Mrs. Caliban begged me to add a few words on “Special Prose,”
and to subjoin an example of that manner. She has suggested for
the latter purpose Mrs. Railston’s “Appreciation of William
Shakespeare,” written as a preface for the Charing Cross
Shakespeare in 1897. She has even been at the pains of asking Mrs.
Railston’s leave to have it included in this volume, a permission
that was at once granted, accompanied with the courteous request
that Mrs. Railston’s name, address, and private advertisement
should accompany the same.
Were I dependent upon my own judgment alone, the wisdom of
adding such a division at the close of these essays might seem
doubtful. Special Prose is an advanced kind of literature, too
great an attraction to which might at first confuse rather than
aid the student; and I should hardly make a place for it in a
straightforward little Text-book.
Mrs. Caliban’s wishes in all matters concerning this work must be
observed, and I have done what she desired me, even to the degree
of printing Mrs. Railston’s advertisement, though I am certain that
great Authoress does herself harm by this kind of insistence ... It
is no business of mine....
It is only fair to add that prose of this sort _is_ the highest
form of our Art, and should be the ultimate goal of every reader
of this Guide. If, however, the student is bewildered in his first
attempt to decipher it (as he very well may be), my advice to him
is this: let him mark the point to which he has persevered, and
then put the whole thing aside until he has had some little further
practice in English letters. Then let him return, fresh from other
work, some weeks later, and see if he cannot penetrate still
further into the close-knit texture. Soon he will find it almost
like his own tongue, and will begin to love and to understand.
Not many months will pass before it will mean to him something more
than life, as he once imagined, could contain.
Having said so much, let me hasten to obey Mrs. Caliban’s command.