Tales And Novels, Volume 1
Excerpt
It has been somewhere said by Johnson, that merely to invent a
story is
no small effort of the human understanding. How much more
difficult
is it to construct stories suited to the early years of youth,
and,
at the same time, conformable to the complicate relations of
modern
society—fictions, that shall display examples of virtue,
without
initiating the young reader into the ways of
vice—narratives, written in
a style level to his capacity, without tedious detail, or vulgar
idiom!
The author, sensible of these difficulties, solicits indulgence for
such
errors as have escaped her vigilance.