Master Humphrey's Clock

Transcribed from the 1914 Chapman & Hall edition of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Master Humphrey’s Clock” by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
TO SAMUEL ROGERS , ESQUIRE .
My Dear Sir,
Let me have my Pleasures of Memory in connection with this book, by dedicating it to a Poet whose writings (as all the world knows) are replete with generous and earnest feeling; and to a man whose daily life (as all the world does not know) is one of active sympathy with the poorest and humblest of his kind.
Your faithful friend, CHARLES DICKENS.
4 th April , 1840.
Master Humphrey earnestly hopes, (and is almost tempted to believe,) that all degrees of readers, young or old, rich or poor, sad or merry, easy of amusement or difficult to entertain, may find something agreeable in the face of his old clock. That, when they have made its acquaintance, its voice may sound cheerfully in their ears, and be suggestive of none but pleasant thoughts. That they may come to have favourite and familiar associations connected with its name, and to look for it as for a welcome friend.
From week to week, then, Master Humphrey will set his clock, trusting that while it counts the hours, it will sometimes cheat them of their heaviness, and that while it marks the thread of Time, it will scatter a few slight flowers in the Old Mower’s path.
Until the specified period arrives, and he can enter freely upon that confidence with his readers which he is impatient to maintain, he may only bid them a short farewell, and look forward to their next meeting.
When the Author commenced this Work, he proposed to himself three objects—
First. To establish a periodical, which should enable him to present, under one general head, and not as separate and distinct publications, certain fictions that he had it in contemplation to write.
Secondly. To produce these Tales in weekly numbers, hoping that to shorten the intervals of communication between himself and his readers, would be to knit more closely the pleasant relations they had held, for Forty Months.