A MODERN PREFACE.
I T was night, and silence still reigned over the place- silence in the author’s study, save for the tickings of the clock on the mantel piece, the ominous heart-beats of Father Time: silence without, save for the sighing breeze, wafting through the open window the distant hum of the busy city, as, like a wilful child, it sobbed itself to sleep.
In his den the author sat, his legs on the table before him, and his chair tilted back, in Yankee fashion, at an angle that was dangerously close to the line of equili- hrium. He was in a fix, the author ; before him, on the table, lay the last letter from his patient, long-suffering publisher, calling, in no gentle tones, for the promised preface that never came. And yet, for the life of him, he could not manage to extract one from his poor over-worked brain. With closed eyes and fingers tightly clasped around his head he sat, as if he would force the unwilling one from out of its dark abode. And upon him thus wrestling with his stubborn Muse, the silent hours stole on. The table lamp flared up, as if in angry protest at being kept awake so late to no purpose ; and close upon it the clqpk struck the hour of midnight.
The last stroke was still upon the air, when there came a knock at the study door, and roused the author from his deep reverie, back to the world and its sorrows “One more hour,” criedhe, “ another messenger of Time, posting from the dark realms of the Future, on to the regions of the Dead Past. The world has grown older by an hour and I no wiser. ” With that, there strode into the room, all unbidden, the impatient visitor.
