Still it is not the sort
of information which the ordinary tourist gives and which the cultivated
reader resents and is careful not to remember. Their dominant note is
rather the quiet humor of a delightful story-teller, who cannot fail to
say something of interest because he has seen so much; and who out of his
wide and varied observation selects for recital certain sights he has
witnessed, certain experiences he has gone through, and so relates them
that the way the thing is told is even more interesting than the thing
told. The chief value of these works does not accordingly depend upon the
accidental, which passes. Inns change and become better or worse.
Facilities for transportation increase or decrease. Scenery itself alters
to some extent under the operation of agencies brought to bear upon it
for its own improvement or for the improvement of something else. But
man's nature remains a constant quantity. Traits seen here and now are
sure to be met with somewhere else, and even in ages to come. Hence works
of this nature, embodying descriptions of men and manners, always retain
something of the freshness which characterized them on the day of their
appearance.
Of these productions in which the personal element predominates, and
where the necessity of intruding information is not felt as a burden,
those of Warner's works which deal with the Orient take the first rank.
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