Autobiographical Sketches | Page 3

the case thus: Within the
last four or five years, a practice has arisen amongst authors of
gathering together into volumes their own scattered contributions to
periodical literature. Upon that suggestion, they suppose me suddenly
to have remembered that I also had made such contributions; that mine
might be entitled to their chance as well as those of others; and,
accordingly, that on such a slight invitation ab extra, I had called back
into life what otherwise I had long since regarded as having already
fulfilled its mission, and must doubtless have dismissed to oblivion.
I do not certainly know, or entirely believe, that any such thing was
really said. But, however that may be, no representation can be more

opposed to the facts. Never for an instant did I falter in my purpose of
republishing most of the papers which I had written. Neither, if I
myself had been inclined to forget them, should I have been allowed to
do so by strangers. For it happens that, during the fourteen last years, I
have received from many quarters in England, in Ireland, in the British
colonies, and in the United States, a series of letters expressing a far
profounder interest in papers written by myself than any which I could
ever think myself entitled to look for. Had I, therefore, otherwise
cherished no purposes of republication, it now became a duty of
gratitude and respect to these numerous correspondents, that I should
either republish the papers in question, or explain why I did not. The
obstacle in fact had been in part the shifting state of the law which
regulated literary property, and especially the property in periodical
literature. But a far greater difficulty lay in the labor (absolutely
insurmountable to myself) of bringing together from so many quarters
the scattered materials of the collection. This labor, most fortunately,
was suddenly taken off my hands by the eminent house of Messrs
TICKNOR, REED, & FIELDS, Boston, U. S. To them I owe my
acknowledgments, first of all, for that service: they have brought
together a great majority of my fugitive papers in a series of volumes
now amounting to twelve. And, secondly, I am bound to mention that
they have made me a sharer in the profits of the publication, called
upon to do so by no law whatever, and assuredly by no expectation of
that sort upon my part.
Taking as the basis of my remarks this collective American edition, I
will here attempt a rude general classification of all the articles which
compose it. I distribute them grossly into three classes: First, into that
class which proposes primarily to amuse the reader; but which, in doing
so, may or may not happen occasionally to reach a higher station, at
which the amusement passes into an impassioned interest. Some papers
are merely playful; but others have a mixed character. These present
Autobiographic Sketches illustrate what I mean. Generally, they
pretend to little beyond that sort of amusement which attaches to any
real story, thoughtfully and faithfully related, moving through a
succession of scenes sufficiently varied, that are not suffered to remain
too long upon the eye, and that connect themselves at every stage with
intellectual objects. But, even here, I do not scruple to claim from the

reader, occasionally, a higher consideration. At times, the narrative
rises into a far higher key. Most of all it does so at a period of the
writer's life where, of necessity, a severe abstraction takes place from
all that could invest him with any alien interest; no display that might
dazzle the reader, nor ambition that could carry his eye forward with
curiosity to the future, nor successes, fixing his eye on the present;
nothing on the stage but a solitary infant, and its solitary combat with
grief--a mighty darkness, and a sorrow without a voice. But something
of the same interest will be found, perhaps, to rekindle at a maturer age,
when the characteristic features of the individual mind have been
unfolded. And I contend that much more than amusement ought to
settle upon any narrative of a life that is really confidential. It is
singular--but many of my readers will know it for a truth--that vast
numbers of people, though liberated from all reasonable motives to
self-restraint, cannot be confidential--have it not in their power to lay
aside reserve; and many, again, cannot be so with particular people. I
have witnessed more than once the case, that a young female dancer, at
a certain turn of a peculiar dance, could not--though she had died for
it--sustain a free, fluent motion. Aerial chains fell upon her at one point;
some invisible spell (who could say _what_?) froze her elasticity. Even
as a horse, at noonday on an open heath, starts aside from