Echo de Paris

Echo de Paris BY Laurence Housman Author of “Angels and Ministers,” “Prunella,” “An Englishwoman’s Love-Letters,” Etc.
D. Appleton and Company New York
Mcmxxiv
Copyright, 1924, by D. Appleton and Company Printed in the United States of America
In a book of political dialogues, published a year ago, I explained (perhaps unnecessarily) that they were entirely unauthentic—a personal interpretation, given in dramatic form, of certain minds and events that had gone to make history.
But the dialogue which here follows differs from those, in that it has a solid basis in fact, and that I myself was a participant in the conversation which, as here recorded, is but a free rendering of what was then actually said.
And if it would interest any of my readers to know where these paraphrases of memory stand nearest to fact, they will find them in those passages dealing with the writings of Carlyle, the Scotsman’s worship of success, and the theory of the complete life of the artist. Other references by the way were the bird with the Berkeleyan philosophy, and the novels of Mr. Benjamin Swift. The rest is my own development of the main theme, though it may well be that, here and there, I have remembered better than I know.
The scene, as regards its setting—the outside of a Paris restaurant—is true to history; and if, toward the end, a touch of drama has been introduced, the reader will understand that it is more symbolic than actual. The non-arriving guest, with the unreal name, did not, on that occasion, even begin to arrive. He was, nevertheless, a very real element in the tragic situation which I have tried to depict; and it is likely enough that there were more of his kind than one knew—that he was generic rather than individual.
My choice of initials to represent those who appear upon the scene—a convenient device for the better ordering of the printed page—was not made with any intention to disguise identity where that could be of interest; but it seemed better manners, in a scene where only one character really counted, to adopt the unobtrusive formula, except in speeches where the names occur naturally. The friendly “R.R.” is dead, and will be easily identified; the rest are still living. And though, for the most part, they were listeners not speakers, I have no reason for leaving them out of a scene which, after nearly twenty-five years, I remember so well.