rank whom I met, especially
in England, I do not doubt that the popular interest in those letters
would have been materially heightened. I did not, however, deem myself
authorized to do this. In a few instances, where individuals challenged
observation and criticism by consenting to address public gatherings, I
have spoken of the matter and manner of their speeches and indicated the
impressions they made on me. Beyond this I did not feel authorized to
go, even in the case of public men speaking to the public through
reports for the daily press; while those whom I only met privately or in
the discharge of kindred duties, as Jurors at the Exhibition, I have not
felt at liberty to bring before the public at all. Having thus explained
what will seem to many a lack of piquancy, in the following pages,
implying a privation of social opportunities, I drop the subject.

No one can realize more fully than the writer the utter absence of
literary merit in these Letters. He does not deprecate nor seek to
disarm criticism; he only asks that his sketches be taken for what they
profess and strive to be, and for nothing else. That they are
superficial, their title proclaims; that they were hurriedly written,
with no thought of style nor of enduring interest, all whom they are
likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling
in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes of his
habitual readers or at least of their ancestors, cannot well refrain
from writing of what he sees and hears; his observations have a value in
the eyes of those readers which will be utterly unrecognized by the
colder public outside of the sympathizing circle. For the habitual
readers of The Tribune especially were these Letters written, and their
original purpose has already been accomplished. Here they would have
rested, but for the unsolicited offer of the publishers to reproduce
them in a book at their own cost and risk, and on terms ensuring a fair
share of any proceeds of their sale to the writer. Such offers from
publishers to authors who have no established reputation as book-makers
are rarely made and even more rarely refused. Therefore, Sir Critic!
whose dog-eared manuscript has circulated from one publisher's drawer to
another until its initial pages are scarcely readable, while the ample
residue retain all their pristine freshness of hue, you are welcome to
your revenge! Your novel may be tedious beyond endur