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"Do you remember?" asked Helen, pointing—p.328
THE WIFE'S STRATAGEM: A STORY FOR FIRESIDE AND WAYSIDE.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
443 & 445 BROADWAY.
LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN.
1862.ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by FANNY BARROW, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
TO
MRS. JOHN A. DIX,
THE LOVELY WOMAN,
THE GOOD FRIEND, AND THE TRUE
CHRISTIAN,
THIS BOOK
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
Dedicated.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
TO MESSIEURS THE CRITICS—ALSO, THE DEAR PUBLIC.
CRITICS are fearfully and wonderfully made. They are congestive, as to their livers; they are supernaturally bilious; their brains are incessantly stirred up by wildly incongruous doses, such as a quarto volume on "Morphological Development," and the thrilling tale of "The Yankee Schoolmistress, or the Fatal Pistol." They must digest both as they can at the same time. They must review these diverse books at the rate of fifty a week; they must burn the midnight oil; they neglect to put coals on the dying fire, and by consequence they are in a chronic condition of headache, earache, toothache, and sore throat all at once. How then, in the name of that Common Sense which has no respect for circumstances or the abuser of Nature's laws, can a critic do other than hate or despise his tormentors—the books.
And yet there is nothing more valuable to an author than a kindly criticism. If mixed with praise, it is accepted by the public as letters patent of merit.
page: 6-7[View Page 6-7]A good writer says that criticism frequently "lacks imagination, as well as charity and humility." The critic persists in "commenting upon the works of others from his own peculiar ground and point of view." He will not look at what is done "with a due regard to the doer's drift and conception." He has the dyspepsia, nine times out of ten; and thus he breaks a poor little butterfly like mine upon his inquisitorial wheel without benefit of jury.
I have tried, by special request, this new, not higher flight; for children "are of the kingdom of Heaven," while we grown folks are to be divided—some taken, others left.
Now one kind word (if in the least deserved) is a matter of no small solicitude. One drop of sympathy to a beginner, sensitive to discouragement, would be like water to the solitary traveller thirsting in the desert.
Quite dissatisfied with my work, I am certain that if you try me, even by what the lawyers call "a Court of Equity," and Clients "purgatory," it will be my epitaph, and utterly disarrange and drive to sixes and sevens the ideas I am cultivating for my next much-better-book. Instead of endeavoring only to amuse, my despairing gray goose-quill will be tempted to perpetrate a numskullical didactic fiction, which, like that dreadful creature, "a perfect pattern of a woman," will be running over with pernicious excellences, with a "sharp, horny toe of a moral sticking out at the end," instead of being a gentle, invisible leading-string from the beginning; and my reader, my dear, lovable reader, will make up a horrible face, as the little boy did when he was feloniously induced to shut his eyes and open his mouth to receive the spoonful of jam which had a dose of pills in the middle of it.
Consider, dear critic (you are not dyspeptic), while you are discussing your matutinal toast and me, that my stories, save two, are simple accounts of events happening to veritable men and women within the past year. Yes, they are all alive at this moment! Some will laugh at their pen-portrait; others will come and pinch me black and blue for telling. "Cousin Miranda" is much longer and stronger than I. She will probably shake the breath out of my body; or, to use her own words, shake me into "conniptions," and most likely exclaim, "What on airth do you mean printing of me? It beats all natur! It don't square with my idees at all, and then she'll shake me again.
As to "Little Mrs. Bell" (that's not her name; but she'll find me out, nevertheless), I have given orders to be particularly engaged for a month or two, when she calls. Of the rest of the good people, I am not afraid. "Little Sister," truth compels me to own, is as Mantilini says, "a demnition reality;" though I declare and protest that all I said and did, served the parties just right. "Enfant terrible" indeed! How much more terrible it would page: 8-9[View Page 8-9] be if an innocent child did not speak the truth, and shame the d with a dash. This estimable quality of my childhood has developed in my womanhood into a highly improving "faculty," as Miss Ophelia calls it, for asking questions, one of the consequences of which I have given in "The yard of black silk elastic."
The absurdity of "Corsets" was suggested by a French story, as one might surmise; and I have adapted it to the needs of a certain finical fashionable fribbler of my acquaintance, who is lacing her daughters into their very genteel graves; after which event the mother's consoling thought will be "Alas! we must be genteel or die—or genteel and die." The "Marble Bust" is a translation, very much altered; but for which, when we poor abused authors get our national and international rights, I shall offer to pay. "Buzz! buzz! buzz!" say the publishers who do a little of this thing; "change the subject! It is getting personal!"
There is so much, dear critic (I am coaxing you now), in name—good, bad, or assorted. Even the great Shakespeare was loveable and human, because he made mistakes. A name is life or death to many things. Let me tell an anecdote to illustrate:
A certain great man, you will know who by the text, announced a lecture. The people, well primed by foregone conclusions, gotten from all his previous books and lectures, thronged the place with many dozen of gallons of laugh, bottled up, and were all eyes, ears, attention and irresistible chuckle. The Dr. is a small man, of quick nervous movements. He jumped up like Jack in the box and commenced by gravely announcing that this was going to be a very serious sort of thing. They all yelled with laughter! Somewhat discomposed he proceeded to read the first line. Screams, shrieks of laughter!! By-and-by they found that it was not intended to be funny at all; and the whole thing fell as flat as a pancake.
So much for a name!!
P.S.—Simply and earnestly, if one soul heavy with care, whirling along in a railroad car, or sitting by the winter fire, is beguiled out of its brooding grief, for an hour, by reading these stories, as mine—God be thanked!—has been out of many by writing them; then shall I have a grateful and thankful heart, for the loving and lovable part of my intention will have been accomplished.
Adieu, or au revoir, as you please.
