The Hand of Ethelberta

A Comedy in Chapters

(1895)

Preface

This somewhat frivolous narrative was produced as an interlude between stories of a more sober design, and it was given the sub-title of a comedy to indicatethough not quite accuratelythe aim of the performance. A high degree of probability was not attempted in the arrangement of the incidents, and there was expected of the reader a certain lightness of mood, which should inform him with a good-natured willingness to accept the production in the spirit in which it was offered. The characters themselves, however, were meant to be consistent and human.

On its first appearance the novel suffered, perhaps deservedly, for what was involved in these intentionsfor its quality of unexpectedness in particularthat unforgivable sin in the critics sightthe immediate precursor of Ethelberta having been a purely rural tale. Moreover, in its choice of medium, and line of perspective, it undertook a delicate task: to excite interest in a dramaif such a dignified word may be used in the connectionwherein servants were as important as, or more important than, their masters; wherein the drawing-room was sketched in many cases from the point of view of the servants hall. Such a reversal of the social foreground has, perhaps, since grown more welcome, and readers even of the finer crusted kind may now be disposed to pardon a writer for presenting the sons and daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Chickerel as beings who come within the scope of a congenial regard.

T. H., December 1895.

"Vitae post-scenia celant."--Lucretius.