PREFATORY. 



The only part of my book I wish to preface is the 

 last part — the foreign sketches, and it is not much 

 matter about these, since, if they do not contain their 

 own proof I shall not attempt to supply it here. 



I have been told that De Lolme, who wrote a nota- 

 ble book on the English Constitution, said that after he 

 had been in England a few weeks, he fully made up his 

 mind to write a book on that country ; after he had lived 

 there a year, he still thought of w r riting a book, but was 

 not so certain about it, but that after a residence of ten 

 years he abandoned his first design altogether. Instead 

 of furnishing an argument against writing out one's first 

 impressions of a country, I think the experience of the 

 Frenchman shows the importance of doing it at once. 

 The sensations of the first day are what we want — the 



first flush of the traveller's thought and feeling, before 



• . .... * 



his perception and sensibilities become cloyed or 



blunted, or before he in any way becomes a part of that 



which he would observe and describe. Then the Amer- 



