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AMERICAN NOTES

FOR

GENERAL CIRCULATION

AND

PICTURES FROM ITALY

BY

CHARLES DICKENS

WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
MARCUS STONE, R.A.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1911

823

D55 1911

V. 28

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

ΤΟ

THOSE FRIENDS OF MINE

IN AMERICA

WHO, GIVING ME A WELCOME I MUST EVER

GRATEFULLY AND PROUDLY REMEMBER,

LEFT MY JUDGMENT

FREE;

AND WHO, LOVING THEIR COUNTRY, CAN BEAR

THE TRUTH, WHEN IT IS TOLD GOOD

HUMOUREDLY, AND IN A

KIND SPIRIT.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP

EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES "

Ir is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too.

My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career of that country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the fact, they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken.

Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in America.

I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any length. I have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise. The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No.

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