The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sister Teresa, by George Moore

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Sister Teresa

Author: George Moore

Release Date: January 6, 2005 [EBook #14614]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTER TERESA ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Carol David and the PG Online
Distributed Proofreading Team

SISTER TERESA

BY GEORGE MOORE

LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN ADELPHI TERRACE

_First Edition, 1901_

_Second Edition (entirely rewritten), 1909_

PREFACE

A weaver goes to the mart with a divided tapestry, and with half in
either hand he walks about telling that whoever possesses one must,
perforce, possess the other for the sake of the story. But
allegories are out of place in popular editions; they require linen
paper, large margins, uncut edges; even these would be insufficient;
only illuminated vellum can justify that which is never read. So
perhaps it will be better if I abandon the allegory and tell what
happened: how one day after writing the history of "Evelyn Innes"
for two years I found myself short of paper, and sought vainly for a
sheet in every drawer of the writing-table; every one had been
turned into manuscript, and "Evelyn Innes" stood nearly two feet
high.

"Five hundred pages at least," I said, "and only half of my story
finished.... This is a matter, on which I need the publisher's
opinion."

Ten minutes after I was rolling away in a hansom towards Paternoster
Square, very anxious to persuade him that the way out of my
difficulty would be to end the chapter I was then writing on a full
close.

"That or a novel of a thousand pages," I said.

"A novel of a thousand pages!" he answered. "Impossible! We must
divide the book." It may have been to assuage the disappointment he
read on my face that he added, "You'll double your money."

My publisher had given way too easily, and my artistic conscience
forthwith began to trouble me, and has never ceased troubling me
since that fatal day. The book the publisher puts asunder the author
may not bring together, and I shall write to no purpose in one
preface that "Evelyn Innes" is not a prelude to "Sister Teresa" and
in a