kes excuse, as honest Roger is to trouble
and temptation from the weary effort wherewithal he woke. And, even now,
pretty Grace and young Sir John, the reader thinks that he can guess at
nature's consequence; while, with respect to Roger's going forth to dig
this morning, he sees it straight before him, need not ask for the
result. Well, if the shrewd reader has the eye of Lieuenhoeeck, and can
discern, cradled in the small triangular beech-mast, a noble
forest-tree, with silvery trunk, branching arms, and dark-green foliage,
he deserves to be complimented indeed, for his own keen skill; but, at
the same time, Nature will not hurry herself for him, but will quietly
educe results which he foreknew--or thought he did--a century ago. And
is there not the highest Art in this unveiled simplicity: to lead the
reader onwards by a straight road, with the setting sun a-blaze at the
end of it, knowing his path, knowing its object, yet still borne on with
spirits unexhausted and unflagging foot? Trust me, there is better
praise in this, than in dazzling the distracted glance with a perpetual
succession of luminous fire-flies, and dragging your fair novel-reader,
harried and excited, through the mazes of a thousand incidents.

Thirdly, and lastly, in this prefatorial say, there is to be considered
that inevitable defeator of all printed secrets--impatience. Nothing is
easier, nothing commoner (most wise people do it, whose fate is, that
they must keep up with the race of current publication, and therefore
must keep down the still-increasing crowd of authorial creations),
nothing is more venial, more laudable, than to read the last chapter
first; and so, finding out all mysteries at once, to save one's self a
vast deal of unnecessary trouble. And, for mere tale-telling, this may
be sufficient. What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or
to weary out one's sympathies on trite fictitious woes?--come to the
catastrophe at once: the uncle hanged; the heir righted; the heroine, an
orange-flowered bride; and the white-headed grandmother, after all her
wrongs, winding up the story with a prudent moral. Now, this may all be
very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose
moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest
is posted with the scorpion's venom. They are the Dragon of Wantley,
with one caudal point--a barbed termination: we, like Moore of Moore
Hall, all point, covered with