The Rescue

Of the three long novels of mine which suffered an interruption, "The
Rescue" was the one that had to wait the longest for the good pleasure
of the Fates. I am betraying no secret when I state here that it had to
wait precisely for twenty years. I laid it aside at the end of the
summer of 1898 and it was about the end of the summer of 1918 that I
took it up again with the firm determination to see the end of it and
helped by the sudden feeling that I might be equal to the task.

This does not mean that I turned to it with elation. I was well aware
and perhaps even too much aware of the dangers of such an adventure. The
amazingly sympathetic kindness which men of various temperaments,
diverse views and different literary tastes have been for years
displaying towards my work has done much for me, has done all--except
giving me that overweening self-confidence which may assist an
adventurer sometimes but in the long run ends by leading him to the
gallows.

As the characteristic I want most to impress upon these short Author's
Notes prepared for my first Collected Edition is that of absolute
frankness, I hasten to declare that I founded my hopes not on my
supposed merits but on the continued goodwill of my readers. I may say
at once that my hopes have been justified out of all proportion to my
deserts. I met with the most considerate, most delicately expressed
criticism free from all antagonism and in its conclusions showing an
insight which in itself could not fail to move me deeply, but was
associated also with enough commendation to make me feel rich beyond the
dreams of avarice--I mean an artist's avarice which seeks its treasure
in the hearts of men and women.

No! Whatever the preliminary anxieties might have been this adventure
was not to end in sorrow. Once more Fortune favoured audacity; and yet I
have never forgotten the jocular translation of _Audaces fortuna juvat_
offered to me by my tutor when I was a small boy: "The Audacious get
bitten." However he took care to mention that there were various kinds
of audacity. Oh, there are, there are!... There is, for instance, the
kind of audacity almost indistinguishable from impudence.... I must
believe that in this case I have not been impudent for I am not
conscious of having been bitten.

The truth is that when "The Rescue" was laid aside it was not laid aside
in despair. Several reasons contributed to this abandonment and, no
doubt, the first of them was the growing sense of general difficulty in
the handling of the subject. The contents and the course of the story I
had clearly in my mind. But as to the way of presenting the facts, and
perhaps in a certain measure as to the nature of the facts themselves, I