I HAVE taken some pains to string together the various stories contained in this Volume on a single thread of interest, which, so far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used before. The pages entitled "Leah's Diary" are, however, intended to fulfill another purpose besides that of serving as the frame-work for my collection of tales. In this part of the book, and subsequently in the Prologues to the stories, it has been my object to give the reader one more glimpse at that artist-life which circumstances have afforded me peculiar opportunities of studying, and which I have already tried to represent, under another aspect, in my fiction, "Hide-and-Seek."

Outside the bedroom the night was black and still. The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a leaf stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the cats were indoors; far or near, under the murky heaven, not a sound was stirring. Inside the bedroom the night was black and still. Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow night-lights; and Miss Ladd's young ladies were supposed to be fast asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house.

夜已经走到了尽头。新出生的日子等待着它快速的土地是永远不会知道沉默 - 沉默光日出之前，在海上平静。 不是来自死亡气息的空气。不是动不动就激起涟漪的水。没有什么改变，但轻轻增长轻，没有什么感动，但懒惰的薄雾，卷曲起来，以应付太阳，它的主人，在东海。通过优良等级，清晨通风面纱减薄的实质内容则上升 - 变薄，直到有曙光在第一道阳光透过它一个高大的白色风帆游艇斯库纳。 从头至尾保持沉默所拥有的船只 - 拥有作为沉默的大海。 === The night had come to an end. The new-born day waited for its quickening light in the silence that is never known on land--the silence before sunrise, in a calm at sea. Not a breath came from the dead air. Not a ripple stirred on the motionless water. Nothing changed but the softly-growing light; nothing moved but the lazy mist, curling up to meet the sun, its master, on the eastward sea. By fine gradations, the airy veil of morning thinned in substance as it rose--thinned, till there dawned through it in the first rays of sunlight the tall white sails of a Schooner Yacht. From stem to stern silence possessed the vessel--as silence possessed the sea.

在这个过程中叙述描述了一个无形的精神返回地球，并导致新的和陌生的地面读者。 不是在午夜默默无闻，但在一天中搜索灯，做了超自然influence断言本身。无论所揭示的愿景，也不是一个声音宣布，它达成的感觉是通过最不容易自我欺骗：凡人的意义上，认为知识。 这一事件的记录将必然产生冲突的印象。这将提高一些头脑，这是怀疑的理由断言，它会在其他振兴头脑，信念，希望这证明，并会离开的人，在几百年的徒劳调查已离开这可怕的命运问题，在黑暗中。 不过只有在当前开展的领导叙事沿着继承的事件方式，作家拒绝遵循逆冲自己和对市民的意见，他认为现代的例子。他返回到他从已经出现的阴影，和叶子的怀疑和信仰的反对势力作斗争的旧战场上一次又一次的旧地面。 二。 事件发生后第一个30年，在本世纪即将结束了。 === THE course of this narrative describes the return of a disembodied spirit to earth, and leads the reader on new and strange ground. Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of day, did the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither revealed by a vision, nor announced by a voice, it reached mortal knowledge through the sense which is least easily self-deceived: the sense that feels. The record of this event will of necessity produce conflicting impressions. It will raise, in some minds, the doubt which reason asserts; it will invigorate, in other minds, the hope which faith justifies; and it will leave the terrible question of the destinies of man, where centuries of vain investigation have left it--in the dark. Having only undertaken in the present narrative to lead the way along a succession of events, the writer declines to follow modern examples by thrusting himself and his opinions on the public view. He returns to the shadow from which he has emerged, and leaves the opposing forces of incredulity and belief to fight the old battle over again, on the old ground. II. THE events happened soon after the first thirty years of the present century had come to an end.