Preface
There are over 3,000 prefaces in my library. None of them suit me. They are all better and more appropriate than I can write, so I extract from different ones as many as I think are needed for this book of mine.
“If the perusal of these pages should cheer some fainting wanderer on the world’s highway, and lead him far from the haunts of evil, by the still waters of temperance, my labor will have been well repaid.”—Autobiography and Personal Recollections of John B. Gough.
“The author has taken the liberty to dedicate this book to certain enterprising gentlemen in London, who have displayed their devotion to a sentiment now widely prevailing in the music halls, by republishing an American book without solicitation on the author’s part.”—Mr, Dooley, “In the Hearts of His Countrymen.”
“Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in this book. Information seems to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it seems to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.”—“Roughing It,” Mark Twain.
“A blaze of splendor is the pictorial part of this book, an art gallery on the wing. You need not visit New York, or Dresden, or Berlin, or Rome, to see the masterpieces, for the best part of them is now, my dear reader, between your forefinger and thumb! The publishers of this book have ransacked the earth for these three, hundred and thirteen gems (313).”
“GREAT is the responsibility! of the publishing a book, especially in this case where the publishers, a MONTH BEFORE THE BOOK IS PUBLISHED! HAVE SOLD! 250,000 COPIES THEREOF! An unprecedented occurrence in the history of LITERATURE!” (the capitals, italics, and astonishers are mine.—J. B. P.).—“The Pathway of Life,” Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage.
“It is not to illustrate any heroic achievements of a man, but to vindicate a just and beneficent principle, in its application to the whole human family, by letting in a light of truth upon a system esteemed by some as a blessing, and by others as a curse and a crime.”—“My Bondage and Freedom,” Frederick Douglass.
“Look in the hearts of average men;
The tragedies of doom are there,
And comedies of glad delight,
And hopeless wailings of despair,
And hopes and sorrows infinite—
Shall not a poet now and then
Look in the hearts of average men?”
—“Waifs from Wild Meadows,” Sam Walter Foss.