University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

Before my friend, Robert Carlton, Esq., left,[1] he
handed me the MS. of “The New Purchase,” with a
request to get it published: in which case I promised
to write the Preface. The best Preface will be, perhaps,
a part of our conversation at the time:

“— — — But, Robert, I cannot call the book a
History.”

“Why not, Charles?”

“It contains Fiction.”

“Granted: but is that not the case with other Histories?”

“To some extent: yet your Fictions will be taken
for Truths, and your Truths for Fictions.”

“Maybe so—yet that sometimes happens with other
Histories.”

“Well, what shall I say, Robert?”

“Oh! say what you know is the fact:—that the
substratum is Truth; nay, that the Truth is eight parts
out of ten, the Fiction only two:—that the Fiction is

mainly in the colouring and shading and perspective;
in embodying the Genus Abstract in the Individual
Concrete; in the aggregation and concentration of
events, acts, actors, like—let us see—like flowers culled
in many places and bound in one bouquet:—that the
Chronology of the whole and the parts is in need of
some rectification, and so on.”

“May I not say, however, that places, persons,
things, &c. are essentially as you found them?”

“Well, Charles, I do not know that it is important.
Let the book pass for what it is worth: if taken for
History, it will be thought I had a somewhat remarkable
experience, if for Fiction, that I have tolerable Invention;
and then my scull will be in the market—for
the booksellers in my lifetime,—and the Phrenologists
afterwards. And yet, on second thought, you may say,
that had I not told, sometimes, less than the truth, the
undiminished Truth would have seemed more like Fiction
than ever.”

“Robert, may I not alter or suppress”—

“No—Charles—no:—I know your modesty and
timidity. But let the blame of dragging you forward be
on me. As Editor you may correct grammar, rhetoric,
and so on—but do not meddle with the text. If necessary,
you may add notes.”

“Well, what shall I call or name the book?”

“I can give a title—but it is as long as your arm:—
`Whereabouts? or Seven and a Half Years in a New

Purchase of the Far West; being a Poetic Dream at
Sun Rise, with a Prosaic Reflection at Sun Set—a
Novel-History, and a Historic-Novel, with”'—

“Stop! stop!—Robert, that will never do. Suppose
we call it simply `The New Purchase, or Seven and a
a Half Years in the Far West: By Robert Carlton,
Esq.'?”

“That will do; with a Latin sentence or two”—

“The Latin age is past; people read now by intuition;
it will hurt the sale in warm weather; and, in the
winter the days are too short to be wasted in puzzling
out meanings.”

“Still, Charles, let us have in a little scrap; for instance
—alter et idem.”

“Oh! Robert—yet if you do not care I do not; it
shall go in.”

“And suppose you add, per multas aditum, &c.?”

“That would be honest; but folks do not want to be
got at, and you must not put them on guard: if all
readers were ingenuous, and wished to be profited as
well as entertained”—

“Ah! dear Charles, let us hope enough of the proper
sort may be found to reward a publisher.”

“Yes, dear Robert, but perhaps even such may say,
after reading the book, they are disappointed and wish
to have their money back.”

“Oh! that would be very unpleasant, indeed! Do
you think that might happen, Charles?”

“I hope not; but what if the honest and ingenuous
are disappointed?”

“Why, that is a thing to be considered—you have
taken me unawares—let us see—why, really;—and
yet, to be honest and candid myself, if the good, and the
honest, and the frank-hearted, all say, after reading and
understanding my book, that they are very sorry they
ever read it, why then I will say I am very sorry I
ever wrote it.”

“You appeal then, dear Robert, to the good, the ingenuous,
the merry, and even—the religious?”

“I do.”

“Then to such, if we can find a publisher, you shall
go.”