Gleanings from Piccadilly to Pera

Preface

. Apologies for one's notions or one's nonsense, are simply absurd ; but I would fain say a few words, not in extenuation of the errors and ignorances which will be found plentifully sprinkled in the following pages, but for the querulous, cynical tone which unamiably pervades the whole! in which I view things through the cold, clouded atmosphere of — an unusually severe winter; piqued by the peculiarly unEnglish comforts and contrivances of the Continent. It will, however, be a variety, from its strong contrast to the invariable " coideur de rose" sunny pictures we have of France, Italy, and the East. Now that I have returned home, I laugh quite as heartily as younger men at all the small miseries and mishaps we must get through, without wincing, in our wanderings about the world. They are exactly the ups and downs, andjoltings out of our drawing-room and club easy chairs, we set out to — enjoy ! A VI

PREFACE.

. But that which I am more seriously concerned at is, what may be thought of the freedom of my strictures on men and things ! The truth is, they were written under the more modest veil of the anonymous, and were meant to pass as impalpably harmless as the editorial toe of a daily newspaper. Mine was a careless — a too careless Diary, in which I thought aloud, — not calculating on the assuming and egotistic look it puts on now that I have been reluc tantly obliged to subscribe a name to it — obscure, untitled, and unknown — and find myself at the foot of that crowded, critical, ticklish tribunal, of a fine, listless, indifferent, and unsympathetically fastidious West-end world ! But let me beware of prematurely making a fuss, like the duck in a puddle. I need not flatter myself with the idea of being particularly noticed in any way ; but pass on in the stream of the last things out — apropos of the Turks and the Mediterranean. THE AUTHOR. London, September 22nd, 1854. Page 1 37 88 CONTENTS.