208. Italy; Travel "A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see." Boswell: Life Link 269. Class; Prestige; Travel [Johnson] expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I catched it for the moment, and said I really believed I should go and see the wall of China had I not children, of whom it was my duty to take care. "Sir, (said he,) by doing so, you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China. I am serious, Sir." Boswell: Life Link 344. Ruins; Travel "To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough." Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Link 380. Experience; Tourism; Travel "All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it." Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 1,801. Ireland; Travel He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour. JOHNSON. "It is the last place where I should wish to travel." BOSWELL. "Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir; Dublin is only a worse capital." BOSWELL. "Is not the Giant's-Causeway worth seeing?" JOHNSON. "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see." Boswell: Life of Johnson Link 1,852. Travel; Travel Writing "The greater part of travellers tell nothing, because their method of travelling supplies them with nothing to be told. He that enters a town at night and surveys it in the morning, and then hastens away to another place, and guesses at the manners of the inhabitants by the entertainment which his inn afforded him, may please himself for a time with a hasty change of scenes, and a confused remembrance of palaces and churches; he may gratify his eye with a variety of landscapes, and regale his palate with a succession of vintages; but let him be contented to please himself without endeavouring to disturb others. Why should he record his excursions by which nothing could be learned, or wish to make a show of knowledge, which, without some power of intuition unknown to other mortals, he never could attain?" Johnson: Idler #97 (February 23, 1760) Link 1,854. Reading; Travel One day, when we were dining at General Ogelthorpee's, where we had many a valuable day, I ventured to interrogate him. 'But, sir, is it not somewhat singular that you should happen to have Cocker's Arithmetick about you on your journey? What made you buy such a book at Inverness?'—He gave me a very sufficient answer. 'Why, sir, if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey, let it be a book of science. When you have read through a book of entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you; but a book of science is inexhaustible.' Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Link