This book has its title from that dashing sentiment,
“Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine!”
It is not to be read by those who in their novels
would have the entertainment of characters that are
brilliant or wealthy, noble of birth or admirable of
spirit. Such have no place in this history.
There is a single canon of novel-writing that we have
sedulously kept before us in making this history, and
that is the law which instructs the novelist to treat
only of the manner of persons with whom he is well
acquainted. Hence our characters are commonplace
folks. We have the acquaintance of none other
than commonplace persons, because none other than commonplace
persons will have acquaintance with us.
And there are no problems in this history, nor is
the reader to be tickled by any risks taken with nice
deportment. This history may be kept upon shelves
that are easily accessible. It is true that you
will be invited to spend something of a night in a
lady’s bedroom, but the matter is carried through
with circumspection and dispatch. There shall
not be a blush.
Now, it is our purpose in this advertisement so clearly
to give you the manner of our novel that without further
waste of time you may forego the task of reading so
little as a single chapter if you consider that manner
likely to distress you. Hence something must be
said touching the style.
We cannot see (to make a start) that the listener
or the reader of a story should alone have the right
to fidget as he listens or reads; to come and go at
his pleasure; to interrupt at his convenience.
Something of these privileges should be shared by the
narrator; and in this history we have taken them.
You may swing your legs or divert your attention as
you read; but we too must be permitted to swing our
legs and slide off upon matters that interest us, and
that indirectly are relevant to the history.
Life is not compounded solely of action. One
cannot rush breathless from hour to hour. And,
since the novel aims to ape life, the reader, if the
aim be true, cannot rush breathless from page to page.
We can at least warrant him he will not here.
These are the limitations of our history; and we admit
them to be considerable. Upon the other hand,
the print is beautifully clear.
* * * *
*
As touching the title we have chosen, this was not
come by at the cost of any labour. Taken, as
we have told, from that dashing sentiment, “Once
aboard the lugger and the girl is mine!” it is
a label that might be applied to all novels.
It is a generic title for all modern novels, since
there is not one of these but in this form or that
sets out the pursuit of his mistress by a man or his
treatment of her when he has clapped her beneath hatches.
This is a notable matter. The novelist writes
under the influences and within the limitations of
