Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker | Page 2

was a birthright member of the Society and both by age
and knowledge competent to speak. He remarked upon some of my
technical errors in regard to the meetings and discipline of Friends, but
advised against change and said that it was traditionally well known
that at the time of the Revolution there was much confusion in their

assemblies and great bitterness of feeling when so many like Wetherill
chose to revolt against the doctrine of absolute obedience to what,
whether rightfully or not, they regarded as oppression. Needless to say
that I meant no more than to delineate a great spiritual conflict in a very
interesting body of men who, professing neutrality, were, if we may
trust Washington, anything but neutral.
The amount of accuracy to be allowed in historic fiction aroused fresh
interest when Hugh Wynne first appeared. In romances like Quentin
Durward and Ivanhoe the question need not be considered. What may
annoy the historian in the more serious novel of history does not
trouble the ordinary reader nor does it detract from the interest of the
story. How little the grossest errors in biography and history affect the
opinions of the public concerning a novel long popular may be
illustrated by the fact that one of my critics referred me to Henry
Esmond for an example of desirable accuracy. It was an unfortunate
choice, for in Esmond there is hardly a correct historical statement. The
Duke of Hamilton described as about to marry Beatrix was the husband
of a second living wife and the father of seven children--an example of
contemplated literary bigamy which does not distress the happily
ignorant, nor are they at all troubled by the many other and even more
singular errors in statement, some of them plainly the result of
carelessness. A novel, it seems, may sin sadly as concerns historic facts
and yet survive.
The purpose of the novel is, after all, to be acceptably interesting. If it
be historical, the historic people should not be the constantly present
heroes of the book. The novelist's proper use of them is to influence the
fates of lesser people and to give the reader such sense of their reality
as in the delineation of characters, is rarely possible for the historian.
With these long intended comments, I leave this book to the many
readers whose wants a new edition is meant to supply. I may say in
conclusion that I should have been less eager to alter, correct, and
explain if it were not that in schools and colleges Hugh Wynne has
been and is still used in a variety of ways so that the example of
accuracy and a definition of its desirable extent in historic fiction
becomes in some sense a literary duty.
S. WEIR MITCHELL.
August, 1908.

INTRODUCTORY
It is now many years since I began these memoirs. I wrote fully a third
of them, and then put them aside, having found increasing difficulties
as I went on with my task. These arose out of the constant need to use
the first person in a narrative of adventure and incidents which chiefly
concern the writer, even though it involve also the fortunes of many in
all ranks of life. Having no gift in the way of composition, I knew not
how to supply or set forth what was outside of my own knowledge, nor
how to pretend to that marvellous insight, as to motives and thoughts,
which they affect who write books of fiction. This has always seemed
to me absurd, and so artificial that, with my fashion of mind, I have
never been able to enjoy such works nor agreeably to accept their claim
to such privilege of insight. In a memoir meant for my descendants, it
was fitting and desirable that I should at times speak of my own
appearance, and, if possible, of how I seemed as child or man to others.
This, I found, I did not incline to do, even when I myself knew what
had been thought of me by friend or foe. And so, as I said, I set the task
aside, with no desire to take it up again.
Some years later my friend, John Warder, died, leaving to my son, his
namesake, an ample estate, and to me all his books, papers, plate, and
wines. Locked in a desk, I found a diary, begun when a lad, and kept,
with more or less care, during several years of the great war. It
contained also recollections of our youthful days, and was very full
here and there of thoughts, comments, and descriptions concerning
events of the time, and of people whom we both had known. It told of
me much that I could not otherwise have willingly set down, even if the
matter had