The Battle of the Strong | Page 2

me, they fed me with
dialect, with local details, with memories, with old letters, with diaries
of their forebears, until, if I had gone wrong, it would have been
through lack of skill in handling my material. I do not think I went
wrong, though I believe that I could construct the book more
effectively if I had to do it again. Yet there is something in looseness of

construction which gives an air of naturalness; and it may be that this
very looseness which I notice in 'The Battle of the Strong' has had
something to do with giving it such a great circle of readers; though
this may appear paradoxical. When it first appeared, it did not make the
appeal which 'The Right of Way' or 'The Seats of the Mighty' made, but
it justified itself, it forced its way, it assured me that I had done right in
shaking myself free from the control of my own best work. The book
has gone on increasing its readers year by year, and when it appeared in
Nelson's delightful cheap edition in England it had an immediate
success, and has sold by the hundred thousand in the last four years.
One of the first and most eager friends of 'The Battle of the Strong' was
Mrs. Langtry, now Lady de Bathe, who, born in Jersey, and come of an
old Jersey family, was well able to judge of the fidelity of the life and
scene which it depicted. She greatly desired the novel to be turned into
a play, and so it was. The adaptation, however, was lacking in much,
and though Miss Marie Burroughs and Maurice Barrymore played in it,
success did not attend its dramatic life.
'The Battle of the Strong' was called an historical novel by many critics,
but the disclaimer which I made in the first edition I make again. 'The
Seats of the Mighty' came nearer to what might properly be called an
historical novel than any other book which I have written save, perhaps,
'A Ladder of Swords'. 'The Battle of the Strong' is not without faithful
historical elements, but the book is essentially a romance, in which
character was not meant to be submerged by incident; and I do not
think that in this particular the book falls short of the design of its
author. There was this enormous difference between life in the Island
of Jersey and life in French Canada, that in Jersey, tradition is heaped
upon tradition, custom upon custom, precept upon precept, until every
citizen of the place is bound by innumerable cords of a code from
which he cannot free himself. It is a little island, and that it is an island
is evidence of a contracted life, though, in this case, a life which has
real power and force. The life in French Canada was also traditional,
and custom was also somewhat tyrannous, but it was part of a great
continent in which the expansion of the man and of a people was
inevitable. Tradition gets somewhat battered in a new land, and even
where, as in French Canada, the priest and the Church have such
supervision, and can bring such pressure to bear that every man must

feel its influence; yet there is a happiness, a blitheness, and an
exhilaration even in the most obscure quarter of French Canada which
cannot be observed in the Island of Jersey. In Jersey the custom of five
hundred years ago still reaches out and binds; and so small is the place
that every square foot of it almost--even where the potato sprouts, and
the potato is Jersey's greatest friend--is identified with some odd
incident, some naive circumstance, some big, vivid, and striking
historical fact. Behind its rugged coasts a little people proudly hold by
their own and to their own, and even a Jersey criminal has more friends
in his own environment than probably any other criminal anywhere
save in Corsica; while friendship is a passion even with the pettiness by
which it is perforated.
Reading this book again now after all these years, I feel convinced that
the book is truly Jersiais, and I am grateful to it for having brought me
out from the tyranny of the field in which I first sought for a hearing.

NOTE
A list of Jersey words and phrases used herein, with their English or
French equivalents, will be found at the end of the book. The Norman
and patois words are printed as though they were English, some of
them being quite Anglicised in Jersey. For the sake of brevity I have
spoken of the Lieutenant-Bailly throughout as Bailly; and, in truth, he
performed all the duties of Bailly in those days when this chief of the
Jurats of the Island