his inner nature is naked and is not ashamed. But there are many such
things I shall put in words, not because they are personal, but because
they are human, and are born of just such experiences as those who hear
or read what I say are like to have had in greater or less measure. I
find myself so much like other people that I often wonder at the
coincidence. It was only the other day that I sent out a copy of verses
about my great-grandmother's picture, and I was surprised to find how
many other people had portraits of their great-grandmothers or other
progenitors, about which they felt as I did about mine, and for whom I
had spoken, thinking I was speaking for myself only. And so I am not
afraid to talk very freely with you, my precious reader or listener. You
too, Beloved, were born somewhere and remember your birthplace or your
early home; for you some house is haunted by recollections; to some roof
you have bid farewell. Your hand is upon mine, then, as I guide my pen.
Your heart frames the responses to the litany of my remembrance. For
myself it is a tribute of affection I am rendering, and I should put it
on record for my own satisfaction, were there none to read or to listen.

I hope you will not say that I have built a pillared portico of
introduction to a humble structure of narrative. For when you look at
the old gambrel-roofed house, you will see an unpretending mansion, such
as very possibly you were born in yourself, or at any rate such a place
of residence as your minister or some of your well-to-do country cousins
find good enough, but not at all too grand for them. We have stately old
Colonial palaces in our ancient village, now a city, and a thriving
one,--square-fronted edifices that stand back from the vulgar highway,
with folded arms, as it were; social fortresses of the time when the
twilight lustre of the throne reached as far as our half-cleared
settlement, with a glacis before them in the shape of a long broad
gravel-walk, so that in King George's time they looked as formidably to