If you had opened the carefully guarded volume with the mottled
covers, you would first have seen a wonderful title page,
constructed apparently on the same lines as an obituary, or the
inscription on a tombstone, save for the quantity and variety of
information contained in it. Much of the matter would seem to the
captious critic better adapted to the body of the book than to
the title page, but Rebecca was apparently anxious that the
principal personages in her chronicle should be well described at
the outset.

She seems to have had a conviction that heredity plays its part
in the evolution of genius, and her belief that the world will be
inspired by the possession of her Thoughts is too artless to be
offensive. She evidently has respect for rich material confided
to her teacher, and one can imagine Miss Dearborn's woe had she
been confronted by Rebecca's chosen literary executor and bidden
to deliver certain "Valuable Poetry and Thoughts," the property
of posterity "unless carelessly destroyed."

THOUGHT BOOK of Rebecca Rowena Randall
Really of Sunnybrook Farm
But temporily of The Brick House Riverboro.
Own niece of Miss Miranda and Jane Sawyer
Second of seven children of her father, Mr. L. D. M. Randall
(Now at rest in Temperance cemmetary and there will be a monument
as soon as we pay off the mortgage on the farm)
Also of her mother Mrs. Aurelia Randall

In case of Death the best of these Thoughts
May be printed in my Remerniscences