The Project Gutenberg EBook of Summer in a Garden, and Calvin,
A Study Of Character, by Charles Dudley Warner

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Title: Summer in a Garden, and Calvin, A Study Of Character

Author: Charles Dudley Warner

Last Updated: February 23, 2009
Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #3135]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER IN A GARDEN ***

Produced by David Widger

SUMMER IN A GARDEN

and

CALVIN, A STUDY OF CHARACTER

By Charles Dudley Warner

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,--I did promise to write an Introduction to these
charming papers but an Introduction,--what is it?--a sort of pilaster,
put upon the face of a building for looks' sake, and usually flat,--very
flat. Sometimes it may be called a caryatid, which is, as I understand
it, a cruel device of architecture, representing a man or a woman,
obliged to hold up upon his or her head or shoulders a structure which
they did not build, and which could stand just as well without as with
them. But an Introduction is more apt to be a pillar, such as one may
see in Baalbec, standing up in the air all alone, with nothing on it,
and with nothing for it to do.

But an Introductory Letter is different. There is in that no formality,
no assumption of function, no awkward propriety or dignity to be
sustained. A letter at the opening of a book may be only a footpath,
leading the curious to a favorable point of observation, and then
leaving them to wander as they will.

Sluggards have been sent to the ant for wisdom; but writers might better
be sent to the spider, not because he works all night, and watches all
day, but because he works unconsciously. He dare not even bring his work
before his own eyes, but keeps it behind him, as if too much knowledge
of what one is doing would spoil the delicacy and modesty of one's work.

Almost all graceful and fanciful work is born like a dream, that comes
noiselessly, and tarries silently, and goes as a bubble bursts. And yet
somewhere work must come in,--real, well-considered work.

Inness (the best American painter of Nature in her moods of real human
feeling) once said, "No man can d