תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

TRAITS AND TRAVESTIES

"I must have liberty

Withal, as large a charter as the wind,

To blow on whom I please; for so fools have:

And they that are most gallèd with my folly,

They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?

The why is plain as way to parish church:

He, that a fool doth very wisely hit,

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,

Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,

The wise man's folly is anatomis'd

Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.

Invest me in my motley; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine."

-As You Like It.

TRAITS AND TRAVESTIES

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

BY

LAURENCE OLIPHANT

AUTHOR OF THE LAND OF KHEMI,' 'THE LAND OF GILEAD,'
'PICCADILLY,' ETC.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXII

All Rights reserved

PREFACE.

It has for some time past been a matter of surprise to me why a certain class of feeble and fashionable literature should of late years have enjoyed an increased circulation. This might be accounted for either by the growing feebleness of the class to whom it is addressed, or to their augmentation in number, or to the exceeding brilliancy of the bindings of books of this description, which may commend itself to the æsthetic tendencies of the day. While, however, there was much to be said for all these solutions of my difficulty, they none of them seemed altogether satisfactory, and I was inclined to attribute the success of certain extremely vapid productions to some undiscovered ingenuity on the part of advertising publishers, when chance revealed to me the fact that if I had not been so fortunate as some of my collaborateurs in the fields of lighter literature, it might be due to the circumstance that my modesty had prevented me from availing my

« הקודםהמשך »