MCMXXI
Many of the following Essays appear by kind permission of the Editor of "The Tatler."
Fifty per cent. of the author's profit on the sale of this book will be handed over to the National Library of the Blind, Tufton Street, Westminster, S.W.
I DEDICATE,
THIS LITTLE BOOK TO THOSE V.A.D.'S WHO, THOUGH THE WAR IS OVER, STILL "CARRY ON" AND TO THOSE OTHER MEN AND WOMEN WHO, LIVING IN FREEDOM, HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN THE MEN WHO FOUGHT OR DIED FOR IT
FOREWORD
BY SIR ARTHUR PEARSON, BART., G.B.E.
Those who buy "Over the Fireside" will purchase for themselves the real joy of mentally absorbing the delightful thoughts which Mr. Richard King so charmingly clothes in words. And they will purchase, too, a large share of an even greater pleasure—the pleasure of giving pleasure to others—for the author tells me that he has arranged to give half of the profits arising from the sale of this book to the National Library for the Blind, thus enabling that beneficent Institution to widen and extend its sphere of usefulness.
You will never, perhaps, have heard of the National Library for the Blind, and even if it so happens that you are vaguely aware of its existence, you will in no true degree realise all that it means to those who are compelled to lead lives, which however full and interesting, must inevitably be far more limited in scope than your own. Let me try to make you understand what reading means to the intelligent blind man or woman.
Our lives are necessarily narrow. Blind people, however keen their understanding, and however clearly and sympathetically those around them may by description make up for their lack of perception, must, perforce, lead lives which lack the vivid actuality of the lives of others. To those of them who have always been blind the world, outside the reach of their hands, is a mystery which can only be solved by description. And where shall they turn for more potent description than to the pages in which those gifted with the mastery of language have set down their impressions of the world around them?