This volume is sent forth, with a feeling
somewhat akin to a parent's apprehensiveness,
in giving his child into the hands of a stranger.
We have a cellar, as well as many
stories, in our giddy thought-house; and it
is from this cave of privacy that we have,
with reluctance, and consentings far between,
drawn treasures of feeling and impression,
now bound and offered to you for the first
time in one bundle. Oh, from the different
stories of the mind—from the settled
depths, and from the effervescent and giddy
surface—how different looks the world!—of
what different stuff and worth the link that
binds us to it! In looking abroad from one
window of the soul, we see sympathy, goodness,
truth, desire for us and our secrets, that
we may be more loved; from another, we see
suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill will—
the evil spirits of the world—lying in wait for
us. At one moment—the spirits down, and
the heart calm and trusting—we tear out the
golden leaf nearest the well of life, and pass
it forth to be read and wept over. At another,
we bar shutter and blind upon prying malice,
turn key carefully on all below, and,
mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest
at the very treasures we have concealed—
at our folly in even confessing to a
heartless world that we had secrets, and would
share them. We are not always alike. The
world does not seem always the same. We
believe it is all good sometimes. We believe
sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given
to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes
we are all kindness—sometimes aching
only for an antagonist, and an arena without
barrier or law. And oh what a Procrustes'
bed is human opinion—trying a man's actions
and words, in whatever mood committed and
said, by the same standard of rigor! How
often must the angels hovering over us reverse
the sentence of the judge—how oftener still
the rebuke of the old maid and the Pharisee.
But—a martingale on moralizing!
Yours affectionately,
N. P. W.
