Excerpt from The Palace of Mirrors, and Other EssaysBut every author hopes that his book will be read by some people whose names he does not know, and Whose faces he may never see, but with whom he is glad to share his thoughts. To these unknown friends the preface is a word of personal greeting.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.