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Guide-Books, Etc.
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (April 10, 1909) : 27
U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
 

      It gives a pleasant sense of being a native in an agreeably foreign land to hear that guide-books are used in the seeing of New York. The sight of a red-backed book in the hand of a serious-minded tourist relieves us of any dull, stay-at-home feeling we may have had; and even though it seems that, if he have any sense at all, he ought to find his way about, we like the courteous pretence on his part of a Baedeker being necessary.
      A story is told of a spirited New York family that decided to visit America, beginning with their own city. They closed up their house and took rooms at a hotel, so that the inconvenient travelling atmosphere should be theirs from the very start. Then they began, armed with guide-books. Unfortunately, they met their own dog on the very first block. He jumped at them from the carriage of a friend, and refused to listen to their explanations that they were visiting in a foreign land and must not be recognized. He was put back in the carriage, protesting loudly, and the friend, having promised to cut them for rank trippers, stuck to her word and behaved most objectionably when they asked if she spoke any language but American. This, however, was the worst incident of the morning... >and the friend, having promised to cut them for rank trippers, stuck to her word and behaved most objectionably when they asked if she spoke any language but American. This, however, was the worst incident of the morning, and when they had recovered from it a little they proceeded to look at New York’s statues. They were astonished to find what a large number there are. Up to that time their acquaintance with them had been limited to a slight encounter between their motor-car and a granite gentleman of the name of Thorwaldsen. Now they inspected them all carefully, read up the different sculpters, and laid at the foot of each a decent number of epithets. The irrelevancy of New York’s statues might be called feminine. It is certainly open-handed and hospitable. There is a jaunty carelessness about scattering effigies of our Presidents and more than life-sized heads of Italian scientists, not to mention any poets or otherwise notorious gentleman who feel inclined to come along over the public parks and highways. New York appears genial because of her ways with statues, above petty ideas on appropriateness, blandly welcoming all comers and managing not to mind the chaotic results.
      The next day these now hilarious tourists began on the public buildings. They were shown everywhere and everywhere saw something new. They spent a pleasing ten minutes asking about an uncle, who sat before them in his official capacity of judge, and squirmed as they raised lorgnettes and stared at him with blank, unrecognizing eyes. It is surprising how many questions there are that one really wants to ask when New York is in its place, a perfect stranger to you, and a thing to be coolly studied. There are such a lot of sites to visit, spots where something old and interesting used to stand. The fact that they are no longer there should not disturb one; imagination is for just such moments, and should be applied determinedly. The past is conjured up — always an easy affair, as dates and sequence are sunk in wondering admiration. Then the proper exclamations are indulged in, and the tourist passes on not one-half so tired as he would have been if the interesting old building had been left extravagantly standing, a thing possessed of stairs to be climbed, and treasures to be pored over in cases of back-breaking heights.
      The youngest member of the family in question, not knowing just whom to look up, stood in front of his own house and read in a clear voice, for the benefit of passers-by, an invented paragraph from his guide-book telling of the famous people who lived there, and of a tablet about to be put in place by public subscription to commemorate the virtues of the family’s youngest member.Finally New York is finished; and it takes a goodly length of time, as each member of the sight-seeing family has to buy a souvenir or two and hunt up the house of his or her favorite author. The youngest member of the family in question, not knowing just whom to look up, stood in front of his own house and read in a clear voice, for the benefit of passers-by, an invented paragraph from his guide-book telling of the famous people who lived there, and of a tablet about to be put in place by public subscription to commemorate the virtues of the family’s youngest member. When New York is finished even a second breath fails to bring a period within sight, the dimensions of the guide-book are, for the first time, fully realized, and one wishes America was a slightly more compact country. It seems to spread itself absurdly, and one is forced to control one’s patriotism, choose a limited section, and postpone the rest for future trips. misremembered “for to admire an’ for to see,” from Kipling’s “For to Admire,” in The Seven Seas (1896) : link If any one feels tempted to imitate the family told of let him remember the extreme pleasure he will be giving the inhabitants of the places visited. With folk wandering about openly “for to see and for to admire,” who knows but America may acquire national customs, not to say costumes? It is a charming outlook for America.

      No one is so little regarded as a strictly truthful person. When he utters verities the world smiles indulgently and pays no attention to so constant a chatterer. For a truth teller talks incessantly, there being so many noticeable things that no one has yet said. The usual things are found startling by the majority of people, while startling truths lull their ears to sleep. They find truth so exaggerated that it has no value and is too extravagant to be amusing. And so it is both exaggerated and extravagant, as well as non-existent. Nothing can be completely truthful, as each circumstance of which we are ignorant or contemptuous makes the truth with which it is connected untruthful, so that the person who, with violent frankness, states all that he thinks and sees is putting all the weights on one side of the scales, even adding himself in a last effort to keep his side down, and a balanced weighing is out of the question.
      The fact that people claim there is such a thing as absolute truth shows how easily pleased they are, and proves them judges of little value. It is the people who see all figures reduced to their average and drone out not what really happened in the particular case they are telling of, but what usually happens, and in the long run is likely and possible, who tell what with absurd carelessness is called the truth. The fact that people claim there is such a thing as absolute truth shows how easily pleased they are, and proves them judges of little value. They should instead worship and insist upon an average, an average everything — sight, brain, understanding. It is so unreasonable to listen attentively to a person who swears he is telling the facts of the case. Such a declaration cries him down a charlatan. How can any one person, much less any assembled number of persons, tell what the facts of any given case were? A man’s eyes are influenced by his hardened opinions half inherited from a pig-headed grandfather. His vocabulary is the result of his elegant preferances linked to the bent he received when a child. A man’s eyes are influenced by his hardened opinions half inherited from a pig-headed grandfather. His vocabulary is the result of his elegant preferances linked to the bent he received when a child. If, added to this, he believes in telling the truth, which is nothing more or less than a hectic interest in the exact dimensions of all details within two feet of one’s nose, he is obviously so handicapped that facts and he are as far apart as the two poles. If the world would meekly admit that truth was impossible, the things they decide to believe would be treated with more respect. If they would say with proper humility: “We have eliminated all the parts which we could not understand as well as those which seemed beyond our knowledge and power to deal with. We have decided to ignore a great deal that every one disagrees over, and their each feeling so keenly about their individual view we believe to have been mere eccentricity. There were one or two details discovered late that did not fit with the ones we unearthed first and had become accustomed to, so we covered these latter details up again and begged that no one would dig in that vicinity. The truth which, you will see for yourself, has been difficult to arrive at is, however, the absolute truth, and we insist that it shall be regarded as such.” Now, was there ever greater nonsense than that? Yet, though the practice is fantastic, the theory is excellent; it brings simplicity nearer, and by ignoring cross-roads and détours we feel the beneficial discipline of the strait and narrow road.
      Thus, having gone all the way around a well-travelled circle, the point of departure has a freshly sensible and convincing air as we bob at it again when we thought we were running sternly in the other direction.
 

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