Excerpt from Woods and Dales of Derbyshire

Once in May, and again in August, in the year 1892, it fell to my lot to wander through some of the woods, valleys and towns of Derbyshire. The pleasure I felt and the knowledge I gained on these occasions I have sought to suggest in the following pages, and, as with former books written by me upon similar subjects, this book is given to my reader, not so much as a history, or a survey, or even as a guide, but chiefly to help him pleasantly to while away a few minutes now and again, in exciting memory to recall, or imagination to picture, the people, places, manners and traditions of an old-world region. I am well aware of difficulties and defects in my work. I have wandered, as some of the brooks in Derbyshire wander, here, there and almost everywhere. Perhaps not a few will think me as dry, desultory and wearisome as are the highlands of that same county, if so, I hope such readers will look again into other passages of my book which I have striven to make pleasant and merry as are green and well-watered glens cleft in the wide, waste moorland. No author knows into whose hands his work may come: my hope is that this volume may be read only by generous and genial folk, - good-natured, happy-hearted friends, who love gossip at least as much as they care for precision of style, clarity of thought or conciseness of argument. I could tell them what creature-comforts would help them both to enjoy my book, and also to take from them the inclination to use rules of criticism - the justice of which rules I should be the first to admit, but the application of which I should be the last to like, only, if they do not know such for themselves, there is no hope that they will take kindly to anything I may write. By far the greater part of the book was written in Europe, much of it at the time and at the places mentioned. It is still in its rough freshness, - without study, without elaboration, without polish, - almost exactly as first composed.

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