SIX MOST GALLANT CHAMPIONS

Is dedicated this history of a champion: less to repay than to
acknowledge large debts to each of them, collectively at outset, as
hereafter seriatim.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




Author's Note


Figures of Earth is, with some superficial air of paradox, the one
volume in the long Biography of Dom Manuel's life which deals with Dom
Manuel himself. Most of the matter strictly appropriate to a Preface you
may find, if you so elect, in the Foreword addressed to Sinclair Lewis.
And, in fact, after writing two prefaces to this "Figures of
Earth"--first, in this epistle to Lewis, and, secondly, in the remarks[1]
affixed to the illustrated edition,--I had thought this volume could
very well continue to survive as long as its deficiencies permit,
without the confection of a third preface, until I began a little more
carefully to consider this romance, in the seventh year of its
existence.

[Footnote 1: Omitted in this edition since it was not possible to include
all of Frank C. Papé's magnificent illustrations.--THE PUBLISHER]