Excerpt from First Impressions of Europe The title of this little volume might well serve for its preface also. On his first return from abroad, the novice, possibly because familiarity has some tendency to blunt intuition and dim the vividness of national contrasts, is apt to be more closely questioned about his impressions than is the veteran traveler. Such im pressions, however, while frequently they may be of value in disclosing new view-points, should, in many cases, be offered tentatively, and rather as personal opinions than finalities. Our journey was undertaken without pre-consultation of guide-books. When visit ing a famous place, first the results of observation and direct local inquiry were noted; then Baedeker and his professional brethren were consulted, but merely for corroboration or a few essential statistics. We can recommend every step of the tour herein described to those entering upon their European novitiate; indeed, we have hopes that the book, with all its limitations, may prove a convenient vade-meoum to more experi enced travelers, and help them to while away a few hours of oceanic monotony. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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