tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">"'DEMI‑TASSE—VOILÀ, M'SIEUR'"

PETER THE HERMIT AU PIQUET

"THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE"

"'À VOUS, MONSIEUR DE LA GARDE!'"

"'I AM A VERY ALTERED PERSON!'"

"THE MOONLIGHT SONATA"

ENTER MR. SCATCHERD

BARTY GIVES HIMSELF AWAY

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR

"'HÉLAS! MON JEUNE AMI ...'"

"'YOU ASK ME WHY I LOOK SO PALE?'"

"'YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY YOU'RE GOING TO PAINT FOR HIRE!'"

"'HE MIGHT HAVE THROWN THE HANDKERCHIEF AS HE PLEASED'"

DR. HASENCLEVER AND MRS. BLETCHLEY

"'MARTIA, I HAVE DONE MY BEST'"

AM RHEIN

"'DOES SHE KNOW YOU'RE VERY FOND OF HER?'"

"LEAH WAS SUMMONED FROM BELOW"

"BETWEEN TWO WELL KNOWN EARLS"

"LE DERNIER DES ABENCERRAGES"

"SARDONYX"

"'RATAPLAN, RATAPLAN'"

"'HE PRESENTS ME FIRST TO MADAME JOSSELIN'"

"'I DON'T THINK I EVER HEARD HIM MENTION YOUR NAME'"

"'I'M A PHILISTINE, AND AM NOT ASHAMED'"

"'ZE BRINCESS VOULD BE SO JARMT'"

MARTY

THE MARTIAN

"BARTY JOSSELIN IS NO MORE...."

When so great a man dies, it is generally found that a tangled growth of more or less contentious literature has already gathered round his name during his lifetime. He has been so written about, so talked about, so riddled with praise or blame, that, to those who have never seen him in the flesh, he has become almost a tradition, a myth—and one runs the risk of losing all clew to his real personality.

This is especially the case with the subject of this biography—one is in danger of forgetting what manner of man he was who has so taught and touched and charmed and amused us, and so happily changed for us the current of our lives.

He has been idealized as an angel, a saint, and a demigod; he has been caricatured as a self‑indulgent sensualist, a vulgar Lothario, a buffoon, a joker of practical jokes.

He was in reality the simplest, the most affectionate, and most good‑natured of men, the very soul of honor, the best of husbands and fathers and friends, the most fascinating companion that ever lived, and one who kept to the last the freshness and joyous spirits of a school-boy and the heart of a child; one who never said or did an unkind thing; probably never even thought one. Generous and open‑handed to a fault, slow to condemn, quick to forgive, and gifted with a power of immediately inspiring affection and keeping it forever after, such as I have never known in any one else, he grew to be (for all his quick‑tempered impulsiveness) one of the gentlest and meekest and most humble‑minded of men!

On me, a mere prosperous tradesman, and busy politician and man of the world, devolves the delicate and responsible task of being the first to write the life of the greatest literary genius this century has produced, and of revealing the strange secret of that genius, which has lighted up the darkness of these latter times as with a pillar of fire by night.

This extraordinary secret has never been revealed before to any living soul but his wife and myself. And that is one of my qualifications for this great labor of love.

Another is that for fifty years I have known him as never a man can quite have known his fellow‑man before—that for all that time he has been more constantly and devotedly loved by me than any man can ever quite have been loved by father, son, brother, or bosom friend.

Good heavens! Barty, man and boy, Barty's wife, their children, their grandchildren, and all that ever concerned them or concerns them still—all this has been the world to me, and ever will be.

He wished me to tell the absolute truth about him, just as I know it; and I look upon the fulfilment of this wish of his as a