PREFACE.


"You'll see that I've used up all your Mesmerism and a trifle more in
my new book," said du Maurier to me, some time before he published his
"Trilby"; and that remark started us talking of the good old times in
Antwerp, and overhauling the numerous drawings and sketches in which
he so vividly depicted the incidents of our Bohemian days. It seemed
to me that some of those drawings should be published, if only to
show how my now so popular friend commenced his artistic career. In
order that they should not go forth without explanation, I wrote the
following pages.

The Bohemia I have sought to coerce into book shape, is not the wild
country, peopled by the delightfully unconventional savages, so often
described, but a little cultivated corner of the land, as I found it
in Antwerp, a mere background to the incidents I had to relate. Such
as it is, it may perhaps serve here and there to point to the original
soil from which were eventually to spring some of the figures so
familiar to us to-day.

To me it was a source of enjoyment to evoke these memories, and if
I publish them, it is because I strongly feel that pleasures shared
are pleasures doubled. Sociably inclined as I always was, I am truly
glad to have the opportunity of giving a hearty welcome to those
who may care to join my friend and myself in our ramblings and our
"tumblings."

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