So many criticisms, not of a literary but of a personal kind, have been made on this little book since its appearance, that I may perhaps be allowed a few words of answer to them in the shape of a short preface to this new edition.

It has been supposed that because the book describes a London world, which is a central and conspicuous world with interests and activities of a public and prominent kind, therefore all the characters in it are drawn from real persons who may be identified if the seeker is only clever enough.

This charge of portraiture is constantly brought against the novelist, and it is always a difficult one to meet; but one may begin by pointing out that, in general, it implies a radical misconception of the story-teller's methods of procedure.

An idea, a situation, is suggested to him by real life, he takes traits and peculiarities from this or that person whom he has known or seen, but this is all.

When he comes to write--unless, of course, it is a case of malice and bad faith--the mere necessities of an imaginative effort oblige him to cut himself adrift from reality.