To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half
afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface
is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward
of his labours. When the foundation stone is
laid, the architect appears with his plans, and struts
for an hour before the public eye. So with the
writer in his preface: he may have never a word
to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the
portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour.
It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a
delicate shade of manner between humility and superiority:
as if the book had been written by some one else,
and you had merely run over it and inserted what was
good. But for my part I have not yet learned
the trick to that perfection; I am not yet able to
dissemble the warmth of my sentiments towards a reader;
and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite
him in with country cordiality.
To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this
little book in proof, than I was seized upon by a
distressing apprehension. It occurred to me
that I might not only be the first to read these pages,
but the last as well; that I might have pioneered this
very smiling tract of country all in vain, and find
not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I
thought, the more I disliked the notion; until the
distaste grew into a sort of panic terror, and I rushed
into this Preface, which is no more than an advertisement
for readers.
What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua
brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of
grapes; alas! my book produces naught so nourishing;
and for the matter of that, we live in an age when
people prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit.
I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for,
from the negative point of view, I flatter myself
this volume has a certain stamp. Although it
runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages,
it contains not a single reference to the imbecility
of God’s universe, nor so much as a single hint
that I could have made a better one myself.—I
really do not know where my head can have been.
I seem to have forgotten all that makes it glorious
to be man.—’Tis an omission that
renders the book philosophically unimportant; but
I am in hopes the eccentricity may please in frivolous
circles.
To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks
already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else; but
at this moment I feel towards him an almost exaggerated
tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader:
—if it were only to follow his own travels
alongside of mine.
R.L.S.
We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore
and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes,
and ran with them for the slip. A crowd of children
followed cheering. The Cigarette went off in
a splash and a bubble of small breaking water.
Next moment the Arethusa was after her. A steamer
was coming down, men on the paddle-box shouted hoarse
warnings, the stevedore and his porters were bawling
from the quay. But in a stroke or two the canoes
were away out in the middle of the Scheldt, and all
steamers, and stevedores, and other ’long-shore
vanities were left behind.
