“An introduction had been requested for the first of these three works, Marriage; but while the author was considering what could be said for an already thrice-told tale, it had passed through the press with such rapidity as to outstrip all consideration.  Indeed, what can be said for any of them amounts to so little, it is scarcely worth saying at all.  The first was begun at the urgent desire of a friend, and with the promise of assistance, which, however, failed long before the end of the first volume; the work was then thrown aside, and resumed some years after. [1] It afforded occupation and amusement for idle and solitary hours, and was published in the belief that the author’s name never would be guessed at, or the work heard of beyond a very limited sphere. ’Ce n’est que le premier pas qu’il coute’ in novel-writing, as in carrying one’s head in their hand; The Inheritance and Destiny followed as matters of course.  It has been so often and confidently asserted that almost all the characters are individual portraits, that the author has little hope of being believed when she asserts the contrary.  That some of them were sketched from life is not denied; but the circumstances in which they are placed, their birth, habits, language, and a thousand minute particulars, differ so widely from the originals as ought to refute the charge of personality.  With regard to the introduction of religious sentiment into works of fiction, there exists a difference of opinion, which, in the absence of any authoritative command, leaves each free to act according to their own feelings and opinions.  Viewing this life merely as the prelude to another state of existence, it does seem strange that the future should ever be_ wholly_ excluded from any representation of it, even in its motley occurrences, scarcely less motley, perhaps, than the human mind itself.  The author can only wish it had been her province to have raised plants of nobler growth in the wide field of Christian literature; but as such has not been her high calling, she hopes her ’small herbs of grace’ may, without offence, be allowed to put forth their blossoms amongst the briars, weeds, and wild flowers of life’s common path.

[1] It underwent several changes before its final publication in 1818.

“Edinburgh, April 1840.”

The friend on whose assistance she relied was Miss Clavering, daughter of Lady Augusta Clavering, and niece of the late Duke of Argyll.  Between this lady and our author an early friendship existed, which was severed only by death.  It commenced in 1797, when Miss Ferrier lost her mother, [1] and when she went with her father to Inveraray Castle she was then fifteen, and her friend only eight.  Miss Clavering became the wife of Mr. Miles Fletcher, advocate, but was better known in later years as Mrs. Christison.  She inherited all the natural elegance and beauty of face and form for which her mother, and aunt Lady Charlotte Campbell, were so distinguished, and died at Edinburgh, 1869, at an advanced age.  While concocting the story of her first novel, Miss Ferrier writes to her friend in a lively and sprightly vein:—­