If a look at
the calendar shows the day to be Monday, they know they are in
Munich, and as they lope along they get out their guidebooks and
study the chapters devoted to Munich. But if it be Tuesday, then
it is Dresden, and they give their attention to literature dealing
with the attractions of Dresden; seeing Dresden after the fashion
of one sitting before a runaway moving picture film.
Then they pack up and depart, galloping, for Prague with their
tongues hanging out. For Wednesday is Prague and Prague is Wednesday
- the two words are synonymous and interchangeable. Surely to
such as these, the places they have visited must mean as much to
them, afterward, as the labels upon their trunks mean to the trunks
- just flimsy names pasted on, all confused and overlapping, and
certain to be scraped off in time, leaving nothing but faint marks
upon an indurated surface.
There is yet again another type, always of the female gender and
generally middle-aged and very schoolteacherish in aspect, who,
in company with a group of kindred spirits, is viewing Europe under
a contract arrangement by which a worn and wearied-looking gentleman,
a retired clergyman usually, acts as escort and mentor for a given
price. I don't know how much he gets a head for this job; but
whatever it is, he earns it ninety-and-nine times over. This lady
tourist is much given to missing trains and getting lost and having
disputes with natives and wearing rubber overshoes and asking
strange questions - but let me illustrate with a story I heard.
The man from Cook's had convoyed his party through the Vatican,
until he brought them to the Apollo Belvidere. As they ranged
themselves wearily about the statue, he rattled off his regular
patter without pause or punctuation:
"Here we have the far-famed Apollo Belvidere found about the middle
of the fifteenth century at Frascati purchased by Pope Julius the
Second restored by the great Michelangelo taken away by the French
in 1797 but returned in 1815 made of Carara marble holding in
his hand a portion of the bow with which he slew the Python observe
please the beauty of the pose the realistic attitude of the limbs
the noble and exalted expression of the face of Apollo Belvidere
he being known also as Phoebus the god of oracles the god of
music and medicine the son of Leto and Jupiter - "
Here he ran out of breath and stopped. Fora moment no one spoke.
Then from a flat-chested little spinster came this query in tired
yet interested tones:
"Was he - was he married?"
He who is intent upon studying the effect of foreign climes upon
the American temperament should by no means overlook the colonies
of resident Americans in the larger European cities, particularly
the colonies in such cities as Paris and Rome and Florence. In
Berlin, the American colony is largely made up of music students
and in Vienna of physicians; but in the other places many folks
of many minds and many callings constitute the groups. Some few
have left their country for their country's good and some have
expatriated themselves because, as they explain in bursts of
confidence, living is cheaper in France than it is in America. I
suppose it is, too, if one can only become reconciled to doing
without most of the comforts which make life worth while in America
or anywhere else. Included among this class are many rather unhappy
old ladies who somehow impress you as having been shunted off to
foreign parts because there were no places for them in the homes
of their children and their grandchildren. So now they are spending
their last years among strangers, trying with a desperate eagerness
to be interested in people and things for which they really care
not a fig, with no home except a cheerless pension.
Also there are certain folk - products, in the main, of the Eastern
seaboard - who, from having originally lived in America and spent
most of their time abroad, have now progressed to the point where
they now live mostly abroad and visit America fleetingly once in
a blue moon. As a rule these persons know a good deal about Europe
and very little about the country that gave them birth. The
stock-talk of European literature is at their tongue's tip. They
speak of Ibsen in the tone of one mourning the passing of a near,
dear, personal friend, and as for Zola - ah, how they miss the
influence of his compelling personality! But for the moment they
cannot recall whether Richard K. Fox ran the Police Gazette or
wrote the "Trail of the Lonesome Pine."
They are up on the history of the Old World. From memory they
trace the Bourbon dynasty from the first copper-distilled Charles
to the last sourmashed Louis. But as regards our own Revolution,
they aren't quite sure whether it was started by the Boston Tea
Party or Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. Languidly they inquire whether that
quaint Iowa character, Uncle Champ Root, is still Speaker of the
House? And so the present Vice-President is named Elihu Underwood?
Or isn't he? Anyway, American politics is such a bore. But they
stand ready, at a minute's notice, to furnish you with the names,
dates and details of all the marriages that have taken place during
the last twenty years in the royal house of Denmark.
Some day we shall learn a lesson from Europe. Some fair day we
shall begin to exploit our own historical associations. We shall
make shrines of the spots where Washington crossed the ice to help
end one war and where Eliza did the same thing to help start
another. We shall erect stone markers showing where Charley Ross
was last seen and Carrie Nation was first sighted.
