UNPUBLISHED PREFACE
TO THE NORTH-AMERICAN STORIES, ALLUDED TO IN PAGE V.
The author of this work is now under the necessity of bidding the novel-readers of the day, on both sides of the water, farewell, and in all probability, forever. By them it may be considered a trivial affair—a time for pleasantry, or peradventure for a formal expression of what are called good wishes. But by him, who does not feel like other men—or does not understand their language, when they talk in this way, it will ever be regarded as a very serious thing. He would neither conceal nor deny the truth—he would not so affront the feeling within him—and he says therefore without affectation or ceremony, that it goes to his heart even to bid the novel-readers of the age, the few that have read his novels, it were better to say—farewell.
These volumes are the last of a series which even from his youth up, he had been accustomed to meditate upon as a worthy and affectionate offering to his family and to those who have made many a long winter day in a dreary climate, very cheerful and pleasant to him—the daughters of a dear friend—of one who, if his eye should ever fall upon this page, will understand immediately more than a chapter could tell, of the deep wayward strange motives that have influenced the author to say thus much and no more, while recurring for the last time to the bright vision of his youth. And the little that he does say now, is not said for the world;—for what care they about the humble and innocent creatures, whose gentleness and sincerity about their own fire-side, were for a long time all that kept a man, who was weary and sick of the great world, from leaving it in despair? No, it is not said for them; but for any one of that large family who may happen to be alive now, and in the way of remembering “the stranger that was within their gates”—when to the world he may be as if he never had been. Let them not be amazed when they discover the truth; nor afraid nor ashamed to see that the man whom theyknew only as the stranger from a far country, was also an author.
In other days, angels were entertained in the shape of travellers and way-faring men; but ye—had ye known every stranger that knocked at your door to be an angel, or a messenger of the Most High, could not have treated him more like an immortal creature than ye did that unknown man, who now bears witness to your simplicity and great goodness of heart. With you it was enough that a fellow-creature was unhappy—you strove to make him happy; and having done this, you sent him away, ignorant alike of his people, his country and his name.
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This work is the last of the sort I believe—the very last I shall ever write. Reader—stop!—lay down the book for a moment and answer me. Do you feel no emotion at the sight of that word? You are surprised at the question. Why should you feel any, you ask. Why should you?—let us reason together for a moment. Can it be that you are able to bear of the final consummation of a hope which had been the chief stay of a fellow-creature for many—many years?—Can it be that you feel no sort of emotion at hearing him say, Lo! I have finished the work—it is the last—no sensation of inquietude? Perhaps you now begin to see differently; perhaps you would now try to exculpate yourself. You are willing to admit now that the affair is one of a graver aspect than you first imagined. You are half ready to deny now that you ever considered it otherwise. But mark me—out of your own mouth you are condemned. Twice have I said already—three times have I said already, that this was the last work of the sort I should ever write, and you have read the declaration as you would, the passing motto of a title-page. You neither cared for it, nor thought of it; and had I not alarmed you by my abruptness, compelled you to stop and think, and awed you by steadfastly rebuking your inhumanity, you would not have known by to-morrow whether I had spoken of it as my last work or not. Consider what I say—is it not the truth?—can you deny it? And yet you—youare one of the multitudewho dare to sit in judgment upon the doings of your fellow men. It is on what you and such as you say, that authors are to depend for that which is of more value to them than the breath of life—character. How dare you!—You read without reflection, and you hear without understanding. Yet upon the judgment of such as you—so made up, it is that the patient and the profound, the thoughtful and the gifted, are to rely for immortality.
To return to what I was about saying—the work now before you, reader, is the last of a series, meditated as I have already told you, from my youth. It was but a dream at first—a dream of my boyhood, indefinite, vague and shadowy; but as I grew up, it grew stronger and braver and more substantial. For years it did not deserve the name of a plan—it was merely a breathing after I hardly knew what, a hope that I should live to do something in a literary way worthy of my people—accompanied however with an inappeasable yearning for the time and opportunity to arrive. But so it was, that, notwithstanding all my anxiety and resolution, I could not bring myself to make the attempt—even the attempt—until it appeared no longer possible for me to do what for years I had been very anxious to do. The engagement was of too sacred a nature to be trifled with—perhaps the more sacred in my view for being made only with myself, and without a witness; for engagements having no other authority than our moral sense of duty to ourselves, would never be performed, after they grew irksome or heavy, unless we were scrupulous in proportion to the facility with which we might escape if we would.
This indeterminate, haunting desire to do what I had so engaged to do, at last however began to give way before the serious and necessary business of life, and the continually augmenting pressure of duties too solemn to be slighted for any—I had almost said for any earthly consideration. Yea more, to confess the whole truth, I had begun to regard the enterprise itself—so prone are we to self-deception, so ready at finding excuses where we have a duty to perform—as hardly worthy of much power, and as altogether beneath an exalted ambition. But here I was greatly mistaken; for I have an idea now, thata great novel—such a novel as might be made—if all the powers that could be employed upon it were found in one man, would be the greatest production of human genius. It is a law and a history of itself—to every people—and throughout all time—in literature and morals—in character and passion—yea—in what may be called the fire-side biography of nations. It would be, if rightly managed, a picture of the present for futurity—a picture of human nature, not only here but every where—a portrait of man—a history of the human heart—a book therefore, written not only in a universal, but in what may be considered as an everlasting language—the language of immortal, indistructable spirits. Such are the parables of Him who spoke that language best.
Again however, the subject was revived. Sleeping and waking, by night and by day, it was before me; and at last I began to perceive that if the attempt were ever to be made, it must be made by one desperate, convulsive, instantaneous effort. I determined to deliberate no longer—or rather to stand no longer, shivering like a coward, upon the brink of adventure, under pretence of deliberation; and therefore, having first carefully stopped my ears and shut my eyes, I threw myself headlong over the precipice. Behold the result! If I have not brought up the pearls, I can say at least that I have been to the bottom—and I might have added—of the human heart sometimes—but for the perverse and foolish insincerity of the world, which if I had so finished the sentence, would have set their faces forever against my book; although that same world, had I been wise enough—no, not wise enough but cunning enough, to hold my peace, might have been ready to acknowledge that I had been sometimes, even where I say—to the very bottom of the human heart.
I plunged. But when I did, it was rather to relieve my own soul from the intolerable weight of her own reproach, than with any hope of living to complete the design, except at a sacrifice next in degree to that of self-immolation. Would you know what more than any other thing—more than all other things determined me at last? I was an American. I had heard the insolent question of a Scotch Reviewer, repeated onevery side of me by native Americans—“Who reads an American Book?” I could not bear this—I could neither eat nor sleep till my mind was made up. I reasoned with myself—I strove hard—but the spirit within me would not be rebuked. Shall I go forth said I, in the solitude of my own thought, and make war alone against the foe—for alone it must be made, or there will be no hope of success. There must be but one head, one heart in the plan—the secret must not even be guessed at by another—it must be single and simple, one that like the wedge in mechanics, or in the ancient military art, must have but one point, and that point must be of adamant. Being so it may be turned aside: A thousand more like itself, may be blunted or shivered; but if at last, any one of the whole should make any impression whatever upon the foe, or effect any entrance whatever into the sanctity and strength of his tremendous phalanx, then, from that moment, the day is our own. Our literature will begin to wake up, and our pride of country will wake up with it. Those who follow will have nothing to do butkeepwhat the forlorn hope, who goes to irretrievable martyrdom if he fail, hasgained.
Moreover—who was there to stand by the native American that should go out, haply with a sling and a stone, against a tower of strength and the everlasting entrenchments of prejudice? Could he hope to find so much as one of his countrymen, to go with him or even to bear his shield? Would the Reviewers of America befriend him? No—they have not courage enough to fight their own battles manfully.[1]No—they would rather flatter than strike. They negociate altogether too much—where blows are wanted, they give words. And the best of our literary champions, would they? No; they would only bewail his temerity, if he were the bold headlong creature he should be to accomplish the work; and pity his folly and presumption, if he were any thing else.
[1]Or had not before this was written. Look to the North-American Review before 1825, for proof.
[1]Or had not before this was written. Look to the North-American Review before 1825, for proof.
After all however, why should they be reproached for this? They have gained their little reputation hardly. “It were too much to spend that little”—so grudgingly acquiesced in by their beloved countrymen—“rashly.” No wonder they fight shy.It is their duty—considering what they have at stake—their little all. There is Washington Irving now; he has obtained the reputation of being—what?—why at the best, of being only the American Addison, in the view of Englishmen. And is this a title to care much for? Would such a name, though Addison stood far higher in the opinion of the English themselves, than he now does, or ever again will, be enough to satisfy the ambition of a lofty minded, original thinker? Would such a man falter and reef his plumage midway up the altitude of his blinding and brave ascent, to be called the American Addison, or even what in my view were ten thousand times better, the American Goldsmith.[2]No—up to the very key stone of the broad blue firmament! he would say, or back to the vile earth again: ay, lower than the earth first! Understand me however. I do not say this lightly nor disparagingly. I love and admire Washington Irving. I wish him all the reputation he covets, and of the very kind he covets. Our paths never did, never will cross each other. And so with Mr. Cooper; and a multitude more, of whom we may rightfully be proud. They have gained just enough popular favor to make them afraid of hazarding one jot or tittle of it, by stepping aside into a new path. No one of these could avail me in my design. They would have everything to lose, and nothing to gain by embarking in it. While I—what had I to lose—nay whathaveI to lose? I am not now, I never have been, I never shall be an author by trade. The opinion of the public is not the breath of life to me; for if the truth must be told, I have to this hour very little respect for it—so long as it is indeed the opinion of the public—of the mere multitude, the careless, unthinking judgment of the mob, unregulated by the wise and thoughtful.
[2]I speak here of Goldsmith’s prose, not of his poetry. Heaven forbid!
[2]I speak here of Goldsmith’s prose, not of his poetry. Heaven forbid!
To succeed as I hoped, I must put everything at hazard. It would not do for me to imitate anybody. Nor would it do for my country. Who would care for theAmericanAddison where he could have the English by asking for it? Who would languish, a twelvemonth after they appeared, for Mr. Cooper’s imitations of Sir Walter Scott, or Charles Brockden Brown’simitations of Godwin? Those, and those only, who after having seen the transfiguration of Raphael, (or that of Talma,) or Dominichino’s St. Jerome, would walk away to a village painting room, or a provincial theatre, to pick their teeth and play the critic over an imitation of the one or a copy of the other. At the best, all such things are butimitations. And what are imitations? Sheer mimicry—more or less exalted to be sure; but still mimicry—wherever thecopiesof life are copied and not life itself: a sort of high-handed, noon-day plagiarism—nothing more. People are never amazed, nor carried away, nor uplifted by imitations. They are pleased with the ingenuity of the artist—they are delighted with the closeness of the imitation—but that is all. The better the work is done, the worse they think of the workman. He who can paint a great picture, cannot copy—David Teniers to the contrary notwithstanding; for David never painted a great picture in his life, though he has painted small ones, not more than three feet square, which would sell for twenty-five thousand dollars to day.
Yes—to succeed, I must imitate nobody—I mustresemblenobody; for with your critic, resemblance in the unknown to the known, is never anything but adroit imitation. To succeed therefore, I must be unlike all that have gone before me. That were no easy matter; nor would be it so difficult as men are apt to believe. Nor is it necessary that I should dobetterthan all who have gone before me. I should be more likely to prosper, in the long run, by worse original productions—with a poor story told in poor language, (if it were original in spirit and character) than by a much better story told in much better language, if after the transports of the public were over, they should be able to trace a resemblance between it and Walter Scott, or Oliver Goldsmith, or Mr. Addison.
So far so good. There was, beyond a doubt, a fair chance in the great commonwealth of literature, even though I should not achieve a miracle, nor prove myself both wiser and better than all the authors who had gone before me. And moreover, might it not be possible—possibleI say—for the mob are a jealous guardian of sepulchres and ashes, and high-soundingnames, particularly where a name will save them the trouble of judging for themselves, or do their arguments for them in the shape of a perpetual demonstration, whatever may be the nature of the controversy in which they are involved—might it not be possible then, I say, that, as the whole body of mankind have been growing wiser and wiser, and better and better, since the day when these great writers flourished, who are now ruling “our spirits from their urns,” that authors may have improved with them?—that they alone of the whole human race, by some possibility, may not have remained altogether stationary age after age—while the least enquiring and the most indolent of human beings—the very multitude—have been steadily advancing both in knowledge and power? And if so, might it not bepossiblefor some improvements to be made, some discoveries, even yet in style and composition, by lanching forth into space. True, we might not be certain of finding a new world, like Columbus, nor a new heaven, like Tycho Brahe; but we should probably encounter some phenomena in the great unvisited moral sky and ocean; we should at least find out, after a while—which would of itself be the next greatest consolation for our trouble and anxiety, after that of discovering a new world or a new system,—that there remained no new world nor system to be discovered; that they who should adventure after us, would have so much the less to do for all that we had done; that they must follow in our steps; that if our health and strength had been wasted in a prodigious dream, it would have the good effect of preventing any future waste of health and strength on the part of others in any similar enterprize.
Islands and planets may still be found, we should say, and they that find them, are welcome to them; but continents and systems cannot be beyond where we have been; and if there be any within it, why—they are neither continents nor systems.
But then, after all, there was one plain question to be asked, which no honest man would like to evade, however much a mere dreamer might wish to do so. It was this. After all my fine theory—what are my chances of success? And if successful, what have I to gain? I chose to answer the last questionfirst. Gain!—of a truth, it were no easy matter to say. Nothinghere, nothingnow—certainly nothing in America, till my bones have been canonized; for my countrymen are a thrifty, calculating people—they give nothing for the reputation of a man, till they are sure of selling it for more than they give. Were they visited by saints and prophets instead of gifted men, they would never believe that they were either saints or prophets, till they had been starved to death—or lived by a miracle—by no visible means; or until their cast-off clothes, bones, hair and teeth, or the furniture of the houses wherein they were starved, or the trees under which they had been chilled to death, carved into snuff-boxes or walking-sticks, would sell for as much as that sympathy had cost them, or as much as it would come to, to build a monument over—I do not say over their unsheltered remains, for by that time there would be but little or no remains of them to be found, unmingled with the sky and water, earth and air about them, save perhaps in here and there a museum or college where they might always be bought up, however, immortality and all—for something more than compound interest added to the original cost—but to build a monument or a shed over the unappropriated stock, with certain privileges to the manufacturer of the walking-sticks and snuff-boxes aforesaid, so long as any of the material remained; taking care to provide with all due solemnity, perhaps by an act of the legislature, for securing the monopoly to the sovereign state itself.
Thus much perhaps I might hope for from my own people. But what from the British? They were magnanimous, or at least they would bear to be told so; and telling them so in a simple, off-hand, ingenuous way, with a great appearance of sincerity, and as if one had been carried away by a sudden impulse, to speak a forbidden truth, or surprised into a prohibited expression of feeling by some spectacle of generosity, in spite of his constitutional reserve and timidity and caution, would be likely topay well. But I would do no such thing. I would flatter nobody—no people—no nation. I would be to nobody—neither to my own countrymen, nor to the British—unlessI were better paid for it, than any of my countrymen were ever yet paid either at home or abroad.
No—I choose to see for myself, by putting the proof touch like a hot iron to their foreheads, whether the British are indeed a magnanimous people. But then, if I do all this, what are my chances of reward, even with the British themselves? That was a fearful question to be sure. The British are a nation of writers. Their novel-writers are as a cloud. True—true—but they still want something which they have not. They want a real American writer—one with courage enough to write in his native tongue.Thatthey have not, even at this day.Thatthey never had. Our best writers are English writers, not American writers. They are English in every thing they do, and in every thing they say, as authors—in the structure and moral of their stories, in their dialogue, speech and pronunciation, yea in the very characters they draw. Not so much as one true Yankee is to be found in any of our native books: hardly so much as one true Yankee phrase. Not so much as one true Indian, though you hardly take up a story on either side of the water now, without finding a red-man stowed away in it; and what sort of a red-man? Why one that uniformly talks the best English the author is capable of—more than half the time perhaps out-Ossianing Ossian.
I have the modesty to believe that in some things I am unlike all the other writers of my country—both living and dead; although there are not a few, I dare say who would be glad to hear of my bearing a great resemblance to the latter. For my own part I do not pretend to write English—that is, I do not pretend to write what the English themselves call English—I do not, and I hope to God—I say this reverently, although one of their Reviewers may be again puzzled to determine “whether I am swearing or praying” when I say so—that I never shall write what is now worshipped under the name ofclassicalEnglish. It is no natural language—it never was—it never will be spoken alive on this earth: and therefore, ought never to be written. We have dead languages enough now; but the deadest language I ever met with or heard of, was that in use among the writers of Queen Anne’s day.
At last I came to the conclusion—that the chances were at least a thousand to one against me. A thousand to one said I, to myself, that I perish outright in my headlong enterprise. But then, if I do not perish—if I triumph, what a triumph it will be! If I succeed, I shall be rewarded well—if the Britisharewhat they are believed to be—in fair proportion to the toil and peril I have encountered. At any rate, whether I fail or not, I shall be, and am willing to be, one of the first hundred to carry the war into the very camp, yea among the very household gods of the enemy. And if I die, I will die with my right arm consuming in the blaze of their altars—like Mutius Scævola.
But enough on this head. The plan took shape, and you have the commencement now before you, reader. I have had several objects in view at the same time, all subordinate however to that which I first mentioned, in the prosecution of my wayward enterprise. One was to show to my countrymen that there are abundant and hidden sources of fertility in their own beautiful brave earth, waiting only to be broken up; and barren places to all outward appearance, in the northern, as well as the southern Americas—yet teeming below with bright sail—where the plough-share that is driven through them with a strong arm, will come out laden with rich mineral and followed by running water: places where—if you but lay your ear to the scented ground, you may hear the perpetual gush of innumerable fountains pouring their subterranean melody night and day among the minerals and rocks, the iron and the gold: places where the way-faring man, the pilgrim or the wanderer through what he may deem the very deserts of literature, the barren-places of knowledge, will find the very roots of the withered and blasted shrubbery, which like the traveller in Peru, he may have accidentally uptorn in his weary and discouraging ascent, and the very bowels of the earth into which he has torn his way, heavy with a brightness that may be coined, like the soil about the favorite hiding places of the sunny-haired Apollo.
Another, was to teach my countrymen, that these very Englishmen, to whom as the barbarians of ancient story did bytheir gods when they would conciliate them, we are accustomed to offer up our own offspring, with our own hands, whenever we see the sky darkening over the water—the sky inhabited of them; ay, that these very Englishmen, to whom we are so in the habit of immolating all that is beautiful and grand among us—the first born of our youth—our creatures of immortality—our men of genius, while in the fever and flush of their vanity, innocence and passion—ere they have had time to put out their first plumage to the sky and the wind, all above and about them—that they, these very Englishmen, would not love us the less, nor revere us the less, if we loved and revered ourselves, and the issue of our blood and breath, and vitality and power, a little more. No—the men of Englandaremen. They love manhood. They may smile at our national vanity, but their smile would be one of compassionate benevolence and encouragement, if we were wise enough to keep our young at home, till their first molting season were well over—and then, offer to pair them, even though there would be a little presumption in it, high up in the skies, and the strong wind—with their bravest and best: not, as we do now, upon the altars of the earth—upon the tables of our money-changers—half fledged and untrained—with their legs tied, and wings clipped; or, peradventure, with necks turned, and heads all skewered under their tails—a heap of carrion and garbage that the braver birds, even among their enemies, would disdain to stoop at. Such would be their behavior, if we dealt as we ought with our own; there would be no pity nor disdain with them. They would cheer us to the conflict—pour their red wine down our throats if we were beaten; and if their birds were beaten, they would bear it with temper—knowing that their reputation could well afford an occasional trumph, to the young of their favorite brood. The men of England are waiting to do us justice: but there is a certain formality to be gone through with, before they will do it. We must claim it. And why should we not? I do not mean that we should claim it upon our knees as the condemned of their courts of justice are compelled to claim thatmercy, which the very law itself, has predetermined to grant to him—but will not, unlessthat idle and unworthy formality has been submitted to; no—I mean no such thing. We do not want mercy: and I would have my countrymen, when they are arraigned before any mereEnglishtribunal—not acting under thelaw of nationsin the world of literature, to go at once, with a calm front and untroubled eye, and plead to their jurisdiction, with a loud clear voice, and with their right hand upon the great book of English law, and set them at defiance. This, they have the right, and the power to do; and why should they not, when some of the inferior courts, of mereEnglishcriticism, have the audacity at every little interval, to call upon a sovereign people, to plead before them—without counsel—and be tried for some infringement of some paltry municipal provision of their statute book—some provincialism of language—or some heresy in politics—or some plagiarism of manner or style; and abide the penalty of forgery—or of ecclesiastical censure—or the reward of petit-larceny; re-transportation—or re-banishment to America.
It is high time now, that we should begin to do each other justice. Let us profit by their good qualities; and let them, by ours. And in time, we shall assuredly come to feel like brothers of the same parentage—an elder and a younger—different in temper—but alike in family resemblance—and alike proud of our great ancestry, the English giants of olden time. We shall revereourbrother; and he will love his. But when shall this be?—not, I am sorely afraid—till we have called home all our children, from the four corners of the earth; from the east and from the west; from the north and from the south—and held a congress of the dead—of their fathers, and of our fathers—and published to the world, and to posterity—appealing again to Jehovah for the rectitude of our intentions—anotherDeclaration of Independence, in the greatRepublic of Letters. And, yet this may soon be. The time is even now at hand. Our representatives are assembling: the dead Greek, and the Roman; the ancient English, and the fathers of literature, from all the buried nations of all the earth, and holding counsel together, and choosing their delegates. And the generation is already born, that shall yet hearthe heavens ringing with acclamations to their decree—that another state has been added to the everlasting confederacy of literature!
And now the author repeats to the people of America, one and all, farewell; assuring them that there is very little probability of his ever appearing before them again as a novel-writer. His object has been, if not wholly, at least in a great degree accomplished. He has demonstrated that a bold and direct appeal to the manhood of any people will never be made in vain. Others may have been already, or may hereafter be incited to a more intrepid movement; and to a more confident reliance upon themselves and their resources, by what he has now accomplished—where it is most difficult to accomplish any thing—among his own countrymen: and most devoutly does he pray, that if they should, they may be more fortunate, and far more generously rewarded, than he has ever been; and if they should not, he advises them to go where he has been already—and trust to another people for that, which his own have not the heart to give him, however well he may deserve it. Abroad—if he do not get a chaplet of fire and greenness—he will, at least, get a cup of cold water,—and it may be, a tear or two of compassion, if nothing of encouragement—whatever he may do. At home—he may wear himself out—like one ashamed of what he is doing, in secrecy and darkness—exhaust his own heart of all its power and vitality, by pouring himself into the hearts of others—with a certainty that he will be called a madman, a beggar and a fool, for his pains—unless he persevere, in spite of a broken heart, and a broken constitution, till he shall have made his own countrymen ashamed of themselves, and afraid of him.
It is a sad thing to say good by’e, even for an author. If you mean what you say—it is a prayer as well as a blessing, an audible breathing of the heart. And if you do not—it is a wicked profanation. So far, reader, you have been the familiar companion of the author; and you may be one of those, who have journied with him before, for many a weary day, through much of his wandering and meditation:—that is, you may be one of those who, having been admitted before, to touch hisheart with a naked hand—have felt in one pulsation—in one single hour’s fellowship with it, all that he had felt and thought for many a weary year. You have beenwithhim to a more holy place than the fire-side;tohim, more like the invisible creatures—for he hath never seen your face, and peradventure never may, though you have been looking into his very soul—that hover about the chamber of prayer—the solitude of the poet—or the haunted place under the shadow of great trees, where the wearied man throws himself down, to muse upon the face of his Creator, which he sees in the sky over him, or beneath the vast blue water before him. Is it wonderful therefore that there should be a little seriousness about his brow—although yeareinvisible to him—when he is about to say farewell to you—farewell forever—without having once heard the tone of your voice—nor one of the many tears, that you may have dropped over him, when you thought yourself altogether alone:—
Nor can he look back, without some emotion, upon the labour that he has undergone, even within that flowery wilderness, where he hath been journeying with you, or lying and ruminating all alone, for so long a time; and out of which, he is now about to emerge—forever—with a strong tread, to the broad blue sky and the solid earth; nor without lamenting that he cannot go barefooted—and half-naked among men;—and that the colour and perfume—the dim enchantment, and the sweet, breathing, solemn loneliness of the wild-wood path, that he is about to abandon, for the broad dusty highway of the world, are so unpropitious to the substantial reputation of a man: nor, without grieving that the blossom-leaves, and the golden flower-dust, which now cover him, from head to foot,mustbe speedily brushed away;—and that the scent of the wilderness may not go with him—wherever he may go—wandering through the habitation of princes—the courts of the living God—or, the dwelling places of ambition—yea, even into the grave.
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I have but one other request to make. Let these words be engraven hereafter on my tomb-stone: “Who reads an American Book?”