Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, vol 1

Sunny Memories Of Foreign
Lands, Volume 1 (of 2)

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Volume 1
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Title: Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2)
Author: Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
Release Date: November 4, 2004 [EBook #13945]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to the end of the text]

SUNNY MEMORIES
OF
FOREIGN LANDS.

BY
MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,
AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," ETC.
... "When thou haply seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travels,
Make me partaker of thy happiness."
SHAKSPEARE.
ILLUSTRATED FROM DESIGNS BY HAMMATT BILLINGS.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY. NEW YORK:
J.C. DERBY. 1854.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by PHILLIPS,
SAMPSON, AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District
Court of the District of Massachusetts.
STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
WRIGHT AND HASTY, PRINTERS, NO. 3 WATER ST.

PREFACE.
This book will be found to be truly what its name denotes, "Sunny
Memories."
If the criticism be made that every thing is given _couleur de rose_, the
answer is, Why not? They are the impressions, as they arose, of a most
agreeable visit. How could they be otherwise?
If there be characters and scenes that seem drawn with too bright a
pencil, the reader will consider that, after all, there are many worse sins
than a disposition to think and speak well of one's neighbors. To admire
and to love may now and then be tolerated, as a variety, as well as to
carp and criticize. America and England have heretofore abounded
towards each other in illiberal criticisms. There is not an unfavorable
aspect of things in the old world which has not become perfectly
familiar to us; and a little of the other side may have a useful influence.
The writer has been decided to issue these letters principally, however,
by the persevering and deliberate attempts, in certain quarters, to
misrepresent the circumstances which, are here given. So long as these
misrepresentations affected only those who were predetermined to
believe unfavorably, they were not regarded. But as they have had
some influence, in certain cases, upon really excellent and honest
people, it is desirable that the truth should be plainly told.

The object of publishing these letters is, therefore, to give to those who
are true-hearted and honest the same agreeable picture of life and
manners which met the writer's own, eyes. She had in view a wide
circle of friends throughout her own country, between whose hearts and
her own there has been an acquaintance and sympathy of years, and
who, loving excellence, and feeling the reality of it in themselves, are
sincerely pleased to have their sphere of hopefulness and charity
enlarged. For such this is written; and if those who are not such begin
to read, let them treat the book as a letter not addressed to them, which,
having opened by mistake, they close and pass to the true owner.
The English reader is requested to bear in mind that the book has not
been prepared in reference to an English but an American public, and to
make due allowance for that fact. It would have placed the writer far
more at ease had there been no prospect of publication in England. As
this, however, was unavoidable, in some form, the writer has chosen to
issue it there under her own sanction.
There is one acknowledgment which the author feels happy to make,
and that is, to those publishers in England, Scotland, France, and
Germany who have shown a liberality beyond the requirements of legal
obligation. The author hopes that the day is not far distant when
America will reciprocate the liberality of other nations by granting to
foreign authors those rights which her own receive from them.
The Journal which appears in the continental tour is from the pen of
the Rev. C. Beecher. The Letters were, for the most part, compiled
from what was written at the time and on the spot. Some few were
entirely written after the author's return.
It is an affecting thought that several of the persons who appear in these
letters as among the living, have now passed to the great future. The
Earl of Warwick, Lord Cockburn, Judge Talfourd, and Dr.