Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France

This little book, long the subject of my meditation, suddenly began to take shape one Sunday morning when I was your guest at Gisburne. We were actually starting for church, and the car was at the door, when I announced to you that the spirit moved me to stay behind. "Very well, then," you said, with your habitual good-nature, "we leave you to your folios." My "folios" were the three volumes of one of the smallest of books, the 18mo edition of Vauvenargues published by Plon in 1874. In the midst of a violent thunderstorm, which was like a declaration of war upon your golden Yorkshire summer, I wrote my first pages, and you were so sceptical, when you came back, as to my having done anything but watch the lightning, that I told you you would have to endure the responsibility of being sponsor to a work thus suddenly begun in all the agitation of the elements. So, such as time has proved it, here it is.