Chivalry and gallantry, as he analyzes them, are concepts which play
their part in the inevitable present re-editing of social and literary
history. _The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck_, _The Cream of the Jest_,
and _The Certain Hour_ have somewhat to say to the discriminating,
even on other than purely aesthetic grounds; _Beyond Life_ is on the
threshold of its day as the _Sartor Resartus_ of one side, the
aesthetic side, of modernism;

"_Of_ Jurgen _eke they maken mencion";_

and THE CORDS OF VANITY is but the first of the earlier books to be
reissued in the format of the uniform and accessible Intended Edition.

While THE CORDS OF VANITY was out of print, a fresh copy is known to
have been acquired for twenty-five cents. Copies of a more recent work
by the same hand--a tale which has been rendered equally unavailable
to the public, though by slightly different considerations--have
fetched as much as one hundred times that sum. This arithmetic may be,
in part, the gauge of an unsought and distasteful notoriety; but that
very notoriety, by the most natural of transitions, will lead the
curious on from what cannot be obtained to what can, and some who have
begun by seeking one particular work of a great artist will end by
discovering the artist. In short, it is rational to expect that the
fortunes hereafter of this rewritten novel will very excellently
illustrate the uses of adversity.

Not, I repeat, that any great part of the reward for such writing can
come from without. According to Robert Etheridge Townsend, "a man
writes admirable prose not at all for the sake of having it read, but
for the more sensible reason that he enjoys playing solitaire"--a not