The Spirit of America

There is a proverb which affirms that in order to know a man you have only to travelwith him for a week. Almost all of us have had experiences, sometimes happy andsometimes the reverse, which seem to confirm this saying. A journey in common is a sort of involuntary confessional. There is a certainexcitement, a confusion and quickening of perceptions and sensations, in the adventures, the sudden changes, the new and striking scenes of travel. The bonds of habit are loosened. Impulses of pleasure and of displeasure, suddenly felt, make themselves surprisinglyvisible. Wishes and appetites and prejudices which are usually dressed in a costume ofwords so conventional as to amount to a disguise now appear unmasked, and often in veryscanty costume, as if they had been suddenly called from their beds by an alarm of fire on asteamboat, or, to use a more agreeable figure, by the announcement in a hotel on the Righiof approaching sunrise. There is another thing which plays, perhaps, a part in this power of travel to make swiftdisclosures. I mean the vague sense of release from duties and restraints which comes toone who is away from home. Much of the outward form of our daily conduct is regulated bythe structure and operation of the social machinery in which we quite inevitably find ourplace. But when all this is left behind, when a man no longer feels the pressure of theneighbouring wheels, the constraint of the driving-belt which makes them all movetogether, nor the restraint of the common task to which the collective force of all is applied, he is "outside of the machine."The ordinary sight-seeing, uncommercial traveller-the tourist, the globe-trotter-isnot usually a person who thinks much of his own responsibilities, however conscious hemay be of his own importance. His favourite proverb is, "When you are in Rome, do as theRomans do." But in the application of the proverb, he does not always inquire whether theparticular thing which he is invited to do is done by the particular kind of Roman that hewould like to be, if he lived in Rome, or by some other kind of Roman quite different, evencontrary. He is liberated. He is unaccountable. He is a butterfly visiting a strange garden. Hehas only to enjoy himself according to his caprice and to accept the invitations of theflowers which please him most. This feeling of irresponsibility in travel corresponds somewhat to the effect of wine. The tongue is loosened. Unexpected qualities and inclinations are unconsciously confessed. A new man, hitherto unknown, appears upon the scene. And this new man often seemsmore natural, more spontaneous, more vivid, than our old acquaintanc