Memories and Vagaries

MEMORIES AND VAGARIES by AXEL MUNTHE. Originally published in 1930. PREFACE TO THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION: BENEVOLENT readers of The Story of Sew Michele have come forth with a gallant attempt to rescue this little book from oblivion. I fear I have not done very well for myself by consenting to a re print of these small sketches or stories, or whatever they are to be called. They were all written long, long ago by an inexperienced hand in rather indif ferent English. I flatter myself with the belief that, were I to sit down and rewrite them to-day, I would make a better book, at least to the majority of its readers. But there still exists a minority of booklovers with a sneaking weakness for sponta neous writing, who will, maybe, approve of my bold ness in leaving these stories just as they were writ ten, to take care of themselves as best they can. Readers of The Story of San Michele will come . across several old acquaintances here, all in their same old clothes, for they have nothing else to put on their backs. My friend Archangelo Fusco, the street-sweeper of Quartier Montparnasse the Sal vatore family Don Gaetano, the organ-grinder PREFACE with his shivering monkey Monsieur Alfredo with the MS. of his last five-act tragedy under his arm, are all here. Even Soeur Philomne, the sweet guar dian angel of Salle St. Claire in the Paris hospital, lives and dies in these pages. The same shabby old monks and priests are carrying through the cholera slums of Naples their respective madonnas and patron saints, all quarrelling among themselves. The same glorious sun is shining over Golfo di Napoli. Out of its sparkling waters rises the same enchanted island, where the same friendly people welcome the reader. Even the dogs in this book are wagging their tails in token of recognition. The beloved Tappio in the chapter When Tappio was lost in this book was the great-grandfather of the Tappio Miss Hall took for his daily walk in Villa Borghese, and who lay half - asleep in the sunny pergola of San Michele while Billy, the drunkard baboon, was busy catching his fleas. The pedigree of Billy is more obscure, though I still stick to my belief that he was an illegitimate son of II Demonio. But I know for certain that the wooden horse I gave on Christmas Day to John, the blue-eyed lit tle boy in The Story of San Michele, was a lineal descendant of the wooden horse which Petrucchio, the child of sorrow of the Salvatore family, is hold ing in his withered hand in this book. I know, too, that my friend Archangelo Fusco, the street sweeper in Impasse Roussel, is the same Archangelo Fusco I met in Heaven in the last chapter of the PREFACE book of San Michele. I am equally certain that his cruel landlord, the money-lender to the poor in Im passe Roussel, whom I caused to hang himself in this book, is now keeping company in hell with the ex-butcher who blinded the quails with a red-hot needle in The Story of San Michele. Memories and Vagaries have been out of print for long...