Max Havelaar

I am a coffee-broker, and live at No. 37 Laurier Canal, Amsterdam. I am not accustomed to write novels or works of that kind; therefore it took me a long time before I could resolve to order a few extra quires of paper and begin this book, which you, dear reader, have just taken in hand, and which you must finish, whether you are a coffee-broker or anything else. Not only that I never wrote anything that resembled a novel, but I even do not like to read such things, because I am a man of business. For many years I have asked myself what is the use of such works, and I am astonished at the impudence with which many a poet or novelist dares to tell you stories which never happened, and often never could have happened at all. If I in my position,—I am a coffee-broker, and live at No. 37 Laurier Canal,—made a statement to a Principal, that is, a person who sells coffee, in which I related only a small part of the lies which form the greater part of poems and novels, he would immediately cease to employ me, and go over to Busselinck and Waterman, who are likewise coffee-brokers,—but you need not know their address. Therefore I take good care not to write any novels, nor to advance any false statements. I have always remarked that persons who do so are often badly off. I am forty-three years of age, I have visited the Exchange for the last twenty years, and, therefore, I can come forward whenever you are in want of a person of experience. How many firms do I know which have been utterly ruined! And generally, when looking for the causes of their failure, it appeared to me that they must be attributed to the wrong direction which most of them followed in the beginning.