--And so on.

But why multiply examples of the half-dozen or more that I might, could,
would, or should have written? Since everybody is agreed that, nobody
reads a preface, I have concluded to let the book go without any.

BROOKLYN, September, 1872.

"_And as he [Wordsworth] mingled freely with all kinds of men, he found
a pith of sense and a solidity of judgment here and there among the
unlearned which he had failed to find in the most lettered; from obscure
men he heard high truths.... And love, true love and pure, he found was
no flower reared only in what was called refined society, and requiring
leisure and polished manners for its growth.... He believed that in
country people, what is permanent in human nature, the essential
feelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity and
strength_."--PRINCIPAL SHAIRP.

* * * * *

A DEDICATION.

It would hardly be in character for me to dedicate this book in good,
stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have put in the
background of scenery without being reminded of the two boys,
inseparable as the Siamese twins, who gathered mussel-shells in the
river marge, played hide-and-seek in the hollow sycamores, and led a
happy life in the shadow of just such hills as those among which the
events of this story took place. And all the more that the generous boy