I wish no one to read this book under a misapprehension.
There will be no useful information in this book.
Anyone who should think that with the aid of this book he would be able to make a tour through Germany and the Black Forest would probably lose himself before he got to the Nore.

That, at all events, would be the best thing that could happen to him.

The farther away from home he got, the greater only would be his difficulties.
I do not regard the conveyance of useful information as my _forte_.

This belief was not inborn with me; it has been driven home upon me by experience.
In my early journalistic days, I served upon a paper, the forerunner of many very popular periodicals of the present day.

Our boast was that we combined instruction with amusement; as to what should be regarded as affording amusement and what instruction, the reader judged for himself.
We gave advice to people about to marry--long, earnest advice that would, had they followed it, have made our circle of readers the envy of the whole married world.