I SHOULD like to be clearly understood that none of the characters appearing in this novel are portraits of persons living or dead. It is, of course, true that some of their follies, philosophies, and foibles have been compiled from my observation of actual people and that my personal knowledge of the subject and the district about which I have written has made the dead bones of my imagining rise up and live; but it is the peculiar privilege of the novelist to piece together the patterns of life which he finds thrown at his feet, and unless he were to take advantage of the material thus afforded him no good books would ever, I am afraid, get written. (For life is good literature escaping just as surely as good literature is life held fast.) I admit, then, that I have grafted onto my puppets the human ambitions, decencies, and weaknesses without which they would not have walked or talked; but I would stress, for the information of the scandal-mongering and the uncharitable, the fact that I have brought them to print by combining different characteristics which I have observed in different human beings and not by using a camera.
BRUCE MARSHALL
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