I
may claim it as a merit, because it is after all a mechanical
one, that I forget nothing, and that I can call long-passed
conversations and events as readily to my recollection as if they
had happened but a few weeks ago. Of two things at least I feel
tolerably certain beforehand, in meditating over the contents of
this book: First, that I can repeat correctly all that I have
heard; and, secondly, that I have never missed anything worth
hearing when my sitters were addressing me on an interesting
subject. Although I cannot take the lead in talking while I am
engaged in painting, I can listen while others speak, and work
all the better for it.
So much in the way of general preface to the pages for which I am
about to ask the reader's attention. Let me now advance to
particulars, and describe how I came to hear the first story in
the present collection. I begin with it because it is the story
that I have oftenest "rehearsed," to borrow a phrase from the
stage. Wherever I go, I am sooner or later sure to tell it. Only
last night, I was persuaded into repeating it once more by the
inhabitants of the farmhouse in which I am now staying.
Not many years ago, on returning from a short holiday visit to a
friend settled in Paris, I found professional letters awaiting me
at my agent's in London, which required my immediate presence in
Liverpool.
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