Percival Lowell

There now befell us a sad piece of experience, the result of misplaced confidence in the guidebook. Ours was the faith a simple public pins upon print. Le journal, c'est un jeune homme, as Balzac said, and even the best of guidebooks, as this one really was, may turn out - a cover to many shortcomings.

I was waked by good news. The porters had, to a certain extent, come round. If we would halve their burdens by doubling their number, they would make an attempt on the pass, or, rather, they would go on as far as they could. This was a great advance. To be already moving implies a momentum of the mind which carries a man farther than he means. I acquiesced at once. The recruits consisted of the master of the house - his father, the officiator at family prayers, had retired from the cares of this world - and a peasant of the neighborhood.