gems, Gourjon

THE note by my Publishers on page 211 requires an explanation which circumstances rendered it both difficult and desirable to offer in that place. The seven published MSS. were selected by me from among a large number of which I had become custodian, as explained in my Antescript to The Purple Sapphire and at the same time I brought away with me from the safe in the University library, for re-perusal, the MS. of The Cheetah-Girl. This MS., though setting forth the principles of an enquiry, and experiments, in a branch of Biological research the importance of which it would be impossible to overestimate, contains matters of record of such a nature that it could not possibly be published in a volume destined for public circulation. The table of contents was, however, compiled from the Title covers of the MSS. by my Secretary, who, I may mention parenthetically, made the mistake of writing “Deposited by the Professor of Biology” instead of “of Physiology”—there is no chair of general Biology in the University of Cosmopoli. This “table” went to the Printers after my departure from England on a protracted holiday, and was “set-up” with the rest of what is technically called “the preliminary matter.” When, on my return, my Publishers asked for this MS. I considered that I was justified in showing it to them in confidence, and they at once agreed with me that it could not be printed. Hence the “Note” which Reviewers have regarded, some in the light of a joke (!), and some as a touch of intentional sensationalism.