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The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
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THE TALISMAN

By Sir Walter Scott, Bart.




INTRODUCTION TO THE TALISMAN.

The "Betrothed" did not greatly please one or two friends, who
thought that it did not well correspond to the general title of
"The Crusaders." They urged, therefore, that, without direct
allusion to the manners of the Eastern tribes, and to the
romantic conflicts of the period, the title of a "Tale of the
Crusaders" would resemble the playbill, which is said to have
announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of
Denmark being left out. On the other hand, I felt the difficulty
of giving a vivid picture of a part of the world with which I was
almost totally unacquainted, unless by early recollections of the
Arabian Nights' Entertainments; and not only did I labour under
the incapacity of ignorance--in which, as far as regards Eastern
manners, I was as thickly wrapped as an Egyptian in his fog--but
my contemporaries were, many of them, as much enlightened upon
the subject as if they had been inhabitants of the favoured land
of Goshen. The love of travelling had pervaded all ranks, and
carried the subjects of Britain into all quarters of the world.
Greece, so attractive by its remains of art, by its struggles for
freedom against a Mohammedan tyrant, by its very name, where
every fountain had its classical legend--Palestine, endeared to
the imagination by yet more sacred remembrances--had been of late
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