Richard Hurdis Author:William Gilmore Simms Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ADVERTISEMENT. It might be of some use to such of our young authors as are just about to begin their career in letters, were I to state the reasons which gove... more »rned me, some eighteen years ago, in giving this story, with several others of the same family, to the public, anonymously. But I am not prepared, just yet, to enter the confessional. The matter is of a sort to keep. I treasure up much curious literary history, the fruit of a protracted experience, in reserve for a day and volume of greater leisure and deliberation. Enough now, to say that I had my interest — ay, and my fun too—in the mystery with which the publication of the work was originally clothed; and, if I had one counsel, over all, to impart to the young beginner, it should be to cling to the anonymous in literature as long as it will afford him a decent cover. Were I now, for the first time, beginning my own career, with the possession of the smallest part of my present experience, my left hand should never know what my right is doing. I should not only keep the public in ignorance of my peculiar labors, but I should, quite as religiously, keep the secret from my friends and associates. This is especially necessary, if you would be safe; if you would have anything like fair play; if you would escape from a thousand impertinonces; if you would hope for any honest judgments. There are very few friends, indeed, to whom you can trust any of your secrets; and this of authorship, is one, which, of all others, is least easy to keep. Your friend is vain on your account—or on his own — which is much the most likely—and must blab, with even slighter precautions than were taken by the barber of King Midas. Even if he honestly keeps your secret, what is the profit to you in letting it out of your own hands ? You must employ ...« less