NEW YORK::::::::::::::::::1905
Copyright, 1905, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
——
Published, March, 1905
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
To my Readers:
On my writing-table lies a magnifying-glass the size of an old watch crystal, which helps me to understand the mechanism of many interesting things. With it I decipher at close range such finger-work as the cutting of intaglios, the brush-marks on miniatures, or perhaps the intricate fusings of metals in the sword-guard of a Samurai.
At the same close range I try to search the secret places of the many minds and hearts which in my nomadic life cross my path. In these magnifyings and probings the unexpected is ofttimes revealed: tenderness hiding behind suspected cruelty; refinement under assumed coarseness; the joy of giving forcing its way through thick crusts of pretended avarice.
The results confirm my theory, that at the bottom of every heart-crucible choked with life's cinders there can almost always be found a drop of gold.
F. H. S.