have done to save the monument?" I reply, "There are
hundreds of things that Greeks or Mediaevals might have done; and I have
no notion what they would have chosen; but I say that by an instinct in
their whole society they would have done something that was decent and
serious and suitable to the place. Perhaps some family of knights or
warriors would have the hereditary duty of guarding such a place. If so
their armour would be appropriate; their tents would be appropriate;
not deliberately—they would grow like that. Perhaps some religious
order such as normally employ nocturnal watches and the relieving of
guard would protect such a place. Perhaps it would be protected by all
sorts of rituals, consecrations, or curses, which would seem to you
mere raving superstition and silliness. But they do not seem to me one
twentieth part so silly, from a purely rationalist point of view, as
calmly making a spot hideous in order to keep it beautiful."

The thing that is really vulgar, the thing that is really vile, is to
live in a good place Without living by its life. Any one who settles
down in a place without becoming part of it is (barring peculiar
personal cases, of course) a tripper or wandering cad. For instance,
the Jew is a genuine peculiar case. The Wandering Jew is not a wandering
cad. He is a highly civilised man in a highly difficult position; the
world being divided, and his own nation being divided, about whether he
can do anything else except wander.

The best example of the cultured, but common, tripper is the educated
Englishman on the Continent. We can no longer explain the quarrel by
calling Englishmen rude and foreigners polite. Hundreds of Englishmen
are extremely polite, and thousands of foreigners are extremely rude.
The truth of the matter is that foreigners do not resent the rude
Englishman. What they do resent, what they do most justly resent, is
the polite Englishman. He visits Italy for Botticellis or Flanders
for Rembrandts, and he treats the great nations that made these things
courteously—as he would treat the custodians of any museum. It
does not seem to strike him that the Italian is not the custodian of the
pictures, but the creator of them. He can afford to look down on such
nations—when he can paint such pictures.

That is, in matters of art and travel, the psychology of the cad.
If, living in Italy, you admire Italian art while distrusting Italian
character, you are a touri