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From the PREFACE: KING Solomon, the very wisest of all wise sages, past, present, and to come, declared, in his day, there was nothing new under the sun: how then can the weak brain of a modern author (ye sons and daughters of fire-eyed Genius, be not, I beseech you, offended; I only mean weak, when compared with the brain of king Solomon) pretend to lead the fastidious critic through paths untrodden before, or present to his lynx-like sight sentiments and incidents unheard of either in prose or verse? The difficulty of twisting, twining, and winding together, three or four volumes, of sufficient interest to attract public attention, is labour that requires an ingenuity few have genius enough to accomplish, and affords a weighty reason why prefaces are growing out of fashion; for an author finds his inventive faculties spun as thin as a cobweb in supplying the requisite number of pages for his story, without wasting his metaphors, sublimity, and brilliance, on a preface. Nor is it my intention to suffer my wit to evaporate in a preface, which is generally designed to trumpet the superior talents of the writer above his contemporaries, or to defy, or oftener deprecate, those terrific inquisitorial gentlemen, the Reviewers; I will only relate a short conversation that took place in my apartment the other day, and then dismiss my gentle or ungentle reader to the approval or condemnation of my story, as shall seem most just to his or her fancy.

-Lovers and Friends!- said Miss Sylphina Thistledown, with a most captivating lisp, glancing her soft, languishing blue eyes over the manuscript as it lay on my table- -it is really a dear enchanting title, and promises--

-Pshaw!- interrupted her maiden aunt, Miss Mentoria Grizzle, -you are a simpleton, niece! the title promises a jumble of sickening nonsense, only fit to turn the heads of weak silly girls-Lovers and Friends! the title is really ridiculous.-

-Why, la! aunt,- lisped the fair Sylphina, -you no doubt have experienced the blessings of friendship, and have know the exquisite pleasure of listening to a lover.-

Miss Grizzle frowned, and craning her scraggy neck beyond its usual altitude, replied- -No, Miss Thistle-down; I thank my lucky stars I have always had discretion enough to prevent my being made the dupe of man-s artful views and flatteries; and as to friends, I never wanted any; because, niece, I always carried a sure and certain one in my pocket.-

-For all this,- resumed Sylphina, laying her white hand on my manuscript, the forefinger of which was circled with a garnet ring, a love-token given her by a smart ensign in a marching regiment, whose return, though absent far beyond his promised time, she still expected with all the credulity of inexperienced eighteen, to perform the vow he swore while placing it on her finger-a vow which he had since repeated to twenty romantic fair ones, with the same sincerity and the same convenient forgetfulness- -for all this, aunt,- said Miss Thistledown, -I shall be quite impatient for the publication of this work, because I have so much pleasure in reading a novel, and because I hope to find the hero a tall, handsome young man, and a faithful lover, and that the work will prove there may be friendship without the interference of money, and modern attachments as strong as any the days of my great-grandmother could boast.-

For the confirmation or disappointment of Miss Sylphina Thistledown-s hopes, I beg to refer the reader to the following chapters, by which, if he or she is not improved and entertained, it is not my fault, as I solemnly declare it was my intention that they should have equally as much pleasure in reading as I had in writing, what I positively think a pathetic-comic-moral story.

Product Details

• Published on: 2008-03-11
• Released on: 2008-03-11
• Format: Kindle Book