You and Audrey have so often proclaimed the need—in our world of sorrow and care—of a “bland” novel, defining it as one to be read when in bed with a sore throat, that as an adventurer in letters I have frequently felt tempted1 to write one for you. But the spirit bloweth where it listeth, and seemed perversely2 to have turned against novels altogether, perhaps because I had been labelled “novelist,” as though one had set up a factory. (Two a year is, I believe, the correct output.) However, here is a novel at last—my first this century—and there is a further reason for presuming to associate you with it, because it is largely from the vantage-point of your Essex homestead that I have, during the past twenty years, absorbed the landscape, character, and dialect which finally insisted on finding expression, first in a little play, and now in this elaborate canvas. How often have I passed over High Field and seen the opulent valley—tilth and pasture and ancient country seats—stretching before me like a great poem, with its glint of winding3 water, and the exquisite4 blue of its distances, and Bassetts awaiting me below, snuggling under its mellow5 moss-stained tiles, a true English home of “plain living and high thinking,” and latterly of the rural Muse6! I can only hope that some breath of the inspiration which has emanated7 from Bassetts in these latter days, and which has set its picturesquely8 clad poetesses turning rhymes as enthusiastically as clods, and weaving rondels as happily as they bound the sheaves, has been wafted9 over these more prosaic10 pages—something of that “wood-magic” which your granddaughter—soul of the idyllic11 band—has got into her song of your surroundings.
The glint of blue where the estuary12 flows,
??Or a shimmering13 mist o’er the vale’s green and gold:
A little grey church which ’mid willow-trees shows;
??A house on the hillside so good to behold14
With its yellow plaster and red tiles old,
??The clematis climbing in purple and green,
And down in the garden ’mid hollyhocks bold
??Sit Kathleen, Ursula, Helen, and Jean.
And yet it must not be thought that either “Bassetts” or “Little Baddow” figures in the “Little Bradmarsh” of my story. The artist cannot be tied down: he creates a composite landscape to his needs. Moreover, in these last four or five years a zealous15 constabulary can testify out of what odds16 and ends the strange inquiring figure, who walked, cycled, or rode in carriers’ carts to forgotten hamlets or sea-marshes, has composed his background. Nor have I followed photographic realism even in my dialect, deeming the Cockneyish forms, except when unconsciously amusing, too ugly to the eye in a long sustained narrative17, though enjoyable enough in those humorous sketches18 which my friend Bensusan, the true conquistador of Essex, pours forth19 so amazingly from his inexhaustible cornucopia20. I differ—in all diffidence—from his transcription on the sole point that the Essex rustic21 changes “i” into “oi” in words like “while,” though why on the other hand “boil” should go back to “bile” can be explained only by the perversity22 which insists on taking aspirates off the right words and clapping them on the wrong, much as Cockney youths and girls exchange hats on Bank Holiday. I have limited my own employment of this local vowelling mainly to the first person singular as sufficiently23 indicative of the rest. In the old vexed24 question of the use of dialect, my feeling is that its value is simply as colour, and that the rich old words, obsolete25 or unknown elsewhere, contribute this more effectively and far more beautifully than vagaries26 of pronunciation, itself a very shifting factor of language even in the best circles. It is not even necessary for the artistic27 effect that the reader should understand the provincial28 words, though the context should be so contrived29 as to make them fairly intelligible30. In short, art is never nature, though it should conceal31 the fact. Even the slowness and minuteness of my method—imposed as it is by the attempt to seize the essence of Essex—are immeasurable velocity32 and breadth compared with the scale of reality.
In bringing this rustic complex under the category of comedy I clash, I am aware, with literary fashion, which demands that country folk should appear like toiling33 insects caught in the landscape as in a giant web of Fate, though why the inhabitants of Belgravia or Clapham escape this tragic34 convention I cannot understand. But I do not think that you, dear Aunt by adoption35, see the life around you like that. Even, however, had you and I seen more gloomily, the fashionable fatalistic framework would have been clearly inconsistent with the “blandness” of your novel. Such a novel must, I conceive, begin with “once upon a time” and end with “they all lived happy ever after,” so that my task was simply to fill in the lacuna between these two points, and supply the early-Victorian mottoes, while even the material was marked out for me by Dr. Johnson’s definition of a novel as “a story mainly about love.” I am hopeful that when you come to read it (not, I trust, with a sore throat), you will admit that I have at least tried to make my dear “Jinny” really “live happy ever after,” even though—in the fierce struggle for literary survival—she is far from likely to do so. But at any rate, if only for the moment, I should be glad if I had succeeded in expressing through her my grateful appreciation36 of the beautiful country in which my lot, like Jinny’s, has been cast, with its many lovable customs and simple, kindly37 people.
Your affectionate Nephew,
THE AUTHOR
Sussex
New Year 1919
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1
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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7
emanated
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的过去式和过去分词 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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picturesquely
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wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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12
estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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14
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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16
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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17
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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18
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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19
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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cornucopia
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| n.象征丰收的羊角 | |
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21
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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23
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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24
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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26
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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28
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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29
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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30
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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31
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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32
velocity
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| n.速度，速率 | |
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33
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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34
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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35
adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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36
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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37
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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