Every scribbler, almost, has had his little fling at it, at one time
or another; I had mine fifteen years ago. The book gets out of print,
every now and then, and one ceases to hear of it for a season;
but presently the nations and near and far colonies of our tongue
and lineage call for it once more, and once more it issues from some
London or Continental or American press, and runs a new course around
the globe, wafted on its way by the wind of a world's laughter.

Many persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities
were studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume
carefully through and keep that opinion. It was written in
serious good faith and deep earnestness, by an honest and upright
idiot who believed he knew something of the English language,
and could impart his knowledge to others. The amplest proof
of this crops out somewhere or other upon each and every page.
There are sentences in the book which could have been manufactured
by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent and deliberate
purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there are other sentences,
and paragraphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could ever achieve
--nor yet even the most genuine and comprehensive ignorance,
when unbacked by inspiration.

It is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of the
author's Preface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience
is at rest, a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for
his nation and his generation, and is well pleased with his performance:


We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him,
and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the