My dear friend,
Ideas sometimes float about in the air like the pollen of flowers. For
years past I have been at work collecting notes for this book which I
have decided to dedicate to you.
In one of your charming prefaces, you told us lately that you only
painted from nature. We are both of us, I imagine, in our day and
generation, quite captivated and carried away by that modern society
from which in your exquisite creations you have so well understood how
to extract the essence.
What is it that I have desired to do this time? That which we have both
been trying to do at one and the same time: to seize, in passing, these
stirring times of ours, these modern manners, that society which
perpetuates the antediluvian uproar, that feverish, bustling world
always posing before the footlights, that market for the sale of
appetites, that kirmess of pleasure that saddens us a little and amuses
us a great deal, and allows us romance-writers, simple seekers after
truth, to smile in our sleeves at the constant seekers after portfolios.
This book is true, I have seen the events narrated in it pass before my
own eyes, and I can say, as a spectator greatly interested in what I
see, that I am delighted, my old fellow-traveller, to write your great
and honored name on the first page of my book as a witness to the
sincere affection and true comradeship of
Your devoted,