TO JAMES LORIMER GRAHAM, Jr., Esq.,
New York.
My dear Graham, — I owe it to your kindness that
the mechanical labor of putting this book into words has
been so greatly reduced as almost to become a pleasure.
Hence you were much in my thoughts while I wrote, and I
do not ask your permission to associate your name with the
completed work.
I have found, from experience, that whatever the preliminary
explanations an author may choose to give, they
are practically useless. Those persons who insist — against
my own express declaration — that “Hannah Thurston”
was intended as a picture of the “Reformers” of this
country, will be sure to make the discovery that this book
represents the literary guild. Those, also, who imagine
that they recognized the author in Maxwell Woodbury, will
not fail to recognize him in John Godfrey, although there
is no resemblance between the two characters. Finally,
those sensitive readers who protest against any representation
of “American Life,” which is not an unmitigated
glorification of the same, will repeat their dissatisfaction,
and insist that a single work should contain every feature
of that complex national being, which a thousand volumes
could not exhaust.
I will only say (to you, who will believe me) of this
book, that, like its predecessor, it is the result of observation.
Not what ought to be, or might be, is the proper
province of fiction, but what is. And so, throwing upon
John Godfrey's head all the consequences of this declaration,
I send him forth to try new fortunes.
Yours always,
Bayard Taylor.
Cedarcroft, September, 1864.
