The Last of the Peterkins / With Others of Their Kin

BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1906.
Copyright, 1886 , BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. Printers S.J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.
TO THE LADY FROM PHILADELPHIA, BELOVED BY THE PETERKIN FAMILY, This Book is Dedicated.
The following Papers contain the last records of the Peterkin Family, who unhappily ventured to leave their native land and have never returned. Elizabeth Eliza's Commonplace Book has been found among the family papers, and will be published here for the first time. It is evident that she foresaw that the family were ill able to contend with the commonplace struggle of life; and we may not wonder that they could not survive the unprecedented, far away from the genial advice of friends, especially that of the Lady from Philadelphia.
It is feared that Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin lost their lives after leaving Tobolsk, perhaps in some vast conflagration.
Agamemnon and Solomon John were probably sacrificed in some effort to join in or control the disturbances which arose in the distant places where they had established themselves,—Agamemnon in Madagascar, Solomon John in Rustchuk.
The little boys have merged into men in some German university, while Elizabeth Eliza must have been lost in the mazes of the Russian language.
Elizabeth Eliza joined the Circumambient Club with the idea that it would be a long time before she, a new member, would have to read a paper. She would have time to hear the other papers read, and to see how it was done; and she would find it easy when her turn came. By that time she would have some ideas; and long before she would be called upon, she would have leisure to sit down and write out something. But a year passed away, and the time was drawing near. She had, meanwhile, devoted herself to her studies, and had tried to inform herself on all subjects by way of preparation. She had consulted one of the old members of the Club as to the choice of a subject.
Oh, write about anything, was the answer,— anything you have been thinking of.