University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

The principal incident in this too hastily and
carelessly written story will be recognized in
Clovernook as founded on a tradition once familiar
in that neighborhood, but the characters are
for the most part sketched in my poor way from
originals I have met elsewhere, and their conduct
is such as I fancy they might pursue under
the suggesting circumstances. “Human portraits,
faithfully drawn,” says Carlyle, “are of all pictures
the welcomest on human walls,” and whatever
the defects of art which a critical observer
may see in those here presented, I trust for their
reception to the readily appreciable agreeableness
which they have to nature. As to the moral of

the book, if it has one, it should be left for the
discovery of the reader, but that no one may be
tempted beyond this preface by any expectation
of finding a philosophy opposed to the old but
happily not altogether obsolete ideas, the author
confesses at the outset her belief that—there is a
God in Heaven.