Travel in the Bernese Oberland

not having seen it myself, was not sufficiently informed, or had not yet reached clarity between uncertain reports. It was important to me to be correct, detailed, and where possible, also pleasing in my representations. I did not want to be of use specifically to the scholar, and even less to him alone; but I also did not want to fall into superficiality out of a shallow fear of everything that is called dry. While I therefore wished to write in a way that appeals to both the scholar and the layman, I have admittedly, as usually happens when one serves two masters, at times become too broad and too exuberant in descriptions which are not instructive; and to the other, too chatty in discussions of subjects that can only hold the interest of the man of a certain field. Such things happen when one wants to please everyone; one pleases no one completely. But I would be satisfied if I have only half-pleased each, and if everyone deemed the effort of reading through so much sufficiently rewarded.

That some favorite subjects are highlighted in a scholarly respect will be all the more excusable, as many of them, such as, for example, mountain names, many legends, and the mythology of the Alps, have been touched upon very little, while they nevertheless open a new field of entertainment, which at the present moment, with the reviving interest in all things Old German original: "Altdeutsche", should find greater interest than could otherwise be the case.