I wish Messrs. the Editors and Reviewers, who find much to blame in this proceeding of mine, could have just sat down, for once in their lives, on the sofa beside my namesake Johanna Paulina; they would have related to her most of my biographical histories in those cleverly epitomised forms in which they communicate them in their magazines and papers to audiences of a very different type. They would have been beside themselves with rapture at the truth and felicity of her remarks, at the natural, unaffected, simplicity and sincerity of her manner, at the innocence of her heart, and at her lively sense of humour, and they would have taken hold of her hand, and cried "let the author treat us to comedies half as delicious as this one which is sitting beside us now, and he is the man for us." Indeed, had these gentlemen, the editors and reviewers, got to know a little more than they do about the art of briefly extracting the pith and marrow of a book, and had they been able to move Pauline just a little more than I think such great critical functionaries could be expected to do; and had they then seen, or more properly, nearly _lost_ sight of, that gentle face of hers as it melted away in a dew of tears (because girls and gold are the _softer_ and the more _impressionable_ the _purer_ they are), and had they, as of course they would have done, in the heavenliness of their emotion, well-nigh clean forgotten themselves, and the snoring father---- * * * * * Good gracious! I have got into a tremendous state over it myself, and shall keep the preface till to-morrow. It is clear that it must be gone on with in a calmer mood. * * * * *