My Very Dear Reader . . .

It is scarcely the province of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and vindicate his own productions, but I may be allowed to make here a few observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition had I foreseen that the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would read it with a prejudiced mind or be content to judge it by a hasty glance.

In other words: “If I’d known you critics were going to slamdunk my novel, I would have put in a fore...