An Inland Voyage

An Inland Voyage

The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Inland Voyage, by Robert Louis Stevenson (#23 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson)
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Title: An Inland Voyage
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Release Date: May, 1996 [EBook #534] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 19, 1996] [Most recently updated: August 27, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, AN INLAND VOYAGE ***

Transcribed from 1904 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email [email protected] Second proof by Margaret Price

AN INLAND VOYAGE

Contents: Preface Antwerp to Boom On the Willebroek Canal The Royal Sport Nautique At Maubeuge On the Sambre Canalised: to Quartes Pont-sur-Sambre: We are Pedlars The Travelling Merchant On the Sambre Canalised: to Landrecies At Landrecies Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal boats The Oise in Flood Origny Sainte-Benoite A By-day The Company at Table Down the Oise: to Moy La Fere of Cursed Memory Down the Oise: Through the Golden Valley Noyon Cathedral Down the Oise: to Compiegne At Compiegne Changed Times Down the Oise: Church interiors Precy and the Marionnettes Back to the world

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour.
It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written by some one else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite him in with country cordiality.
To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little book in proof, than I was seized upon by a distressing apprehension. It occurred to me that I might not only be the first to read these pages, but the last as well; that I might have pioneered this very smiling tract of country all in vain, and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I thought, the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste grew into a sort of panic terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more than an advertisement for readers.
What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit.
I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God's universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have made a better one myself.--I really do not know where my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten all that makes it glorious to be man.--'Tis an omission that renders the book philosophically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity may please in frivolous circles.
To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else; but at this moment I feel towards him an almost exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader: --if it were only to follow his own travels