2
SCENES AND CHARACTERS, OR, EIGHTEEN MONTHS AT BEECHCROFT
PREFACE
Of those who are invited to pay a visit to Beechcroft, there are some who, honestly acknowledging that amusement is their object, will be content to feel with Lilias, conjecture with Jane, and get into scrapes with Phyllis, without troubling themselves to extract any moral from their proceedings; and to these the Mohun family would only apologise for having led a very humdrum life during the eighteen months spent in their company.
There may, however, be more unreasonable visitors, who, professing only to come as parents and guardians, expect entertainment for themselves, as well as instruction for those who had rather it was out of sight,--look for antiques in carved cherry-stones,--and require plot, incident, and catastrophe in a chronicle of small beer.
To these the Mohuns beg respectfully to observe, that they hope their examples may not be altogether devoid of indirect instruction; and lest it should be supposed that they lived without object, aim, or principle, they would observe that the maxim which has influenced the delineation of the different Scenes and Characters is, that feeling, unguided and unrestrained, soon becomes mere selfishness; while the simple endeavour to fulfil each immediate claim of duty may lead to the highest acts of self-devotion.
NEW COURT, BEECHCROFT, 18th January.
PREFACE (1886)
Perhaps this book is an instance to be adduced in support of the advice I have often given to young authors--not to print before they themselves are old enough to do justice to their freshest ideas.
Not that I can lay claim to its being a production of tender and interesting youth. It was my second actual publication, and I believe I was of age before it appeared--but I see now the failures that more experience might have enabled me to avoid; and I would not