(1914) TO CHARLES CANNAN. My Dear Cannan, It is told of a distinguished pedagogue that one day a heated stranger burst into his study, and, wringing him by the hand, cried, "Heaven bless and reward you, sir! Heaven preserve you long to educate old England's boyhood! I have walked many a weary, weary mile to see your face again," he continued, flourishing a scrap of paper, "and assure you that but for your discipline, obeyed by me as a boy and remembered as a man, I should never--no, never--have won the Ticket-of-Leave which you behold!" In something of the same spirit I bring you this small volume. The child of encouragement is given to staggering its parent; and I make no doubt that as you turn the following pages, you will more than once exclaim, with the old lady in the ballad-- "O, deary me! this is none of I!" Nevertheless, it would be strange indeed if this story bore no marks of you; for a hundred kindly instances have taught me to come with sure reliance for your reproof and praise. Few, I imagine, have the good fortune of a critic so friendly and inexorable; and if the critic has been unsparing, he has been used unsparingly. Wargrave, Henley-on-Thames, June 7, 1888 ~
Memoirs Of His Adventures At Home And Abroad And Particularly In The Island Of Corsica: Beginning With The Year 1756. Written by His Son Prosper Paleologus, Otherwise Constantine, and Edited by "Q" (A.T. Quiller Couch). ~ Published in 1906. ~ "For knighthood is not in the feats of warre, As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong, But in a cause which truth can not defarre He ought himself for to make sure and strong Justice to keep mixt with mercy among: And no quarrell a knight ought to take But for a truth, or for a woman's sake." ~
A Romance. (1918) . TO ANYONE WHO SUPPOSES THAT HE HAS A WORSE ENEMY THAN HIMSELF. ~ If the red slayer thinks he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson--Brahma. The best kind of revenge is not to become like him. ~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. ~
(1903) ~ When I started to set down these early adventures of Harry Revel, I meant to dedicate them to my friend Mr. W. F. Collier of Woodtown, Horrabridge: but he died while the story was writing, and now cannot twit me with the pranks I have played among his stories of bygone Plymouth, nor send me his forgiveness--as he would have done. Peace be to him for a lover of Dartmoor and true gentleman of Devon! So now I have only to beg, by way of preface, that no one will bother himself by inquiring too curiously into the geography, topography, etc. of this tale, or of any that I have written or may write. If these tales have any sense of locality, they certainly will not square with the ordnance maps; and even the magnetic pole works loose and goes astray at times--a phenomenon often observed by sailors off the sea-coast of Bohemia. It may be permissible to add that the story which follows by no means exhausts the adventures, civil and military, of Harry Revel. But the recital of his further campaigning in company with Mr. Benjamin Jope, and of the verses in which Miss Plinlimmon commemorated it, will depend upon public favour. A.T. QUILLER-COUCH. THE HAVEN, FOWEY, March 28th, 1903. ~
(1912) TO MAURICE HEWLETT HEWLETT! as ship to ship Let us the ensign dip. There may be who despise For dross our merchandise, Our balladries, our bales Of woven tales; Yet, Hewlett, the glad gales Favonian! And what spray Our dolphins toss'd in play, Full in old Triton's beard, On Iris' shimmering veils! Scant tho' the freight of gold Commercial in our hold, P****, Eridanus Perchance have barter'd us 'Bove chrematistic care
Being Memoirs of The Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, A Servant of His Late Majesty King Charles I In the Years 1642-3, Written by Himself. Edited in Modern English by Q ~ To Edward Gwynne Eardley-Wilmot My Dear Eddie, Whatever view a story-teller may take of his business, 'tis happy when he can think, "This book of mine will please such and such a friend," and may set that friend's name after the title page. For even if to please (as some are beginning to hold) should be no part of his aim, at least 'twill always be a reward: and (in unworthier moods) next to a Writer I would choose to be a Lamplighter, as the only other that gets so cordial a "God bless him!" in the long winter evenings. To win such a welcome at such a time from a new friend or two would be the happiest fortune for my tale. But to you I could wish it to speak particularly, seeing that under the coat of Jack Marvel beats the heart of your friend Q. Torquay, August 22d, 1889. ~
In a General Order issued from the Horse-Guards on New Year's Day, 1836, His Majesty, King William IV., was pleased to direct, through the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Hill, that "with the view of doing the fullest justice to Regiments, as well as to Individuals who had distinguished themselves in action against the enemy," an account of the services of every Regiment in the British Army should be published, under the supervision of the Adjutant General. With fair promptitude this scheme was put in hand, under the editorship of Mr. Richard Cannon, Principal Clerk of the Adjutant General's Office. The duty of examining, sifting, and preparing the records of that distinguished Regiment which I shall here call the Moray Highlanders (concealing its real name for reasons which the narrative will make apparent) fell to a certain Major Reginald Sparkes; who in the course of his researches came upon a number of pages in manuscript sealed under one cover and docketed "Memoranda concerning Ensign D.M.J. Mackenzie. J.R., Jan. 3rd, 1816"--the initials being those of Lieut.-Colonel Sir James Ross, who had commanded the 2nd Battalion of the Morays through the campaign of Waterloo. The cover also bore, in the same handwriting, the word "Private," twice underlined. Of the occurrences related in the enclosed papers--of the private ones, that is--it so happened that of the four eye-witnesses none survived at the date of Major Sparkes' discovery. They had, moreover, so carefully taken their secret with them that the Regiment preserved not a rumour of it. Major Sparkes' own commission was considerably more recent than the Waterloo year, and he at least had heard no whisper of the story. It lay outside the purpose of his inquiry, and he judiciously omitted it from his report. But the time is past when its publication might conceivably have been injurious; and with some alterations in the names--to carry out the disguise of the Regiment--it is here given. The reader will understand that I use the ipsissima verba of Colonel Ross. ~Q. ~
TO HENRY NEWBOLT. My Dear Newbolt, Two schoolfellows, who had sat together in the Sixth at Clifton, met at Paddington some twenty years later and travelled down to enter their two sons at one school. On their way, while the boys shyly became acquainted, the fathers discussed the project of this story; a small matter in comparison with the real business of that day--but that it happened so gives me the opportunity of dedicating Fort Amity to you, its editor in The Monthly Review, as a reminder to outlast the short life granted in these days to novels. Yet if either of our sons shall turn its pages some years hence, though but to remind himself of his first journey to school, I hope he will not lay it down too contemptuously. The tale has, for its own purposes, so seriously confused the geography of Fort Amitie, that he may search the map and end by doubting if any such fortress ever existed and stood a siege: but I trust it will leave him in no doubt of what his elders understood by honour and friendship. Of these two themes, at any rate, I have composed it, and dedicate it to a poet who has sung nobly of both. "Like to the generations of leaves are those of men"--but while we last, let these deciduous pages commemorate the day when we two went back to school four strong. May they also contain nothing unworthy to survive us in our two fellow-travellers! A. T. QUILLER-COUCH. The Haven, April 20th, 1904. ~
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