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OUR
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY[ii]
By the same Author and Artist.
Play in Provence.
With nearly 100 Illustrations.
The Stream of Pleasure:
A Narrative of a Journey on the
Thames from Oxford to
London.
———
London: T. FISHER UNWIN.
OUR
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
THROUGH
FRANCE AND ITALY
BY
JOSEPH & ELIZABETH ROBINS
PENNELL
A NEW EDITION
WITH APPENDIX
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1893
[iv]
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
OUR great ambition when we first set out on our tricycle, three yearsago, was to ride from London to Rome. We did not then know exactly whywe wanted to do this, nor do we now. The third part of the journey was“ridden, written, and wrought into a work” before the second part wasbegun; and, moreover, when and where we could not ride with ease—acrossthe Channel and over the Alps, for example—we went by boat and train.In our simplicity we thought by publishing the story of our journey, wecould show the world at large, and perhaps Mr. Ruskin in particular,that the oft-regretted delights of travelling in days of coach andpost-chaise, destroyed on the coming of the railroad, were once more tobe had by means of tricycle or bicycle. We can only hope that critic andreader are not, like Mr. Ruskin, prepared to spend all their best “badlanguage” “in reprobation of bi-tri-and-4-5-6 or 7-cycles,” and thatthe[vi] riding we found so beautiful will not to them, as to him, be but avain wriggling on wheels. We also thought we might prove to the averagecycler how much better it is to spend spare time and money in makingPilgrims’ Progresses and Sentimental Journeys than in hanging aroundracetracks. However that may be, we have at length accomplished theobject of our riding, and that is the great matter after all. As tofuture rides and records, if we make any, it is our intention to forever keep th