E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Bill Hershey, and
Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
by
1910
[Illustration: Robin Ghyll Cottage]
The story told in the present book owes something to the past, in itspicturing of the present, as its predecessors have done; though inmuch less degree. The artist, as I hold, may gather from any field,so long as he sacredly respects what other artists have already madetheir own by the transmuting processes of the mind. To draw on theconceptions or the phrases that have once passed through the warmminting of another's brain, is, for us moderns, at any rate, theliterary crime of crimes. But to the teller of stories, all that isrecorded of the real life of men, as well as all that his own eyes cansee, is offered for the enrichment of his tale. This is a clear andsimple principle; yet it has been often denied. To insist upon it is,in my belief, to uphold the true flag of Imagination, and to defendthe wide borders of Romance.
In addition to this word of notice, which my readers will perhapsaccept from me once for all, this small preface must also containa word of thanks to my friend Mr. Sterner, whose beautiful art hascontributed to this story, as to several of its forerunners. I haveto thank him, indeed, not only as an artist, but as a critic. In theinterpreting of Fenwick, he has given me valuable aid; has correctedmistakes, and illumined his own painter's craft for me, as none buta painter can. But his poetic intelligence as an artist is what makeshim so rare a colleague. In the first lovely drawing of the husbandand wife sitting by the Westmoreland stream, Phoebe's face and lookwill be felt, I think, by any sympathetic reader, as a light on thecourse of the story; reappearing, now in storm, as in the picture ofher despair, before the portrait of her supposed rival; and now intremulous afterglow, as in the scene with which the drawings close. Tobe so understood and so bodied forth is great good-fortune; and I begto be allowed this word of gratitude.
The lines quoted on page 166 are taken, as any lover of modern poetrywill recognise, from the 'Elegy on the Death of a Lady,' by Mr. RobertBridges, first printed in 1873.
This cottage, known as Robin Ghyll, is situated near the Langdale
Pikes in Westmoreland. It is owned by Miss Dorothy Ward, the author's
daughter. The older part of the building served as the model for
Fenwick's cottage.
From an original drawing by Albert Sterner.
From an original drawing by Albert Sterner.
From an original drawing by Albert Sterner.
From an original drawing by Albert Sterner.