[Illustration: _THE MATCH GAME._ "_I knelt down, and laid my mallet at her feet. 'Beautiful princess!' said I, 'behold your enemies, conquered, await your sentence.'_" (Page 349.)] MY WIFE AND I: OR, HARRY HENDERSON'S HISTORY. BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," "PINK AND WHITE," ETC. [Illustration] NEW-YORK: J. B. FORD AND COMPANY. 1872. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1871 BY J. W. FORD AND COMPANY, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. During the passage of this story through THE CHRISTIAN UNION, it has been repeatedly taken for granted by the public press that certain of the characters are designed as portraits of really existing individuals. They are not. The supposition has its rise in an imperfect consideration of the principles of dramatic composition. The novel-writer does not profess to paint _portraits_ of any individual men and women in his personal acquaintance. Certain characters are required for the purposes of his story. He conceives and creates them, and they become to him real living beings, acting and speaking in ways of their own. But on the other hand, he is guided in this creation by his knowledge and experience of men and women, and studies individual instances and incidents only to assure himself of the possibility and probability of the character he creates. If he succeeds in making the character real and natural, people often are led to identify it with some individual of their acquaintance. A slight incident, an anecdote, a paragraph in a paper, often furnishes the foundation of such a character; and the work of drawing it is like the process by which Professor Agassiz from one bone reconstructs the whole form of an unknown fish. But to apply to any single living person such delineation is a mistake, and might be a great wrong both to the author and to the person designated.