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A Novel
By JEAN INGELOW
Author of "Off The Skelligs," "Studies for Stories,"
"Mopsa the Fairy," Etc.
1875
When authors attempt to explain such of their works as should explainthemselves, it makes the case no better that they can say they do it onexpress invitation. And yet, though I think so, I am about to give somelittle account of two stories of mine which are connectedtogether,—"Off the Skelligs," and "Fated to be Free."
I am told that they are peculiar; and I feel that they must be so, formost stories of human life are, or at least aim at being, works ofart,—selections of interesting portions of life, and fitting incidents,put together and presented as a picture is; and I have not aimed atproducing a work of art at all, but a piece of nature. I have attemptedto beguile my readers into something like a sense of reality; to makethem fancy that they were reading the unskillful chronicle of thingsthat really occurred, rather than some invented story as interesting asI knew how to make it.
It seemed to me difficult to write, at least in prose, an artisticstory; but easy to come nearer to life than most stories do.
Thus, after presenting a remarkable child, it seemed proper to let him(through the force of circumstance) fall away into a very commonplaceman. It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for inreal life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with theprints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written forgrown-up people are kept almost clear of them. It seemed proper also tomake the more important and interesting events of life fall at rather alater age than is commonly chosen, and also to make the more importantand interesting persons not extremely young; for, in fact, almost allthe noblest and finest men and the loveliest and sweetest women of reallife are considerably older than the vast majority of heroes andheroines in the world of fiction.
I have also let some of the same characters play a part in both stories,though the last opens long before the first, and runs on after it isfinished. It is by this latter device that I have chiefly hoped to giveto each the air of a family history, and thus excite curiosity andinvite investigation; the small portion known to a young girl being toldby her from her own point of view and mingled into her own life andlove, and the larger narrative taking a different point of view andgiving both events and motives.
But in general, while describing the actions and setting down the words,I have left the reader to judge my people; for I think many writers mustfeel as I do, that, if characters are at all true to life, there is justas much uncertainty as to how far they are to blame in any course thatthey may have taken as there is in the case of our actual livingcontemporaries.
But why then, you may ask, do I write this preface, which must, ifnothing else had done so, destroy any such sense of truth and reality?Why, my American friends, because I am told that a great many of youare pleased to wish for some explanation. I am sure you more thandeserve of me some efforts to please you. I seldom have an opportunityof saying how truly I think so; and besides, even if I had declined togive it, I know very well that for all my pains you would still havenever been beguiled into the least faith as to the r