In this article from the Idler (1758–1760),
Samuel Johnson surveys contemporary travel
narratives. Johnson acknowledges the popularity
of the form, yet at the same time, unflinchingly
points out several faults shared by many
travel writers. Johnson contends that readers
approach travel narratives with the expectation
of receiving both pleasure and instruction,
and are frequently disappointed in this aim
by the prosaic, quantitative accounts written
by commercial travelers, or "the sons
of enterprize," as he calls them.
Accordingly, in this essay,
Johnson develops the idea of the "useful
traveller," or the observant person
who travels and writes "for the entertainment
of others." The useful traveler is one
who meets the reader's curiosity and
desire for knowledge with reflective, informative
writing, not the barren labor of mere description
of successive landscapes. A patriot who collects
objects and knowledge for his home country,
the useful traveler's writing will give
his fellow citizens insightful comparisons
of the domestic and the foreign. Above all,
Johnson recommends that those authors who
wish to be useful travelers pay strict attention
to what he views as the most important function
of travel and travel writing: the opportunity
to observe — and to learn from — the
infinite variety of human life.
Saturday, February 23, 1760.
It may, I think, be justly observed, that
few books disappoint their readers more than
the Narrations of Travellers. One part of
mankind is naturally curious to learn the
sentiments, manners, and condition of the
rest; and every mind that has leisure or
power to extend its views, must be desirous
of knowing in what proportion Providence
has distributed the blessings of Nature or
the advantages of Art, among the several
nations of the earth.
This general desire easily procures readers
to every book from which it can expect gratification.
The adventurer upon unknown coasts, and the
describer of distant regions, is always welcomed
as a man who has labored for the pleasure
of others, and who is able to enlarge our
knowledge and rectify our opinions; but when
the volume is opened, nothing is found but
such general accounts as leave no distinct
idea behind them, or such minute enumerations
as few can read with either profit or delight.
Every writer of travels should consider,
that, like all other Authors, he undertakes
either to instruct or please, or to mingle
pleasure with instruction. He that instructs
must offer to the mind something to be imitated
or something to be avoided; he that pleases
must offer new images to his reader, and
enable him to from a tacit comparison of
his own state with that of others.
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 endeavour to disturb others. Why
should he record 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?
Of those who crowd the world with their
itineraries, some have no other purpose than
to describe the face of the country; those
who sit idle at home, and are curious to
know what is done or suffered in distant
countries, may be informed by one of these
wanderers, that on a certain day he set out
early with the caravan, and in the first
hour's march saw, towards the south,
a hill covered with trees, then passed over
a stream, which ran northward with a swift
course, but which is probably dry in the
summer months; that an hour after he saw
something to the right which looked at a
distance like a castle with towers, but which
he discovered afterwards to be a craggy rock;
that he then entered a valley, in which he
saw several trees tall and flourishing, watered
by a rivulet not marked in the maps, of which
he was not able to learn the name; that the
road afterward grew stony, and the country
uneven, where he observed among the hills
many hollows worn by torrents, and was told
that the road was passable only part of the
year: that going on they found the remains
of a building, once perhaps a fortress to
secure the pass, or to restrain the robbers,
of which the present inhabitants can give
no other account than that it is haunted
by Fairies; that they went to dine at the
foot of a rock, and travelled the rest of
the day along the banks of a river, from
which the road turned aside towards evening,
and brought them within sight of a village,
which was once a considerable town, but which
afforded them neither good victuals nor commodious
lodging.
Thus he conducts his reader thro' wet
and dry, over rough and smooth, without incidents,
without reflection; and, if he obtains his
company for another day, will dismiss him
again at night equally fatigued with a like
succession of rocks and streams, mountains
and ruins.
This is the common style of those sons of
enterprize, who visit savage countries, and
range through solitude and desolation; who
pass a desart, and tell that it is sandy;
who cross a valley, and find that it is green.
There are others of more delicate sensibility,
that visit only the Realms of Elegance and
Softness; that wander through Italian Palaces,
and amuse the gentle reader with catalogues
of Pictures; that hear Masses in magnificent
Churches, and recount the number of the Pillars
or Variegations of the Pavement. And there
are yet others who, in disdain of trifles,
copy Inscriptions elegant and rude, ancient
and modern; and transcribe into their book
the walls of every edifice, sacred or civil.
He that reads these books must consider his
labour as its own reward; for he will find
nothing on which Attention can fix, or which
Memory can retain.
He that would travel for the entertainment
of others, should remember that the great
object of remark is human life. Every Nation
has something peculiar in its Manufactures,
its Works of Genius, its Medicines, its Agriculture,
its Customs, and its Policy. He only is a
useful Traveller who brings home something
by which his country may be benefited; who
procures some supply of Want or some Mitigation
of Evil, which may enable his readers to
compare their condition with that of others,
to improve it whenever it is worse, and whenever
it is better to enjoy it.