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                                  OUR

                          SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY


                   _By the same Author and Artist._


                           PLAY IN PROVENCE.

                    With nearly 100 Illustrations.


                        THE STREAM OF PLEASURE:

     A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ON THE THAMES FROM OXFORD TO LONDON.


                       LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.




                                  OUR

                          SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

                                THROUGH

                           FRANCE AND ITALY

                                  BY

                       JOSEPH & ELIZABETH ROBINS
                                PENNELL

                            _A NEW EDITION_

                             WITH APPENDIX

                                LONDON
                            T. FISHER UNWIN
                          PATERNOSTER SQUARE
                                 1893


                            [Illustration]




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


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 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
racetracks. 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.




PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.


Tandem tricycling, like Mr. Laurence Sterne’s graveyard, has virtually
disappeared. But the pleasures of cycling are so all-enduring that we
venture to issue a new edition of Our Sentimental Journey.

                             J. & E. R. P.

14 BUCKINGHAM ST., STRAND,

     _March 27, 1893_.




Dedication.


TO

_LAURENCE STERNE, ESQ._,

&c. &c. &c.


                                              LONDON, _Jan. 2^d, 1888_.

DEAR SIR,--

We never should have ventured to address you, had we not noticed of late
that Mr. Andrew Lang has been writing to Dead Authors, not one of
whom--to our knowledge--has taken offence at this liberty. Encouraged by
his example, we beg leave to dedicate to you this history of our
journey, laying it with the most respectful humility before your
sentimental shade, and regretting it is without that charm of style
which alone could make it worthy.

And as, in our modesty, we would indeed be unwilling to trouble you a
second time, we must take advantage of this unhoped-for opportunity to
add a few words of explanation about our journey in your honour. It is
because of the conscientious fidelity with which we rode over the route
made ever famous by you, that we have included ourselves in the class of
Sentimental Travellers, of which you must ever be the incomparable head.
To other sentiment, dear Sir, whatever we may have thought in the
enthusiasm of setting out, we now know we can lay no claim. Experience
has taught us that it depends upon the man himself, and not upon his
circumstances or surroundings. Nowadays the manner of travelling through
France and Italy is by rail, and mostly on Cook’s tickets, and chaises
have become a luxury which we at least cannot afford. The only vehicle
by which we could follow your wheel-tracks along the old post roads was
our tricycle, an ingenious machine of modern invention, endeared to us,
because without it Our