Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Family Romance: Or, Episodes in the Domestic Annals; The Aristocracy
Once Domestic History became the subject of general in terest; it was found to unite with the graces of truth the charms which had heretofore been supposed to be exclusively the characteristics of fiction, and each gained immeasurably by the union. The example thus set was followed by Lord Lindsay m his Lives of the Lindsays, a work which, while based on the most rigid forms of reality, has yet all the romantic colouring of fiction. Never was there a more striking ln stance of how truth itself may be made to wear the garb of romance without losing the slightest portion of its actual identity. The difference between the two arises solely from the powers of the narrator, a fact of which every man's experience will supply him with every-day examples in abundance. One man will tell a. Story in so dull a fashion as to reduce it to a mere caput mortuum; another will recount the same incidents without increase or diminu tion and yet fascinate his auditors. I have instanced these two modes of dealing with the ame subject simply to make it apparent that truth and in terest of detail are by no means incompatible. It is equally to be owned that I have endeavoured to follow the example of those whom I reverentially acknowledge as my masters. At the same time I may be forgiven in deeming that my little volumes have not failed in their intended object since the whole series, commencing with the Anecdotes of the Aristocracy and ending with the Vicissitudes of Families, has been favoured with a considerable amount of public ap probation. The present work, Family Romance, has been one of the most successful of the collection, whose prosper ity I ascribe to the cause I have just referred to, the intro duction of those stories of real life, in which the romantic element is peculiarly discernible. In fine, I have sought for, and, I ?atter myself, I have had the good fortune now and then to find that all-graceful and attractive attire, which, instead of hiding the falsity of fiction, suits far better when.
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