[14] This is, in fact, an extract from Mr. Conrad’s letter in reply to a request that he would justify the project of this volume by contributing to it.—C.K.S.M.
[15] I.e., of Du Côté de chez Swann; the dinner at the Verdurins’ at which Forcheville is present for the first time with the Cottards, Brichot the painter, Swann, and Odette. It is only fair, to both critic and reader, to explain that Mr. Saintsbury had read nothing of Proust save Swann, and that only in an inadequate translation. On the other hand, it was as impossible for the editor to contemplate a book of this sort without a promise of collaboration from his old friend and master as it was, at the moment, for the doyen of English (if not of European, which is to say the world’s) critics to qualify himself for saying more than is printed on this leaf.—C.K.S.M.
Transcriber’s Notes
In two quotations from Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, words are missing, rendering the quotations unintelligible. The missing words, in brackets below, were supplied based on the authoritative French edition (Gallimard, Bibliothêque de la Pléiade, 1988, vol. III).
[Page 9]: Je n’avais [jamais] fait de différence entre les ouvriers
[Page 27]: si loin qu’on allât dans [ses] effets d’art raffiné
Other obvious printer errors have been corrected without note.