If I lived somewhere in the region of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia and wished quickly to learn whether the country were really standardized or not, I should get into my automobile--or into some one else's--and take an autumn tour through Baltimore, past Doughoregan Manor, some miles to the west of Baltimore, on to Frederick, Maryland (where they dispute, quite justly, I believe, the truth of the Barbara Frietchie legend), and thence "over the mountain wall" and down into the northeastern corner of the most irregularly shaped State in the Union, West Virginia. I should strike for Harper's Ferry, and from there run to Charles Town, a few miles distant (where John Brown was tried and executed for the Harper's Ferry raid), and after circulating about that corner of the State, I should go down into Virginia by the good highway which leads from Charles Town to Berryville--"Bur'v'l," they pronounce it--and to "Winchester twenty miles away" (where they say that Sheridan's Ride was nothing to make such a lot of talk about!), and then back, by way of Berryville, and over the Blue Ridge Mountains into the great fox-hunting counties of Virginia: Clark, Loudon, and Fauquier. Here I should see a hunt meet or a race meet. There are many other places to which I might go after that, but as I meant only to suggest an easy little tour, I shall stop at this point, contenting myself with saying that not far to the south is Charlottesville, where Jefferson built that most beautiful of all universities, the University of Virginia, and his wonderful house Monticello; that Staunton (pronounced as without the "u"), where Woodrow Wilson was born, lies west of Charlottesville, while Fredericksburg, where Washington's mother lived, lies to the northeast. Some such trip as this I should take instead of a conventional New England tour. And before starting I should buy a copy of Louise Closser Hale's delightful book, "Into the Old Dominion." One beauty of the trip that I suggest is that it isn't all the same. In one place you get a fair country hotel, in another an inn, and somewhere along the way you may have to spend a night in a private house. Also, though the roads through Maryland, and the part of West Virginia I speak of, are generally good, my experience of Virginia roads, especially through the mountains, leads me to conclude that in respect to highways Virginia remains a backward State. But who wants to ride always over oiled roads, always to hotels with marble lobbies, or big white porches full of hungry-eyed young women, and old ladies, knitting? Only the standardized tourist. And I am not addressing him.