The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lady Baltimore, by Owen Wister

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Title: Lady Baltimore

Author: Owen Wister

Posting Date: August 22, 2008 [EBook #1386]
Release Date: July, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY BALTIMORE ***

Produced by Bill Brewer

LADY BALTIMORE

By Owen Wister

To
S. Weir Mitchell
With the Affection and Memories of All My Life

To the Reader

You know the great text in Burns, I am sure, where he wishes he could
see himself as others see him. Well, here lies the hitch in many a work
of art: if its maker--poet, painter, or novelist--could but have become
its audience too, for a single day, before he launched it irrevocably
upon the uncertain ocean of publicity, how much better his boat would
often sail! How many little touches to the rigging he would give, how
many little drops of oil to the engines here and there, the need of
which he had never suspected, but for that trial trip! That's where the
ship-builders and dramatists have the advantage over us others: they can
dock their productions and tinker at them. Even to the musician comes
this useful chance, and Schumann can reform the proclamation which opens
his B-flat Symphony.

Still, to publish a story in weekly numbers previously to its appearance
as a book does sometimes give to the watchful author an opportunity to
learn, before it is too late, where he has failed in clearness; and it
brings him also, through the mails, some few questions that are pleasant
and proper to answer when his story sets forth united upon its journey
of adventure among gentle readers.

How came my hero by his name?

If you will open a book more valuable than any I dare hope to write, and
more entertaining too, The Life of Paul Jones, by Mr. Buell, you will
find the real ancestor of this imaginary boy, and fall in love with John
Mayrant the First, as did his immortal captain of the Bon Homme Richard.
He came from South Carolina; and believing his seed and name were
perished there to-day, I gave him a descendant. I have learned that the
name, until recently, was in existence; I trust it will not seem ta