George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[26] in one place, a dictionary in a second, and a grammar in a third; the last two very indifferent in their kind. There are now, doubtless, more facilities in New England for the study of Arabic or Persian than there were then for the study of German.

But Mr. Ticknor spoke the simple truth when he said that he considered a residence in Europe as a sacrifice of enjoyment to improvement. He had all the elements of happiness in his own country. Very domestic in his tastes, he found under his father's roof a home in which affection, sympathy, and cultivation gave sweetness to every moment of life. The intelligent and agreeable society of Boston and its neighborhood, where he was always warmly welcomed, filled up pleasantly his hours of leisure, and we have seen by what strong ties of love and confidence he was bound to his friends. His was not the vacant mind which goes abroad in search of some object in life; nor did he sigh for the more highly flavored pleasures of a riper civilization than that of his own country.

Mr. Ticknor's journey to Washington and Virginia in the winter of 1814-15 was undertaken more as a matter of duty than of pleasure; for travelling in those days, in our country, was attended with wretched discomforts, of which those who were born in an age of railroads can have no conception. He felt that he ought not to go abroad without seeing something more of his own country than he had yet done; and he also hoped, in the course of his journey, to fall in with persons who had been in Europe and could give him information as to its universities and means of study.¹ His letters during this journey form a natural sequel to the autobiography. They were all written to his parents, except one to his friend, Mr. Edward T. Channing.