What I Saw in America

By: Chesterton, G. K.

I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the mind. At least aman must make a double effort of moral humility and imaginative energy to prevent it fromnarrowing his mind. Indeed there is something touching and even tragic about the thoughtof the thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, embracingChinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead or Surbiton, but for hisblind and suicidal impulse to go and see what they looked like. This is not meant fornonsense; still less is it meant for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. Thehuman bond that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather an innerreality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be inside any men. But to travelis to leave the inside and draw dangerously near the outside. So long as he thought of menin the abstract, like naked toiling figures in some classic frieze, merely as those who labourand love their children and die, he was thinking the fundamental truth about them. Bygoing to look at their unfamiliar manners and customs he is inviting them to disguisethemselves in fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern internationalists talk as if menof different nationalities had only to meet and mix and understand each other. In realitythat is the moment of supreme danger-the moment when they meet. We might shiver, asat the old euphemism by which a meeting meant a duel.Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most travellers are so muchamused that they refuse to be instructed. I do not blame them for being amused; it isperfectly natural to be amused at a Dutchman for being Dutch or a Chinaman for beingChinese. Where they are wrong is that they take their own amusement seriously. They baseon it their serious ideas of international instruction. It was said that the Englishman takeshis pleasures sadly; and the pleasure of despising foreigners is one which he takes mostsadly of all. He comes to scoff and does not remain to pray, but rather to excommunicate.Hence in international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too much sneering.But I believe that there is a better way which largely consists of laughter; a form offriendship between nations which is actually founded on differences. To hint at some suchbetter way is the only excuse of this book.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08RH34VND
• ISBN13: 9798580402826
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"