and as you are traveling towards the city, exercise your mind by going over the list and making a visual review of the faces and names of those whom you may expect to meet when attending to your business in this city. It will prove to be valuable to refresh your memory from time to time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Home Libraries and the Visitor.—A visitor reports that "a library has been established in the room of Mrs. ——, where the boys of the tenement house meet every Saturday afternoon to receive or exchange their books, discuss with the visitor the books they have read, listen to stories as they are read or narrated, and to play games. This little gathering seems to have improved the moral and social atmosphere of the entire tenement house." ”

“ The details as to inns, ascents or paths, necessary on the spot, are tiresome when a book is read at home; on the other hand, when travelling it is often difficult at a moment's notice to extract from xii the body of the work the exact fact wanted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Excursions round the world are now made with such facility and regularity that the number of those who undertake them is rapidly increasing, while the variety and vivid contrast of the traveler's experiences, as he passes from continent to continent, offer an equal temptation to edify the stay-at-homes with a book describing the tour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A propos of the impressions to be derived from Nature, he said that a tourist could never take away from any place more than she brought to it. Of course it's the same with a reader; if she hasn't the receptivity, she can't receive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This novelty in the work will prove very frequently of great utility, especially to those visitors who have too little time for their trip, and who, for want of such a laconic memento wherever they go, are known in a thousand instances to pass by the most interesting objects unnoticed,—not being aware even of their proximity. ”

“ Even the least thoughtful among those visitors who can be said to frequent the Museum—as distinguished from the mere holiday guests, who come only in crowds, little favourable to vision; to say nothing of thought—will occasionally have had some faint impression or other of the great diversity and wonderful combination of effort which must have been employed in bringing together the Collections they look upon. ”

“ I strongly urge every tourist, angling or otherwise, to carry with him both a camera and a herbarium. With these he may preserve invaluable records of his outing; one to remind him of the lavish panorama of beauty of mountain, lake and waterfall; the other to hold within its leaves the delicately colored flowers that delight the senses. A great deal is said about the cheap tourist nowadays, with the emphasis so placed on the word "cheap" as to create a wrong impression. ”

“ Not much time had our tourists, however, for puzzling their brains or harrowing their souls over the questions of human destiny, for their heads were filled with all sorts of associations with men and books, and they sometimes went wandering to and fro, to find the very houses where their favorite authors lived, the spots where events of interest had transpired, the places made immortal by their poets’ pens. They must have their visit to the Tower, long days in the Museum and the art galleries, for had they not, each and all, in one form or another, the genuine Kensington craze? ”

“ To circumnavigate the globe in our day is only a question of time and money, the facilities being ample, and the inducements abundant. Intelligently and successfully to consummate such a purpose is an education in itself. The tourist will find all previous study enhanced in value by ocular demonstration, which imparts life and warmth to the cold facts of the chroniclers, besides which a vast store-house of positive information is created which time cannot exhaust. ”

“ Not only are picnics and pleasure gatherings, within the groves, common to the humbler classes, but the wealthy travel great distances simply to enjoy the beauty of marine or mountain views. Scholars assemble at chosen seats, having fair landscapes before them, poets seek inspiration under waterfalls, and the bonzes, understanding the awe-compelling influence of the contemplation of nature’s grandeur, plant their monasteries and build their temples on lofty mountain heights. ”

“ In countries like those we shall visit, the impressions of the first explorers are often more interesting and instructive than those of the latest tourist or naturalist, for such impressions have about them a freshness and an originality—often a quaintness and a simplicity—that are entirely absent from modern works of travel. ”

“ We have in our world, as you have in yours, intrepid travellers—learned men, who make voyages to almost inaccessible planets—and they return even as those of earth, with sketches and graphic outlines of the strange sights they have witnessed; and those less venturesome who remain at home are as anxious as your citizens might be to hear accounts of wonderful regions that have been visited. ”

“ It is so convenient, you see, if you don't want to be at home to any visitor. When you see anyone coming up the garden path, you move the crank and away you go, and your visitor, to his well-bred consternation, finds himself gazing in at the kitchen window. ”

“ These things are written for the refreshment and delight of those who may no longer journey into distant lands; and they are in the library of the house in the seven thousand volumes of the Houses of the World which our pilgrims have visited in past ages. For once in a lifetime is it ordained that a man shall leave his own place and travel for the space of ten years, visiting the most famous houses in every land he enters, and also seeking out those of which no report has reached us. ”