Yet though the letter is directed to all, we have an oldĪnd kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. The public is but a generous patron who defrays Messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for They alone take his meaning they find private We are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.Įvery book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of They keep us worthy of ourselves and when Wilderness of this world-all, too, travellers with a donkey: and theīest that we find in our travels is an honest friend. But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the After an uncouth beginning, I had the best of luck to You may also wish to purchase from either Amazon or Blackwell’s.The journey which this little book is to describe was very agreeable andįortunate for me. Try checking the availability of this book at your school or local library or explore second hand bookshops and websites. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson Its historical value matched with its humorous and wry observations, truly showcase the eccentricities and interest that can be found in the study of history and historical sources. Stevenson meets peasant men, women, children, many of whom have never left their village or valley and whose dialect is, in places, an entirely different language to the French spoken in Paris. This book also, is a rare portrayal of the marginalised in a society. Yet, this portrayal illustrates the extent to which France as a nation, even after the French Revolution, was hugely varied due to its size and diversity of natural landscape. The Cevennes, as portrayed by Stevenson seems almost imaginary in its backwardness. His fame was such that a price was put on his head.
One such tale is of a wolf, which, it is claimed, ate “women, children and ‘shepherdesses celebrated for their beauty’”. His tale is riddled with folk stories recounted to him by the farmers and peasants he meets. He encounters the people of the region, so different to those near Paris or those in urban France. Stevenson travels an area mostly inaccessible to the outside world. Yet, it is also an unusual and valuable historical source. This book, short in length and filled with Stevenson’s dry humour is an easy and enjoyable read. It is a commentary on his journey, the people of that region, unusual in France for their Huguenot, French Protestant heritage, and his trials with his mode of transport, Modestine, a donkey. In brief, the book is a description of Stevenson’s travels through the Cevennes, an area in central France. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes may, at first, seem an odd choice of book for a history undergraduate.
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