We don’t normally collect souvenirs for (0) ANY great significance they might have in themselves. Nor 1 we collect them for practical reasons, 2 than to brighten up some empty shelf. When 3 comes to it, as the word suggests, the real reason we buy souvenirs is for the memories we associate with them. Some tourists buy cheap mass-produced goods and others will only buy handmade folk art. But 4 both sets of travelers have 5 common is that for them the object acquires sentimental value, even on those occasions they feel they 6 kick themselves for having paid too much. How often do we all wish we hadn’t parted with our precious money so easily!
However, for some people collecting can become a serious passion. A few years ago, the writer Paul Bassati was in a market in California when he saw a nineteenth-century glass painting. ‘All I did was stop and admire it’, he says. ‘I don’t know 7 it should be, but when I tried to move away, I realized that I had to buy it.’ Now, wherever he travels, he goes looking for glass paintings, almost as 8 he were hunting for treasure.