He who has written these pages is no author; his life belongs toreality, and does not leave him any peace for indulging in fiction, and,besides, he has for nearly twenty years limited his best thoughts andefforts to that special authorship which has for its only publicapothecaries. He thought it very easy and refreshing to write thislittle book. The only difficulty about it has been to find a title, forit turned out that, when confronted with this problem, neither thewriter nor any of the friends he consulted could say what stuff it wasthat the book was made of—was it essays, stories, or what? Essays ismuch too important a word for me to use, and stories it certainly isnot, for I cannot remember having ever tried to invent anything.
Besides, isn't it so that in a story something always happens—and here,as a rule, very little seems to me to happen. I do not know, but can itbe that it is life itself which "happens" in these pages, life as seenby an individual who can but try to be as the Immortal Gods created him,since conventionality long ago has given up in despair all hope oflicking him into shape?
Now I want to tell you what made me publish this book—what made mewrite it cannot interest you. One day I found sitting in myconsulting-room a young lady with a huge parcel on her knee. I asked herwhat I could do for her, and she began by telling me a long tale of woeabout herself. She said that nothing interested her, nothing amusedher, she was bored to death by everything and everybody. She could getanything she wished to have, she could go anywhere she liked, but shedid not wish for anything, she did not want to go anywhere.
Her life was passed in idle luxury, useless to herself and to everybodyelse, said she. Her parents had ended by dragging her from one physicianto another: one had prescribed Egypt, where they had spent the wholewinter; another Cannes, where they had bought a big villa; a third Indiaand Japan, which they had visited in their fine yacht. "But you are theonly doctor who has done me any good," she said. "I have felt morehappiness during this past week than I have done for years. I owe it toyou, and I have come to thank you for it." She began rapidly to unfastenher parcel, and I stared at her in amazement while she produced from itone big doll after another, and quite unceremoniously placed them in arow on my writing-table amongst all my books and papers. There weretwelve dolls in all, and you never saw such dolls. Some of them weredressed in well-fitting tailor-made jackets and skirts; some wereevidently off for a yachting trip in blue serge suits and sailor hats;some wore smart silk dresses covered with lace and frills, and hatstrimmed with huge ostrich feathers; and some looked as if they had onlyjust returned from the Queen's Drawing-room.
I am accustomed to have queer people in my consulting-room, and Ithought I noticed something glistening in her eyes. "You see, Doctor,"said she with uncertain voice, "I never thought I could be of any goodto anybody. I used to send money to charities at home, but all I didwas to write out a cheque, and I cannot say I ever felt the slightestsatisfaction in doing it. The other day I happened to come across thatarticle about Toys in an old Blackwood's Magazine,[1] and since then Ihave been working from morning till evening to dress up all these dollsfor the poor children you spoke about. I have done it all by mysel