Page vi of the Preface to the [1853] Clarke, Beeton, & Co. Reprint, Version 1
vi PREFACE
sitely portrayed. She is evidently a person of strong common-sense, and yet of deep feeling. Sbe strikes, or rather teaches the electric chords of the human heart with a touch at once to skilful and so delicate that the very soul of feeling thrills and vibrates in its finest sensibilities; and yet she does not do this to show her power, or to distress her readers. When she takes us into some of those scenes of domestic affliction with which we all are familiar, and describes events and circumstances that, when they occur, wring the heart with agony, and leave behind them a desolate and cheerless void, she only does this, to show at the same time, how willing and how able He is, who appoints the trial and the chastisement, "to heal where He hath torn, and bind up where He has smitten." If she unlocks the spring of our tears, it is but to point to that divine and gentle hand which shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. If she brings us to those seasons which are to the spirit of man as a dark and cloudy day, or a night of darkness that can be felt, it is that she may lead us to look beyond them with longing eyes to that better land, of which it is written, " there shall be no night there.”
The book is full of interest to English readers, as setting before us a graphic and accurate picture of American life in the country—of the simple manners and customs of that remarkable people, who went forth originally from our own land to find new homes in a strange and distant continent—a people with whom we must always have much in common, and between whom and ourselves there ought ever to be a strong and affectionate bond of union.
"It gives me particular pleasure,” writes the charming authoress in a letter to me, " to have an English friend. That little word, English, means a great deal of good, to my mind. But, indeed, the truth is, that we half identify ourselves with the English; I don't know why we should not. I know of no admixture of foreign blood in the English that flows in my veins, and change of place is not change of family.” Heartily do I reciprocate these kindly remarks. Still more heartily do I rejoice that we must regard such writers, on far higher ground, as " brethren beloved, both in the flesh and in the Lord " and whether in America or in England, as “all one in Christ Jesus."
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Date
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Collection of Jessica DeSpain
Publisher
Clarke, Beeton
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London
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The Wide, Wide World Digital Edition by Jessica DeSpain, Jennifer Brady, Melissa White, and Jill Anderson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.