Used, very good
MY DEAR SIDNEY COLVIN,
The jouney which this little book is to describe was very
agreeable and fortunate for ne. After an uncouth begin-
ning, I had the best of luck to the end. But we are all
travellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of
this worldall, too, travellers with a donkey; and the
best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is
a fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed,
to find them. They are the end and the reward of life.
They keep us worthy of ourselves; and, when we are
alone, we are only nearer to the absent.
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to
the friends of him who writes it. They alone take his
meaning; they find private messages, assurances of love,
and expressions of gratitude dropped for them in every
corner. The public is but a generous patron who defrays
the postage. Yet though the letter is directed to all, we
have an old and kindly custom of addressing it on the
outside to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not
proud of his friends? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it
is with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours,
R. L. S.