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Being Impressions and Translations of Maurice Hewlett
"For as it is hurtful to drink wine or water alone; and as wine mingledwith water is pleasant and delighteth the taste: even so speech, finelyframed, delighteth the ears of them that read the story."—3 MACCABEES xv.39.
I cannot add one tendril to your bays,
Worn quietly where who love you sing your praise;
But I may stand
Among the household throng with lifted hand,
Upholding for sweet honour of the land
Your crown of days.
I cannot be for ever explaining what I intended when I wrote this book.Upon this, its third appearance, even though it is to rank in that goodcompany which wears the crimson of Eversley, it must take its chance,undefended by its conscious parent. He feels, indeed, with all theanxieties, something of the pride of the hen, who conducts her brood ofducklings to the water, sees them embark upon the flood, and must leavethem to their buoyant performances, dreadful, but aware also that they aredoing a finer thing than her own merits could have hoped to win them. Soit is here. I did not at the outset expect a third edition in any livery;I may still fear a wreck for this cockboat of my early invention; but Ihope I am too respectful of myself to try throwing oil upon the waters.
I leave the former prefaces as they stand. I felt them when I made them,and feel them still; but I shall make no more. If Earthwork has theconfidence, at this time of day, to carry a red coat, it shall carry italone.
Mr. Critics—to whom, kind or unkind, I confess obligations—and thePublic between them have produced, it appears, some sort of demand forthis Second Edition. While I do not think it either polite or politic toenquire too deeply into reasons, I am not the man to disoblige them. It issufficient for me that in a world indifferent well peopled five hundredsouls have bought or acquired my book, and that other hundreds havesignified their desire to do likewise. Nevertheless—the vanity of authorsbeing notoriously hard-rooted—I must own to my mortification in thediscovery that not more than two in every hundred who have read me haveknown what I was at. I have been told it is a good average, but, withdeference, I don't think so. No man has any right to take beautiful andsimple things out of their places, wrap them up in a tissue of his ownconceits, and hand them about the universe for gods and men to wonderupon. If he must convey simple things let him convey them simply. If I,for instance, must steal a loaf of bread, would it not be better to walkout of the shop with it under my coat than to call for it in a hansom andhoodwink the baker with a forged cheque on Coutts's bank? Surely. If,then, I go to Italy, and convey the hawthor-scent of Della Robbia, thestraining of Botticelli to express the ineffable, the mellow autumn tonesof the life of Florence; if I do this, and make a parade of my magnanimityin permitting the household to divide the spoil, how on earth should I marall my bravery by giving people what they don't