Torchlight
Historial fiction in the time of the french revolution.
In offering her work to the public, partly in honour of Napoleon's centenary, May 1921, the author begs to say that she has not only relied on the statistical statements taken from the vast bulk of Napoleonic literature, but also on the personal point of view, which, to an imaginative mind, is of greater importance.
She has called her work Torchlight, It may not be a good title not that titles matter but surely it is symbolic of her attitude.
Without some kind of light, we poor human beings are in a sad way, and an artist is frankly lost. The human mind resembles a torch we like the idea of a torch now burns- ing sullenly, now bursting into a flame of purest light! In this particular volume, Napoleon is shown in the first stage of his wonderful career against a more or less de- tailed background of the French Revolution, which, as it were, ploughs a passage for his advance.
Even he would have failed in a world of peace. The book is inscribed to the author's twin sister, Sylvia, and her three little daughters, Nadine, Pamela, and Flora McDougall, who have taken a flattering interest in the work, most of it written under the ancient roofs of Provender (their home) in the Black Prince's own chamber, so-called since that valiant knight (1846) occupied it, on his way to join his father's standard in France.