women prize—provided, that is to say, that she has the courage to ask the question of God, and wait to hear His answer; not thinking it necessary to stun herself, as the heathen do, with vain repetitions of pious statements which she does not believe but only thinks she ought to believe.
For the lady of the demi-monde:—provided she has the courage to face her situation calmly in the morning hours; not thinking it necessary to stun herself all day long with noise, drink, affectations, and the strumming of unmusical tunes on some unmusical instrument.
For the man or woman condenmed by circumstances either to a life of monotonous drudgery or to one of dreary idleness, or to a still more dreary round of so-called social duties, which are not really due to anyone, and of so-called social pleasures which do not please.
For the man who knows he has something to tell the world, but has not found his way to any adequate mode of utterance.
For the paralytic confined to his chair.
For the felon confined in a gaol.
And, last and chiefly, for the patient in the lunatic asylum.
For any and all who have, temporarily or finally, drifted out of the main current of social life into some stagnant (and perhaps muddy) backwater.
Whoever the reader is, he or she will find the understanding of the book much facilitated by interposing at least one night between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
Dear friends, never suppose that, because you yourselves are unable to swim in mid-channel, therefore
