Preface 



writing a book of ordinarily accurate modern travel, which 

 should expose to the reader the process by which such books 

 are generated, and the relative proportion of truth and 

 fiction which they contain. He proposed to show how a 

 seed of suggestion, picked up by the way side, germinated 

 in the note-book, and finally expanded in printed leaves of 

 florid narrative. 



Man is a practical animal, with a few romantic aspirations 

 which affect his thoughts much more than his actions. The 

 romance of every man's life consists, not half so much in 

 what he does or has done, as in what he thinks of doing, or 

 thinks he might have done. We were two gentlemen of 

 letters travelling through Spain, and our original plan was 

 to write two parallel streams of narrative, in which the 

 companion of the present Author was to tell what we did ; 

 and the present Author himself relate, as verisimilarly as 

 possible, what we thought of doing and thought we might 

 have done. If this plan had been carried into effect, it 

 might have proved a curiosity to the loungers of literature 

 behind the scenes ; but what would the public in front of 

 the footlights have thought of Siamese-twin Authors flatly 

 contradicting one another in parallel columns ? 



The fabulist would practically have had no chance at all. 

 But the veracious collahorateur was prevented by circum- 

 stances from appearing. The decorating artist, being thus 

 left alone, at first thought of writing both the plain and 

 adorned himself, and setting them side by side. But the 

 crooked cannot run evenly with the straight. He found 

 that he could not write fiction so entertaining that it would 

 bear constant contradiction, and he compromised the matter 

 by taking the main line of truth for his general narrative, 

 and indulging in occasional diversions, which (set off by the 

 confession of his being an embellishing Author, with occa- 



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