University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

The “Letters from under a Bridge” were written in a secluded glen of the valley of the Susquehannah.
The author after several years residence and travel abroad, made there, as he hoped, an altar of life-time
tranquillity for his household-gods. Most of the letters were written in the full belief that he should pass
there the remainder of his days. Inevitable necessity drove him again into active metropolitan life, and the
remembrance of that enchanting interval of repose and rural pleasure seems to him, now, little but a dream.
As picturing truly the color of his own mind, and the natural flow of his thoughts during a brief enjoyment
of the kind of life alone best suited to his disposition as well as to his better nature, the book is interesting
to himself and to those who love him. As picturing faithfully the charm of nature and seclusion, after years
of intoxicated life in the gayest circles of the gayest cities of the world, it may be curious to the reader.