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Number 54.
Pusrisnep by HARPER & ‘BROTHERS, New York.
Prick 10, Crs.
April 25, 1879.
Copyright, 1878, by Harpe & Brorusna.
EOTHEN;
OR,
-TRACES OF TRAVEL BROUGHT HOME FROM THE EAST.
ALEXANDER: WILLIAM: KINGLAKE,
AUTHOR OF
PREFACE
ADDRESSED BY
THE AUTHOR TO ONE OF HIS FRIENDS.
Wuen you first entertained the idea of trav.
elling in the East, you asked me to send you an
outline of the tour which I had made, in order
that you might. the better be able to choose a
route for yourself. . In answer to this request, I
gave you a large French map, on which the
course of my journeys had been carefully mark-
ed; but I did not conceal from myself that this
was rather a dry mode for a man to adopt, when
he wished to impart the results of his experience
to a dear and intimate friend. . Now, long before
the period of. your planning an Oriental tour, I
had intended to write some account of my East-
em travels. I had, indeed, begun the task, and
had failed ; I bad begun it a second time, and,
failing again, had abandoned my attempt with
a sensation of utter distaste. I was unable to
speak out, and chiefly, think, for this reason—
that I. knew not to. whom I was speaking. It
might be you, or perhaps our Lady of Bitterness,
who would read my story; or it might be some
member of the Royal) Statistical Society; and
how on earth was I to ;rite in a way that would
do for all three ?
Well, your request for a sketch of my tour
suggested to me the idca of complying with your
wish by a revival of my twice-abandoned attempt.
I tried, and the pleasure and confidence which
I felt in speaking to you soon made my. task
so easy,:and even amusing, that after awhile
(though not in time for your tour) I completed
the scrawl from which this book was originally
rinted. ” :
The very feeling, however, which enabled me
to write thus-freely prevented me from robing
my thoughts in that grave and decorous style
BY
which I should. have maintained if I had pro-
fessed to lecture the public. . While I feigned to
myself that you, and you only, were listening, I
could not by possibility, speak very solemnly.
Heaven forbid that I should talk to my own ge-
nial friend as though he were a great and en-
lightened community, or any other respectable
aggregate!. .”
Yet I. well understood that the mere fact of
my professing to speak to you rather than to
the public generally could not perfectly excuse
me for printing a narrative too roughly worded,
and accordingly, in revising the proof-sheets, I
have struck out those phrases which seemed to
be less fit for a published volume. than for inti-
mate conversation. .It is hardly to be expected,
however, that correction of this kind should be
perfectly complete, or that the almost boisterous
tone in which many parts of the book were orig-
inally written should be thoroughly subdued. . I
yenture, therefore, to ask that the familiarity of
language still possibly apparent in the work may
be Jaid to the account of our delightful intimacy
rather than to any presumptuous motive. "I feel,
as you know, much too timidly, too distantly,
and too respectfully, toward the public to be ca-
pable of seeking to put myself on terms of easy
fellowship with strange and casual readers.
It is right to forewarn people (and I have tried
to do this as well as I can, by my studiously un-
promising title-page*) that the book is quite su-
perficial in its character. I have endeavored to
discard from it all valuable matter derived from
the works of others, and it appears to me that
my efforts in this direction have been attended
with great success, I believe I may truly ac-
* “Fothen” is, I hope, almost the only hard word
to be found in the book; it is written in Greek harey
—(Atticd with an aspirated ¢ instead of the n)—and
signifies from the early dawn "—‘ from the East,”
—Donn, Lex., 4th edition,
“THE INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.”
ZL
knowledge that from all details of geographical
iscoyery or antiquarian research, from all dis-
play, of ‘sound learning and religious knowl-
edge,” from all historical and scientific illustra-
tions, from all useful statistics, from all political
disquisitions, and from all good moral reflections,
the volume is thoroughly free.
My excuse for the book is its truth. You and
I know a man fond of hazarding elaborate jokes,
who, whenever a story of his happens not to go
down.as wit, will evade the awkwardness of the
failure by bravely maintaining that all he has
said is pure fact.--I can honestly take this de-
cent, though humble, mode of escape. My nar-
rative is not merely righteously exact in matters
of fact (where fact is in question), but.it is true
in this larger. sense: it conveys, not. those im-
pressions which ought to have been produced
upon any ‘‘well-constituted mind,” but, those
which were really and truly received at the time
of his rambles, by.a headstrong and not very
amiable traveller, whose prejudices-in favor of
other people’s notions were then exceedingly
slight. . As I have felt, so I have written; and
the result is, that there will often be found in
my narrative a jarring discord between the asso-
ciations. properly belonging to interesting sites
and the tone.in which I speak of them. ‘This
seemingly perverse mode of treating the subject
is forced upon me by my plan of adhering to sen-
timental. truth, and really, does not result from
any impertinent wish to tease or trifle with read-
ers. I ought, for instance, to have felt as strong.
ly in Judea as in Galilee, but it was not $0 in
fact; the religious sentiment (born in solitude)
which had heated my brain in. the Sanctuary of
Nazareth was rudely chilled at the foot of Zion
by disenchanting scenes, and-this change’is ac-
cordingly disclosed by the perfectly worldly tone
in which I speak of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. ~
My notion of dwelling precisely upon those