Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/10

xiv nothing but precedent to serve them as a standard in the practice of virtue.

It is precisely this class of readers to whom works of the present nature are likely to prove of the utmost benefit; if their author, that is to say, be a man of strict rectitude and good judgment. Each incident related in them carries with it a certain degree of enlightenment, and serves as a lesson to supply the place of experience. In each adventure may be found an example for imitation; all that is lacking is its application to the circumstances of the individual case. The whole work, in fact, may be regarded as a treatise on morality, pleasantly reduced into practice. There may, perchance, be readers austere enough to think that it ill-beseems a man of my years to take up his pen for the purpose of relating a story of love and adventure. To all such I would say that if there be any truth in the above reflections, I need no other justification; while, if they be false, my error must be my excuse.