The Project Gutenberg eBook, Fated to Be Free, by Jean Ingelow

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Title: Fated to Be Free

Author: Jean Ingelow

Release Date: May 8, 2004 [eBook #12303]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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FATED TO BE FREE

A Novel

By JEAN INGELOW

Author of "Off The Skelligs," "Studies for Stories,"
"Mopsa the Fairy," Etc.

1875

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

When authors attempt to explain such of their works as should explain
themselves, it makes the case no better that they can say they do it on
express invitation. And yet, though I think so, I am about to give some
little account of two stories of mine which are connected
together,--"Off the Skelligs," and "Fated to be Free."

I am told that they are peculiar; and I feel that they must be so, for
most stories of human life are, or at least aim at being, works of
art,--selections of interesting portions of life, and fitting incidents,
put together and presented as a picture is; and I have not aimed at
producing a work of art at all, but a piece of nature. I have attempted
to beguile my readers into something like a sense of reality; to make
them fancy that they were reading the unskillful chronicle of things
that really occurred, rather than some invented story as interesting as
I knew how to make it.

It seemed to me difficult to write, at least in prose, an artistic
story; but easy to come nearer to life than most stories do.

Thus, after presenting a remarkable child, it seemed proper to let him
(through the force of circumstance) fall away into a very commonplace
man. It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for in
real life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with the
prints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written for
grown-up people are kept almost clear of them. It seemed proper also to
make the more important and interesting events of life fall at rather a
later age than is commonly chosen, and also to make the more important
and interesting pers