ed to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my
feelings, assures me is more bitter than just. It is scarcely the
province of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and
vindicate his own productions; but I may be allowed to make here a few
observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition, had I
foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions
of those who would read it with a prejudiced mind or be content to judge
it by a hasty glance.

My object in writing the following pages was not simply to amuse the
Reader; neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate
myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for
truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.
But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a
well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so
will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into
which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures;
as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless
bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises
than commendation for the clearance she effects. Let it not be imagined,
however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and abuses
of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards
so good an aim; and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather
whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.

As the story of 'Agnes Grey' was accused of extravagant over-colouring in
those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most
scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration, so, in the present work, I find
myself censured for depicting _con amore_, with 'a morbid love of the
coarse, if not of the brutal,' those scenes which, I will venture to say,
have not been more painful for the most fastidious of my critics to read
than they were for me to describe. I may have gone too far; in which
case I shall be careful not to trouble myself or my readers in the same
way again; but when we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I
maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they
would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive
light is, doubtless, the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to
pursue; but is it the most honest, or