X INTRODUCTION 



who cannot count above five, and yet who own 

 flocks and herds, that every native knows when he 

 has got all his own cattle, not by counting, but by 

 remembering each one individually. 



The savage is with his herds daily ; the mother 

 has the love of her children constantly in her heart ; 

 but when one's book goes forth from him, in a sense 

 it never returns. It is like the fruit detached from 

 the bough. And yet to sit down and talk of one's 

 books as a father might talk of his sons, who had 

 left his roof and gone forth to make their own way 

 in the world, is not an easy matter. The author's 

 relation to his book is a little more direct and per- 

 sonal, after all, more a matter of will and choice, 

 than a father's relation to his child. The book 

 does not change, and, whatever its fortunes, it re- 

 mains to the end what its author made it. The 

 son is an evolution out of a long line of ancestry, 

 and one's responsibility for this or that trait is often 

 very slight ; but the book is an actual transcript of 

 his mind, and is wise or foolish according as he made 

 it so. Hence I trust my reader will pardon me if I 

 shrink from any discussion of the merits or demerits 

 of these intellectual children of mine, or indulge 

 in any very confidential remarks with regard to 

 them. 



I cannot bring myself to think of my books as 

 " works," because so little " work " has gone to the 

 making of them. It has all been play. I have 



