[Original]
Did it ever guide anyone anywhere except to outer darkness? Did it ever awaken any other feeling in the bosom of a deluded traveller than a thirst for revenge? Bradshaw merely followed the universal rule of contraries when he christened his mystifying treatise a "guide," for none knew better than he that "throwing a light on a subject" means involving it in gloom and obscurity, as surely as that "just one glass more, and then straight home," means twenty, and the most circuitous route the neighbourhood will admit of. I trust I have said enough to vindicate the somewhat obscure and deceptive title of this book; or, at any rate, to avert the worst catastrophe an author can dread—that of being blown to atoms by a Southerly Buster of Public Opinion.