Mr. Cabell, in making ready this second or intended edition of THE
CORDS OF VANITY, performs an act of reclamation which is at the same
time an act of fresh creation.

For the purely reclamatory aspect of what he has done, his reward (so
far as that can consist in anything save the doing) must come from
insignificantly few directions; so few indeed that he, with a wrily
humorous exaggeration, affects to believe them singular. The author of
this novel has been pleased to describe the author of this
introduction as "the only known purchaser of the book" and, further,
as "the other person to own a CORDS OF VANITY". I could readily enough
acquit myself, with good sound legal proofs, of any such singularity
as stands charged in this soft impeachment--and that without appeal to
_The Cleveland Plain Dealer_ of eleven years ago ("slushy and
disgusting"), or to _The New York Post_ ("sterile and malodorous ...
worse than immoral--dull"), or to _Ainslee's Magazine_ ("inconsequent
and rambling ... rather nauseating at times"). These devotees of the
adjective that hunts in pairs are hardly to be discussed, I suppose,
in connection with any rewards except such as accrue to the possessors
of a certain obtuseness, who always and infallibly reap at least the
reward of not being hurt by what they do not know--or, for that
matter, by what they do know. He who writes such a book as THE CORDS
OF VANITY is committing himself to the supremely irrational faith that
this dullness is somehow not the ultimate arbiter; and for him the
pronouncements of this dullness simply do not figure among either his
rewards or his penalties. So, it is not exactly to these tributes of
the press that one reverts in noting that THE CORDS OF VANITY, on its
publication eleven years ago, promptly became a book which there
were--almost--none to praise and very few to love. After all, its