WHY JOAN?
BY ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY
Author of "Kildares of Storm," etc.
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1919
Copyright, 1919, by
The Century Co.
Published, March, 1919
TO
MRS. RICHARD W. KNOTT
friend and neighbor to many young
women such as JOAN, whom she
has helped to find the why of themselves;
and whose life principle may
be summed up in Virgil's phrase
Paulo majora canamus—
(Let us sing of higher things.)
Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons,
Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons,
Car je suis le Cobzar.
Rough translation:
Leave me, because I have need of tears for my songs,
Die, for I have need to sing of death in my songs,
For I am the Cobzar.
FOREWORD
Some time since, the author had the temerity innocently to publish abook ("Kildares of Storm"), which, like this one, employed forbackground the country with which she happens to be most familiar, theState of her adoption and of her affections. And great was the scandalthereof. Neighbors insisted upon recognising themselves in it, to theirhorror—or to their complacency, as the case might be. They alsorecognized the house described; although if one heard with impartialear, the house appeared to possess as many different identities aslocalities, and despite the fact that the author, in order to guardagainst this very contingency, had taken many liberties with geography,even to the extent of moving mountains—imagination being on occasionalmost as powerful as faith.
That history may not repeat itself, the author now hastens to assertthat no self-respecting creative instinct, with the whole world of fancyat command, would care to inhibit productivity by the limitationsimposed upon photography, invaluable as that science is in itsplace—which is not fiction. Ours the happy privilege of, for the momentat least, "shattering the world to bits and remolding it nearer to theheart's desire."
There is also among the craft an unwritten law against the holding upfor public inspection those people with whom one has broken bread, so tospeak; and as one is apt, in Kentucky, to have broken bread with allone's acquaintance, neighbors, friends and enemies may alike considerthemselves safe from the present pen. If any think to recognizethemselves in this book, let them recognize themselves quite as readilyin the living people about them. For we are, after all, of onesubstance, varying only with circumstance and the different stages ofdevelopment. And it is with these things only—with circumstance and thestages of development, with truths rather than facts, with men and womenrather than personalities—that this author at least chooses to concernherself.
Eleanor Mercein Kelly.