Every _possible_ incident, in works of this nature, might, perhaps, be rendered _probable_, were a sufficient regard paid to the more minute, delicate, and connecting links of the chain. Under this impression, I chose, as the least arduous, a simple story--and, even in that, the fear of repetition, of prolixity, added, it may be, to a portion of indolence, made me, in some parts, neglectful of this rule:--yet, in tracing the character of my heroine from her birth, I had it in view. For the conduct of my hero, I consider myself less responsible--it was not _his_ memoirs that I professed to write. I am not sanguine respecting the success of this little publication. It is truly observed, by the writer of a late popular novel[1]--'That an author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack; for, though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. A bad composition carries with it its own punishment--contempt and ridicule:--a good one excites envy, and (frequently) entails upon its author a thousand mortifications.' [Footnote 21: The Monk.] To the feeling and the thinking few, this production of an active mind, in a season of impression, rather than of leisure, is presented. _Memoirs of Emma Courtney_ VOLUME 1 TO AUGUSTUS HARLEY Rash young man!--why do you tear from my heart the affecting narrative, which I had hoped no cruel necessity would ever have forced me to review?--Why do you oblige me to recall the bitterness of my past life, and to renew images, the remembrance of which, even at this distant period, harrows up my soul with inconceivable misery?--But your happiness is at stake, and every selfish consideration vanishes.--Dear and sacred deposit of an adored and lost friend!--for whose sake I have consented to hold down, with struggling, suffocating reluctance, the loathed and bitter portion of existence;--shall I expose your ardent mind to the incessant conflict between truth and error--shall I practise the disingenuousness, by which my peace has been blasted--shall I suffer you to run the wild career of passion--shall I keep back the recital, written upon my own mind in characters of blood, which may preserve the child of my affections from destruction?