XXXIII. The Black Cloud




DEDICATION

To ROBERT CARTER, ESQ.


Not the intrinsic merits of this story embolden me to inscribe it to
you, my dear friend, but the fact that you, more than any other man,
are responsible for its writing. Your advice and encouragement first
led me to book-making; so it is only fair that you should partake of
whatever obloquy (or honor) the practice may bring upon me.

The ensuing pages may incline you to suspect their author of a
repugnance to unvarnished truth; but,--without prejudice to
Othello,--since varnish brings out in wood veins of beauty invisible
before the application, why not also in the sober facts of life? When
the transparent artifice has been penetrated, the familiar substance
underneath will be greeted none the less kindly; nay, the observer
will perhaps regard the disguise as an oblique compliment to his
powers of insight, and his attention may thus be better secured than
had the subject worn its every-day dress. Seriously, the most
matter-of-fact life has moods when the light of romance seems to gild
its earthen chimney-pots into fairy minarets; and, were the
story-teller but sure of laying his hands upon the true gold, perhaps
the more his story had of it, the better.