John Brent

THEODORE WINTHROP
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
Publishers
Copyright, 1861, BY TICKNOR & FIELDS.
JOHN BRENT.
I write in the first person; but I shall not maunder about myself. I am in no sense the hero of this drama. Call me Chorus, if you please,—not Chorus merely observant and impassive; rather Chorus a sympathizing monitor and helper. Perhaps I gave a certain crude momentum to the movement of the play, when finer forces were ready to flag; but others bore the keen pangs, others took the great prizes, while I stood by to lift the maimed and cheer the victor.
It is a healthy, simple, broad-daylight story. No mystery in it. There is action enough, primeval action of the Homeric kind. Deeds of the heroic and chivalric times do not utterly disdain our day. There are men as ready to gallop for love and strike for love now, as in the age of Amadis.
Roughs and brutes, as well as gentlemen, take their places in this drama. None of the characters have scruples or qualms. They act according to their laws, and are scourged or crowned, as their laws suit Nature’s or not.
To me these adventures were episode; to my friend, the hero, the very substance of life.
But enough backing and filling. Enter Richard Wade—myself—as Chorus.