{"product_id":"2940012209603","title":"THE ROAD TO PARIS","description":"INTRODUCTION.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"With our company of riflemen that marched in Arnold's army through the\u003cbr\u003eMaine wilderness to attack Quebec, there was a sergeant's wife, a large\u003cbr\u003eand sturdy woman, no common camp-follower, but decent and respected, who\u003cbr\u003eone day, when the troops started to wade through a freezing pond, of\u003cbr\u003ewhich they broke the thin ice coating with the butts of their guns,\u003cbr\u003ecalmly lifted her skirts above her waist and strode in, and so kept the\u003cbr\u003egreater part of her clothes dry in crossing. Not a man of us made a\u003cbr\u003ejest, or even grinned, so natural was her action in the circumstances. I\u003cbr\u003ehave often used this instance to show that what the world calls modesty\u003cbr\u003eis a matter of time and place, and I now hold that too much modesty is\u003cbr\u003eout of time and place when a man who has had more than a fair share of\u003cbr\u003eremarkable experiences undertakes a true relation of the extraordinary\u003cbr\u003eadventures that have befallen him. So, if the narrative on which I am\u003cbr\u003esetting out be marred by any affectation, it will not be the affectation\u003cbr\u003eof modesty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When I was a boy in our valley behind the Blue Mountains of\u003cbr\u003ePennsylvania, I used to read the 'True Travels, Adventures, and\u003cbr\u003eObservations of Captain John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and\u003cbr\u003eAmerica, from 1593 to 1629,' and wonder whether I should ever have any\u003cbr\u003etravels or adventures of my own to make a book of. When, afterwards, I\u003cbr\u003edid go a travelling, and adventures did come thick and fast upon me, I\u003cbr\u003ewas too much engrossed in the travels and adventures themselves to give\u003cbr\u003ea thought as to what matter they might be for narration. Not till this\u003cbr\u003ebreathing-place came in my life, did my boyhood dreams return to my\u003cbr\u003emind, and did I realize that my part in battle and imprisonment, danger\u003cbr\u003eand escape, love and intrigue, would make a book that might be worth\u003cbr\u003efireside reading. That book I now begin, and shall probably finish it if\u003cbr\u003eI be not interrupted by untimely death or by some new call to scenes of\u003cbr\u003eenterprise and turmoil,--for it is no retired veteran, but a man early\u003cbr\u003ein his twenties, that here tries whether with pen and ink he can make as\u003cbr\u003efair a show as he has already made with implements less peaceful.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe foregoing lines constitute the first two paragraphs of a book\u003cbr\u003eentitled \"The Travels and Adventures of Richard Wetheral, in America,\u003cbr\u003eEngland, France, and Germany, in the years 1775, 1776, 1777, and 1778,\"\u003cbr\u003eof which it happens, by strange circumstance, that I possess the only\u003cbr\u003ecopy. The title-page shows that it was published by (or \"printed for\")\u003cbr\u003eJ. Robson, Bookseller, in New Bond Street, London, in 1785. The three\u003cbr\u003ebrown 16mo volumes first caught my glance when they lay with a heap of\u003cbr\u003eragged books on a board before a second-hand shop in Twenty-sixth\u003cbr\u003eStreet, there being attached to the board a weather-beaten square of\u003cbr\u003epasteboard, bearing the legend, \"Your choice for ten cents.\" Not until I\u003cbr\u003ehad paid the dealer thirty cents and separated the three volumes forever\u003cbr\u003efrom their musty companions, which were mostly of a theological\u003cbr\u003echaracter, did I discover, by parting a blank leaf from the adjacent\u003cbr\u003ecover, to which it had long been sticking, that the book was a treasure,\u003cbr\u003efor which the dealer would have charged me as many dollars as I had paid\u003cbr\u003ecents, had he anticipated my discovery. The long-concealed page bore on\u003cbr\u003eits brown-spotted surface an inscription, in eighteenth century\u003cbr\u003ehandwriting, turned yellow by age, signed by the author of the book, and\u003cbr\u003eto the effect that he had caused his true narrative to be published\u003cbr\u003ewithout his wife's knowledge, thinking this book might afford her a\u003cbr\u003epleasant surprise, but that the surprise with which she first perused it\u003cbr\u003ewas so far from pleasant, she had forthwith, in the name of modesty,\u003cbr\u003edemanded its immediate suppression, which was at once accomplished by\u003cbr\u003eher indulgent husband, who had preserved only this one copy for the\u003cbr\u003ebenefit of posterity. When I asked the bookseller how he had come by\u003cbr\u003ethe copy, he told me, after an investigation, that he had bought it with\u003cbr\u003ea lot of religious books from the servant of a very old lady recently\u003cbr\u003edeceased. The dealer had thought, from the company in which it came,\u003cbr\u003ethat the \"travels and adventures\" were those of some clergyman of a\u003cbr\u003ehundred years ago, and he had placed the three much dilapidated volumes\u003cbr\u003eamong the ten-cent rubbish accordingly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn giving this astonishing record of eighteenth century vicissitudes to\u003cbr\u003ethe world, I have two reasons for making myself the historian, and not\u003cbr\u003epresenting the hero's book in his own correct and straightforward\u003cbr\u003eEnglish. The first reason is, the public has been so satiated recently\u003cbr\u003ewith novels told in the first person singular, that even a genuine\u003cbr\u003eautobiography must at this time be swallowed, if at all, with some\u003cbr\u003enausea.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069144252656,"sku":"2940012209603","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012209603_p0.jpg?v=1763553311","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012209603","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}