A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

A WORD TO THE PUBLIC. IX
fresh as they rise to our minds, in letters of no
ordinary dimensions. And therefore it is, that
even when prostrate from the effects of sea-sick-
ness, or half-dead from a long day's ride over
roadless momitains, or battered and bruised by
some unlucky fall from our horse, we fly to our
wi'iting implements before we are well housed
in our inn, and forget the ills that travellers are
heirs to in the delightful task of chronicling our
small beer to allay the thirsting affection of
our anxious correspondent. But we are well re-
paid for these little sacrifices of ease to friendship
by the dear disinterested creatures on our return
home, bringing us our own letters carefully num-
bered and tied up, and entreating us, hy all the
'pleasure they themselves have derived from their
perusal^ " to give them to the public !"
Alas ! if the public were imbued with Mrs.
Harris's indulgence—or, I ought rather to say if
dear Mrs. Harris possessed the discrimination of
the public, the counsel would not so often prove
to be a fatal one
!
But our amour propre is too easily flattered
by such suggestions; and forgetting that the
womanish gossip, the eschewing of all political
questions, the inevitable egotisms that must
characterize a plain unvarnished detail of passing