DEDICATION OF

"THE STORY OF ROSINA"

(TO AN IDEAL READER)

WHAT would our modern maids to-day?

I watch, and can't conjecture:

A dubious tale?-an Ibsen play ?—
A pessimistic lecture?

I know not.

But this, Child, I know
You like things sweet and seemly,
Old-fashioned flowers, old shapes in Bow,
"Auld Robin Gray" (extremely);

You with my "Dorothy "1-delight
In fragrant cedar-presses;
In window corners warm and bright,
In lawn, and lilac dresses;

You still can read, at any rate,
Charles Lamb and "Evelina;
To you, My Dear, I dedicate

This "STORY OF ROSINA."

1 See ante, P. 104.

PROLOGUE TO

"EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIGNETTES"

(THIRD SERIES)

"Versate.

Quid valeant humeri,”—HOR, Ars Poetica.

HOW shall a Writer change his ways?

Read his Reviewers' blame, not praise

In blame, as Boileau said of old,
The truth is shadowed, if not told.

There ! Let that row of stars extend
To hide the faults I mean to mend.
Why should the Public need to know
The standard that I fall below?
Or learn to search for that defect
My Critic bids me to correct?
No in this case the Worldly-Wise
Keep their own counsel-and revise.

Yet something of my Point of View
I may confide, my Friend, to You.
I don't pretend to paint the vast
And complex picture of the Past:
Not mine the wars of humankind,
"The furious troops in battle joined;"

Not mine the march, the counter-march,
The trumpets, the triumphal arch.

For detail, detail, most I care

(Ce superflu, si nécessaire !); I cultivate a private bent For episode, for incident; I take a page of Some One's life, His quarrel with his friend, his wife, His good or evil hap at Court, "His habit as he lived," his sport, The books he read, the trees he planted, The dinners that he ate-or wanted: As much, in short, as one may hope To cover with a microscope.

I don't taboo a touch of scandal,
If Gray or Walpole hold the candle;
Nor do I use a lofty tone

Where faults are weaknesses alone.

In studies of Life's seamy side

I own I feel no special pride;

The Fleet, the round-house, and the gibbets

Are not among my prize exhibits;

Nor could I, if I would, outdo

What Fielding wrote, or Hogarth drew.

Yet much I love to arabesque

What Gautier christened a "Grotesque;"

To take his oddities and "lunes,"

And drape them neatly with festoons,
Until, at length, I chance to get
The thing I designate "Vignette."

To sum the matter then :-My aim
Is modest. This is all I claim :
To paint a part and not the whole,
The trappings rather than the soul.

The Evolution of the Time,
The silent Forces fighting Crime,
The Fetishes that fail, and pass,

The struggle between Class and Class,
The Wealth still adding land to lands,

The Crown that falls, the Faith that stands..
All this I leave to abler hands.

EPILOGUE TO

“EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIGNETTES

(SECOND SERIES)

WHAT is it then,"—some Reader asks,—

it

"WHA

Your fancy so to fans and masks,—

To periwigs and patches?

"Is Human Life to-day so poor,-
So bloodless,-you disdain it,
To'galvanize' the Past once more?"
-Permit me. I'll explain it.

This Age I grant (and grant with pride),
Is varied, rich, eventful;

But, if you touch its weaker side
Deplorably resentful:

Belaud it, and it takes your praise

With air of calm conviction; Condemn it, and at once you raise A storm of contradiction.