What Will He Do With It? (Belford)/Book 6/Chapter 1
BOOK SIXTH.
CHAPTER I.
Being an Address to the Reader.
Seeing the length to which this World has already run, and the space it must yet occupy in the columns of Maga, it is but fair to the Reader to correct any inconsiderate notion that the Author does not know "what he will do with it." Learn, then, O friendly reader, that no matter the number of months through which it may glide its way to thine eyes—learn that with the single exception of the chapter now respectfully addressed to thee, THE WHOLE OF THIS WORK HAS BEEN LONG SINCE COMPLETED AND TRANSFERRED FROM THE DESK OF THE AUTHOR TO THE HANDS OF THE PUBLISHER.
On the 22d of January last—let the day be marked with a white stone!—the Author's labors were brought to a close and "What he will do with it" is no longer a secret—at least to the Editor of Maga.
May this information establish, throughout the rest of the journey to be traveled together, that tacit confidence between Author and Reader which is so important to mutual satisfaction!
Firstly.—The Reader may thus have the complaisance to look at each installment as the component portion of a completed whole; comprehending that it cannot be within the scope of the Author's design to aim at a separate effect for each separate Number; but rather to carry on through each Number the effect which he deems most appropriate to his composition when regarded as a whole. And here may it be permitted to dispel an erroneous idea, which, to judge by current criticism, appears to be sufficiently prevalent to justify the egotism of comment. It seems to be supposed that, because this work is published from month to month in successive installments, therefore it is written from month to month, as a newspaper article may be dashed off from day to day. Such a supposition is adverse to all the principles by which works that necessitate integrity of plan, and a certain harmony of proportion, are constructed; more especially those works which aim at artistic representa- tions of human life; for, in human life, we must presume that nothing is left to chance, and chance must be no less rigidly banished from the art by which human life is depicted. That art admits no hap-hazard chapters, no uncertainty as to the consequences that must ensue from the incidents it decides on selecting. Would the artist, on after-thought, alter a consequence, he must reconsider the whole chain-work of inci- dent which led to one inevitable result, and which would be wholly defective if it could be made to lead to another. Hence, a work of this kind cannot be written currente calamo, from month to month; the entire design must be broadly set forth be- fore the first page goes to press; and large selections of the whole must be always completed in advance, in order to allow time for deliberate forethought, and fair opportunity for such revisions, as an architect, having prepared all his plans, must still admit to his building, should difficulties, not foreseen, sharpen the invention to render each variation in detail an im- provement consistent to the original design.
Secondly.—May the Reader—accpeting this profession of the principles by which is constructed the history that invites his at- tention, and receiving now the assurance that the Work has actually passed out of the Author's hands, is as much a thing done and settled as any book composed by him twenty years ago —banish all fear lest each Number should depend for its aver- age merit on accidental circumstances—such as impatient haste, or varying humor, or capricious health, or the demand of more absorbing and practical pursuits, in which, during a considera- ble portion of the year, it has long been the Author's lot to be actively engaged. Certes, albeit in the course of his life he has got through a reasonable degree of Ubor, and has habitually re- lied on application to supply his defects in genius; yet to do one thing at a time is the practical rule of those by whom, in the course of time, many things have been accomplished. And ac- cordingly a work, even so trivial as this may be deemed, is not composed in the turmoil of metropolitan life, nor when other occupations demand attention, but in the quiet leisure of rural shades, and in those portions of the year which fellow-workmen devote to relaxation and amusement. For even in holidays, something of a holiday-task adds a zest to the hours of ease.
Lastly.—Since this survey of our modern world requires a large and a crowded canvas, and would be incomplete did it not intimate those points of contact in which the private touches the public life of Social Man, so it is well that the Reader should fully understand that all reference to such grand events, as political " crises " and changes of Government, were written many months ago, and have no reference whatever to the actual occurrences of the passing day. Holding it, indeed, a golden maxim that practical politics and ideal art should be kept wholly distinct from each other, and seeking in this Narrative to write that which may be read with unembittered and impartial pleasure by all classes and all parties—nay, perchance, in years to come, by the children of those whom he now addresses—the Author deems it indispensable to such ambition to preserve the neutral ground of imaginative creation, not only free from those personal portraitures which are fatal to comprehensive and typical delineations of character, but from all intentional appeals to an interest which can be but momentary, if given to subjects that best befit the leading articles of political journals. His realm, if it hope to endure, is in the conditions, the humors, the passions by which one general phase of society stands forth in the broad light of our common human nature, never to cast aside, as obsolete and out of fashion, " into the portion of weeds and worn-out faces."
Reader! this exordium is intended, by way of preface to that more important division of this work, in which the one-half the circle rounds itself slowly on to complete the whole. Forgive the exordium; for, rightly considered, it is but an act of deference to thee. Didst thou ever reflect, O Reader! on what thou art to an Author? Art thou aware of the character of dignity and power with which he invests thee? To thee the Author is but an unit in the great sum of intellectual existence. To the Author, thou, O Reader! art the collective representative of a multifarious abiding audience. To thee the Author is but the machine, more or less defective, that throws off a kind of work usually so ephemeral that seldom wilt thou even pause to exam- ine why it please or displease, for a day, the taste that may change with the morrow. But to him, the Author, thou art, O Reader! a confidant and a friend, often nearer and dearer than any one else in the world. All other friends are mortal as himself; they can but survive for a few years the dust he must yield to the grave. But there, in his eye, aloof and aloft forever, stands the Reader, more and more his friend as Time rolls on. 'Tis to thee that he leaves his grandest human bequest, his memory and his name. If secretly he deem himself not appreciated in his own generation, he hugs the belief, often chimerical and vain, but ever sweet and consoling, that in some generation afar awaits the Reader destined at last to do him justice. With thee, the Author is, of all men, he to whom old age comes the soonest. How quickly thou hastenest to say, "Not what he was! Vigor is waning—invention is flagging—past is his day—push him aside, and make room for the Fresh and the New." But the Author never admits that old age can fall on the Reader. The Reader to him is a being in whom youth is renewed through all cycles Leaning on his crutch, the Author still walks by the side of that friendly Shadow as he walked on summer eves, with a school-friend of boyhood—talking of the future with artless, hopeful lips! Dreams he that a day may come when he will have no Reader? O school-boy! dost thou ever dream that a day may come when thou wilt have no friend?