I owe a debt of gratitude to him which I shall always give to his noble memory.
My story did not set the river on fire, as stories are apt to do nowadays.

It attracted so little notice from those I knew, and knew of, that naturally my ambition would have been crushed.
Notwithstanding, and saying nothing to anybody, I began "The Morgesons," and everywhere I went, like Mary's lamb, my MS.

was sure to go.

Meandering along the path of that family, I took them much to heart, and finished their record within a year.

I may say here, that the clans I marshaled for my pages had vanished from the sphere of reality--in my early day the village Squire, peerless in blue broadcloth, who scolded, advised, and helped his poorer neighbors; the widows, or maidens, who accepting service "as a favor," often remained a lifetime as friend as well as "help;" the race of coast-wise captains and traders, from Maine to Florida, as acute as they were ignorant; the rovers of the Atlantic and the Pacific, were gone not to return.