4th. In _Winona_ I have introduced a rhyme at the pivotal pause
of the line, not because my Hexameter requires it, but because I think
it increases the melody, and more emphatically marks the central pause.

I am not quite sure that, in a long poem, the rhyme is not detrimental.
That depends greatly, however, upon the skill with which it is handled.
Surely the same Hexameter can be written as smoothly and more vigorously
without rhyme. Rhyme adds greatly to the labor of composition;
it rarely assists, but often hinders, the expression of the sense
which the author would convey. At times I have been on the point of
abandoning it in despair, but after having been under the hammer and
the file, at intervals for the last four years, _Winona_ is at
last _done_, if not finished.

It will be observed that I have slightly changed the length and the
rhythm of the old Hexameter line, but it is still Hexameter, and, I
think, improved. I am not afraid of intelligent criticism. I invoke
it, and will endeavor to profit by it in the future as in the past.

The reception of my _Pauline_ at home and abroad has been so
flattering that I have been encouraged to attempt something better.
That was my first real effort and full of crudities but if the Legends
are received by our best critics as well as _Pauline_ was received
I shall be well pleased with my efforts.

After much thought I have decided to publish the first edition of my
_Legends_ here at home:

1st Because they pertain particularly to the lakes and rivers to the
fair forests and fertile fields of our own Minnesota and ought to be