Excerpt from Loiterings in Europe: Or Sketches of Travel in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, and Ireland

The reasons for publishing, on the present occasion, are so much like those of other people who have written similar books, that, to prevent repetition, the author takes the liberty of referring for them to some other preface. One or two features in the work, however, seem to require a few words of explanation. It has been rather the result of accident than otherwise.

When about to embark for Europe, on a professional tour, some two years since, he was unexpectedly solicited by friends, to whose kindness he had been previously indebted, to write a few traveling letters for a leading journal, in which they were interested. He consented to serve anonymously, and thus appeared the earlier part of this volume.

Those most interested happened to be persons of strong religious feelings, and ho was thus naturally led occasionally to express his more serious thoughts. Shielded by a convenient mask, on the other hand, each letter was a sort of confidential circular to certain friends in the secret. He indulged at will in detailing trifling personal adventures, as a relief to graver matters, and felt little restraint upon innocent playfulness. These buoyant feelings were as balm to spirits before depressed by care and bereavement, and he rather courted them.

Having thus begun, like some people in talking, he found it hard to stop.

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