Regina Maria Roche. London Tales; Or, Reflective Portraits.  2 vols.  London:  John Booth, 1814. 1: iii-iv.

    INTRODUCTION.

        Even a short story may be tedious:  the following Tales are very short; and if they be not found tedious, I shall have attained at least one of the objects I had in view.
        It was my intention to shew to minds, not yet troubled with the strong propensities of our nature, the mournful effects that sometimes arise from yielding to the passions, under circumstances which render indulgence a crime.  There are few, who at some season of life have not felt their effects; and perhaps the best use of such stories as I have endeavoured to write, is to give some of the wisdom of experience, without paying the heavy price at which it is too often purchased.  Nothing has given me more pleasure in the perusal of fictitious incident, than seeing, that conduct praised, which, under the same circumstances, I thought I would have pursued, or seeing actions censured when my own heart joined in the condemnation:  if such thoughts arise to any person’s mind upon looking over these little volumes; if they communicate even for a moment, an inclination to goodness, or an aversion to vice, or gives one hour to innocent amusement, that would have otherwise passed in guilty recreation, I will look upon myself as not having laboured without recompence.