fit that a few words be said of the matter in sober prose. What it seems
well to say I have already said with sufficient clarity in the preface
of another book, somewhat allied to this by that feature of its
character. I quote from "Black Beetles in Amber:"

"Many of the verses in this book are republished, with considerable
alterations, from various newspapers. Of my motives in writing and in
now republishing I do not care to make either defence or explanation,
except with reference to those who since my first censure of them have
passed away. To one having only a reader's interest in the matter it may
easily seem that the verses relating to those might properly have been
omitted from this collection. But if these pieces, or indeed, if any
considerable part of my work in literature, have the intrinsic worth
which by this attempt to preserve some of it I have assumed, their
permanent suppression is impossible, and it is only a question of when
and by whom they will be republished. Some one will surely search them
out and put them in circulation.

"I conceive it the right of an author to have his fugitive work
collected in his lifetime; and this seems to me especially true of one
whose work, necessarily engendering animosities, is peculiarly exposed
to challenge as unjust. That is a charge that can best be examined
before time has effaced the evidence. For the death of a man of whom
I have written what I may venture to think worthy to live I am no way
responsible; and however sincerely I may regret it, I can hardly consent
that it shall affect my literary fortunes. If the satirist who does not
accept the remarkable doctrine that, while condemning the sin he should
spare the sinner, were bound to let the life of his work be coterminous
with that of his subject his were a lot of peculiar hardship.