blossoms I have intermixed some that were produced long ago,--old,
faded things, reminding me of flowers pressed between the leaves of a
book,--and now offer the bouquet, such as it is, to any whom it may
please. These fitful sketches, with so little of external life about
them, yet claiming no profundity of purpose,--so reserved, even while
they sometimes seem so frank,--often but half in earnest, and never,
even when most so, expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which they
profess to image,--such trifles, I truly feel, afford no solid basis
for a literary reputation. Nevertheless, the public--if my limited
number of readers, whom I venture to regard rather as a circle of
friends, may be termed a public--will receive them the more kindly,
as the last offering, the last collection of this nature which it is
my purpose ever to put forth. Unless I could do better, I have done
enough in this kind. For myself the book will always retain one
charm,--as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes,
and of the avenue, the garden, and the orchard, and especially the
dear Old Manse, with the little study on its western side, and the
sunshine glimmering through the willow branches while I wrote.

Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my
guest, and that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within
and about the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study.
There, after seating him in an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the
house, I take forth a roll of manuscript and entreat his attention to
the following tales,--an act of personal inhospitality, however, which
I never was guilty of, nor ever will be, even to my worst enemy.