 It is not necessary to know the least thing about any foreign language in order to enjoy a European tour and profit by it. Every decent hotel in the common lines of travel has at least one employee who can speak English, usually the portier, who knows anywhere from three to half a dozen languages enough for conversational purposes. Often two, the head waiter speaks English, and frequently there are others at hand able to understand you. Indeed, the readiness with which his own tongue is understood grieves and annoys the traveler who has hoped in the ordinary course of travel to learn something of foreign tongues, abandon that expectation. Outside the hotels there is a slight necessity for being a linguist, though it is often advantageous. To master the names of the coins and to learn to count will answer all absolute requirements, and that can be done in an hour. Even this is not necessary when anybody else in the party already knows it. Write a phrase book in your pocket, and you can ordinarily find someone who can read the questions to which you point, if you dare not try pronunciation. Satisticians flatter us by proving that English is the coming language of the civilized world, that more people will speak it than any other, perhaps already speak it. However that may be, certain it is that French has not yet surrendered its paramount position. It is the native tongue of but a small fraction of the world's population, but it unmistakably leads as the second best language, so to speak. The language studied and acquired by more people than any other. It is the language of diplomacy, the language of fashion, and the language of travel. So for the sake of convenience, let me use it to symbolize all foreign languages, and say of it what may be said of any of the rest, learning a language. Every American who has studied French at home feels a keen disappointment when he goes to Paris. He may not have been vain enough to expect that his school French would be of much use, but he has felt certain that it would be of some use. In fact, however, it is practically unavailable wherever the ear is concerned. Of course, to read French is no more difficult in Paris than in Boston, but to understand it is much harder in a Parisian hotel or audience room than in an American classroom. The reason is simple. In the classroom it has been enunciated slowly and with distinctness. But on its native heath it runs like a hare. When speaking English in conversation we give full weight to but a small part of the letters. The intuition of the auditor fills in the blanks between the few sounds his ear really catches. The Frenchman does the same, but your classroom practice has not cultivated the intuition to the extent necessary for comprehending the foreign conversation. The Frenchman doesn't really talk so very fast. It is your brain that is going so very slow. Even if you have learned to converse readily with a French teacher, you will for days be helpless in a Parisian conversation, for you have learned the vocal habits of but one person, and these habits vary more than the features or the carriage. You must learn a thousand intonations, a thousand accents, before you get facility. This training of the ear, the vocal organs, the brain, and the nerves that telegraph between them takes time, practice, study, and genuine hard work. At the very quickest it will take three months of life in a French family, and study in every feasible way before a foreigner will be justified in saying that he can speak and understand ordinary French, and it will be a year before he can deem himself an adept. He can never get a really thorough command of its idioms, if he goes to France after the age when children cease to acquire language wholly by ear, and begin to understand their principles. So if any man, who did not leave America till after he was a dozen years old, tells you he can speak French like a native. Set him down as a braggart and a liar, for he knows he can't. Children acquire a foreign tongue with a rapidity that to the adult seems marvelous. It is a pity that more of them are not taken abroad during the years when they can become linguists without money and without price, but are still without time and hard work. I have been speaking of the ability to carry on a continuous conversation in French. It is quite different from the ability to understand a lecture or a sermon. The formal speaker enunciates more clearly, speaks more slowly, uses less idioms and no colloquialisms. Therefore, to hear lectures and sermons is the best beginning for a vocal study of French, and I would advise everyone who goes to Paris with the idea of studying the language to attend as many conferences at the Sorbonne as possible, to attend French Protestant churches on Sunday mornings, and to frequent the theaters as much as the purse will permit. On the stage, however, the flow of words is almost as rapid as in conversation, and it will always be well to read over the play in advance. In Paris it is almost always possible to hear standard plays that can be bought or found in a circulating library. The classic comedies are given most frequently at the Odienne, the theater in the Flatten quarter, which ranks as the second best theater in France in point of acting. Like the Comédie Francais, which leads the world, it gets a subsidy from the government, in return for which it is bound not only to give frequent performance of standard works, but also to present them at reduced prices, that they may be not too costly for students. The demand for tickets is not great, and excellent seats can be easily secured at prices which make it about the cheapest sort of French instruction. By taking the book and following the play, the ear will be aided, and, better still, the correct pronunciation can be learned. In conversation few people pronounce correctly, either in English or in French, but incorrect pronunciation would not be tolerated on the stage of the Odienne or the Comédie Francais. Indeed, the theater is so much of a national institution in France that it sets the standard for pronunciation and allocution. Like the Comédie Francais, the prices are higher and the attendance larger, so that though its acting is the best in the world, for the student of French, it is not so convenient as the Odienne. In many of the other theaters, slang and idiom bother the student. It is not difficult to acquire French enough for traveling purposes, to learn to ask for what you want, to barter, to inquire your way, to direct the cab man. The number of words required for these purposes is surprisingly small. Indeed, the vocabulary of all ordinary conversation is very limited. But it is the vocabulary that you must have, not the grammar. Better know a hundred nouns and a few adjectives than be able to conjugate every irregular verb in the language. Words, words, words are what you want. Rules, rules, rules can go to perdition, for all the good they are on a traveler's predicaments. The man who will rememberize two hundred words on the way across will get along better than the man who can translate a novel to perfection. Beane, who has an excellent reading knowledge of French, tells me that the first time he took a bath in Paris, he found when he was ready to leave the tub that there was no towel in the room. Ringing for an attendant, he tried to ask for a towel, but to save him he couldn't think of the French word for it. As it is not uncommon for people to take their own towels to the bath, and if you want one furnished, you must get it when you go in. The attendant was not quick to comprehend what Beane wanted, so he chattered and dripped and chattered for several minutes before he could show by gestures what he needed. How to put words together is a matter of minor importance for the traveler, but the schools teach that first, for they have in mind reading, rather than speaking. It is better to know a little French thoroughly than a deal of it imperfectly. There is no time to study the question that may be asked, to puzzle it out. Now and then you can get it repeated very slowly, but that is impractical in conversation. Listen at the dinner table, and though you might be able to translate every word where it's spoken by itself, yet if the important words of a sentence do not on the instant convey an impression to the mind, they will be drowned by the following sentences and the conversation will be unintelligible. So have what you do know at your tongue's end, or just at that part of the brain to which the message is telegraphed from the ear. Add to thorough knowledge little by little, and in time mastery will come. The trouble with about all the grammars and phrase books is that they mix thoroughly the words and rules seldom needed with those constantly needed. The second person singular of the imperfect subjective, which you wouldn't use or hear in a lifetime, maybe is just as prominent in the grammar as the first person of the present indicative, which will be used constantly. There are a hundred ways of getting a book knowledge with a foreign language, and each has its friends. In advocating one of them, I seek no quarrel with the others. It's merely a personal belief that the quickest course is to read the grammar through without study in order to get an idea of the structure of the language, then to read it carefully, a little each day, but to put the most of time into searching analysis of simple diction. Take a French play by some modern writer, preferably a drama of society, and write out a translation of a page or two. The next day, try to rewrite it in French and compare with the original. For study by oneself, surely this has its advantages. But when practicable, this should be merely accessory to conversation with a French teacher, who should be asked to speak little or no English in the course of the lesson. The best way to learn to read French is to read, not with a dictionary, but as an English book would be read. Not translating at all, but reading in French. The first time you try this, you will doubtless get but a slight inkling of the opening chapter. In the second, a glimpse of the story will reveal itself. By the time the book is finished, most of it will have been comprehended. Common essential words that at first were not understood will, after a while, be learned by guessing with the help of the different contexts. A word that persistently evades may, at last, be looked up in the dictionary. Then it will not be forgotten, as it would have been had you looked it up in the first time you saw it. The great thing is to learn to think in the language you would speak or understand, and not to translate. That comes only with time and training, but in time it will come to anybody. Guide books. Beteker's guide books are undoubtedly the best ever printed. For the tourist who wants to do any city or country thoroughly, they are indispensable. Prepared with characteristic German regard for minutia and accuracy, they come as near perfection as bookmaking can accomplish. Frequent editions keep them up to date, and it is reasonably safe to trust them in every detail. The only criticism that can be made on them is that they are somewhat voluminous for the hurrying tourist. And as there is one for each country, sometimes two or three for a country, they are rather bulky for transportation. This difficulty can be overcome by getting them as you go along. They are to be found in every city. Then when you leave a country, mail its guidebook to yourself in care of your banker in London with memorandum. To be held till called for, or not to be forwarded. On your last visit to the banker, get the books and forward them home with you. They will prove invaluable there to refresh your memory or hazy points, to aid you in giving advice to others about to make the trip, and for the fund of historical, geographical, and statistical information they contain. This may seem rather expensive, for the Bettiker's average to cost not far from two dollars, but to go without them is pennywise and pound foolish. Rightly used, they save far more than they cost. Directly, through their information about hotels, about prices of admission, about where to give fees and where not to give, and how much the fee should be, if any, about cab fares, and all the other routine expenditures, and indirectly, through the gain of time by knowledge, when places are open, what routes to take for covering a city systematically, and where the important sites are to be found. The last benefit is not the least. Nothing is more vexatious than to be reminded after you have left a place of something you have omitted, which then is more than likely to seem as important as all the rest put together. I pin my faith on Bettiker, and do not profess to thorough acquaintance with other series, but with the help of a comprehensive article on the subject by a well-informed and accurate writer, John Richie, Jr., I can add to my own's observations enough to cover the ground. Of general guides to Europe, four are published in this country. Two of them, a satchel guide, published by Houghton Mifflin & Company, Boston, and Castle's Complete Pocket Guide to Europe, published by William R. Jenkins in New York, are of the small, single volume variety, more convenient for the pocket or handbag. They take in the parts of Europe usually visited by vacation tourists, and even for the traveler planning a long journey, serve a desirable end by giving a bird's eye view of the whole ground to be covered, thus enabling him to arrange his trip with due regard to proportion, and to make a rough schedule of it in advance. Appleton's three-volume guide covering the whole of Europe is tolerably accurate, and if Bettikers are not bought, will be comprehensive enough for countries where the stay is short. Loomis' index guide to travel and art study in Europe, issued by Scribner's, contains a deal of solid information, but will hardly repay a vacation tourist for the burden of carrying it about, however useful it might be as a book of reference to one staying abroad for study. It is not a guidebook in the ordinary sense of the term. In Europe are published six considerable series of guidebooks, dealing with countries or localities in separate volumes, and either written originally in English or translated into English wholly, or to the extent of some volumes. Besides Bettikers are those of Murray, Black, Cook, Orel Fusley, and Whirl. Murray's volumes have so long been the standby of the Briton that half the time he says Murray when he means guidebook. There are about 30 of them for England and its localities. As many more for the continent, substantial volumes averaging about two dollars and thirty five cents in cost, accurate and copious, but to my mind not conveniently arranged for consultation. Cook's guides, issued by the tourist agency, are newer in the field, are less numerous and less costly, and not so elaborate, the last a feature of merit or the opposite according to the needs of the individual tourist. Black, with his great list of more than fifty local British guides, has one of twenty for restricted districts of continental Europe, most of them ranging between twenty-five and sixty cents in price, and while worth the money of the man who wants thorough information on localities. The two German series are little local guides to cities or districts and cost about ten cents each. The Whirl handbooks are published in Leipzig and in the original German number more than five hundred titles. About twenty of them are in English. They are paper covered pamphlets of about fifty pages each and are excellent in their way, although they are about little known to Americans. The Orel Fusley guides are larger in form and about two hundred parts have been issued in English. More than two hundred volumes in the nature of guidebooks relate to England. Batecker's Great Britain covers England, Wales, and Scotland, but not Ireland, and it gives but a dozen pages to London, abridging for them the volume that is devoted to London alone. The price of the Great Britain volume would warrant the publisher in putting into both books at least the matter related to the environs of London. The traveller may be justifiably annoyed, for instance, to find a description of stoke poaches or Hampton Court omitted from a volume entitled Great Britain, and the book would be no thicker than Switzerland volume if it included Ireland. However, as far as it goes, it is excellent. Murray has volumes on London as it is, the environs of London, England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and a score of counties or groups of counties, with five handbooks of cathedrals. Castle has issued a pictorial England and Wales. Smith has written a handy guidebook, and Whiting has published an annual holiday directory. For London especially there are Batecker, Murray, Black, Cook, and Castle, to which may be added Murray's publication London Past and Present in three volumes and exhaustive work for the library table. Then there is Dickens's Dictionary, now in its 20th year, the London Handbook of the Grovener Press, Rootlitch's Diamond Guide, Simpkins London, which common a number of forms of from 14 to 19 years standing, and Ward's Guide to London, now in its 16th year. Most of these are revised each year. For the benefit of pedestrians there are issued rustic walking routes by Evans and walk from London to Fulham by Crocker. Chetwind also has written an Environments of London, a guide for team or cycle. For the rest of Great Britain there are locality books too numerous to mention. In any town, bookshop, one may take his choice between several relating to the vicinity. Then there are such books as Bradshaw's Dictionary of Health Resorts, an Orzman's Guide to the Rivers and Canals of Great Britain and Ireland, Cowper's Sailing Tours for Yachtman, a dozen Handbooks for Cyclists, the Spaws of Wales, Rock Climbing in the English Lake District, etc. etc. For Ireland five of the larger firms have issued a guidebook each. The French publisher, Belier, has issued one. Flynn's Ireland, and of more pretentious nature and to be highly recommended, is Russell's Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland. Switzerland has a dozen or so of the Oral Fussly Guides, nearly as many of the World Series, and one each of the English publications. In addition there are the English Red Book for Switzerland, issued by Paul, Picturesque and Descriptive Guide by Ward Lock and Company, and How to Visit Switzerland by Lund, who is a conductor of large excursions and has also written How to Visit Italy. Visitors to Austria will find in their hand Singer and Wolfner's Handbook, which includes Hungary and Budapest, and Mellison's Lakes and Rivers of Austria, Bavaria and Hungary, which is a little more in detail in the English publishers' volumes. Norway has two guidebooks, Bennett's Handbook and Goodman's Best Tour. This country is coming into prominence and has been the subject for half a dozen descriptive volumes, among which may be noted Curie's compact little book on Norway and the Norwegians, and New Ground in Norway, published by Noons. In the latter the author describes regions little known to us, but to which the Norwegians themselves have made their way in summer, much as we go to the White Mountains or to the seashore. Sweden has perhaps the strongest tourist club of any of the European countries. It has eight or ten thousand members, most of whom travel more or less and with certain advantages. For the benefit of its members the Swedish club issues at short intervals its guides, which may be procured in German or in English. In all the other parts of Europe frequented by travelers one may find locality handbooks costing usually 10 or 20 cents, which will effectively supplement the satchel guides for those who feel they cannot afford beddickers, but don't get along without the beddickers if you can help it. Then too there are the more costly volumes that are and are not guidebooks, not designed to meet the more prosaic needs of the tourist, but meant to make his sightseeing more intelligent and instructive. Some of them have genuine literary merit such as the hair volumes, walks in Paris, walks in Rome, cities of southern Italy and Sicily, etc. As Mr. Ritchie well says, Rome seen without hair's walks in hand is but half seen. Rutledge prints the volumes with paper type and margins that suit them to the library shelf rather than to the traveler's satchel, and they are hardly worth attention on the spot from the man who can stay only a day or two. But I would urge them on anybody passing a week or more in any of the places they cover. Akin to these are such volumes as those of Mrs. Clement on Constantinople, Venice, Naples, all handsomely illustrated, one of the same sort on Florence by Virginia W. Johnson, on Rouen by Theodore A. Cook, on Nuremberg by Cecil Hedlem, and other of the smaller cities of the continent. These can be generally found in the bookshops of the place to which they relate. Remember Ruskin's Stones of Venice. Tourists who visit the Chateau district southwest of Paris will enjoy a little tour in France by Henry James. Those who desire to understand thoroughly the development of cities where they may tarry will profitably study such books as Mrs. Oliphant's The Makers of Florence and The Makers of Venice. In the same class of books relating to the past rather than the present are Grant Allen's Oracle Guides to Florence, Venice, Paris, and the cities of Belgium. I think the last of the many volumes by this versatile writer to a period before his death in 1899 was The European Tour, designed particularly to be of service to Americans contemplating a journey abroad. It deals entirely with the educational aspect of the matter, telling what the author thought worth the seeing and why. His verdict on Belgium differs radically from mine, given in an earlier chapter, for he says that, quote, except Italy there is nothing in Europe so valuable, so instructive as Belgium. The reason is that Belgium in the north, like Italy in the south, formed the commercial and also therefore the artistic center of medievalism. Unquote. Acumen of this sort will suggest how useful the book may be to anyone going to Europe with study of its art and history as the all-important motive. Indeed, Mr. Allen started out by expressing the belief that a year of travel in Europe is worth more than a college education, and should be preferred where there is a choice between the two. Few will accept the stictum, but it need not prevent the book from inspiring and stimulating the desire to make the trip give more culture. The use of guidebooks, pure and simple, is worth a moment's reflection, for otherwise they may prove great time-wasters. Voluminous guides like those of Bedecker sometimes confuse and embarrass the novice in travel, not yet trained in deciding what he wants to see or shouldn't see. At the outset the conscientious man sallies forth each day with the intention of seeing everything the guidebook mentions. Happy the hour when he frees himself from its thralldom. It is worse than useless to go through a museum or gallery as a merchant goes through his shop when he takes account of stock. That course inevitably wastes time on miners' matters. Insignificant details they cannot be remembered, and to often result in such a mental jumble that the really important things are lost from sight. That is the chief reason why my personal preference is against the use of catalogues and galleries. I would rather ramble along, enjoying what pleases me, than bore myself by learning that Number 49 was painted by an artist of whom I never heard and don't want to hear. But each to his taste, and anybody who wants to be sure that he has seen so-and-so's Madonna or somebody's Saint Sebastian, is welcome to indulge his fondness for facts. Tourists who rely on their own researches will find maps indispensable, especially in cities like Paris and London. The bidikers contain so many of these that it will often prove cheaper to buy a bidiker in the first place. Older second-hand copies are just as good for the maps, and for most of the information, but they should not be implicitly trusted in regard to such matters as the hours when museums are open. Indeed, changes in these particulars are so frequent that no guidebook can keep up with them, and it will always be safer to verify by inquiry at the hotel. Historical and Place Novels It is both pleasant and profitable to read notable historical novels and novels of places in the cities or regions where their scenes are laid. Naturally, of those written in English more relate to England than to any other country, and they are so many that it is hard to make selection, particularly in the matter of London, which has been taken as the scene of hundreds of novels. Dickens, however, stands so far above all the rest as the great novelist of London that I shall mention no others, barring only Sir Walter Passant, some of whose books, notably All Sorts and Conditions of Men, tell of a London that has grown up since Dickens's time. The Cathedral Towns have been favorites with many storytellers. Anthony Trollop's Barchester series will prove entertaining in any of them, and the silence of Dean Maitland has much of its action laid in Winchester. Though the scene of the tragedy unfolded in the opening chapters is supposed to have been not far from Newport, on the Isle of Wight, other stories that pertain to places along the Channel are Basant's by Celia's Arbor, Portsmouth, and Twas in Trafalgar's Bay, Lyme Regis, Gene Austen's Persuasion, also Lyme Regis, Basant's Armor of Linus, The Silly Isles, Victor Hubo's The Toilers of the Sea, Gilbert Parker's Battle of the Strong, and Hesba Stratton's The Doctor's Dilemma, Channel Islands. The story is told by Q, a T quiller couch, mostly relate to Cornwall. Blackmore wrote Devonshire's series, with Lorna Dune head and shoulders above the rest, but with Springhaven and Pearly Cross also good Devon tales. Mrs. Louisa Parr's Loyalty George is another Devon story, and the opening chapters of Charles Kingsley's inimitable Westward Ho are laid in Biddleford. Thomas Hardy writes much about the region anciently, the Kingdom of Wessex. Most of the places and people he describes being of what is now known as Dorset, the country north and west of Southampton and Winchester. Going farther north when comes to Warwickshire and the region from Oxford to Derby, the scene of Scots, Kennelworth, and Woodstock, and George Eliot's best novels. At Stratford, William Black's Judas Shakespeare will edify. Then comes Rugby, known to every boy because Tom Brown went to school there. The then country about Cambridge was the locality of Kingsley's Hairward. Charlotte Bronte's Shirley is a Yorkshire tale. Love and Quiet Life by Tom Coblay, Walter Raymond, tells of Somersetshire. Miss Mitford's? Our village was in Berkshire. Mrs. Gatskull's Cranford will do for any English village and her Mary Barton-concerned Manchester. Mrs. French's Hogson Burnett wrote That Last Delories About Lancashire Incidents. Scotland has furnished some of the most noted storytellers and the scenes for many stirring novels. It is needless to enumerate those of the great Sir Walter. For everybody who reads novels knows that the heart of Midlothian and the rest are Scotch tales. Then there is an old favourite with the boys, Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs and the books by the newer generation of Scotch. Literary Artists, Stevenson, Kidnapped and the Master of Ballentray, Barry, the Little Minister and other thrumpt stories, Ian McLaren and Crockett. William Black's best stories are of the Scottish Highlands or Islands. The Isle of Man has been laid bare to the world by Hal Cain. The great Irish novelists have been Charles Lever and Samuel Lover. Much about Wales and the Welsh is told in a recent novel that has met with favour, Dunton's Alwyn. French novels have, for the most part, dealt more with the scum and froth of Parisian life than with France itself, its history or its regions. The more thoughtful Frenchman denied that the ordinary French novel is a true portrayal of their countrymen or countrywomen. But a noteworthy exception was the work of Balzac, who undertook in a voluminous series of stories under the general title of The Human Comedy, to depict every class and type in the whole social scale of his time. The wonderful result makes many claim for him the rank of the foremost of the world's novelists. For understanding the France of the period after Napoleon's downfall, nothing could be better. Numerous translations have been made and notably good are those of Miss Warmly. Paris, like London, abounds in stories, among them Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, covering both places at the terror epoch. Hugo's hunchback of Notre Dame should surely be read in Paris and Dumare's Trilby by anyone staying in the Latin Quarter. The scene of Philip, Gilbert, Hamilton's memoir is laid in Burgundy, and the book gives some of the best descriptions of French country life to be found in English literature. Read Scott's Quentin Derward in Tours. Blanche Howard Willis's Gwenn should be read in Brittany, and also in the original Laudite's Pecherre d'Ilande. Students of French will find a fascinating story with scenes scattered over French in Sainte-Familie. The Urkman Châtrain books have been translated into English and are among the best military stories of the century. Italy has furnished the motifs and the scenes for much good fiction. The best Italian novel is Manzoni's The Betrothed, which will be found easy reading by beginners and Italian, or can be had in translation. The incidents occur about the Italian lakes and Milan. Two great writers have written up Italy in the story form. George Sand, with Consuelo, and Anderson with The Improvisatore. Rome, past and present, has been a prolific theme for the novelist. For a course of Roman novel reading, one might begin with the gladiators, and follow it up with Cuovaris, Canon Farrar's Darkness and Dawn, William Wehr's Zenobia, Julian and Aurelian, Bulwer Lytton's Renzi, Goratzi's Beatrice Sensi, Hawthorne's Marble Fawn, Henderson's The Prelate, Emma Tinker's Books, and finished with Crawford's Saracenesca series. At Naples read The Last Days of Pompeii, Marie Coralli's Vendetta, Mrs. Stowe's Agnes of Sorrento, and Crawford's Adam Johnstone's Son, all the action of the last named occurring at Amalfi. Wilmola, of course, is the great story of Florence. Howell's a foregone conclusion relates to Venice. Ruffini's Dr. Antonio to the Riviera. Few novels have lasting reputation have been written about Germany, at least that have become commonly known to the English reading public. Charles Reid's Best Work, The Cloyster and the Hearth, in part concerns Germany. Ms. Molbach and the Baroness Taut-Foess have written German stories that do nobody any heard. The best-known novel by Mrs. Charles, The Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta family, deals with Luther and the Reformation. Marlott and Auerbach are other names to be looked up in library catalogs. Martha and Martens is the first Dutch novelist to arouse the enthusiasm of the English reading public. Bjornsson and Bueisen are the Scandinavian novelists known in America. Tolstoy and Turgenev, the Russian. Spanish novels by Valdez have been translated by N. H. Dole. Fuller's Shethalane of Litvnit and Herodin's Ships the Past and the Night are located in Switzerland. Taurus in Egypt may peruse with enjoyment Kingsley's Hypatia and for stories with the modern setting Kismet by George Fleming, Julia C. Fletcher and Adeline Sargent's Beyond Recall and Christine. It would not be worthwhile taking any of these from home. They can all be bought to the booksellers in the place to which they refer, or so nearly all that it would not pay to make provision against inability thus to buy them. On the continent the Tauchnitz editions will be found everywhere, good print, paper covers, and reasonable in price. Novels should be read on the spot or soon afterward. There was no advantage in reading them before going to the place for unless the reader has an abnormal memory few of them will remain in the mind without knowledge of localities at the time of reading. By the way, novels and most other books are customarily sold in paper covers on the continent because book buyers there generally prefer to have their binding done in order on such books as they find worth keeping. Consequently the price for binding to order is cheap. Preparatory Reading Some reading, however, can profitably be done before leaving home and a winter's preparatory work is none too much. Most helpful will be found such historical knowledge as can be acquired. Let it be personal history rather than political, constitutional, or military. Except Waterloo, the traveler sees few battlefields, almost none that can greatly interest the imagination. With constitutions, governments, and politics he rarely comes in contact. But the pleasure of his excursions to Versailles and Fontainebleau will be heightened by knowing something about the kings and queens and nobles who once lived there. Sleepy Minotonous Holland will become alive with interest if the story of William the Silent and his heroic friends is familiar. Napoleon's magic name vivifies and glorifies a thousand places. The historical personages idealized by Sir Walter Scott must be known in order that the scenes of their romantic and chivalrous deeds can be enjoyed to the utmost. The Alhambra and the Alcazar fail of their true significance. If the wonderful record of Moorish achievement in Spain has never been scanned, the Colosseum is but an artificial quarry, the Forum an ugly excavation, the Palatine a rubbish-strone hill to the traveler who knows not of the Caesars. Next, in importance to the biographical side of the general history, comes the history of art in all its branches. Much the larger part of the sightseeing hours are given to galleries, art museums, churches, public buildings that are themselves of artistic value and significance or contained art treasures. He errs who thinks that the eye unaided by the intellect can reveal all their beauties and that understanding is not essential to the full enjoyment of art. A symphony orchestra might delight even a savage, might charm the man who couldn't tell the difference between a trombone and a piccolo, but surely it can be appreciated only by the student of music. I asked Charles H. Moor, professor of art in Harvard College and author of an authoritative treatise on the development and character of Gothic architecture to prepare a list of books that he would advise for the preliminary readings of persons of ordinary culture planning a European tour. Professor Moor suggests the following. F. D. Tarbell's History of Greek Art, published by Flood and Vincent, Medville, Pennsylvania. Reber's History of Medieval Art, Harper and Brothers, New York. Russell Sturgess's European Architecture, the Macmillan Company, New York. Rose G. Kingsley's History of French Art, Longman's Green and Company, New York. C. E. Norton's Church Building in the Middle Ages, Harper and Brothers, New York. Longfellow's The Column and the Arch, Charles Scribner's Son's, New York. H. Tain's Art in the Netherlands, Lepolt and Holt, New York. Be sure that no hours will be wasted in learning how art conquered the Medieval Italian, wherein St. Mark's differs from St. Paul's. What were the lives of Raphael and of Michelangelo in acquiring the power to distinguish at a glance Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns, and mastering the details of Romanesque, Byzantine, or Gothic architecture, in finding out what the disciples of the Impressionist School of Painting are striving to affect? Be sure that the more you know on any topic when you leave home, the better estimate will you put on your ignorance when you return, and the keener ambition will you have for your knowledge. In that direction lies one of the greatest benefits of travel. He teaches a man how small he is, how much he has to learn. End of Section 15. End of Going Abroad. Some advice by Robert Lucy.