University of Virginia Library

Apology.

In Apology for what may properly be termed a mere medley of mind, in Thoughts and Fragments; it seems honest to explain how written, and why published.

Far from having originally presumed to attempt regulating the capacities, or amending the hearts of others; the sole view of the author has been, to correct and console her own.

A series of disappointments, with distress, cruelly aggravated by the premature death of very dear children, having left that stagnation of heart, and that pulsation of brain, which sometimes seems to precede the most deplorable of human miseries; to avert the apprehended possibility of this, the aid of constant occupation, and continued self-examination, was resorted to; that self-examination inducing recollection, and impelling resolution, as to cause, effect, and remedy.

The early morning and the late evening, given to the question of her own faults, many mistakes, and continued afflictions, the result of such enquiry was committed to fragments of paper, with the single intent of being referred to, and acted upon

by the author's solitary self, who—not of the world, yet stood among them—and met the frowns, and passed the smiles of the many, and had Thoughts, and essayed to write of them also.

Finally, the accumulation of Fragments occasioning difficulty of selection, these were arranged by the author, and slowly transcribed into one manuscript—sufficient for a book—that is, sufficient in pages—but probably insufficient in every other requisite; this was her belief, and this belief virtually confirmed by the opinion of some to whom a very small portion of the work had been timidly communicated.

And yet, under every personal and particular discouragement, the author could think that those poor fragments, which had done so much for the dispositions of her own mind, might, under similar exigencies, effect something for the benefit of others; and with this impression stampt on her heart, she had the temerity to apply to one, who honours and hallows the cloth that he wears, and by the unerring genius of that one, was countenanced, favoured, and encouraged, and did venture—even amid existing fears, appalling predictions, and conscious inefficiency, to hope, and to ask for patronage —and that patronage was awarded by the gentle and the generous; and if ultimately supposed to have been lavished upon the dull, and the incompetent, will surely not be thrown away upon the assuming and the ungrateful.