Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/20



a coffee-broker, and live at No. 37 Laurier Canal, Amsterdam. I am not accustomed to write novels or works of that kind; therefore it took me a long time before I could resolve to order a few extra quires of paper and begin this book, which you, dear reader, have just taken in hand, and which you must finish, whether you are a coffee-broker or anything else. Not only that I never wrote anything that resembled a novel, but I even do not like to read such things, because I am a man of business. For many years I have asked myself what is the use of such works, and I am astonished at the impudence with which many a poet or novelist dares to tell you stories which never happened, and often never could have happened at all. If I in my position,—I am a coffee-broker, and live at No. 37 Laurier Canal,—made a statement to a Principal, that is, a person who sells coffee, in which I related only a small part of the lies which form the greater part of poems and novels, he