Search -
Hannah Thurston - A Story Of American Life
Hannah Thurston - A Story Of American Life Author:Bayard Taylor HANNAH THURSTON A Story of American Life - 1891 - DEAB FEIXND, WHEN I decided to write a brief letter of Dedicatio tbr this book, and thus evade a Preface-since all that need be said to the reader can be said just as well, if not k etter, t o the Send-I began to cast about in my mind for the particular individual willing to stand by my side in t... more »his new literary venture, deserving of all the fleeting compliment which possible success may give, and too secure, in the shelter of his own integrity, to be damaged by whatever condemnation may fall upon the author. While various cherished names arose, one after the other, the cab in which I rode and lneditated passed down Regent Street into Waterloo Place, and my eyes fell upon that door, where, seventeen years ago, I entered for the fist time one dreary March afternoon--entered as a timid, despond ing stranger, and issued thence with the cheer and encouragement which I owed to your unexpected kindnese.-The conditxons which I sought are all fulfilled in you. From that day to this, in all our intercourse, I have found in you the faithful friend, the man ok unblemished llonor and unselfish ambition, to whom the authors interests were never secondary to his own. According to the poet Cam bcll, me should be natural enemies, but I dedicate this book to you as my natural friend. I am aware how much is required for the construction of a good work of fiction-how much I venture in entering upon a field so different from those over which I have hitherto been ranging. It is, however, the result of ne sudden whim, no ambition casually provoked. The plan of the following story lias long been familiar to my mind. I perceived peculiarities of deveiopment in American lit0 which have escaped the notice of novehsts, jet which are , strikingly adapted to tha purposes of fiction, both in the originality and occasional grotesqueness of their external manifestation, and the deeper questions which lie bencath the surface. I do not, therefore, rest the interest of the book on its slender plot, but on the fidelity with which it represents certain types of character and phases of society. That in it which most resembles caricature is oftenest the transcript of actual fact, and there are none of the opinione uttered by the vsrious characters which may not now and then be heard in almost any country community of the Northern and Western States. Whether those opinions are to be commended or condemned, the personages of the story are alone responsible for them. I beg leave, once more, to protest against the popular superstition that an author must necessarily represent himself in one form or another. I am neither Mr. Woodbury, Mr. Waldo, nor Seth Wattles. This is all I have to say. The intelligent reader will require no further explanation, and you no further assu rance of how steadily and faithfully I am your friend, CONTENTS CHAPTER L EY WHICH WE ATTEND rm GREAT S EWIN L G UNIO A N T P LEY . Y . . . .. t Aen 9 CHAPTER 11. ME WOODBUR I Y N T RODU TO TLAIOKNE LD . E . . . . . ................ 26 C U T E R 111. J EVENING OF GOSSIP, IN WHICH WE LEARN BOMZTHINQ ABOUT FEE PEB. .................................... SONS ALREADY MENTIONED. 31 CHAPTER IV...« less