Publisher's Synopsis
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: to tfic If the Reader of the following Work happen to- have read its predecessor, The Village ofMarien- dorpt, it may be necessary to apprize him that the resemblance he may possibly detect between some features of the two stories, is not accidental. It once struck me, that it might be curious and entertaining, to mark the different effect produceable by placing dissimilar characters in similar situations: whether the execution of such an idea has marred or mended the present production, it is not for me to determine. Every person that has ever attempted a work of fiction, knows by experience, that in the writing of books, as in the conduct of life, There is a Providence that shapes our course, Rough hew it as we may ! Let us do what we will, the stubborn materials often take a direction completely'oppopite to what we had intended; incidents necessarily following the bent of the characters from which they are supposed to originate: and these latter, as frequently, develope contrary to our original conceptions. If the alleged resemblance between my two stories is found imperfect, this observation may be allowed to explain that imperfection. 1 must at the Vol. i. 1 .- same time urge the same remark, as an apology to a very liberal and enlightened critic, for apparent obstinacy in a fault he condemns. I will not plead in extenuation of such offence, the sanction of the greatest master of our day, ?for he has conquered the debateable land'r?but confess, that although 1 laid down that acute, yet kindly review, with a sincere determination to make my next work purely imaginary, I found it impossible to rekindle imagination, until J should have warmed my heart by contemplating either past or present excellence. I betook me, therefore, to the huge picture galler...
