“Why, in the first place, we don’t all live exactly in the way I have described. You can have luxuries and comforts too, beside exquisite pleasures, if you please to pay for them. But then the expense is enormous.” And so Miss Falconer continued to let Miss Collingwood know that what she had been saying only applied to other Americans, not to themselves at all. “And, moreover,” she continued, “there is much of excitement and novelty abroad, that carries one through a great deal. And perhaps most of us think it was pleasanter in looking back than it was in the reality. I dare say Mrs. Fielding actually believes she enjoyed herself excessively. But I should say the pleasantest part of her trip was the getting home,” she added, smiling.
“Then you do not think she need be spoilt for America, by all she has seen abroad?” pursued Miss Collingwood.
“She spoilt! No, indeed!” replied Miss Falconer. “I don’t deny that there is a great deal to be enjoyed there, that can’t be enjoyed at home. But I think Mrs. Fielding may enjoy a great deal at home, she certainly never enjoyed abroad.” And so saying, Miss Falconer rose and bid Miss Collingwood good morning.
“It’s very strange,” observed Miss Collingwood, afterward, to her sister, “that so few Americans give the same story of themselves and each other abroad. They all tell you that they only were in society, and that others were not. It is really amusing to hear them. I wonder, now, who tells the truth, the Fieldings or the Falconers?”
“Both, and—neither,” replied her sister, laughing.
“How so?”
“They tell truth of each other, but not of themselves. I mean,” continued the younger Miss Collingwood.
“That may be it!” exclaimed Miss Collingwood. “That never occurred to me before. And then, how they all talk of being ‘spoilt for this country,’ by their travels.”
“So they are,” rejoined the younger sister—“truly spoilt. How few of them you find return really improved! They are spoilt, though not from excess of fastidious refinement, but from absurd airs. Of all things, I dread hearing, ‘When I was abroad.’ I am always sure some absurd impertinence is coming. Then the fine acquaintances they all have; when, depend upon it, they know nobody who is anybody. There’s Mrs. Ashland, who wont let you admire even a beauty she don’t happen to fancy; but she’ll tell you, ‘It is such an American taste;’ or, ‘In this country you don’t understand this, that and the other.’ Ah! that ‘In this country,’ is the worst of all. Just as if ‘this country’ was not their country! And then, if they have only been in Paris a fortnight, they are omnipotent on fashions for the rest of their days.”
“But, surely,” resumed the elder sister, “there must be a great deal that is improving and delightful in foreign travel.”