Star of the Unborn [antikvár]

The First ChapterWHEREIN THE AUTHOR APPEARS TO BE PROLOGIZING, BUT THE READER SOON DISCOVERS THAT HE IS APOLOGIZING.HIS IS A First Chapter simply because it seemed inappropriate to begin this opuscule with a Second Chapter. The only factors that stood in the way of placing the words "Chapter Two" on the first page of this novel were the publisher's sense of propriety, the reading public's well-known propensity for the discovery of monstrous typographical errors, and, finally, the autlior's mania for originality, since he feared that some colleague in the gaily flippant era of romanticism must certainly have begun one of his rank works with a Second Chapter. For these reasons we begin with Chapter One, no matter how superfluous this chapter may be for the progress of the action, or, more accurately, of the exploration.Since we are dealing with a kind of travelogue I feel the obligation to introduce the hero or, more modestly, the central figure of the occurrences here set forth. This particular literary form has the unfortunate weakness that the eye that sees, the ear that hears, the spirit that comprehends, the voice that narrates, the "1" that is involved in many adventures, constitutes the central point about which, in the most literal sense, everything revolves. This central point, candidly designated as F.W., is, unfortunately, I myself. Purely from an innate aversion to getting into difficulties, I should have preferred not to be I-myselL3