University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

It will be well, perhaps, that the reader bear in
mind, while running over the following pages, that
many passing observations, many trifles, which naturally
find their way into any sketch of social life,
refer chiefly to things and notions in favour some ten
years since; a period which is certainly not beyond
the memory of man, but very possibly beyond the
clear recollection of some young lady reader, just
within her teens. New opinions, new ideas, new
fashions have appeared among us since then, and
made their way perceptibly. Twenty years' possession
constitute a legal title, if we may believe the
lawyers; but a single season is often sufficient for a
new fancy—fancies of a serious nature too, sometimes
— to take full possession of the public mind,
and assume arbitrary control of the premises for the
time being, at least.

It will be more honest to confess at once, before
the reader undertakes the first chapter, that the tale
now before him is a first appearance in print—a first
appearance, too, of one who, even now that the formidable
step is taken, feels little disposed to envy
the honours of authorship. Writing may be a very
pleasant pastime; but printing seems to have many

disagreeable consequences attending every stage of
the process; and yet, after all, reading is often the
most irksome task of the three. In this last case,
however, the remedy is generally easy; one may
throw aside the volume, and abuse the author. If
there are books which must be read, stupid or not,
owing to the claim of some great name on the binding,
the present story is not one of the number; and
perhaps the perfect liberty enjoyed by the reader
under such circumstances—to like or dislike independent
of critics, to cut every leaf, or skip a dozen
chapters at a time without fear of reproach—will
incline him to an amiable mood. It is to be hoped
so; it will be unfortunate if, among many agreeable
summer excursions both on terra firma and in the
regions of fancy, the hour passed at Longbridge
should prove a tedious one: in such a case the fault
will belong entirely to the writer of the narrative,
for there are certainly some very pleasant and very
worthy people among the good folk of Longbridge.

—, August, 1845.