Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1879 — Mistakes by Travelers. [ARTICLE]

Mistakes by Travelers.

One of the first lessons to be learned in traveling is to place no confidence in the supposed ignorance of the people you meet. It is the most natural thing in the world to talk freely and carelessly in English when surrounded by foreigners, and one rarely appreciates how general is the knowledge of the principal modern languages all over Europe until he has been humiliated at least once by the discovery that whatever he may say in any language and at any place is quite sure to be understood by some one present. Very amusing instances are related of mistakes in estimating the character of fellow travelers, and the latest which has come to my ears is concerting the poet, Longfellow, who, it is well known, is often claimed to be an Englishman. The story goes that Ernest Longfellow, the son of the poet, met in a railway train in Italy an agreeable and apparently well-informed Englishman, with whom he had gn entertaining discussion on

the merits of the English poets as compared with American. The Englishman calmly counted Longfellow in the list of his countrymen, and was much disturbed at the positive assertion of his young fellow-traveler that the poet was American. Both supported their opinions with the assurance of unquestionable knowledge, and the discussion only terminated when at last the young American produced his card and announced that as he was the son of the poet, he might be supposed to know his nationality. One hears so often scraps of English, evidently not intended for general understanding, that at last the sound of the language in a foreign country gives him almost the same impression as it does to find himself an involuntary eavesdropper. For my own part, when I hear English, I am always tempted to stop my ears. —Paris letter.