TO equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin
against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for
it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the
architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the
public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word
to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in
hand, and with an urbane demeanour.
It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of
manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written
by some one else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was
good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that
perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my sentiments
towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite him
in with country cordiality.
To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little book in proof,
than I was seized upon by a distressing apprehension. It occurred to me
that I might not only be the first to read these pages, but the last as
well; that I might have pioneered this very smiling tract of country all
in vain, and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I thought,
the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste grew into a sort of
panic terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more than an
advertisement for readers.
What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from
Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so
nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people
prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit.
I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative
point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp.
Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it
contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God’s universe, nor
so much as a single hint that I could have made a better one myself.—I
really do not know where my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten
all that makes it glorious to be man.—’Tis an omission that renders the
book philosophically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity may
please in frivolous circles.
To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks already, indeed I wish
I owed him nothing else; but at this moment I feel towards him an almost
exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader:—if it were
only to follow his own travels alongside of mine.