These people pay largely for their whistle, or
trumpet. They will tell you you cannot go to Europe for less than three
or five thousand dollars apiece. They fancy they have made a good
impression on the Europeans; whereas the Europeans never noticed their
vain little attempts at showing off. Nobody cared what they paid or gave
away; and the very courier who flattered, or the servants who fawned on
them for their money, laughed at them behind their backs. There is
another class, more quiet and moderate, who want to be economical, but
do not know how to be. They will tell you a short trip can be taken for
a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars. They go by the guide books, and
those are based always on 'first-class prices and a liberal
expenditure.' There are no guide books for those who would _study_
economy; who would submit to some privations for the sake of seeing
foreign lands and acquiring the desirable knowledge which can only be
gained by personal observation. For such, a guide book is very much
needed. They constitute a large class of persons. They have an ardent
desire to visit the Old World and places of renown--they would go in
crowds, but for fear of the expense, and the assurances of their friends
that it will cost so much. When we assure them that a trip to England
and Scotland, and a tour through France, Germany, Prussia, Holland,
Switzerland, and part of Italy, covering four or five months, may be
made, has been made, for four hundred dollars, including first-class
steamship passages going and returning, they may be encouraged to think
of starting as soon as gold is at par.
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