Now you must know, that for the last three years I have been making my living exclusively out of the Swedish novels and the Countess Ida von Hahn-Hahn. To Frederike Bremer I owe a prodigious debt of gratitude; for she has saved me the trouble--and it is a prodigious bore--of inventing plots and characters, as I was compelled to do when the Rhine and the Danube were the chosen seats of fiction. For a time the literary plough went merrily through the sward of Sweden; nor can I, with any degree of conscience, complain of the quality of the crop. But, somehow or other, the thing was beginning to grow stale. People lost their relish for the perpetual raspberry jam, tart-making, spinning, and the other processes of domestic kitchen economy which formed our Scandinavian staple; indeed, I had a shrewd suspicion from the first that the market would soon be glutted by the introduction of so much linen and flannel. It is very difficult to keep up a permanent interest in favour of a heroine in homespun, and the storeroom is but a queer locality for the interchange of lovers' sighs. I therefore was not surprised, last spring, to find my publishers somewhat shy of entering into terms for a new translation of "_Snorra Gorvundstrul; or, The Barmaid of Strundschensvoe_," and, in the true spirit of British enterprise, I resolved to carry my flag elsewhere.
On looking over the map of the world, with the view of selecting a novel field, I was astonished to find that almost every compartment was already occupied by one of our literary brethren. There is in all Europe scarce a diocese left unsung, and, like romance, civilisation is making rapid strides towards both the east and the west. In this dilemma I bethought me of Iceland as a virgin soil. Victor Hugo, it is true, had made some advances towards it in one of his earlier productions; but, if I recollect right, even that daring pioneer of letters did not penetrate beyond Norway, and laid the scene of his stirring narrative somewhere about the wilds of Drontheim. The bold dexterity with which he has transferred the Morgue from Paris to the most artic city of the world, has always commanded my most entire admiration. It is a stroke of machinery equal to any which you, my dear Smith, have ever introduced into a pantomime; and I question whether it was much surpassed by the transit of the Holy Chapel to Loretto. In like manner I had intended to transport a good deal of ready-made London ware to Iceland; or rather--if that will make my meaning clearer--to take my idea both of the scenery and characters from the Surrey Zoological Gardens, wherein last year I had the privilege of witnessing a superb eruption of Mount Hecla. On more mature reflection, however, I thought it might be as well to take an actual survey of the regions which I intend henceforward to occupy as my own especial domain; and--having, moreover, certain reasons which shall be nameless, for a temporary evacuation of the metropolis--I engaged a passage in a northern whaler, and have only just returned after an absence of half a year. Yes, Smith! Incredible as it may appear to you, I have actually been in Iceland, seen Hecla in a state of conflagration; and it was by that lurid light, while my mutton was boiling in the Geyser, that I first unfolded your manuscript, and read the introductory chapters of "SILAS SPAVINHITCH; _or, Rides around the Circus with Widdicomb and Co._"