Title:  Janice Meredith

Author:  Paul Leicester Ford

Release Date:  May, 2004 [EBook #5719] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 14, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK, Janice Meredith ***

This eBook was prepared by Jeffrey Kraus-yao.

Janice Meredith

Paul Leicester Ford

Wallack’s
Theatre
100th Performance

Mary Mannering
as
Janice Meredith

February 15th
1901

Janice Meredith

Volume I.

Books by Mr. Ford

The Honorable Peter Stirling
The Great K & A Train Robbery
The Story of an Untold Love
The True George Washington
Tattle-Tales of Cupid
The Many-Sided Franklin
The New England Primer

[Illustration:  Janice Meredith (Miniature in color)]

Janice Meredith
A Story of the
American Revolution
by
Paul Leicester Ford
Author of “The Honorable Peter Stirling”

With a Miniature by Lillie V. O’Ryan
and numerous Scenes from the Play

Mary Mannering Edition

To George W. Vanderbilt

My dear George:  Into the warp and woof of every book an author weaves much that even the subtlest readers cannot suspect, far less discern.  To them it is but a cross and pile of threads interlaced to form a pattern which may please or displease their taste.  But to the writer every filament has its own association:  How each bit of silk or wool, flax or tow, was laboriously gathered, or was blown to him; when each was spun by the wheel of his fancy into yarns; the colour and tint his imagination gave to each skein; and where each was finally woven into the fabric by the shuttle of his pen.  No thread ever quite detaches itself from its growth and spinning, dyeing and weaving, and each draws him back to hours and places seemingly unrelated to the work.  And so, as I have read the proofs of this book I have found more than once that the pages have faded out of sight and in their stead I have seen Mount Pisgah and the French Broad River, or the ramp and terrace of Biltmore House, just as I saw them when writing the words which served to recall them to me.  With the visions, too, has come a recurrence to our long talks, our work among the books, our games of chess, our cups of tea, our walks, our rides, and our drives.  It is therefore a pleasure to me that the book so naturally gravitates to you, and that I may make it a remembrance of those past weeks of companionship, and an earnest of the present affection of
                       Paul Leicester Ford