folk-lore student may find in it somewhat to "make a note of," as the
great Captain Cuttle was wont to say--in season and out of season.

Leaving the contents to speak for themselves, I shall only say farther
that my object has been to bring together, in a handy volume, a series
of essays which might prove acceptable to many readers, whether of grave
or lively temperament. What are called "instructive" books--meaning
thereby "morally" instructive--are generally as dull reading as is
proverbially a book containing nothing but jests--good, bad, and
indifferent. We can't (and we shouldn't) be always in the "serious"
mood, nor can we be for ever on the grin; and it seems to me that a
mental dietary, by turns, of what is wise and of what is witty should be
most wholesome. But, of the two, I confess I prefer to take the former,
even as one ought to take solid food, in great moderation; and, after
all, it is surely better to laugh than to mope or weep, in spite of what
has been said of "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." Most of
us, in this work-a-day world, find no small benefit from allowing our
minds to lie fallow at certain times, as farmers do with their fields.
In the following pages, however, I believe wisdom and wit, the didactic
and the diverting, will be found in tolerably fair proportions.

But I had forgot--I am not writing a Preface, and this is already too
long for a Dedication; so believe me, with all good wishes,

Yours ever faithfully,
W. A. CLOUSTON.
GLASGOW, February, 1890.