… Woe unto the foolish prophets, that
follow their own spirit, and have seen
nothing!…
Because, even because they have seduced
my people, saying, Peace; and there
was no peace; and one built up a
wall, and lo, others daubed it with
untempered mortar:
Say unto them which daub it with untempered
mortar, that it shall fall:
there shall be an overflowing shower;
and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall;
and a stormy wind shall rend it.
Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not
be said unto you, Where is the daubing
wherewith ye have daubed it?—
Ezekiel xiii. 3 … 10 12.
PREFACE
I AM glad to take this, the first available opportunity, to acknowledge the kindness with which A Child of the Jago has been received: both by the reading public, from which I have received many gratifying assurances that what I have tried to say has not altogether failed of its effect: and by the reviewers, the most of whom have written in very indulgent terms.
I think indeed, that I am the more gratified by the fact that this reception has not been unanimous: because an outcry and an opposition, even from an unimportant minority, are proofs that I have succeeded in saying, however imperfectly, something that was worth being said. Under the conditions of life as we know it there is no truth worth telling that will not interfere with some hearer’s comfort. Various objections have been made to A Child of the Jago, and many of them had already been made to Tales of Mean Streets. And it has been the way of the objectors as well as the way of many among the kindest of my critics, to call me a ‘realist.’ The word
