The Coquette

The Coquette

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coquette, by Hannah Webster
Foster This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: The Coquette The History of Eliza Wharton
Author: Hannah Webster Foster
Release Date: May 25, 2004 [EBook #12431]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Eliza Wharton]
THE COQUETTE; OR, THE HISTORY OF ELIZA WHARTON.
A NOVEL: FOUNDED ON FACT.
BY A LADY OF MASSACHUSETTS.

HISTORICAL PREFACE, INCLUDING A MEMOIR OF THE
AUTHOR.
He who waits beside the folded gates of mystery, over which forever
float the impurpled vapors of the PAST, should stand with girded loins,
and white, unshodden feet. So he who attempts to lift the veil that

separates the REAL from the IDEAL, or to remove the heavy curtain
that for a century may have concealed from view the actual personages
of a well-drawn popular fiction, or what may have been received as
such, should bring to his task a tender heart and a delicate and gentle
hand.
Thus, in preparing an introductory chapter for these pages which are to
follow, many and various thoughts suggest themselves, and it is
necessary to recognize and pursue them with gentleness and caution.
The romance of "Eliza Wharton" appeared in print not many years
subsequent to the assumed transactions it so faithfully attempts to
record. Written as it was by one highly educated for the times,--the
popular wife of a popular clergyman, connected in no distant degree, by
marriage, with the family of the heroine, and one who by the very
profession and position of her husband was, as by necessity, brought
into the sphere of actual intercourse with the principal characters of the
novel, and as the book also took precedence in time of all American
romances, when, too, the literature of the day was any thing but
"_light_"--it is not surprising that it thus took precedence in interest as
well of all American novels, at least throughout New England, and was
found, in every cottage within its borders, beside the family Bible, and
though pitifully, yet almost as carefully treasured.
Since that time it has run through a score of editions, at long intervals
out of print, and again revived at the public call with an eagerness of
distribution which few modern romances have enjoyed. Its author,
Hannah Foster, was the daughter of Grant Webster, a well-known
merchant of Boston, and wife of Rev. John Foster, of Brighton,
Massachusetts, whose pedigree, but few removes backward in the line
of her husband,[A] interlinked, as has been already hinted, with that of
the "Coquette." Thus did they hold towards each other that very
significant relationship--especially in the past century--of "_cousins_" a
relationship better heeded and more earnestly recognized and cherished
than that of nearer kin at the present day. Therefore, not only by family
ties, but by similarity of positions and community of interests, was she
brought into immediate acquaintance with the circumstances herein
combined, and especially qualified to write the history with power and
effect. Nor is this the only work which bears the impress of her gifted
pen. There is still another extant, of which I need not at this time and

place make mention, besides many valuable literary contributions to the
scattered periodicals of that day. It is to be regretted here that a short
time previous to her death she destroyed the whole of her manuscripts,
which might, in many respects, have been particularly valuable.
She has, however, transmitted her genius and her powers, which find
expression and appreciation in two daughters still living in Montreal,
Canada East, one of whom is the gifted author of "Peep at the
Pilgrims," "Sketches from the Life of Christ," and "Confessions of an
early Martyr," all of which have been very popular; the first having
been republished here within a short period, and also in England with
still greater success. The other daughter, the widow of the late Dr.
Cushing who, while firm at his post as physician at the Emigrant
Hospital, fell a victim to that terrible malady, ship fever, in 1846, is
also author of many minor works, and co-editor of the "Snowdrop," a
monthly publication of much merit in Montreal. Mrs. Foster died in
that place, at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. Cushing, April 17,
1840, at the advanced age of eighty-one years.
It may seem, however, at a period so long subsequent to the actual
transpiration of events herein recorded,