stimulate the great virtue of curiosity. The worst detractors of the
American race--and there are some severe ones in New York, London, and
Paris!--will not be able to deny that an unusually active curiosity is a
marked characteristic of the race. Only they twist that very
characteristic into an excuse for still further detraction. They will,
for example, point to the "hordes" (a word which they regard as
indispensable in this connection) of American tourists who insist on
seeing everything of historic or artistic interest that is visible in
Europe. The plausible argument is that the mass of such tourists are
inferior in intellect and taste to the general level of Europeans who
display curiosity about history or art. Which is probably true. But it
ought to be remembered by us Europeans (and in sackcloth!) that the mass
of us with money to spend on pleasure are utterly indifferent to history
and art. The European dilettante goes to the Uffizi and sees a
shopkeeper from Milwaukee gazing ignorantly at a masterpiece, and says:
"How inferior this shopkeeper from Milwaukee is to me! The American is
an inartistic race!" But what about the shopkeeper from Huddersfield or
Amiens? The shopkeeper from Huddersfield or Amiens will be flirting
about on some entirely banal beach--Scarborough or Trouville--and for
all he knows or cares Leonardo da Vinci might have been a cabman; and
yet the loveliest things in the world are, relatively speaking, at his
door! When the European shopkeeper gets as far as Lucerne in August, he
thinks that a journey of twenty-four hours entitles him to rank a little
lower than Columbus. It was an enormous feat for him to reach Lucerne,
and he must have credit for it, though his interest in art is in no wise
thereby demonstrated. One has to admit that he now goes to Lucerne in
hordes. Praise be to him! But I imagine that the American horde
"hustling for culture" in no matter what historic center will compare
pretty favorably with the European horde in such spots as Lucerne.