"But if the one definable feature of travel is that it has been a constant in human history, an irresistible lure to ambition or imagination, it has never achieved a reliable standing in literature. There has, in fact, always attached to it a hint of the deceptive or the deluding. 'There is nothing worse for...

"It is hard to say exactly what is the profit of comparing one race with another, and weighing in opposed groups the manners and customs of neighboring countries; but it is certain that as we move about the world we constantly indulge in this exercise. This is especially the case if we happen to be...

"Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist. For the latter, the interesting event is the new, the extraordinary, the comic, the shocking, and all that the peripatetic journalist requires is a flair for being on the spot where and when such events...

"Perhaps no nation has been as uneasy in its view of travel as America. The one Western country that has always held expatriation to be something of a misdemeanor, if not an actual offense to patriotism or a form of social betrayal, it has never freed itself of the sense of guilt apparently rooted in...

"The sentimental tourist makes images in advance; they grow up in his mind by a logic of their own. He finds himself thinking of an unknown, unseen place, as having such and such a shape and figure rather than such another. It assumed in his mind a certain complexion, a certain color which frequently turns...