them fancy that they were reading the unskillful chronicle of things
that really occurred, rather than some invented story as interesting as
I knew how to make it.

It seemed to me difficult to write, at least in prose, an artistic
story; but easy to come nearer to life than most stories do.

Thus, after presenting a remarkable child, it seemed proper to let him
(through the force of circumstance) fall away into a very commonplace
man. It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for in
real life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with the
prints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written for
grown-up people are kept almost clear of them. It seemed proper also to
make the more important and interesting events of life fall at rather a
later age than is commonly chosen, and also to make the more important
and interesting persons not extremely young; for, in fact, almost all
the noblest and finest men and the loveliest and sweetest women of real
life are considerably older than the vast majority of heroes and
heroines in the world of fiction.

I have also let some of the same characters play a part in both stories,
though the last opens long before the first, and runs on after it is
finished. It is by this latter device that I have chiefly hoped to give
to each the air of a family history, and thus excite curiosity and
invite investigation; the small portion known to a young girl being told
by her from her own point of view and mingled into her own life and
love, and the larger narrative taking a different point of view and
giving both events and motives.

But in general, while describing the actions and setting down the words,