At Home And Abroad

At Home And Abroad

The Project Gutenberg EBook of At Home And Abroad, by Margaret
Fuller Ossoli This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: At Home And Abroad Or, Things And Thoughts In America and
Europe
Author: Margaret Fuller Ossoli
Editor: Arthur B. Fuller
Release Date: July 18, 2005 [EBook #16327]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT HOME
AND ABROAD ***

Produced by Alison Hadwin and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net

AT HOME AND ABROAD; OR, THINGS AND THOUGHTS IN
AMERICA AND EUROPE.
BY MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI,
Author of "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," "Art, Literature, and

the Drama," "Life without and Life Within," etc.
Edited by Her Brother, ARTHUR B. FULLER.
NEW AND COMPLETE EDITION.
NEW YORK; THE TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. 134 Nassau Street
1869
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by ARTHUR
B. FULLER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.
There are at least three classes of persons who travel in our own land
and abroad. The first and largest in number consists of those who,
"having eyes, see not, and ears, hear not," anything which is profitable
to be remembered. Crossing lake and ocean, passing over the broad
prairies of the New World or the classic fields of the Old, though they
look on the virgin soil sown thickly with flowers by the hand of God,
or on scenes memorable in man's history, they gaze heedlessly, and
when they return home can but tell us what they ate and drank, and
where slept,--no more; for this and matters of like import are all for
which they have cared in their wanderings.
Those composing the second class travel more intelligently. They visit
scrupulously all places which are noted either as the homes of literature,
the abodes of Art, or made classic by the pens of ancient genius.
Accurately do they mark the distance of one famed city from another,
the size and general appearance of each; they see as many as possible
of celebrated pictures and works of art, and mark carefully dimensions,
age, and all details concerning them. Men, too, whom the world regards
as great men, whether because of wisdom, poesy, warlike achievements,
or of wealth and station, they seek to take by the hand and in some
degree to know; at least to note their appearance, demeanor, and mode
of life. Writers belonging to this class of travellers are not to be

undervalued; returning home, they can give much useful information,
and tell much which all wish to hear and know, though, as their
narratives are chiefly circumstantial, and every year circumstances
change, such recitals lessen constantly in value.
But there is a third class of those who journey, who see indeed the
outward, and observe it well. They, too, seek localities where Art and
Genius dwell, or have painted on canvas or sculptured in marble their
memorials; they become acquainted with the people, both famed and
obscure, of the lands which they visit and in which for a time they
abide; their hearts throb as they stand on places where great deeds have
been done, with whose dust perhaps is mingled the sacred ashes of men
who fell in the warfare for truth and freedom,--a warfare begun early in
the world's history, and not yet ended. But they do much more than this.
There is, though in a different sense from what ancient Pagans fancied,
a genius or guardian spirit of each scene, each stream and lake and
country, and this spirit is ever speaking, but in a tone which only the
attent ear of the noble and gifted can hear, and in a language which
such minds and hearts only can understand. With vision which needs
no miracle to make it prophetic, they see the destinies which nations
are all-unconsciously shaping for themselves, and note the deep
meaning of passing events which only make others wonder. Beneath
the mask of mere externals, their eyes discern the character of those
whom they meet, and, refusing to accept popular judgment in place of
truth, they see often the real relation which men bear to their race and
age, and observe the facts by which to determine whether such men are
great only because of circumstances, or by the irresistible power of
their own minds. When such narrate their journeyings, we have what is
valuable not for a few years only, but, because of its philosophic and
suggestive spirit, what must always be useful.
The