Recognizing, therefore, that neither his talent nor his learning, “neither his wings nor his beak,” as the ingenious Arab poet has it, could furnish him with a preface which would interest his readers, the author resolved merely to offer them a serious and frank account of the improvements introduced in this second edition.
He must first inform them that the words “second edition” are incorrect, and that the term “first edition” should really be applied to this reprint, inasmuch as the four variously sized bundles of grayish paper blotted with black and white, which the indulgent public has hitherto kindly consented to consider as the four volumes of “Hans of Iceland,” were so disfigured with typographic errors by a barbarous printer that the wretched author, on looking over his own production, altered as it was beyond all recognition, was perpetually subjected to the torments of a father whose child returns to him mutilated and tattooed by the hand of an Iroquois from Lake Ontario.
For instance, the type turned a “lion’s” voice into a “line,” robbed the Dovrefield Mountains of their “peaks” and bestowed upon them “feet,” and when the Norse fishers hoped to moor their boat in various “creeks,” the printer drove them upon “bricks.” Not to weary the reader, the author will pass by in silence all the outrages of this kind which his wounded memory recalls,—
“Manet alto in pectore vulnus.”
Suffice it to say that there is no grotesque image, no strange meaning, no absurd idea, no confused figure, no burlesque hieroglyph, which the sedulously stupid ignorance of this enigmatical proof-reader did not make him utter. Alas! every one who ever printed a dozen lines, were it only an invitation to a wedding or a funeral, will feel the deep bitterness of such a sorrow!
The proofs of this reprint have accordingly been read with sedulous care; and the author now ventures to hope, in which he is sustained by one or two close friends, that this romance redivivus is worthy to figure among those splendid writings before which “the eleven stars bow low,’ as before the sun and moon.”[2]
Should journalists accuse him of making no corrections, he will take the liberty of sending them the proof-sheets of this regenerate work, blackened by minute scrutiny; for it is averred that there is more than one doubting Thomas among them.
The kindly reader will also observe that several dates have been corrected, historical notes added, one or two chapters enriched with new mottoes,—in a word, he will find on every page changes whose extreme importance is to be measured only by that of the entire book.
An impertinent adviser desired a translation in foot-notes of all the Latin phrases with which the learned Spiagudry sprinkles the book, “for the comprehension,” adds this personage, “of those masons, tinkers, or hairdressers who edit certain journals wherein ‘Hans of Iceland’ may chance to be reviewed.” The author’s anger at such insidious counsel may be imagined. He instantly begged to inform the would-be joker that all journalists, without distinction, are mirrors of courtesy, wisdom, and good faith, and requested him not to insult him by believing him to be one of those ungrateful citizens who are ever ready to address those dictators of taste and genius in this poor verse of an old poet,—
“Keep your own skins, my friends, nor other folk condemn,”