These volumes are the last of a series which even from his youth up, he had been accustomed to meditate upon as a worthy and affectionate offering to his family and to those who have made many a long winter day in a dreary climate, very cheerful and pleasant to him—the daughters of a dear friend—of one who, if his eye should ever fall upon this page, will understand immediately more than a chapter could tell, of the deep wayward strange motives that have influenced the author to say thus much and no more, while recurring for the last time to the bright vision of his youth. And the little that he does say now, is not said for the world;—for what care they about the humble and innocent creatures, whose gentleness and sincerity about their own fire-side, were for a long time all that kept a man, who was weary and sick of the great world, from leaving it in despair? No, it is not said for them; but for any one of that large family who may happen to be alive now, and in the way of remembering “the stranger that was within their gates”—when to the world he may be as if he never had been. Let them not be amazed when they discover the truth; nor afraid nor ashamed to see that the man whom they knew only as the stranger from a far country, was also an author.
In other days, angels were entertained in the shape of travellers and way-faring men; but ye—had ye known every stranger that knocked at your door to be an angel, or a messenger of the Most High, could not have treated him more like an immortal creature than ye did that unknown man, who now bears witness to your simplicity and great goodness of heart. With you it was enough that a fellow-creature was unhappy—you strove to make him happy; and having done this, you sent him away, ignorant alike of his people, his country and his name.
*****
This work is the last of the sort I believe—the very last I shall ever write. Reader—stop!—lay down the book for a moment and answer me. Do you feel no emotion at the sight of that word? You are surprised at the question. Why should you feel any, you ask. Why should you?—let us reason together for a moment. Can it be that you are able to bear of the final consummation of a hope which had been the chief stay of a fellow-creature for many—many years?—Can it be that you feel no sort of emotion at hearing him say, Lo! I have finished the work—it is the last—no sensation of inquietude? Perhaps you now begin to see differently; perhaps you would now try to exculpate yourself. You are willing to admit now that the affair is one of a graver aspect than you first imagined. You are half ready to deny now that you ever considered it otherwise. But mark me—out of your own mouth you are condemned. Twice have I said already—three times have I said already, that this was the last work of the sort I should ever write, and you have read the declaration as you would, the passing motto of a title-page. You neither cared for it, nor thought of it; and had I not alarmed you by my abruptness, compelled you to stop and think, and awed you by steadfastly rebuking your inhumanity, you would not have known by to-morrow whether I had spoken of it as my last work or not. Consider what I say—is it not the truth?—can you deny it? And yet you—you are one of the multitude who dare to sit in judgment upon the doings of your fellow men. It is on what you and such as you say, that authors are to depend for that which is of more value to them than the breath of life—character. How dare you!—You read without reflection, and you hear without understanding. Yet upon the judgment of such as you—so made up, it is that the patient and the profound, the thoughtful and the gifted, are to rely for immortality.
To return to what I was about saying—the work now before you, reader, is the last of a series, meditated as I have already told you, from my youth. It was but a dream at first—a dream of my boyhood, indefinite, vague and shadowy; but as I grew up, it grew stronger and braver and more substantial. For years it did not deserve the name of a plan—it was merely a breathing after I hardly knew what, a hope that I should live to do something in a literary way worthy of my people—accompanied however with an inappeasable yearning for the time and opportunity to arrive. But so it was, that, notwithstanding all my anxiety and resolution, I could not bring myself to make the attempt—even the attempt—until it appeared no longer possible for me to do what for years I had been very anxious to do. The engagement was of too sacred a nature to be trifled with—perhaps the more sacred in my view for being made only with myself, and without a witness; for engagements having no other authority than our moral sense of duty to ourselves, would never be performed, after they grew irksome or heavy, unless we were scrupulous in proportion to the facility with which we might escape if we would.
This indeterminate, haunting desire to do what I had so engaged to do, at last however began to give way before the serious and necessary business of life, and the continually augmenting pressure of duties too solemn to be slighted for any—I had almost said for any earthly consideration. Yea more, to confess the whole truth, I had begun to regard the enterprise itself—so prone are we to self-deception, so ready at finding excuses where we have a duty to perform—as hardly worthy of much power, and as altogether beneath an exalted ambition. But here I was greatly mistaken; for I have an idea now, that a great novel—such a novel as might be made—if all the powers that could be employed upon it were found in one man, would be the greatest production of human genius. It is a law and a history of itself—to every people—and throughout all time—in literature and morals—in character and passion—yea—in what may be called the fire-side biography of nations. It would be, if rightly managed, a picture of the present for futurity—a picture of human nature, not only here but every where—a portrait of man—a history of the human heart—a book therefore, written not only in a universal, but in what may be considered as an everlasting language—the language of immortal, indistructable spirits. Such are the parables of Him who spoke that language best.
Again however, the subject was revived. Sleeping and waking, by night and by day, it was before me; and at last I began to perceive that if the attempt were ever to be made, it must be made by one desperate, convulsive, instantaneous effort. I determined to deliberate no longer—or rather to stand no longer, shivering like a coward, upon the brink of adventure, under pretence of deliberation; and therefore, having first carefully stopped my ears and shut my eyes, I threw myself headlong over the precipice. Behold the result! If I have not brought up the pearls, I can say at least that I have been to the bottom—and I might have added—of the human heart sometimes—but for the perverse and foolish insincerity of the world, which if I had so finished the sentence, would have set their faces forever against my book; although that same world, had I been wise enough—no, not wise enough but cunning enough, to hold my peace, might have been ready to acknowledge that I had been sometimes, even where I say—to the very bottom of the human heart.
I plunged. But when I did, it was rather to relieve my own soul from the intolerable weight of her own reproach, than with any hope of living to complete the design, except at a sacrifice next in degree to that of self-immolation. Would you know what more than any other thing—more than all other things determined me at last? I was an American. I had heard the insolent question of a Scotch Reviewer, repeated on every side of me by native Americans—“Who reads an American Book?” I could not bear this—I could neither eat nor sleep till my mind was made up. I reasoned with myself—I strove hard—but the spirit within me would not be rebuked. Shall I go forth said I, in the solitude of my own thought, and make war alone against the foe—for alone it must be made, or there will be no hope of success. There must be but one head, one heart in the plan—the secret must not even be guessed at by another—it must be single and simple, one that like the wedge in mechanics, or in the ancient military art, must have but one point, and that point must be of adamant. Being so it may be turned aside: A thousand more like itself, may be blunted or shivered; but if at last, any one of the whole should make any impression whatever upon the foe, or effect any entrance whatever into the sanctity and strength of his tremendous phalanx, then, from that moment, the day is our own. Our literature will begin to wake up, and our pride of country will wake up with it. Those who follow will have nothing to do but keep what the forlorn hope, who goes to irretrievable martyrdom if he fail, has gained.
Moreover—who was there to stand by the native American that should go out, haply with a sling and a stone, against a tower of strength and the everlasting entrenchments of prejudice? Could he hope to find so much as one of his countrymen, to go with him or even to bear his shield? Would the Reviewers of America befriend him? No—they have not courage enough to fight their own battles manfully.[1] No—they would rather flatter than strike. They negociate altogether too much—where blows are wanted, they give words. And the best of our literary champions, would they? No; they would only bewail his temerity, if he were the bold headlong creature he should be to accomplish the work; and pity his folly and presumption, if he were any thing else.
[1] Or had not before this was written. Look to the North-American Review before 1825, for proof.