The author has been informed that a brief preface or introduction to
this second edition of his book is absolutely essential. In vain he
declared that the four or five paragraphs which escorted the first
edition, and with which the publisher persisted in disfiguring it, had
already drawn down upon his head the anathemas of one of the most
distinguished and honorable of French writers,[1] who accused him of
assuming the sour tones of the illustrious Jedediah Cleishbotham,
schoolmaster and sexton of the parish of Gandercleugh; in vain he
alleged that this brilliant and sensible critic, from dealing severely
with an error, would doubtless become merciless, upon a repetition of
the same mistake,--in a word, he presented countless equally good
reasons for declining to fall into the trap; but better ones must have
been brought to bear against them, since he is now writing a second
preface, after so bitterly repenting that he wrote the first. While
executing this bold resolve, his first thought was to open the second
edition with those general and particular views on the subject of
romance-writing with which he dared not burden the first. Lost in
meditations on this literary and didactic treatise, he was still a prey
to that strange intoxication of composition, that brief instant when the
author, feeling that he is about to grasp an ideal perfection which,
alas, he can never reach, is thrilled with delight at his task; he was,
we say, enjoying that period of mental ecstasy when labor is a delight,
when the secret possession of the muse seems sweeter than the dazzling
pursuit of fame, when one of his wisest friends waked him suddenly from
his dream, his ecstasy, his intoxication, by assuring him that several
very great, popular, and influential men of letters considered the
dissertation which he was preparing utterly flat, insipid, and
unnecessary; that the painful apostleship of criticism with which they
were charged in various public pages, imposing upon them the mournful
duty of pitilessly hunting down the monster of “romanticism” and bad
taste, they were even then busily preparing for certain enlightened and
impartial journals a conscientious, analytical, and spicy criticism of
the aforesaid forthcoming dissertation. Upon hearing this terrible news,
the poor author _obstupuit; steteruntque comæ, et vox faucibus
hæsit_,--that is to say, nothing remained but to leave in the limbo
whence he was about to rescue it the essay, “virgin and yet unborn,” as
Jean Jacques Rousseau has it, of which such just and such severe critics
had fallen foul. His friend advised him to replace it by a few simple
preliminary remarks from the publishers, as he could very properly put
into those gentlemen’s mouths all the sweet nothings which so delicately
tickle an author’s ear; nay, he even offered him certain models, taken
from highly successful works, some beginning with the words, “The
immense popular success of this book,” etc.; others thus, “The European
fame which this work has won,” etc.; or, “It is now superfluous to
praise this book, since popular opinion declares that no praise can
equal its merit,” etc. Although these various formulæ, according to the
discreet adviser, were not without their attested virtues, the author
did not feel sufficient humility and paternal indifference to expose his
work to the disappointment or the demands of the reader who should
peruse these magnificent apologies, nor sufficient effrontery to imitate
those rustic mountebanks who attract the curious public by displaying a
painted crocodile upon a curtain, behind which, on paying their fee,
they find nothing but a lizard. He therefore rejected the idea of
sounding his own praises through the obliging lips of his publishers.
His friend then suggested that he should put into the mouth of his
villanous Icelandic outlaw, by way of a passport, phrases suited to
popularize him and render him congenial with the age,--such as delicate
jests directed against the nobility, bitter sarcasms upon the clergy,
ingenious invectives against nuns, monks, and other monsters of the
social order. The author asked nothing better; but it scarcely seemed to
him that nobles and monks had any very direct connection with the work
in hand. He might, it is true, have borrowed other colors from the same
palette, and thrown together a few highly philanthropic pages, in
which--always keeping at a prudent distance from the dangerous shoals
hidden under the waters of philosophy, and known as the shoals of the
Court of Misdemeanors--he might have advanced certain of those truths
discovered by the wise for the glory of mankind and the consolation of
the dying; namely, that man is but a brute, that the soul is a gas of
greater or less density, and that God is nothing; but he thought these
incontestable truths very trivial and very hackneyed, and he could
scarcely add a drop to the deluge of reasonable morality, atheistic
religion, maxims, doctrines, and principles with which we have been
flooded for our good for thirty years, in so monstrous a fashion that we
might, if it be not irreverent, apply Regnier’s verses on a shower,--
“From out the clouds the rains in such vast torrents pour,
That thirsty dogs can drink and not their foreheads lower.”
Moreover, these lofty themes had no very visible connection with the
subject of his story, and he might have been puzzled to find any bond of
union leading up to it, although the art of transitions has been
singularly simplified, since so many great men have discovered the
secret of passing from a stable to a palace direct, and of exchanging
without incongruity the policeman’s cap for the civic crown.
Recognizing, therefore, that neither his talent nor his learning,
“neither his wings nor his beak,” as the ingenious Arab poet has it,
could furnish him with a preface which would interest his readers, the
author resolved merely to offer them a serious and frank account of the
improvements introduced in this second edition.
He must first inform them that the words “second edition” are incorrect,
and that the term “first edition” should really be applied to this
reprint, inasmuch as the four variously sized bundles of grayish paper
blotted with black and white, which the indulgent public has hitherto
kindly consented to consider as the four volumes of “Hans of Iceland,”
were so disfigured with typographic errors by a barbarous printer that
the wretched author, on looking over his own production, altered as it
was beyond all recognition, was perpetually subjected to the torments of
a father whose child returns to him mutilated and tattooed by the hand
of an Iroquois from Lake Ontario.
For instance, the type turned a “lion’s” voice into a “line,” robbed the
Dovrefield Mountains of their “peaks” and bestowed upon them “feet,” and
when the Norse fishers hoped to moor their boat in various “creeks,” the
printer drove them upon “bricks.” Not to weary the reader, the author
will pass by in silence all the outrages of this kind which his wounded
memory recalls,--
“Manet alto in pectore vulnus.”
Suffice it to say that there is no grotesque image, no strange meaning,
no absurd idea, no confused figure, no burlesque hieroglyph, which the
sedulously stupid ignorance of this enigmatical proof-reader did not
make him utter. Alas! every one who ever printed a dozen lines, were it
only an invitation to a wedding or a funeral, will feel the deep
bitterness of such a sorrow!
The proofs of this reprint have accordingly been read with sedulous
care; and the author now ventures to hope, in which he is sustained by
one or two close friends, that this romance _redivivus_ is worthy to
figure among those splendid writings before which “the eleven stars bow
low,’ as before the sun and moon.”[2]
Should journalists accuse him of making no corrections, he will take the
liberty of sending them the proof-sheets of this regenerate work,
blackened by minute scrutiny; for it is averred that there is more than
one doubting Thomas among them.
The kindly reader will also observe that several dates have been
corrected, historical notes added, one or two chapters enriched with new
mottoes,--in a word, he will find on every page changes whose extreme
importance is to be measured only by that of the entire book.
An impertinent adviser desired a translation in foot-notes of all the
Latin phrases with which the learned Spiagudry sprinkles the book, “for
the comprehension,” adds this personage, “of those masons, tinkers, or
hairdressers who edit certain journals wherein ‘Hans of Iceland’ may
chance to be reviewed.” The author’s anger at such insidious counsel may
be imagined. He instantly begged to inform the would-be joker that all
journalists, without distinction, are mirrors of courtesy, wisdom, and
good faith, and requested him not to insult him by believing him to be
one of those ungrateful citizens who are ever ready to address those
dictators of taste and genius in this poor verse of an old poet,--
“Keep your own skins, my friends, nor other folk condemn,”
for he is far from thinking that the lion’s skin is not the true skin of
those popular gentlemen.
Still another friend implored him--for he must conceal nothing from his
readers--to put his name on the titlepage of this story, hitherto the
neglected child of an unknown father. It must be owned that beyond the
pleasure of seeing the half-dozen capital letters which spell out one’s
name printed in fine black characters upon smooth white paper, there is
also a certain charm in displaying it in solitary grandeur upon the back
of the cover, as if the work which it adorns, far from being the only
monument of the author’s genius, were but one of the columns in the
imposing temple wherein his genius is some day to spread its wings, but
a slight specimen of his hidden talent and his unpublished glory. It
proves that at least he hopes to be a noted and admired writer some day.
To triumph over this fresh temptation, the author was forced to muster
all his fears lest he should never break through the crowd of scribblers
who, even though they waive their anonymity, must ever remain unknown.
As for the hint thrown out by certain amateurs with very delicate ears
regarding the uncouth harshness of his Norwegian names, he considers it
well founded. He therefore proposes, so soon as he shall be made a
member of the Royal Society at Stockholm or the Bergen Academy, to
invite the Norwegians to change their language, inasmuch as the hideous
jargon which they are whimsical enough to employ wounds the ears of
Parisian ladies, and their outlandish names, as rugged as their rocks,
produce the same effect upon the sensitive tongue that utters them, as
their bear’s grease and bark bread would probably have upon the delicate
nervous filaments of our palate.
It only remains for him to thank the few persons who have been good
enough to read his book through, as is proved by the really tremendous
success which it has won; he also expresses his gratitude to those of
his fair readers who, he is assured, have formed a certain ideal of the
author of “Hans of Iceland” from his book; he is vastly flattered that
they should attribute to him red hair, a shaggy beard, and fierce eyes;
he is overcome with confusion that they should condescend to do him the
honor to suppose that he never cuts his nails; but he entreats them on
his knees to rest assured that he never carries his ferocity so far as
to devour little children alive; moreover, all these facts will become
fixed when his renown has reached the level of that of the authors of
“Lolotte and Fanfan” or of “Monsieur Botte,”--men of transcendent
genius, twins alike in talent and in taste, _arcades ambo_; and when his
portrait, _terribiles visu formæ_, and his biography, _domestica facta_,
are prefixed to his works.
He was about to close this long epistle, when his publisher, on the
point of sending the book to the reviews, requested that he would add a
few complimentary notices of his own work, adding, to remove all the
author’s scruples, that “his writing should not be the means of
compromising him, as he would copy these articles himself.” This last
remark struck the author as extremely touching. Since it seems that in
this most luminous age every man considers it his duty to enlighten his
neighbor as to his own qualities and personal perfections, concerning
which none can be so well informed as their possessor, as, moreover,
this last temptation is a strong one, the author thinks it his duty, in
case he should yield to it, to warn the public not to believe more than
half of what the press may say of his work.