Excerpt from The Winter Evening Fireside The writer here commences this serial work, hav ing few hopes of its success, but, anticipating that the coldness of its reception will confirm his convio tion, that, if he would devote himself to literature, he must hope to find more favorable ears than those of his countrymen. These few paragraphs have been written with the consciousness that some one, at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling, should speak a little wholesome truth about a matter, concerning which there is in the community much blindness; and it is better that it should be spoken by an American, since, if for eigners tell us of our faults, however good-naturedly. 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.