e dusk again,
Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him,
Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way.

Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him;--
That is, when they remember he still exists.

_Who_, you ask, _is this fellow_?--What matter names?
He is only a scribbler who is content.

FELIX KENNASTON.--The Toy-Maker.

AUCTORIAL INDUCTION

WHICH (AFTER SOME BRIEF DISCOURSE OF FIRES AND FRYING-PANS) ELUCIDATES
THE INEXPEDIENCY OF PUBLISHING THIS BOOK, AS WELL AS THE NECESSITY OF
WRITING IT: AND THENCE PASSES TO A MODEST DEFENSE OF MORE VITAL THEMES.

The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying
runs, old as the hills--and as immortal. Questionless, there was many
a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons must
needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic
synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their
"style." Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom
life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of
beautiful happenings.

Yet, that the work of a man of letters is almost always a congenial
product of his day and environment, is a contention as lacking in
novelty as it is in the need of any upholding here. Nor is the
rationality of that axiom far to seek; for a man of genuine literary
genius, since he possesses a temperament whose susceptibilities are of
wider area than those of any other, is inevitably of all people the one
most variously affected by his surroundings. And it is he, in
consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits
the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his
writings--where it conceivably might be just predetermined
affectation--but in his personality.

Such being the assumption upon which this volume is builded, it appears
only equitable for the architect frankly to indicate his cornerstone.
Hereinafter you have an attempt to depict a special temperament--one in
essence "literary"--as very variously molded by diverse eras and as
responding in proportion with its ability to the demands of a certain
hour.

In proportion with its ability, be it repeated, since its ability is
singularly hampered. For, apart from any ticklish temporal
considerations, be it remembered, life is always claiming of this
temperament's poss