To the Editors of the Atlantic Monthly, the Lippincott’s Magazine, and the Philadelphia Ledger and Times, I wish to express my appreciation of their courtesy in allowing me to use in some of these chapters material to which they first gave place in their columns.
A. H. W.
Philadelphia, March, 1893.
CONTENTS.
THROUGH COLONIAL DOORWAYS
The historian of the past has, as a rule, been pleased to treat with dignified silence the lighter side of Colonial life, allowing the procession of noble men and fair women to sweep on, grand, stately, and imposing, but lacking the softer touches that belong to social and domestic life. So much has been written and said of the stern virtues of the fathers and mothers of the Republic, and of their sacrifices, privations, and heroism, that we of this generation would be in danger of regarding them as types of excellence to be placed upon pedestals, rather than as men and women to be loved with human affection, were it not for some old letter, or diary, or anecdote that floats down to us from the past, revealing the touch of nature that makes them our kinsfolk by the bond of sympathy and interest, of taste and habit, as well as by that of blood.