Digital primer

[Footnote A: I confess, however, the inability I found to weave a
catastrophe, such as I desired, out of these ordinary incidents. What I
have here said, therefore, must not be interpreted as applicable to the
concluding sheets of my work.]
Yes, even in the present narrative, I have aimed at a certain kind of
novelty--a novelty which may be aptly expressed by a parody on a
well-known line of Pope; it relates:
"Things often done, but never yet described."
In selecting among common and ordinary adventures, I have endeavoured to
avoid such as a thousand novels before mine have undertaken to develop.
Multitudes of readers have themselves passed through the very incidents
I relate; but, for the most part, no work has hitherto recorded them. If
I have hold them truly, I have added somewhat to the stock of books
which should enable a recluse, shut up in his closet, to form an idea of
what is passing in the world. It is inconceivable, meanwhile, how much,
by this choice of a subject, I increased the arduousness of my task.


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