Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 1

Seeing Europe with Famous
Authors, Volume I. - Great
Britain and Ireland

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Title: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. Great Britain
and Ireland
Author: Various
Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10588]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS
Selected And Edited With Introductions, Etc.
By Francis W. Halsey
_Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" Associate Editor of

"The Worlds Famous Orations and of The Best of the World's Classics"
etc._
In Ten Volumes
Illustrated
Vol. I Great Britain And Ireland
Part One
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
A two-fold purpose has been kept in view during the preparation of
these volumes--on the one-hand, to refresh the memories and, if
possible, to enlarge the knowledge, of readers who have already visited
Europe; on the other, to provide something in the nature of a substitute
for those who have not yet done so, and to inspire them with new and
stronger ambitions to make the trip.
Readers of the first class will perhaps find matter here which is new to
them--at least some of it; and in any case should not regret an
opportunity again to see standard descriptions of world-famed scenes
and historic monuments. Of the other class, it may be said that, in any
profitable trip to Europe, an indispensable thing is to go there possest
of a large stock of historical knowledge, not to say with some distinct
understanding of the profound significance to our American civilization,
past, present, and future, of the things to be seen there. As has so often
been said, one finds in Europe what one takes there--that is, we
recognize there exactly those things which we have learned to
understand at home. Without an equipment of this kind, the trip will
mean little more than a sea-voyage, good or bad, a few rides on
railroads somewhat different from our own, meals and beds in hotels
not quite like ours, and opportunities to shop in places where a few real
novelties may be found if one searches for them long enough.
No sooner has an American tourist found himself on board a ship,
bound for Europe, than he is conscious of a social system quite unlike
the one in which he was born and reared. On French ships he may well
think himself already in France. The manners of sailors, no less than
those of officers, proclaim it, the furniture proclaims it, and so do
woodwork, wall decorations, the dinner gong (which seems to have
come out of a chateau in old Touraine), and the free wine at every meal.
The same is quite as true of ships bound for English and German ports;
on these are splendid order, sober taste, efficiency in servants, and calls

for dinner that start reminiscences of hunting horns.
The order and system impress one everywhere on these ships. Things
are all in their proper place, employees are at their proper posts, doing
their work, or alert to do it when the need comes. Here the utmost quiet
prevails. Each part of the great organization is so well adjusted to other
parts, that the system operates noiselessly, without confusion, and with
never a failure of cooperation at any point. So long as the voyage lasts,
impressions of a perfected system drive themselves into one's
consciousness.
After one goes ashore, and as long as he remains in Europe, that well
ordered state will impress, delight and comfort him. Possibly he will
contrast it with his own country's more hurried, less firmly controlled
ways, but once he reflects on causes, he will perceive that the ways of
Europe are products of a civilization long since settled, and already
ancient, while the hurried and more thoughtless methods at home are
concomitants of a civilization still too young, too ambitious, and too
successful to bear the curbs and restraints which make good manners
and good order possible among all classes. It is from fine examples in
these social matters, no less than from visits to historic places, that the
observing and thoughtful tourist derives benefit from a European tour.
The literature of travel in Europe makes in itself a considerable library.
Those who have contributed to it are, in literary quality, of many kinds
and various degrees of excellence. It is not now so true as it once was
that our best writers write for