suspicion of anything like general interest, which I have been
condemned to hear, as a consequence of thawing the ice off the
features of formal sitters by the method just described, would
fill hundreds of volumes, and promote the repose of thousands of
readers. On the other hand, if I have suffered under the
tediousness of the many, I have not been without my compensating
gains from the wisdom and experience of the few. To some of my
sitters I have been indebted for information which has enlarged
my mind--to some for advice which has lightened my heart--to some
for narratives of strange adventure which riveted my attention at
the time, which have served to interest and amuse my fireside
circle for many years past, and which are now, I would fain hope,
destined to make kind friends for me among a wider audience than
any that I have yet addressed.

Singularly enough, almost all the best stories that I have heard
from my sitters have been told by accident. I only remember two
cases in which a story was volunteered to me, and, although I
have often tried the experiment, I cannot call to mind even a
single instance in which leading questions (as the lawyers call
them) on my part, addressed to a sitter, ever produced any result
worth recording. Over and over again, I have been disastrously
successful in encouraging dull people to weary me. But the clever
people who have something interesting to say, seem, so far as I
have observed them, to acknowledge no other stimulant than
chance. For every story which I propose including in the present
collection, excepting one, I have been indebted, in the first
instance, to the capricious influence of the same chance.
Something my sitter has seen about me, something I have remarked
in my sitter, or in the room in which I take the likeness, or in