Prefatory Dedication.
TO
GUSTAVUS A. MYERS, ESQ.
MY DEAR SIR:--
In dedicating to you the following pages, I am moved not more by privatefriendship and regard, than by esteem for your abilities, and respectfor your many and varied acquirements. It might seem somewhatpresumptuous in me to call for your acceptance or seek your approbationof this work, when not only your general acquaintance with, but yourprofound knowledge of, almost every branch of modern and ancientliterature qualify and might be expected to prompt you to minute andsevere criticism. But I have always found, in regard to my own works atleast, that those who were best fitted to judge were the most inclinedto be lenient, and that men of high talent and deep learningcondescended to tolerate, if not to approve, that which was assailed byvery small critics, or scoffed at by men who, calling themselveshumorists, omitted the word "_bad_" before the appellation in which theygloried.
To your good humor, then, I leave the work, and will only add a fewwords in regard to the object and construction of the story.
We have in the present day romances of many various kinds; and I reallyknow not how to class my present effort. It is not a love-story, for anything like that which was the great moving power of young energies--atleast in less material days than these--has very little part in thebook. I cannot call it a novel without a hero, because it is altogetherdedicated to the adventures of one man. I cannot call it a romancewithout a heroine, because there is a woman in it, and a woman with whomI am myself very much in love. I cannot call it absolutely a historicalromance, because there are several characters which are not historical,and I am afraid I have taken a few little liberties with Chronologywhich, were she as prudish a dame as some of the middle-aged ladies whomI could mention, would either earn me a _box_ of the ear, or produce somuch scandal that my good name would be lost forever. Plague take themonths and the days! they are always getting in one's way. But I dobelieve I have been very reverent and respectful to their grandmothersthe years, and, with due regard for precedence and the Court Guide, havenot put any of the latter out of her proper place.
I do not altogether wish to call this a book of character; for I do notexactly understand that word as the public has lately been taught tounderstand it. There is no peasant, or cobbler, or brick-layer'sapprentice, in the whole book, endowed with superhuman qualities, moraland physical. There is no personage in high station--given as the typeof a class--imbued with intense selfishness or demoniac passions, wickedwithout motive, heartless against common sense, and utterly degradedfrom that noble humanity, God's best and holiest gift to mankind. Thereis no meek, poor, puling, suffering lover, who condescends humbly to bebamboozled and befooled through three volumes, or Heaven knows how manynumbers, for the sake of marrying the heroine in the end. I thereforecannot properly, in the present day, call it a work of character.
I might call it, perhaps,--although the hero is an Englishman,--apicture of the times of Louis XIII; but, alas! I have not ventured togive a full picture of these times. We have become so uncommonly cleanlyand decorous in our own days, that a mere allusion to the dirt andindecency of the age of our great-grandmothers is not to be tolerated.In order, indeed, to preserve something like verisimilitude, I have beenobliged to glance, in one chapter, at the freedom of manners of the daysto which I refer; but it has been a mere glance, and given in such amanner that the cheek of one who understands it, in the sense in whichone of those very days would understand it, must have lost the power ofblushing. At all events, it can never sully or offend the pure, nor leadthe impure any further wrong.
There are a great many explanations and comments, in illustration of thetimes, which I should like to give for the benefit of that part of myreaders who have put on the right of knowing all things at the same timethat the third change was made in their dress, and I would have done so,in notes; but, unfortunately, I do not write Greek; and a littleincident prevented me from writing those notes in Latin. A work--a mostinteresting work--was published a few years ago in London, called theBernstein Hexe, or Amber Witch. More than one translation appeared; andone of these had the original notes,--some written in Latin where theywere peculiarly anatomical and indecent; but, to my surprise, I foundthat several ladies were fully versed in that sort of Latinity. I cannotflatter myself with having a sufficient command of the Roman tongue tobe enabled to veil the meaning more completely from the unlearned.
Only in the case of two personages have I attempted to elaboratecharacter,--in regard to my hero, and in regard to the Cardinal deRichelieu. The former, though not altogether fictitious, must go withvery little comment. I wished to show how a young heart may be hardenedby circumstances, and how it may be softened and its better feelingsevolved by a propitious change. The latter, I will confess, I havelabored much; because I think the world in general, and I myself also,have done some injustice to one of the greatest men that ever lived.Very early in life I depicted him when he had reached old age,--that isto say, his old age; for he had not, at the time of his death, numberedas many years as are now upon my own head. He had then been tried in thefire of the most terrible circumstances which perhaps ever assayed ahuman heart; not only tried, but hardened; and even then, upon hisdeath-bed, his burst of tenderness to his old friend, Bois Robert, hisdelight in the arts, and passion for flowers, showed that the tendererand--may I not say more noble?--feelings of the man had not beenswallowed up by the hard duties of the statesman, or the galling caresof the politician. I now present him to the reader at a much earlierperiod of life,--young, vigorous, successful, happy,--when the germs ofall those qualities for which men have reproached or applauded him werecertainly developed, were growing to maturity; when the severity whichafterwards characterized him, and the gentleness which he as certainlydisplayed, had both been exercised; but when the briers and thorns hadnot fully grown up, and before the soft grass of the heart had beentrampled under foot.
All men have mixed characters. I do not believe in perfect evil or inperfect goodness on this earth; but at various times of life the worseor the better spirit predominates, according to the nourishment andencouragement it receives. How far Richelieu changed, and when and howhe changed, would require a longer discussion than can be here afforded.But one thing is to be always remembered,--that he was generally paintedby his enemies; and, where they admit high qualities and generousfeelings, we may be sure that it was done with even a niggard hand, andadd something to the tribute of the unwilling witness.
In regard to critics, it may be supposed that I have spoken, a few pagesback, somewhat irreverently: I do not mean to do so in the least.Amongst them are some most admirable men,--some who have done great,real, tangible service to the public,--who have guided, if not formed,public taste; and for them I have the greatest possible respect. I speaknot of the contributors to our greater and more pretentiousReviews,--although, perhaps, a mass of deeper learning, more close andacute investigation, and purer critical taste, cannot be found in theliterature of the world than that contained in their pages; but I speakof the whole body of contemporary critics, many of whose minor articlesare full of astute perception and sound judgment. But there are othersfor whom, though I have the most profound contempt, I have a most humblefear. It is useless in Southern climates, such as that which I inhabit,to attempt to prevent oneself from being stung by mosquitos or to keepone's ears closed against their musical but venomous song. The only planwhich presents any chance of success--at least, it is as good as anyother--is to go down upon your knees and humbly to beseech them to spareyou. I therefore most reverently beseech the moral mosquitos, who areaccustomed to whistle and sing about my lowly path, to forbear as muchas possible; and, although their critical virulence may be aroused tothe highest pitch by seeing a man walk quietly on for thirty years alongthe only firm path he can find amongst the bogs and quagmires ofliterature, to spare at least those parts which are left naked by histailor and his shoemaker; to remember, in other words, that, besides thefaults and er
rors for which I am myself clearly responsible, there issome allowance to be made for the faults of my amanuensis and for theerrors of my printer. I admit that I am the worst corrector in the wholeworld; but I do hope that the liberality of criticism will not think fitto see, as has been lately done, errors of mind in errors clearly of theprinter; especially in works which, by some arrangement between Mr.Newby and the Atlantic, I never by any means see till the book haspassed through the press. But, should they still be determined to laythe whole blame upon the poor author's shoulders, I may as well furnishthem with some excuse for so doing. The best that I know is to be foundin the following little anecdote:--
When I was quite a young boy, there was a painter in Edinburgh, of thename of Skirven, celebrated both for his taste and genius, and hisminute accuracy in portrait-painting. A very beautiful lady of myacquaintance sat to him for her portrait in a falling collar of rich andbeautiful lace. Unfortunately, there was a hole in the lace. As usual,he did not suffer her to see the portrait till it was completed; and,when she did see it, there was a portrait of the hole as well asherself. "Well, Mr. Skirven," she said, "I think you need not havepainted the hole."
"Well, madam," answered the painter, "then you should have mended itfirst."
G. P. R. JAMES.
ASHLAND, VIRGINIA, December, 1857.
LORD MONTAGU'S PAGE.
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