Excerpt from The Biglow Papers Though prefaces seem of late to have fallen under some reproach, they have at least this advantage, that they set us again on the feet of our personal consciousness, and rescue us from the gregarious mock modesty or cowardice of that we which shrills feebly throughout modern literature like the shrieking of mice in the walls of a house that has passed its prime. Having a few words to say to the many friends whom the Biglow Papers have won me, I Shall accordingly take the freedom of the first person singular of the personal pronoun. Let each Of the good-natured unknown who have cheered me by the written communicw tion of their sympathy look upon this Intro duction as a private letter to himself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.