Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/14

viii truth, and really does not result from any impertinent wish to teaze or trifle with readers. I ought, for instance, to have felt as strongly in Judea, as in Galilee, but it was not so 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 accordingly disclosed by the perfectly worldly tone in which I speak of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

My notion of dwelling precisely upon those matters which happened to interest me, and upon none other, would of course be intolerable in a regular book of travels. If I had been passing through countries not previously explored, it would have been sadly perverse to withhold careful description of admirable objects, merely because my own feelings of interest in them may have happened to flag; but where the countries which one visits have been thoroughly and ably described, and even artistically illustrated by others, one is fully at liberty to say as little (though not quite so much) as one chooses. Now a traveller is a creature not always looking at sights—he remembers (how often!) the happy land of his birth—he has, too, his moments of humble enthusiasm about fire and food—about shade and drink; and if he gives to these feelings anything like the prominence which really belonged to them at the time of his travelling, he will not seem a very good teacher: once having determined to write the sheer truth concerning the things which chiefly have interested him, he must and he will, sing a sadly long strain about Self; he will talk for whole pages together about his bivouac fire, and ruin the Ruins of Baalbec with eight often cold lines.