Sister Teresa — Preface

London: T. Fisher Unwin, 8 July 1901, pages vii-viii, 313 words

PREFACE

After being engaged for two years on the history of Evelyn Innes, I found I had completed a great pile of MS., and one day it occurred to me to consider the length of this MS. To my surprise I found I had written about 150,000 words, and had only finished the first half of my story. I explained my difficulties to my publisher, suggesting that I should end the chapter I was then writing on what musicians would call ‘a full close,’ and that half the story should be published under the title of Evelyn Innes and half under the title of Sister Teresa. My publisher consented, frightened at the thought of a novel of a thousand pages — 300,000 words.

I was wrong to yield to the temptation, but the pile of MS. was already high, and I thought how much higher it would be in two more years. True it is that Tolstoi waited until he had finished War and Peace before he published it; he even withheld the central idea of the book — the idea which gives it unity — till the last volume. But though we may admire and envy self-restraint and self-confidence, it does not follow that we possess them. I confess that I was not in possession of them at that time, and I may be so unfortunate that no readers may have the patience to study the book in the sequence that I originally designed. But I will not anticipate such ill-luck. I will hope that it will be understood that this is really the second volume of a novel which is meant to be read under one name and within one cover, and which will perhaps be ultimately presented to the public under the single title of Evelyn Innes.