old times, old books, old customs, and old buildings; with myself,
however, as far as I have caught the contagion, the feeling is
genuine. To a man from a young country, all old things are in a manner
new; and he may surely be excused in being a little curious about
antiquities, whose native land, unfortunately, cannot boast of a
single ruin.

Having been brought up, also, in the comparative simplicity of a
republic, I am apt to be struck with even the ordinary circumstances
incident to an aristocratical state of society. If, however, I should
at any time amuse myself by pointing out some of the eccentricities,
and some of the poetical characteristics of the latter, I would not be
understood as pretending to decide upon its political merits. My only
aim is to paint characters and manners. I am no politician. The more I
have considered the study of politics, the more I have found it full
of perplexity; and I have contented myself, as I have in my religion,
with the faith in which I was brought up, regulating my own conduct by
its precepts; but leaving to abler heads the task of making converts.

I shall continue on, therefore, in the course I have hitherto pursued;
looking at things poetically, rather than politically; describing them
as they are, rather than pretending to point out how they should be;
and endeavouring to see the world in as pleasant a light as
circumstances will permit.

I have always had an opinion that much good might be done by keeping
mankind in good-humour with one another. I may be wrong in my
philosophy, but I shall continue to practise it until convinced of its
fallacy. When I discover the world to be all that it has been
represented by sneering cynics and whining poets, I will turn to and