Dedication

LETTER OF DEDICATION.

TO CHARLES JAMES WARD, ESQ.

IT has long been one of my pleasantest anticipations to look forward
to the time when I might offer to you, my old and dear friend, some
such acknowledgment of the value I place on your affection for me, and
of my grateful sense of the many acts of kindness by which that
affection has been proved, as I now gladly offer in this place. In
dedicating the present work to you, I fulfil therefore a purpose
which, for some time past, I have sincerely desired to achieve; and,
more than that, I gain for myself the satisfaction of knowing that
there is one page, at least, of my book, on which I shall always look
with unalloyed pleasure--the page that bears your name.

I have founded the main event out of which this story springs, on a
fact within my own knowledge. In afterwards shaping the course of the
narrative thus suggested, I have guided it, as often as I could, where
I knew by my own experience, or by experience related to me by others,
that it would touch on something real and true in its progress. My
idea was, that the more of the Actual I could garner up as a text to
speak from, the more certain I might feel of the genuineness and value
of the Ideal which was sure to spring out of it. Fancy and
Imagination, Grace and Beauty, all those qualities which are to the
work of Art what scent and colour are to the flower, can only grow
towards heaven by taking root in earth. Is not the noblest poetry of
prose fiction the poetry of every-day truth?

Directing my characters and my story, then, towards the light of
Reality wherever I could find it, I have not hesitated to violate some
of the conventionalities of sentimental fiction. For instance, the
first love-meeting of two of the personages in this book, occurs
(where the real love-meeting from which it is drawn, occurred) in the
very last place and under the very last circumstances which the
artifices of sentimental writing would sanction. Will my lovers excite
ridicule instead of interest, because I have truly represented them as
seeing each other where hundreds of other lovers have first seen each
other, as hundreds of people will readily admit when they read the
passage to which I refer? I am sanguine enough to think not.

So again, in certain parts of this book where I have attempted to
excite the suspense or pity of the reader, I have admitted as
perfectly fit accessories to the scene the most ordinary street-sounds
that could be heard, and the most ordinary street-events that could
occur, at the time and in the place represented--believing that by
adding to truth, they were adding to tragedy--adding by all the force
of fair contrast--adding as no artifices of mere writing possibly
could add, let them be ever so cunningly introduced by ever so crafty
a hand.

Allow me to dwell a moment longer on the story which these pages
contain.

Believing that the Novel and the Play are twin-sisters in the family
of Fiction; that the one is a drama narrated, as the other is a drama
acted; and that all the strong and deep emotions which the Play-writer
is privileged to excite, the Novel-writer is privileged to excite
also, I have not thought it either politic or necessary, while
adhering to realities, to adhere to every-day realities only. In other
words, I have not stooped so low as to assure myself of the reader's
belief in the probability of my story, by never once calling on him
for the exercise of his faith. Those extraordinary accidents and
events which happen to few men, seemed to me to be as legitimate
materials for fiction to work with--when there was a good object in
using them--as the ordinary accidents and events which may, and do,
happen to us all. By appealing to genuine sources of interest _within_
the reader's own experience, I could certainly gain his attention to
begin with; but it would be only by appealing to other sources (as
genuine in their way) _beyond_ his own experience, that I could hope
to fix his interest and excite his suspense, to occupy his deeper
feelings, or to stir his nobler thoughts.

In writing thus--briefly and very generally--(for I must not delay you
too long from the story), I can but repeat, though I hope almost
unnecessarily, that I am now only speaking of what I have tried to do.
Between the purpose hinted at here, and the execution of that purpose
contained in the succeeding pages, lies the broad line of separation
which distinguishes between the will and the deed. How far I may fall
short of another man's standard, remains to be discovered. How far I
have fallen short of my own, I know painfully well.

One word more on the manner in which the purpose of the following
pages is worked out--and I have done.

Nobody who admits that the business of fiction is to exhibit human
life, can deny that scenes of misery and crime must of necessity,
while human nature remains what it is, form part of that exhibition.
Nobody can assert that such scenes are unproductive of useful results,
when they are turned to a plainly and purely moral purpose. If I am
asked why I have written certain scenes in this book, my answer is to
be found in the universally-accepted truth which the preceding words
express. I have a right to appeal to that truth; for I guided myself
by it throughout. In deriving the lesson which the following pages
contain, from those examples of error and crime which would most
strikingly and naturally teach it, I determined to do justice to the
honesty of my object by speaking out. In drawing the two characters,
whose actions bring about the darker scenes of my story, I did not
forget that it was my duty, while striving to portray them naturally,
to put them to a good moral use; and at some sacrifice, in certain
places, of dramatic effect (though I trust with no sacrifice of truth
to Nature), I have shown the conduct of the vile, as always, in a
greater or less degree, associated with something that is selfish,
contemptible, or cruel in motive. Whether any of my better characters
may succeed in endearing themselves to the reader, I know not: but
this I do certainly know:--that I shall in no instance cheat him out
of his sympathies in favour of the bad.

To those persons who dissent from the broad principles here adverted
to; who deny that it is the novelist's vocation to do more than merely
amuse them; who shrink from all honest and serious reference, in
books, to subjects which they think of in private and talk of in
public everywhere; who see covert implications where nothing is
implied, and improper allusions where nothing improper is alluded to;
whose innocence is in the word, and not in the thought; whose morality
stops at the tongue, and never gets on to the heart--to those persons,
I should consider it loss of time, and worse, to offer any further
explanation of my motives, than the sufficient explanation which I
have given already. I do not address myself to them in this book, and
shall never think of addressing myself to them in any other.

-----

Those words formed part of the original introduction to this novel. I
wrote them nearly ten years since; and what I said then, I say now.

"Basil" was the second work of fiction which I produced. On its
appearance, it was condemned off-hand, by a certain class of readers,
as an outrage on their sense of propriety. Conscious of having
designed and written, my story with the strictest regard to true
delicacy, as distinguished from false--I allowed the prurient
misinterpretation of certain perfectly innocent passages in this book
to assert itself as offensively as it pleased, without troubling
myself to protest against an expression of opinion which aroused in me
no other feeling than a feeling of contempt. I knew that "Basil" had
nothing to fear from pure-minded readers; and I left these pages to
stand or fall on such merits as they possessed. Slowly and surely, my
story forced its way through all adverse criticism, to a place in the
public favour which it has never lost since. Some of the most valued
friends I now possess, were made for me by "Basil." Some of the most
gratifying recognitions of my labours which I have received, from
readers personally strangers to me, have been recognitions of the
purity of this story, from the first page to the last. All the
indulgence I need now ask for "Basil," is indulgence for literary
defects, which are the result of inexperience; which no correction can
wholly remove; and which no one sees more plainly, after a lapse of
ten years, than the writer himself.

I have only to add, that the present edition of this book is the first
which has had the benefit of my careful revision. While the incidents
of the story remain exactly what they were, the language in which they
are told has been, I hope, in many cases greatly altered for the
better.

WILKIE COLLINS.

Harley Street, London, July, 1862.