Traveling

Cities, by James Morris. Harcourt, $6.95 There are (would you believe it?) people who actually don’t enjoy travel. I even know one such person —a deeply intelligent, profoundly perceptive man, whose mind simply prefers to deal with abstractions, and who couldn’t care less if the ground he is standing on happens to be the Roman Forum.

Then there are those—a far larger number—who enjoy travel but can’t afford it, or think they can’t. I recognize, of course, the paramount claims of raising and educating one’s children, and the solid satisfactions to be gained from living in a house that is paid for; but I cannot help suspecting that a certain amount of this frugality in the matter of travel masks only an essential timidity. Certainly the great American airlines have performed prodigies in bringing two or three weeks in London and Paris within the reach of just about anyone with a little gumption; and there are many magnificent things to see right here in North America.