Excerpt from Ireland, as I Saw It: The Character, Condition, and Prospects of the People You ask me to publish an account of my travels in the Old World, for your gratification, and for the instruction of your children. You flatter me, when you compliment my Letters, and say you want a book written in my peculiar style - plain, familiar, and off-hand, and yet so minute in its details that others may see what I saw, and feel as I felt. You impose on me a difficult task, and one I feel myself incapable of performing to my own satisfaction, much less to yours. Still, I am anxious to please you, and willing to help amuse your children and, knowing that you will be rather generous than critical, I venture to offer you the following pages On Ireland. Whether other volumes, on other countries, will follow it, de pends upon circumstances not Wholly under my control. For this, I bespeak your favorable consideration. The numerous calls upon my time, the duties of my vocation, and the state of my health, have delayed the appearance of the present work, and prevented me from doing little more than fill up my notes, sketched during such leisure moments as I could find while performing my journey. I went to see and learn - to gratify myself and, to refresh my memory in after years, I made as copious notes as possible - jetted down, at the time, such thoughts, impressions, and incidents as occurred to me. I did not take much pains to reckon time or measure proportions, in a way to give minute descriptions. Historical and statistical facts are only introduced to add vivid ness to the pictures drawn. I traveled neither as philosopher, sage, or poet, but simply asa plain republican, curious to see, and anxious to learn all I could, in a given time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.