Being now engaged in the work of revising and rewriting the sketch in which this extract occurs, I have recently had occasion to examine again the material to which I have alluded; and I find that, though the topic to which it relates in part is one which cannot be fully and freely treated in a work intended for general reading, yet the material itself contains much of value and interest. Neither is the topic I have referred to in itself one which can be ignored in an historical view, though, as I have reason to believe, there has been practised in New England an almost systematic suppression of evidence in regard to it; for not only are we disposed always to look upon the past as a somewhat Arcadian period,--a period in which life and manners were simpler, better and more genuine than they now are,--not only, I say, are we disposed to look upon the past as a sort of golden era when compared with the present, but there is also a sense of filial piety connected with it. Like Shem and Japhet, approaching it with averted eyes we are disposed to cover up with a garment the nakedness of the progenitors; and the severe looker after truth, who wants to have things appear exactly as they were, and does not believe in the suppression of evidence,--the investigator of this sort is apt to be looked upon as a personage of no discretion and doubtful utility,--as, in a word, a species of modern Ham, who, having unfortunately seen what ought to have been covered up, is eager, out of mere levity or prurience, to tell his "brethren without" all about it.