Says Josiah,—“If folks don’t write the best they know how to, it is a insult to the Public, and ort to be took by him as one.”
“That is so, Josiah,” says I. “I always thought so. But writers may try to do the very best they can; their minds may be well stabled, and their principles foundered on a rock; their motives as sound as brass, and soarin’ and high-toned as anything can be, and still at the same time, they may have a realizin’ sense that in spite of all their pains, there is faults in the book; lots of faults. And they may” says I, “feel it to be their duty to tell the Public of these faults. They may think it is wrong to conceal ’em, and the right way is to come out nobly and tell the Public of ’em.”
“Oh! wall!” says Josiah, “if that is what you are goin’ to write a preface for, you may set your heart at rest about it. Anybody that reads your book will find out the faults in it for themselves, without your tellin’ ’em of ’em in a preface, or sayin’ a word to help ’em on in the search. Don’t you go to worryin’ about that, Samantha; folks will see the faults jest as easy; wont have to put on no specks nor nothin’ to find ’em; such things can’t be hid.”
My companion meant to chirk me up and comfort me. His will was good, but somehow, I s’pose I didn’t look so chirked up and happy as he thought I ort to, and so to prove his words, and encourage me still more, he went on and told a story:
“Don’t you remember the boy that was most a fool, and when he sot out for his first party, his father charged him not to say a word, or they would find him out. He sot perfectly speechless for more’n an hour; wouldn’t answer back a word they said to him, till they begun to call him a fool right to his face. And then he opened his mouth for the first time, and hollered to his father,—‘Father! father! they’ve found me out.’”
Josiah is a great case to tell stories. He takes all the most high-toned and popular almanacs of the day, and reads ’em clear through. He says he “will read ’em, every one of ’em, from beginnin’ to Finy.” He is fond of tellin’ me anecdotes. And is also fond of tragedies—he reads the World stiddy. And I always make a practice of smilin’ or groanin’ at ’em as the case may be. (I sot out in married life with a firm determination to do my duty by this man.) But now, though I smiled a very little, there was sunthin’ in the story, or the thoughts and forebodin’s the story waked up in me, that made my heart sink from—I should judge from a careless estimate—an inch, to an inch and three-quarters. I didn’t make my feelin’s known, however; puttin’ my best foot forred has been my practice for years, and my theme. And my pardner went on in a real chirk tone:
“You see Samantha, jest how it is. You see there haint no kind o’ need of your writin’ any preface.”
I was almost lost in sad and mournful thought, but I answered dreamily that “I guessed I’d write one, as I had seemed to sort o’ lay out and calculate to.”
Then my companion come out plain, and told me his mind, which if he had done in the first place, would have saved breath and argument. Says he:
“I hate prefaces. I hate ’em with almost a perfect hatred.” And says he with a still more gloomy and morbid look,—“I have been hurt too much by prefaces to take to ’em, and foller ’em up.”