QUENTIN DURWARD, THE LOSER AND THE WINNER.
PRIVATELY PRINTED.ALBANY: JOEL MUNSELL.
1869.PREFACE.
About Christmas time, a gentleman was reading to his family, at his home on the banks of the Cayuga, that glorious historical romance of Quentin Durward, in which Sir Walter Scott, by his learning as by his genius, woke Louis XI out of the dusty chronicle of French kings, and made him illustrious, as a ruler, however deep the doom over him of the world's judgment, as a man. Fascinated with the story, the book was only too brief. It was felt as if the scene of Quentin's success should have been prolonged and his triumph made more enduring enjoyment to the reader. The book was the theme of thought and conversation, when one of the young ladies declared that after all, according to the rule of chivalry, Quentin did not fairly win the beautiful Countess of Croye, for he kept to himself the secret information which the Countess had caused to be conveyed to him, that De La Marck was to wear his dress of battle copied after that of Dunois; that in all right had he been a thoroughly honorable man and true knight he would have given that secret out to all, that all might have contended on equal grounds, and that he ought not therefore to have won the Lady of Croye.
The gentleman thought that Quentin was a modest and a page: iv-5[View Page iv-5] young man, and that he was entirely blameless in "taking the good the gods provided;" and that in her loveliness he had a prize too exquisite to be hazarded in a sublimated question of perhaps suicidal generosity.
And thus differing, it was agreed that, as an intellectual exercise, the young ladies should prepare chapters in continuation, reversing Quentin's good fortune, and the gentleman furnished chapters, establishing his brilliant destiny; and that these literary tasks should be exchanged by the suceeding 10th of January, which was done. They are now printed only for private circulation among friends, who perhaps may be amused or interested by them.
The original ends with Chapter 38.
