PREFACE. MANY works have been written, the subjects of which, especially at first sight, and taken in the abstract, would appear to afford little or no scope for pleasure or profit. I have heard of a valuable treatise being compiled on "Inaudible Sounds!" Who, but a botanist, would immediately comprehend the possibility of bringing out a large number of goodly volumes, highly interesting, entirely upon the different varieties of beautiful leaves with which a bountiful and indulgent Creator has enriched the earth! Who, before perusal, would believe that so pleasant a book as "The Voyage Round my Room," of Count Xavier de Maistre, could have been so deftly constructed out of such apparently meagre materials! Who would have thought of bringing out a whole volume solely on "Prison Books and their Authors," except the writer of that well-known publication. It would be easy to go on with the catalogue, and give even more extraordinary instances than these; but it seems to me there are few subjects, after all, which at first sight seem so utterly bare and entirely incapable of enlargement, as the one which my dear husband selected to form the burden of the present little book. Who could believe that many chapters of any value could possibly be indited upon such very unlikely things as walking-sticks! Do not however be afraid, patient reader, to commence your perusal of these pages. The bird imperceptibly |