"romance" has in it the mystery and ancient meaning of Rome.
Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by
saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he proposes
to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove.
The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take
as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this
desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full
of a poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always
seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better
than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure,
then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking.
If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all
people I have ever met in this western society in which I live
would agree to the general proposition that we need this life
of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange
with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to
combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be
happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable.
It is THIS achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in
these pages.

But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in
a yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht.
I discovered England. I do not see how this book can avoid
being egotistical; and I do not quite see (to tell the truth)
how it can avoid being dull. Dulness will, however, free me from
the charge which I most lament; the charge of being flippant.
Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of
all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing
of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible