The changing of the old order in country manors and mansions may be
slow or sudden, may have many issues romantic or otherwise, its romantic
issues being not necessarily restricted to a change back to the original
order; though this admissible instance appears to have been the only
romance formerly recognized by novelists as possible in the case.
Whether the following production be a picture of other possibilities or
not, its incidents may be taken to be fairly well supported by evidence
every day forthcoming in most counties.
The writing of the tale was rendered memorable to two persons, at least,
by a tedious illness of five months that laid hold of the author soon
after the story was begun in a well-known magazine; during which
period the narrative had to be strenuously continued by dictation to a
predetermined cheerful ending.
As some of these novels of Wessex life address themselves more
especially to readers into whose souls the iron has entered, and whose
years have less pleasure in them now than heretofore, so “A Laodicean”
may perhaps help to while away an idle afternoon of the comfortable ones
whose lines have fallen to them in pleasant places; above all, of that
large and happy section of the reading public which has not yet reached
ripeness of years; those to whom marriage is the pilgrim’s Eternal City,
and not a milestone on the way. T.H.
January 1896.