The present volume is the outcome of that conversation. I determined to
compile a book which from the first page to the last should be a happy
book, a book which would come to be a friend of all those who share in
any way the sickness of the world, a book to which everybody could go
with the sure knowledge that they would find there nothing to depress,
nothing to exacerbate irritable nerves, nothing to confirm the mind in
dejection. And on its positive side I said that this book should be
diverse and changeful in its happiness. I planned that while
cheerfulness should be its soul, the expression of that cheerfulness
should avoid monotony with as great an energy as the book itself avoided
depression. My theory was a book whose pages should resemble rather an
_olla podrida_ of variety than a tautological joint of monotonous
nutriment. And I sought to fill my wallet rather from the crumbs let
fall by the happy feasters than from the too familiar table of the great
masters.
"To muse, to dream, to conceive of fine works, is a delightful
occupation." But one must go from conception to execution, crossing the
gulf that separates "these two hemispheres of Art." "The man," says
Balzac, "who can but sketch his purpose beforehand in words is regarded
as a wonder, and every artist and writer possesses that faculty.
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