The writer of a book’s preface may expect a measure of deference from his readers, since, having yet to read the pages marked by Arabic rather than Roman numerals, the reader has no idea what the preface writer is talking about. Unlike traditional essays, prefaces may therefore indulge in poetry; that is, they may explore connections without qualifications, and cast their imagery over the volume like a stained-glass window illuminating an open hymnal. I wish I owned an anthology of great prefaces; if I were in charge of compiling one, I would include Christopher Morley’s introduction to The Essays of Francis Bacon. It begins:

Chance has it that the table where I write this is covered by a sheet of glass. Through my sleeves I feel the chill of that cold slippery stuff. How I would prefer to dictate, for none can match the written words of Lord Bacon. Only the humble working impromptu of live speech could stand up to that dark angel of English prose. It would be less wary than this, but more manly. Yet I feel, or have persuaded myself, that this cold plate under my elbows is somehow appropriate.

There is chill in the Essays too. It runs up the arms, it leaves one a little sick and shaken. Perhaps nowhere in literature do we more clearly see a Mind at work, and it frightens us. My Lord’s Northern Lights burn and steam like dry ice; our reason is thrilled, but also (in his own words) we find we are ‘full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to ourselves.’…

I am full of admiration for this passage. Like a good newspaper article (Morley was a reporter), it starts with a fact that begs a question: the fact being, the author’s table is covered in glass; the question being, who the hell cares?

This mystery pulls us through the author’s apology for taking on so great a subject, and on to the second paragraph where our answer is. I like the technique; if the preface had begun, “How I would prefer to dictate, for none can match the written words of Lord Bacon,” I would have thought, “Then why waste my time with this admittedly inferior preface?” and flipped through to the essays. But now I have to know why the glass is important.

Aha! The cold! The metaphor grabs you. “It runs up the arms, it leaves one a little sick and shaken.” No one can read that sentence and retain the heart to enforce the traditional prohibition against run-ons. “Northern Lights” is uncommonly witty: it continues the frigid theme, and in two words speaks to Bacon’s rarity, sublimity, and iridescence. The preface then segues into quoting bits of Bacon, each preserved in Morley’s magnificent frozen conceit, an aurora in its own right. Shortly after the ellipsis in the passage above, he calls Bacon’s writing “icicle aphorisms,” “winter-talk by the fireside,” “iced vermouth,” and—in a clause so elegant Morley had to crack it in half—”frostfires of beauty that coruscate—even against his will—in the arch of his arctic sky.”

The ice metaphor is, perhaps, overextended; one wonders whether Morley thought of every English word related to frozen water and made it a game to pack them into one paragraph. But they are all part of a larger design, not apparent in those first two paragraphs, nor in the middling paragraphs, which are altogether devoid of references to coldness. It is the final paragraph, simply written (no frostfires or coruscations), where the metaphor is fully realized, made affecting by its connection with the memorable beginning. Morley concludes his preface to Bacon thus:

As I write this it is snowing; one remembers the legend that a spring snowstorm killed him. He died as he lived, in a practical zeal for exact knowledge. To learn whether refrigeration really arrests decay he went outdoors to buy a drawn fowl and stuff it with snow. Maybe the Essays have kept so well, and will keep forever, for that same reason. Their entrails are packed with ice.