ing to use this
preface was that my publishers are not philosophers and would never be
content with an "Elect Few," and for my own part the pecuniary interest
I have in the copyright renders it quite desirable that as many as
possible should be elected to like it, or at least to buy it.

After all it seems a pity that I can not bring myself to use a
straightforward

APOLOGETIC AND EXPLANATORY PREFACE.

In view of the favor bestowed upon the author's previous story, both by
the Public who Criticise and the Public who Buy, it seems a little
ungracious to present so soon, another, the scene of which is also laid
in the valley of the Ohio. But the picture of Western country life in
"The Hoosier School-Master" would not have been complete without this
companion-piece, which presents a different phase of it. And indeed
there is no provincial life richer in material if only one knew how to
get at it.

Nothing is more reverent than a wholesome hatred of hypocrisy. If any
man think I have offended against his religion, I must believe that his
religion is not what it should be. If anybody shall imagine that this is
a work of religious controversy leveled at the Adventists, he will have
wholly mistaken my meaning. Literalism and fanaticism are not vices
confined to any one sect. They are, unfortunately, pretty widely
distributed. However, if--

--And so on.

But why multiply examples of the half-dozen or more that I might, could,
would, or should have written? Since everybody is agreed that, nobody
reads a preface, I have concluded to let the book go without any.

BROOKLYN, September, 1872.

"_And as he [Wordsworth] mingled freely with all kinds of men, he found
a pith of sense and a solidity of judgment here and there among the
unlearned which he had failed to find in the most lettered; from obscure
men he heard high truths.... And love, true love and pure, he found was
no flower reared only in what was called refined society, and requiring
leisure and polished manners for its growth.... He believed that in
country people, what is permanent in human nature, the essential
feelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity and
strength_."--PRINCIPAL SHAIRP.

* * * * *

A DEDICATION.

It would hardly be in character for me to dedicate this book in good,
stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have put in the
background of scenery without being reminded of the tw