Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/7



I might have introduced the Adventures of the Chevalier des Grieux in my own Memoirs, it seemed to me that, as there was no necessary connection between the two, the reader would find it more satisfactory to have them separately. The thread of my own story would have been too much interrupted by a digression of such length. Far as I am from laying any claim to precision as a writer, I am yet well aware that a narrative should be free from details which render it cumbersome and involved. To quote the maxim of Horace: "Ut jam nunc dicat jam nunc debentia dici, Pleraque differat et præsens in tempus omittat.""

Indeed, so weighty an authority is not needed to establish so simple a truth; for this rule has its origin in common-sense.

If the story of my life afforded the public some interest and entertainment, I may venture to promise them equal pleasure in the perusal of the present sequel to it. They will find, in the adventures of M. des Grieux, a terrible example of the tyranny of the passions. I have before me the task of depicting a headstrong youth who rejects happiness, to plunge of his own accord into the deepest