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Page 31
When you read the weekly newspaper published in the quietest hill-town
in Vermont, you become aware that a great deal is going on. Deacon Pratt
shingled his barn last week. Miss Maria Jones had new shutters put on
her house, and it is a great improvement. These revolutions in
Goshenville are matters of keen interest to those concerned. They
furnish inexhaustible material for conversation.
The true enemy to innovation is the traveler who sets out to see
historic lands. His natural love of change is satiated by rapid change
of locality. But his natural conservatism asserts itself in his
insistence that the places which he visits shall be true to their own
reputations. Having journeyed, at considerable expense, to a celebrated
spot, he wants to see the thing it was celebrated for, and he will
accept no substitute. From his point of view the present inhabitants are
merely caretakers who should not be allowed to disturb the remains
intrusted to their custody. Everything must be kept as it used to be.
The moment any one packs his trunk and puts money in his purse to visit
lands old in story he becomes a hopeless reactionary. He is sallying
forth to see things not as they are, but as they were "once upon a
time." He is attracted to certain localities by something which happened
long ago. A great many things may have happened since, but these must be
put out of the way. One period of time must be preserved to satisfy his
romantic imagination. He loves the good old ways, and he has a curiosity
to see the bad old ways that may still be preserved. It is only the
modern that offends him.
The American who, in his own country, is in feverish haste to improve
conditions, when he sets foot in Europe becomes the fanatical foe to
progress. The Old World, in his judgment, ought to look old. He longs to
hear the clatter of wooden shoes. If he had his way he would have laws
enacted forbidding peasant folk to change their ancient costumes. He
would preserve every relic of feudalism. He bitterly laments the
division of great estates. A nobleman's park with its beautiful idle
acres, its deer, its pheasants, and its scurrying rabbits, is so much
more pleasant to look at than a succession of market-gardens. Poachers,
game-keepers, and squires are alike interesting, if only they would
dress so that he could know them apart. He is enchanted with thatched
cottages which look damp and picturesque. He detests the model dwellings
which are built with a too obvious regard for sanitation. He seeks
narrow and ill-smelling streets where the houses nod at each other, as
if in the last stages of senility, muttering mysterious reminiscences of
old tragedies. He frequents scenes of ancient murders, and places where
bandits once did congregate. He leaves the railway carriage, to cross a
heath where romantic highwaymen used to ask the traveler to stand and
deliver. He is indignant to find electric lights and policemen. A heath
ought to be lonely, and fens ought to be preserved from drainage.
He seeks dungeons and instruments of torture. The dungeons must be
underground, and only a single ray of light must penetrate. He is much
troubled to find that the dungeon in the Castle of Chillon is much more
cheerful than he had supposed it was. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice
disappoints him in the same way. Indeed, there are few places mentioned
by Lord Byron that are as gloomy as they are in the poetical
description.
The traveler is very insistent in his plea for the preservation of
battlefields. Now, Europe is very rich in battlefields, many of the most
fertile sections having been fought over many times. But the ravages of
agriculture are everywhere seen. There is no such leveler as the
ploughman. Often when one has come to refresh his mind with the events
of one terrible day, he finds that there is nothing whatever to remind
him of what happened. For centuries there has been ploughing and
harvesting. Nature takes so kindly to these peaceful pursuits that one
is tempted to think of the battle as merely an episode.
Commerce is almost as destructive. Cities that have been noted for their
sieges often turn out to be surprisingly prosperous. The old walls are
torn down to give way to parks and boulevards. Massacres which in their
day were noted leave no trace behind. One can get more of an idea of the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve by reading a book by one's fireside
than by going to Paris. For all one can see there, there might have been
no such accident.
Moral considerations have little place in the traveler's mind. The
progressive ameliorations that have taken place tend to obscure our
sense of the old conflicts. A reform once accomplished becomes a part of
our ordinary consciousness. We take it for granted, and find it hard to
understand what the reformer was so excited about.
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