Gents Mag 1868 part 1 p.639

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	introduction
	list, 3rd qtr 19th century
	Gentleman's Magazine 1868 part 1 p.639
The English Traveller
	The English Traveller THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER.a ONE of the most marked features in these times of progress is the persistence with which English people take their annual holiday. We are not now speaking of the professed traveller, who, discarding civilisation and beaten tracks, flings himself into the wilds of unknown prairies and primaeval forests, as if the one object of his life was to carve out a way hitherto unknown to the Geographical Society, but rather of the great mass of easy-going middle-class folk, who, as the summer draws near, experience a feeling of restlessness, only to be mitigated by Alpine climbs and canoe voyages, or the less exciting but safer visits to Scotland or the Lakes. There is no country in which this peculiar longing is so periodic, or so habitually satisfied, as it is in England. Perhaps, of all others, Russia sends the most polished, and America the greatest number of travellers; but these, albeit met with in most places, are the very salt of their class, bent either on pleasure or with some political object. In France, too, the Baths of Bigorre and Biarritz attract great numbers; but these are nearly all fashionables who go to avoid the heat of Paris, and because it is en regle. None of these countries have anything to compare with that great Hegira which the English summer and autumn call forth; nor does there seem to be that love of travel, for travel's sake, which is so innate in the Anglo-Saxon. One reason is, that in England we work hard for our livelihood and our amusement. Whether we are statesmen, merchants, or professional men, we stick to our last for nine months in the year at the least, before we consider that we have earned the right to our holiday; and when we do take it, we take it with the same desperate earnestness with which we have worked for it. With most Englishmen of the present day, a holiday is relaxation, but not repose - relaxation simply of the head and mind, which have been for many months at high pressure and which require the remedy of stimulant - the stimulant of change and active exertion. What the Sunday walk is to the bleached, asphixiated weaver, the annual holiday is to the over-worked middle-class man, who gains in a short time more benefit from his outing than he would from a year's dosing with quinine and iron. To the mind the restorative action is still greater, and were it not for this opportunity of discarding for a time all worry and anxiety, by becoming as it were dead to business, many a
	a "Handbook for Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset." John Murray. 1856. "Handbook for Devon and Cornwall." John Murray. 1859. "Handbook for Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire." John Murray. 1860. "Handbook for South Wales." John Murray. 1860. "Handbook for North Wales." John Murray. 1861. "Handbook for Durham and Northumberland." John Murray. 1864. "Handbook for Surrey, Hants, and Isle of Wight." John Murray. 1865. "Handbook for Glucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire." John Murray. 1867. "Handbook for Yorkshire." John Murray. 1867. "Handbook for the Lakes." John Murray. 1867. "Handbook for Ireland." John Murray. 1866. "Handbook for Scotland." John Murray. 1867.
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