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INTRODUCTION |
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vast majority of cases during the summer of 1920 ; and the descriptions given are based upon notes collected during the last twenty years.
Warned by Mr. Hilaire Belloc's strictures on the modern Guide Book, I have tried to avoid those remarks which he finds so tedious. It will be recalled that Mr. Belloc has written in his essay, " On Getting Respected in Inns " :
" For a Guide Book will tell you always what are the principal and most vulgar sights of a town ; what mountains are most difficult to climb, and, invariably, the exact distances between one place and another. But these things do not serve the End of Man. The end of man is Happiness, and how much happier are you with such a knowledge ? Now there are some Guide Books which do make little excursions now and then into the important things, which tell you (for instance) what kind of cooking you will find in what places, what kind of wine in countries where this beverage is publicly known, and even a few, more daring than the rest, will give a hint or two upon hiring mules, and upon the way that a bargain should be conducted, or how to fight."
I have tried to omit all the vulgar sights, and have been daring enough to make little excursions into the things immemorial such as the qualities of old ale, the making of dew-ponds, the singing of old ballads and the universal love of Earth which is the first aroma of life. |
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