SALLY BISHOP

      MY DEAR GERALD,

Amongst the many things which I anticipate in the reception of thisbook, is the shrug-shoulder smile of critics at my sub-title—aRomance. There are canons and rubrics to be observed, it would seem,in the slightest action that a man attempts in this Great World'sFair of Conventionality, whose every sideshow is hedged around withthe red-tape of the Law. Witness even that delusive proverb—thereis honour amongst thieves. So is there an unwritten canon inliterature and the making of books, that a Romance must end with aphrase to convey another illusion—namely, the happiness that isever after.

And so, in this respect, I throw canons to the winds—it sounds aherculean feat—wash out the printed red of the rubric, and call,perhaps the saddest story I shall write, a Romance.

Yet I profess to have a reason beyond mere contrariness. The worldof Romance must be at all times an elusive star—never capable ofbeing put in the exact same place on any one's calendar. And to meit conveys no fixed beginning, no fixed end, so long as it possessesthat quality of dreaming imagination in the mind of the characterwith whom the circumstances are first concerned. All that we knowcertainly of life is reality, and of all those myriad things whichcombine to make up the one great scheme, of which we know nothing,there is the quality of Romance—free to any one who cares to lethis mind drift upon the sea of conjecture.

In that this was the case with Sally; in that she made her dreamout of Reality itself—I have called it a Romance. The Romance thatremains a Romance until the end, is not as yet within the reach ofmy pen. If it ever should be—then I promise you that book as well.

On a