Then, taking them up as I chance to have time (that
is, if their names can be twisted in rhyme), I will honestly give each
his PROPER POSITION, at the rate of ONE AUTHOR to each NEW EDITION. Thus
a PREMIUM is offered sufficiently HIGH (as the magazines say when they
tell their best lie) to induce bards to CLUB their resources and buy the
balance of every edition, until they have all of them fairly been run
through the mill.
One word to such readers (judicious and wise) as read books with
something behind the mere eyes, of whom in the country, perhaps, there
are two, including myself, gentle reader, and you. All the characters
sketched in this slight _jeu d'esprit_, though, it may be, they seem,
here and there, rather free, and drawn from a somewhat too cynical
standpoint, are _meant_ to be faithful, for that is the grand point,
and none but an owl would feel sore at a rub from a jester who tells you,
without any subterfuge, that he sits in Diogenes' tub.
A PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Though it well may be reckoned, of all composition, the species at once
most delightful and healthy, is a thing which an author, unless he be
wealthy and willing to pay for that kind of delight, is not, in all
instances, called on to write, though there are, it is said, who, their
spirits to cheer, slip in a new title-page three times a year, and in
this way snuff up an imaginary savor of that sweetest of dishes, the
popular favor,--much as if a starved painter should fall to and treat
the Ugolino inside to a picture of meat.
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