The Innocents Abroad

“‘Call him Ferguson,’ said Dan.” 

This line signals the beginning of a long-running joke. The travelers are dismayed that their French guide is named “Billfinger” and propose to give him a fancier French name instead. They eventually settle on calling him “Ferguson” and proceed to call all their guides by that name, rather than bother learning their foreign names. Later, the travelers rename various Middle Eastern locales with American place names like “Jacksonville.” These episodes illustrate the chauvinism of the “ugly American,” one of Twain’s satirical targets in the book. 

“Alas! Those good old times are gone when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and soothe his troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks and mortar and building an addition to a church.” 

Twain’s attacks on religious hypocrisy constitute a notable theme in the book. Twain implies that in the era when the Catholic Church was dominant, the external forms of religion were used to negate inner corruption. 

“The great names of Père la Chaise impress one, too, but differently. There the suggestion brought constantly to his mind is that this place is sacred to a nobler royalty—the royalty of heart and brain.” 

Twain is impressed by the fact that the Parisian cemetery is devoted to accomplished commoners rather than the nobility. These comments illustrate Twain’s democratic instincts and esteem of natural talent and industry above birth and rank. These beliefs were part of the background of the American nation from its founding and characterize Twain’s reactions as an American in the Old World, where the social structure is more often aristocratic or monarchical. 

“I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud to be able to make—and glad, as well, that my comrades cordially endorse it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in France were born and reared in America.” 

This is a typically wry and ironic remark illustrated in Chapter 14 when Twain comments out loud about the beauty of a particular woman in a crowd in Paris, and the woman answers in perfect English. The women of France do not impress Twain for any particular beauty, whereas the women of Italy, Russia, and Armenia fare better. 

“Howsoever you look at the great cathedral, it is noble, it is beautiful! [...] Surely it must be the princeliest creation that ever brain of man conceived

Despite his skepticism about old master art and Catholicism, Twain has tremendous esteem for the Gothic Cathedral of Milan. Notably, he grasps the essence of its Gothic style, combining “solid weight” with the feeling of being “delicate” and “airy.”

“But who says a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laura?” 

In Milan, Twain visits the Ambrosian Library and views a text written by the medieval Italian poet Petrarch. Twain goes on humorously to protest the celebrated love affair between Petrarch and the married woman Laura as a “waste of the raw material” (130). Twain declares that someone ought to speak up for “Mr. Laura” (Laura’s wronged husband). Twain delights throughout the book in destroying sacred cows and mocking sentimentality. A similar passage occurs in Chapter 15 in his lampooning of the love story of Abelard and Heloise. The passage also demonstrates Twain’s keen sense of justice expressed comically. 

“We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!” 

Twain admires the Italian and European way of life for its comfort and ease, so different from the relentless and hurried life in America. Europeans take time to enjoy life instead of constantly focusing on business (and taking their business worries to bed with them). Twain notices that after a little while in Europe, his companions are beginning to become more peaceful and “comprehend what life is for” (134). The passage is significant because it expresses something positive that Twain discovers in Europe, and an observation that still often made today. 

“Maybe the originals were handsome when they were new, but they are not now.” 

This quote illustrates Twain’s ambivalent feelings about classical art and his desire to shatter illusions about beauty. It comes in the context of viewing Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco The Last Supper, which Twain points out has deteriorated to the point where the beauty it may have originally possessed is no longer evident. On the other hand, Twain singles out for praise things he considers genuinely beautiful throughout the book. 

“I trust I am a humble and a consistent Christian. I try to do what is right. I know it is my duty to ‘pray for them that despitefully use me’; and therefore, hard as it is, I shall still try to pray for these fumigating, macaroni-stuffing organ-grinders.” 

This passage is a good example of the comically blustering style of insults that Twain frequently directs toward various societies and cultures in the book. Such passages could be interpreted as tongue-in-cheek and an expression of the anger of the moment. Here, Twain is venting his anger at the “fumigation” ritual the Italian officials have forced him and his companions to undergo near Lake Como. 

“The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.” 

This key quote expresses one of the book’s central messages. Twain’s friends make fools of themselves numerous times throughout the book, including their gauche handling of the language barrier in France. Twain concludes the passage on a note of self-deprecation, including himself in the brotherhood of “asses.”

“Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! Say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michelangelo!”

This quote expresses Twain’s love-hate relationship with old master art and his exasperation at the ubiquity of certain artists like Michelangelo. Showing an independent strain, Twain states a preference for later, post-Renaissance artists that the tour guides describe as being of lesser quality. 

“The popes have long been the patrons and preservers of art, just as our new, practical republic is the encourager and upholder of mechanics.” 

Twain is contrasting Italy’s focus on art with America’s more practical and business-like character. He is implying that our scientific and technical discoveries are the equivalent of the artistic creations fostered in Italy. 

“I never disliked a Chinaman as I do these degraded Turks and Arabs, and when Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good breeding or good judgment to interfere.” 

This is a prime example of the invective Twain uses against the Arabs and Muslims—and in particular, the Ottoman Empire, whose government he considers cruel and tyrannical. Twain notes the intolerance toward Christians he observes in Damascus, where the inhabitants refuse to touch or eat anything touched by Twain and his friends. Twain hopes the power of the Ottoman Empire will be destroyed—as indeed it was after World War I. 

“If all the poetry and nonsense that have been discharged upon the fountains and the bland scenery of this region were collected in a book, it would make a most valuable volume to burn.” 

One of Twain’s targets in the book is the romantic illusions people hold about the Old World. He finds that writers describe the landscape of the Holy Land with a beauty it does not possess. To amplify his point, Twain contrasts small Middle Eastern rivulets that are honored with the name “fountains” with such American landmarks as the Hudson River, Great Lakes, and Mississippi.  

“These authors write pictures and frame rhapsodies, and lesser men follow and see with the author’s eyes instead of their own, and speak with his tongue.” 

This quote amplifies the preceding one. Twain notices that travelers fall under the spell of popular guidebooks and mimic their language. His fellow passengers describe the places they visit with language culled from the guidebooks they have been reading. Sometimes, the phrases used are poeticisms that are at variance with reality, as when Twain hears his friends over-praising the beauty of the women of Nazareth. 

“The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in a land of strangers, far away from home and friends and all who cared for me, thus to discover the grave of a blood relation. True, a distant one, but still a relation.” 

Twain burlesques spurious holy sites, religious credulity, and the high-flown language of travel guides. The Tomb of Adam is mostly symbolic, but Twain writes of it mock-serious style as the burial place of a relative. 

“Nazareth is wonderfully interesting because the town has an air about it of being precisely as Jesus left it, and one finds himself saying all the time, ‘The boy Jesus has stood in this doorway—has played in that street—has touched these stones with his hands—has rambled over these chalky hills.’” 

In contrast with the previous quote, Twain here shows genuine reverence for the Incarnation of Christ and the earthly reality of his existence as revealed by the places he walked in and visited. 

“Priests of any of the chapels and denominations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre can visit this sacred grotto to weep and pray and worship the gentle Redeemer. Two different congregations are not allowed to enter at the same time, however, because they always fight.” 

Twain slyly satirizes religious hypocrisy and intolerance. Although priests of both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches minister at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, they largely keep to their own separate channels and do not cooperate—despite the fact that they worship the same Savior, the “Prince of Peace.”

“I have been educated to enmity toward everything that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I find it much easier to discover Catholic faults than Catholic merits. But there is one thing I feel no disposition to overlook and no disposition to forget: and that is the honest gratitude I and all pilgrims owe to the convent Fathers in Palestine.” 

This statement qualifies Twain’s previous skeptical observations about the Catholic Church. He acknowledges the anti-Catholic environment he was raised in and how it has affected his thinking. Twain shows a capacity to step outside of this background and recognize the good points about Catholics that he has experienced in his own life—notably, the kindly and disinterested hospitality he enjoyed from Catholic monks while traveling in Palestine. Later, Twain will go further and claim that “all men ought to thank the Catholics” (407) for preserving the holy sites of Palestine.  

“Palestine is no more of this workaday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition—it is dreamland.” 

Twain finds the reality of the Holy Land to be at variance with the idealistic picture of it he formed in his youth: The landscape is “unlovely,” the towns are small and poor, and the people are often unappealing. Twain concludes that the Holy Land survives as an idea based on its historical greatness, rather than as a living physical reality. 

“Rags, wretchedness, poverty, and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Muslim rule more surely than the crescent flag itself, abound.” 

This quote conveys once again Twain’s generally dim view of the Islamic world, which he associates with low standards of living, intolerance, and corruption. It occurs during his visit to Jerusalem, the home of many races and religions but bearing the strong imprint of its Muslim element. 

“Our pilgrims compress too much into one day. One can gorge sights to repletion as well as sweetmeats.” 

This quote connects with a point Twain makes toward the end of the book about tourism. He believes that tourism is too hyperactive and tourist sites too crowded together. This excessive concentration dilutes the sites’ impact, provoking fatigue. Twain complains that he and his companions have been looking at landmarks more out of a sense of duty than pleasure. He prefers a style of travel in which one would look at important sites “in comfort” and “deliberately,” reflecting on them afterward. 

“The people stared at us everywhere, and we stared at them. We generally made them feel rather small, too, before we got done with them, because we bore down on them with America’s greatness until we crushed them.” 

A comically boastful passage from Twain’s letter to the newspaper about the trip, quoted in the last chapter of the book. Twain is dramatizing the confrontation between the Americans and the inhabitants of the Old World, as well as satirizing American chauvinism.