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A personal experience, though ever so plainly told,
is, generally speaking, more attractive to listeners and
readers than fiction. A circumstance from the tongue
or pen of one to whom it actually happened, or who
was its hero or victim, or even its spectator, is always
more interesting than if given second-hand. If the
makers of history, contradistinguished from its writers,
could teach it to us directly, one telling would suffice
to secure our lasting remembrance. The reason is,
that the narrative so proceeding derives a personality
and reality not otherwise attainable, which assist in
making way to our imagination and the sources of our
sympathy.

With this theory or bit of philosophy in mind, when
the annexed book was resolved upon, I judged best to
assume the character of a translator, which would enable
me to write in the style and spirit of one who not
merely lived at the time of the occurrences woven in
the text, but was acquainted with many of the historical
personages who figure therein, and was a native

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of the beautiful valley in which the story is located.
Thinking to make the descriptions yet more real, and
therefore more impressive, I took the liberty of attributing
the composition to a literator who, whatever may
be thought of his works, was not himself a fiction.
Without meaning to insinuate that The Fair God
would have been the worse for creation by Don Fernando
de Alva, the Tezcucan, I wish merely to say
that it is not a translation. Having been so written,
however, now that publication is at hand, change is
impossible; hence, nothing is omitted, — title-page,
introductory, and conclusion are given to the reader
exactly as they were brought to the publisher by the
author.

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