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The
Jessica Letters
An Editor's Romance
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1904
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Copyright, 1904
by
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Published, April, 1904
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
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_Dear Jessica_:
_For a little while like shadows we have played our parts on a shadowy
stage, aping the passions and follies of actual life. And now, as the kind
authors who gave us being withdraw their support and leave us to fade away
into nothingness, the doubt arises whether our little comedy was not all
in vain. I do not know. A wise poet of the real world once said that man's
life was merely_ the dream of a shadow, _yet somehow men persuade
themselves that their own pursuits are greatly serious. Was our life any
less than that, and were not our hopes and sorrows and tremulous joy as
full of meaning to us as theirs to the creatures who strut upon the stage
of the world? Again I say, I do not know: Only I am troubled that so fair
an image as yours should prove after all a dream, a shadow's dream, and
melt so swiftly away_:--
In what strange lines of beauty should I draw thee?
In what sad purple dreamshine paint thee true?
How should I make them see who never saw thee?
How should I make them know who never knew?
_And my last word is a message. He who created me would convey in this, my
farewell letter, his thanks to the creator of Jessica. He himself has
found in our correspondence only pleasure, and, as he turns from this
romance to other and different work of the pen, he hopes that she who made
you will be encouraged by your charm to deal bravely with her imagination
and to give the world other romances quite her own and without the alloy
of his coarser wit_.
_Philip_.
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CONTENTS
PAGE
PART I--Which shows how Jessica
visits an editor in the city, and
what comes of it 1