INTRODUCTION
To the Gentle Reader
DEAR SIR OR MADAM,-This little book was first written several
years ago, at the suggestion of Mr. Greenwood, then editor of the
St. Jame's Gazette. The idea was Mr. Greenwood's; the author
confesses that it did not exactly smile on him, but a journalist must
"do his darg," and any "darg" or a literary sort is pleasanter than another
to a bookworm. The public, it is well known, seldom regards a man's
performances with the eye of the writer himself. For some reason the
kindness of readers has favored a volume which is not the author's
favorite; he has his own ugly ducklings that are much more dear to him
than "Letters to Dead Authors." Perhaps we all naturally prefer the
work which has given us most trouble, perhaps that which comes
most easily is naturally
the least inadequate. Certainly letter-writing to the illustrious
dead comes easily enough; though the task never satisfies my sense
of reverence. To this edition, "by special request" of the American
publishers, four new letters have beed added - letters to John Knox,
Increase Mather, Homer, and Mr. Samuel Pepys. To be printed in a
pretty form tempts industry; yet more is it stimulated by the thought
of producing a sister volume to Mr. Stevenson's "Virginibus Puerisque."
Only in
format, paper, type, binding, is there any sisterhood or
similarity. All the Muses came to Mr. Stevenson's cradle, and gave
him the gift of story-telling, the enchantments of style: charm and
genius. There is no thought of rivalry in this little book, which is
content to admire and delight in great writers dead and gone, to smile
sympathetically at Chapelain and Increase Mather, men not so great,
but very human. If any who read this book about books are moved to
read the books themselves, it will not have been written quite in vain.
But we are apt, in these matters, to remain content at two removes
from reality.
Andrew Lang.