least, has ventured in some manner to disregard the modern canons which
debar writers from betraying towards their creations any warmer feeling
than a cultured and critical indifference: nor was his interest in
human nature such as to confine him to the dissection of the moral
epidermis of shop-girls and hotel-boarders. On the contrary, we are
presented with the spectacle of a Titan, baring his arms and plunging
heart and soul into the arena, there to struggle for death or victory
with the superb phantoms summoned to the conflict by his own genius.
The men of new times and new conditions will achieve their triumphs in
new ways; but it may still be worth while to consider the methods and
materials of one who also, in his own fashion, won and wore the laurel
of those who know and can portray the human heart.

But let us return to the Romance, in whose clear though shadowy
atmosphere the thunders and throes of the preparatory struggle are
inaudible and invisible, save as they are implied in the fineness of
substance and beauty of form of the artistic structure. The story is
divided into two parts, the scene of the first being laid in America;
that of the second, in England. Internal evidence of various kinds goes
to show that the second part was the first written; or, in other words,
that the present first part is a rewriting of an original first part,
afterwards discarded, and of which the existing second part is the
continuation. The two parts overlap, and it shall be left to the
ingenuity of critics to detect the precise point of junction. In
rewriting the first part, the author made sundry minor alterations in
the plot and characters of the story, which alterations were not
carried into the second part. It results from this that the manuscript
presents various apparent inconsistencies. In transcribing the work for
the press, these inconsistent sentences and passages have been
withdrawn from the text and inserted in the Appendix; or, in a few