As Seen By Me
by Lilian Bell
1900
Contents
By LILIAN BELL
THE INSTINCT OF STEP-FATHERHOOD. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
A LITTLE SISTER TO THE WILDERNESS. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
FROM A GIRL’S POINT OF VIEW. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
TO
THAT MOST INTERESTING SPECK OF HUMANITY, ALL PERPETUAL MOTION AND KINDLINGINTELLIGENCE AND SWEETNESS UNSPEAKABLE, MY LITTLE NEPHEW
BILLY
ABSENCE FROM WHOM RACKED MY SPIRIT WITH ITS MOST UNAPPEASABLE PANGS OFHOMESICKNESS, AND WHOSE CONSTANT PRESENCE IN MY STUDY SINCE MY RETURN HASSPARED THE PUBLIC NO SMALL AMOUNT OF PAIN
AUTHOR’S APOLOGY
The frank conceit of the title to this book will, I hope, not prejudice myfriends against it, and will serve not only to excuse my being my own Boswell,but will fasten the blame of all inaccuracies, if such there be, upon theoffender—myself. This is not a continuous narrative of a continuousjourney, but covers two years of travel over some thirty thousand miles, andpresents peoples and things, not as you saw them, perhaps, or as they reallyare, but only As Seen By Me.
I
FIRST LETTER—ON THE WAY
In this day and generation, when everybody goes to Europe, it is difficult todiscover the only person who never has been there. But I am that one, andtherefore the stir it occasioned in the bosom of my amiable family when Iannounced that I, too, was about to join the vast majority, is not easy toimagine. But if you think that I at once became a person of importance it onlygoes to show that you do not know the family. My mother, to be sure, hoveredaround me the way she does when she thinks I am going into typhoid fever. Inever have had typhoid fever, but she is always on the watch for it, and if itever comes it will not catch her napping. She will meet it half-way. And lestit elude her watchfulness, she minutely questions every pain which assails an