No one knows so well as I the faults of immaturity and inexperience that
characterize this book. But perhaps after all the public is right in so
often preferring an author's first book. There is what Emerson would
have called a "central spontaneity" about the work of a young man that
may give more delight to the reader than all the precision of thought
and perfection of style for which we strive as life advances.

JOSHUA'S ROCK ON LAKE GEORGE, 1892.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Since writing the passage in the text, I have met with the
following in _The Speaker_, of London: "Everybody knows that when an
important work is published in history, philosophy, or any branch of
science, the editor of a respectable paper employs an expert to review
it; . . . indeed, the more abstruse the subject of the book, the more
careful and intelligent you will find the review. . . . It is equally
well known that works of fiction and books of verse are not treated with
anything like the same care. . . . A good poem, play, or novel is at
least as fine an achievement as a good history; yet the history gets the
benefit of an expert's judgment and two columns of thoughtful pimse or
censure, while the poem, play, or novel is treated to ten skittish lines
by the hack who happens to be within nearest call when the book comes
in."]




PART OF THE PREFACE TO THE