{"product_id":"2940013491410","title":"SPARE HOURS","description":"CONTENTS.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  RAB AND HIS FRIENDS\u003cbr\u003e  “WITH BRAINS, SIR”\u003cbr\u003e  THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN\u003cbr\u003e  HER LAST HALF-CROWN\u003cbr\u003e  OUR DOGS\u003cbr\u003e  QUEEN MARY’S CHILD-GARDEN\u003cbr\u003e  PRESENCE OF MIND AND HAPPY GUESSING\u003cbr\u003e  MY FATHER’S MEMOIR\u003cbr\u003e  MYSTIFICATIONS\u003cbr\u003e  “OH, I’M WAT, WAT!”\u003cbr\u003e  ARTHUR H. HALLAM\u003cbr\u003e  EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES\u003cbr\u003e  VAUGHAN’S POEMS\u003cbr\u003e  DR. CHALMERS\u003cbr\u003e  DR. GEORGE WILSON\u003cbr\u003e  ST. PAUL’S THORN IN THE FLESH\u003cbr\u003e  THE BLACK DWARF’S BONES\u003cbr\u003e  NOTES ON ART\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAUTHOR’S PREFACE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn that delightful and provoking book, “THE DOCTOR, \u0026amp;c.,” Southey says:\u003cbr\u003e“‘Prefaces,’ said Charles Blount, Gent., ‘Prefaces,’ according to this\u003cbr\u003eflippant, ill-opinioned, and unhappy man, ‘ever were, and still are, but\u003cbr\u003eof two sorts, let the mode and fashions vary as they please,—let the\u003cbr\u003elong peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff;\u003cbr\u003epresbytery, popery; and popery, presbytery again,—yet still the author\u003cbr\u003ekeeps to his old and wonted method of prefacing; when at the beginning\u003cbr\u003eof his book he enters, either with a halter round his neck, submitting\u003cbr\u003ehimself to his readers’ mercy whether he shall be hanged or no, or else,\u003cbr\u003ein a huffing manner, he appears with the halter in his hand, and\u003cbr\u003ethreatens to hang his reader, if he gives him not his good word. This,\u003cbr\u003ewith the excitement of friends to his undertaking, and some few\u003cbr\u003eapologies for the want of time, books, and the like, are the constant\u003cbr\u003eand usual shams of all scribblers, ancient and modern.’ This was not\u003cbr\u003etrue then,” says Southey, “nor is it now.” I differ from Southey, in\u003cbr\u003ethinking there is some truth in both ways of wearing the halter. For\u003cbr\u003ethough it be neither manly nor honest to affect a voluntary humility\u003cbr\u003e(which is after all, a sneaking vanity, and would soon show itself if\u003cbr\u003etaken at its word), any more than it is well-bred, or seemly to put on\u003cbr\u003e(for it generally is put on) the “huffing manner,” both such being truly\u003cbr\u003e“shams,”—there is general truth in Mr. Blount’s flippancies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery man should know and lament (to himself) his own\u003cbr\u003eshortcomings—should mourn over and mend, as he best can, the\u003cbr\u003e“confusions of his wasted youth;” he should feel how ill he has put out\u003cbr\u003eto usury the talent given him by the Great Taskmaster—how far he is\u003cbr\u003efrom being “a good and faithful servant;” and he should make this rather\u003cbr\u003eunderstood than expressed by his manner as a writer; while at the same\u003cbr\u003etime, every man should deny himself the luxury of taking his hat off to\u003cbr\u003ethe public, unless he has something to say, and has done his best to say\u003cbr\u003eit aright; and every man should pay not less attention to the dress in\u003cbr\u003ewhich his thoughts present themselves, than he would to that of his\u003cbr\u003eperson on going into company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBishop Butler, in his “Preface to his Sermons,” in which there is\u003cbr\u003eperhaps more solid living sense than in the same number of words\u003cbr\u003eanywhere else after making the distinction between “obscurity” and\u003cbr\u003e“perplexity and confusion of thought,”—the first being in the subject,\u003cbr\u003ethe others in its expression, says,—“confusion and perplexity are, in\u003cbr\u003ewriting, indeed without excuse, because any one may, if he pleases, know\u003cbr\u003ewhether he understands or sees through what he is about, and it is\u003cbr\u003eunpardonable in a man to lay his thoughts before others, when he is\u003cbr\u003econscious that he himself does not know whereabouts he is, or how the\u003cbr\u003ematter before him stands. _It is coming abroad in disorder, which he\u003cbr\u003eought to be dissatisfied to find himself in at home._”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere should therefore be in his Preface, as in the writer himself, two\u003cbr\u003eelements. A writer should have some assurance that he has something to\u003cbr\u003esay, and this assurance should, in the true sense, not the Milesian, be\u003cbr\u003emodest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       *       *       *       *       *","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47082895638768,"sku":"2940013491410","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013491410_p0.jpg?v=1763581973","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013491410","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}