The
first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the
reader--inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the
indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine--with a
description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old
Manse. And now--because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough
to find a listener or two on the former occasion--I again seize
the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience
in a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P., Clerk of
this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truth
seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon
the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling
aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will
understand him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates.
Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge
themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could
fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and
mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at
large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided
segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of
existence by bringing him into communion with it.
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