Around the World on a Bicycle Thomas Steven (1884-1887)

"Shakespeare says, in All’s Well that Ends Well, that «  a good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner ;  » and I never was more struck with the truth of this than when I heard Mr. Thomas Stevens, after the dinner given in his honor by the Massachusetts Bicycle Club, make a brief, off-hand report of his adventures. He seemed like Jules Verne, telling his own wonderful performances, or like a contemporary Sinbad the Sailor. We found that modern mechanical invention, instead of disenchanting the universe, had really afforded the means of exploring its marvels the more surely. Instead of going round the world with a rifle, for the purpose of killing something, - or with a bundle of tracts, in order to convert somebody, - this bold youth simply went round the globe to see the people who were on it ; and since he always had something to show them as interesting as anything that they could show him, he made his way among all nations."

Thomas Wentworth Higgisson.
April 10, 1887.