Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 1823-1901 / 2008-07-27 00:00:00

EBOOK STRAY PEARLS ***


This Project Gutenberg Etext of The Stray Pearls by Charlotte M Yonge
was prepared by Hanh Vu, capriccio_vn@yahoo.com. A web page for
Charlotte M Yonge may be found at http://www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm.



STRAY PEARLS
MEMOIRS OF MARGARET DE RIBAUMONT
VISCOUNTESS OF BELLAISE


PREFACE

No one can be more aware than the author that the construction of
this tale is defective. The state of French society, and the strange
scenes of the Fronde, beguiled me into a tale which has become rather
a family record than a novel.
Formerly the Muse of the historical romance was an independent and
arbitrary personage, who could compress time, resuscitate the dead,
give mighty deeds to imaginary heroes, exchange substitutes for
popular martyrs on the scaffold, and make the most stubborn facts
subservient to her purpose. Indeed, her most favoured son boldly
asserted her right to bend time and place to her purpose, and to make
the interest and effectiveness of her work the paramount object. But
critics have lashed her out of these erratic ways, and she is now
become the meek hand maid of Clio, creeping obediently in the track
of the greater Muse, and never venturing on more than colouring and
working up the grand outlines that her mistress has left undefined.
Thus, in the present tale, though it would have been far more
convenient not to have spread the story over such a length of time,
and to have made the catastrophe depend upon the heroes and heroines,
instead of keeping them mere ineffective spectators, or only engaged
in imaginary adventures for which a precedent can be found, it has
been necessary to stretch out their narrative, so as to be at least
consistent with the real history, at the entire sacrifice of the
plot.
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