Our Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

Joseph Pennell · Elizabeth Robins Pennell

jan 1888 · Longmans, Green, and Company

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"Our great ambition when we first set out on our tricycle, three years ago, was to ride from London to Rome. We did not then know exactly why we wanted to do this, nor do we now. The third part of the journey was 'ridden, written, and wrought into a work" before the second part was begun; and, moreover, when and where we could not ride with ease -- across the Channel and over the Alps, for example --- we went by boat and train. In our simplicity we thought by publishing the story of our journey, we could show the world at large, and perhaps Mr. Ruskin in particular, that the oft-regretted delights of travelling in days of coach and post-chaise, destroyed on the coming of the railroad, were once more to be had by means of tricycle or bicycle. We can only hope that critic and reader are not, like Mr. Ruskin, prepared to spend all their best "bad language" "in reprobation of bi-tri-and-4-5-6- or 7-cycles," and that the riding we found so beautiful will not to them, as to him, be a but a vain wriggling on wheels. We also thought we might prove to the average cycler how much better it is to spend spare time and money in making Pilgrims' Progresses and Sentimental Journeys than in hanging around race-tracks. However that may be, we have at length accomplished the object of our riding, and that is the great matter after all. As to future rides and records, if we make any, it is our intention to for ever keep them to ourselves, and so -- spare the public."--