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TO NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

160566A

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

1924

LONDON:

MIALL AND COCKSHAW, PRINTERS, HORSE-SHOE COURT, LUDGATE HILL.

PREFACE.

THERE is a mechanical art and mystery in Author-craft, as in every other craft, which can only be learned by apprenticeship, or an experience tantamount thereto. Whatever a man's fitness for his vocation, whatever the general training he has undergone, the absence of this special knowledge will betray itself. In Authorcraft, this secret is the proportioning of material to space; of the task to the time for its performance.

The Writer of this volume is "free to confess" what some might otherwise take an ill-natured pleasure in discovering and proclaiming-that the size of his book scarcely permitted the fulfilment of the design expounded in its introductory pages; and that the Social bears but a small proportion to the Political in the conduct of the narrative. Others may complain, that so small a book should have been so long in preparation.

In apology for the former, the Writer would acknowledge, that though not unaccustomed to literary labour, he is new to the art

of book-making; and that he did hope, in his inexperience, to

have found room for all he had to say within twenty-three sheets of bourgeois leaded.

24 X 221

In explanation of the date upon the title-page, be it stated, that the substance of this work has appeared by chapters in a weekly journal; that it was commenced in time for its completion six months since; but that the exciting events with which the new Half Century opened, pushed from the columns of the Newspaper a posthumous record, and subtracted from the Writer's narrow leisure the hours he had devoted to this composition.

Originality of view or statement will scarcely be expected, and will certainly not be found in these pages. The Writer has availed himself of such larger works as covered more or less of the period under review; but though necessarily a compiler, is not conscious of being a copyist. He has endeavoured to form his judgment on the events and questions on which he has written from various sources; and so far from endeavouring to preserve an abstracted air of indifference, has sought to vitalize and colour his records with the breath of opinions conscientiously, and earnestly, but charitably entertained.

W. W.

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