I shall not dodder.

Retiring, as I must soon do from my somewhat Satanic activity, from
"going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it," I can
claim, like my ill-reputed exemplar, to have encountered some patient
Jobs, servants of the Lord, but more who were impatient, yet not the
less the Lord's servants, and the outward semblance of these I try to
present. My pictures have to some extent been exhibited before, in
the _Atlantic Monthly_, the New York _Evening Post_, and
the Boston _Transcript_, and I am indebted to the courtesy of the
publishers of these periodicals for permission to utilise them here.
I am emboldened by the favour they met to present them again to
the public, retouched, and expanded. I attempt no elaborate
characterisation of men, or history of events or exposition of
philosophies. My films are snap-shots, caught from the curbstone, from
the gallery of an assembly, in a scholar's study, or by the light of
a camp-fire. I have ventured to address my reader as friend might talk
to a friend, with the freedom of familiar intercourse, and I hope that
the reader may not be conscious of any undue intrusion of the showman
as the figures and scenes appear. Go, little book, with this setting
forth of what you are and aim to do.

J.K.H.

MINNEAPOLIS, October, 4, 1912.




CONTENTS