A Summer Holiday in Europe (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Summer Holiday in Europe The real traveller, like the true poet, should be born, not made. He should possess within himself certain qualities which would be beyond the power of circumstances to alter, and which would form, so to speak, his spiritual outfit. He should be by nature adaptable, and by grace sympathetic. He should have the power of disentangling himself from the home environment, and of looking upon the differences in custom which belong to other peoples, without that unalterable belief in the superiority of his own which renders one deaf and blind to every advantage. He should possess an eye which has been trained beforehand to some understanding of the beauty and majesty of the natural world, so that he can make comparison of effect, and read the message of sea and sky, valley and mountain-top. He should possess an intelligence somewhat trained by study into a knowledge of the past, so that there shall be a historic background against which the foreground of the visible present may stand in relief. And he should have at least as much good health as is ensured by good digestion and a clear conscience. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.