PREFACE.
This book was not written for private circulation among
friends; it was not written to cheer and instruct a diseased
relative of the author's; it was not thrown off during intervals
of wearing labor to amuse an idle hour. It was not
written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is submitted
without the usual apologies.
It will be seen that it deals with an entirely ideal state of
society; and the chief embarrassment of the writers in this
realm of the imagination has been the want of illustrative
examples. In a State where there is no fever of speculation,
no inflamed desire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all
simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all honest and
generous, where society is in a condition of primitive purity
and politics is the occupation of only the capable and the
patriotic, there are necessarily no materials for such a history
as we have constructed out of an ideal commonwealth.
No apology is needed for following the learned custom of
placing attractive scraps of literature at the heads of our
chapters. It has been truly observed by Wagner that such
headings, with their vague suggestions of the matter which
is to follow them, pleasantly inflame the reader's interest
without wholly satisfying his curiosity, and we will hope
that it may be found to be so in the present case.
Our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues; this
is done for the reason that very few foreign nations among
whom the book will circulate can read in any language but
their own; whereas we do not write for a particular class or
sect or nation, but to take in the whole world.
We do not object to criticism; and we do not expect that
the critic will read the book before writing a notice of
it. We do not even expect the reviewer of the book will
say that he has not read it. No, we have no anticipations of
anything unusual in this age of criticism. But if the Jupiter,
who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to peruse
it in some weary moment of his subsequent life, we hope
that he will not be the victim of a remorse bitter but too late.
One word more. This is—what it pretends to be—a joint
production, in the conception of the story, the exposition of
the characters, and in its literal composition. There is
scarcely a chapter that does not bear the marks of the two
writers of the book. S. L. C.
C. D. W.
