February 14, 1805.
Yet another novel from the same pen, which has twice before claimed the
patience of the public in this form. The unequivocal indulgence which has
been extended to my two former attempts, renders me doubly solicitous not to
forfeit the kindness I have experienced.
One caution I have particularly sought to exercise: "not to repeat
myself." Caleb Williams was a story of very surprising and uncommon events,
but which were supposed to be entirely within the laws and established
course of nature, as she operates in the planet we inhabit. The story of St.
Leon is of the miraculous class; and its design, to "mix human feelings and
passions with incredible situations, and thus render them impressive and
interesting."
Some of those fastidious readers—they may be classed among the best
friends an author has, if their admonitions are judiciously
considered—who are willing to discover those faults which do not offer
themselves to every eye, have remarked that both these tales are in a
vicious style of writing; that Horace has long ago decided that the story we
cannot believe we are by all the laws of criticism called upon to hate; and
that even the adventures of the honest secretary, who was first heard of ten
years ago, are so much out of the usual road that not one reader in a
million can ever fear they will happen to himself.
Gentlemen critics, I thank you. In the present volumes I have served you
with a dish agreeable to your own receipt, though I cannot say with any
sanguine hope of obtaining your approbation.
The following story consists of such adventures as for the most part have
occurred to at least one half of the Englishmen now existing who are of the
same rank of life as my hero. Most of them have been at college, and shared
in college excesses; most of them have afterward run a certain gauntlet of
dissipation; most have married, and, I am afraid, there are few of the
married tribe who have not at some time or other had certain small
misunderstandings with their wives.1 To be sure, they
have not all of them felt and acted under these trite adventures as my hero
does. In this little work the reader will scarcely find anything to "elevate
and surprise;" and, if it has any merit, it must consist in the liveliness
with which it brings things home to the imagination, and the reality it
gives to the scenes it pourtrays.
Yes, even in the present narrative, I have aimed at a certain kind of
novelty—a novelty which may be aptly expressed by a parody on a
well-known line of Pope; it relates:
"Things often done, but never yet described."
In selecting among common and ordinary adventures, I have endeavoured to
avoid such as a thousand novels before mine have undertaken to develop.
Multitudes of readers have themselves passed through the very incidents I
relate; but, for the most part, no work has hitherto recorded them. If I
have told them truly, I have added somewhat to the stock of books which
should enable a recluse, shut up in his closet, to form an idea of what is
passing in the world. It is inconceivable, meanwhile, how much, by this
choice of a subject, I increased the arduousness of my task. It is so easy
to do, a little better, or a little worse, what twenty authors have done
before! If I had foreseen from the first all the difficulty of my project,
my courage would have failed me to undertake the execution of it.
Certain persons, who condescend to make my supposed inconsistencies the
favourite object of their research, will perhaps remark with exultation on
the respect expressed in this work for marriage, and exclaim, "It was not
always thus!" referring to the pages in which this subject is treated in the
"Enquiry concerning Political Justice" for the proof of their assertion. The
answer to this remark is exceedingly simple. The production referred to in
it, the first foundation of its author's claim to public distinction and
favour, was a treatise, aiming to ascertain what new institutions in
political society might be found more conducive to general happiness than
those which at present prevail. In the course of this disquisition it was
enquired whether marriage, as it stands described and supported in the laws
of England, might not with advantage admit of certain modifications. Can
anything be more distinct than such a proposition on the one hand and a
recommendation on the other that each man for himself should supersede and
trample upon the institutions of the country in which he lives? A thousand
things might be found excellent and salutary, if brought into general
practice, which would in some cases appear ridiculous, and in others be
attended with tragical consequences, if prematurely acted upon by a solitary
individual. The author of "Political Justice," as appears again and again in
the pages of that work, is the last man in the world to recommend a pitiful
attempt, by scattered examples, to renovate the face of society, instead of
endeavouring, by discussion and reasoning, to effect a grand and
comprehensive improvement in the sentiments of its members.
