shudder of admiration which hails the addition of one more everlasting
entity to the world of thought and fancy. And Mr Tow-wouse is real, and
Mrs Tow-wouse is more real still, and Betty is real; and the coachman,
and Miss Grave-airs, and all the wonderful crew from first to last. The
dresses they wear, the manners they exhibit, the laws they live under,
the very foods and drinks they live upon, are "past like the shadows on
glasses"--to the comfort and rejoicing of some, to the greater or less
sorrow of others. But _they_ are there--alive, full of blood, full of
breath as we are, and, in truth, I fear a little more so. For some
purposes a century is a gap harder to cross and more estranging than a
couple of millenniums. But in their case the gap is nothing; and it is
not too much to say that as they have stood the harder test, they will
stand the easier. There are very striking differences between Nausicaa
and Mrs Slipslop; there are differences not less striking between Mrs
Slipslop and Beatrice. But their likeness is a stranger and more
wonderful thing than any of their unlikenesses. It is that they are
all women, that they are all live citizenesses of the Land of Matters
Unforgot, the fashion whereof passeth not away, and the franchise
whereof, once acquired, assures immortality.



NOTE TO GENERAL INTRODUCTION.


_The text of this issue in the main follows that of the standard or
first collected edition of 1762. The variants which the author
introduced in successive editions during his lifetime are not
inconsiderable; but for the purposes of the present issue it did not
seem necessary or indeed desirable to take account of them. In the case