Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Preface
PREFACE.
A Traveller in climes so generally visited, as those which have given subjects to the present volume, will find it difficult to say what has not been said before. By every celebrated stream, or mountain, amid the ivy of every mouldering ruin, at the gate of every castle, palace, and cathedral, he doubtless met other travellers, with their note-books; and what he saw and described, they also may see and describe, perchance with a more glowing pencil.
Yet if he must resign the prospect of finding untrodden paths, he may still fix upon some spots, where it will be profitable both to muse and to record impressions; and if he forfeits the right of discovery, may retain the power of promoting good and pleasurable feelings. With such hopes the following pages have been drawn forth, and modified from the notes of a Journal regularly kept, during a tour which occupied the greater part of a year.
Their writer has not sought to dwell upon the dark shades of the countries that it was her privilege to visit. It might have been easy to fix the eye upon the blemishes that appertain to each, as it is to discern foibles in the most exalted character. Yet it is but a losing office to quit our own quiet fireside, and throw ourselves upon the stormy billows, for the sake of finding fault. This we might do with less fatigue and peril at home. She might, indeed, have picked up a nettle here and there, but the flowers were sweeter. She might have gathered thorns and brambles to sting others or herself with, but what she has missed, multitudes who go the same road can find, and cull them if they choose. So the lovers of poignancy may be gratified from many sources, should they be compelled to pronounce this volume vapid and void of discrimination.
"When I have called the bad, bad," says Goethe, "how much is gained by that? He, who would work aright, had better busy himself to show forth and to do that which is good." And methinks he, who leaves his native land to take note of foreign realms, and is brought again in safety to his own home and people, owes not only a great debt of gratitude to his Preserver, but a new service of charity to those whom He has made. It would seem that an obligation was laid on him not to use the knowledge thus acquired, to embarrass and embroil God's creatures, but to brighten the bands of the nations with a wreath of love.
And now, dear reader, if any such there be, who shall have patiently finished these my pages, thou art for this very kindness, as a brother or sister unto me. And as we have thus communed together of pleasant things, without, perchance, having seen each other's faces in the flesh, may we be so blessed as to meet and commune in that country where no stranger sorroweth, where no wanderer goeth forth from his home with tears, and "where there is no more sea."
L. H. S.
Thursday, Dec. 1, 1842.