Bless thee, reader--Let us live and love, since brief is our time for either. _Of course_, I wish to please thee. I might make a huge boast of independence: but the boast would be as false as foolish. I might feign contempt of thee, and of the public: but it would be a wicked lie. So far as I am an author, _thy_ smiles, and _their_ favor, are my life. I may read, think, act, to please myself; but it is clear that _I write_ to please thee. This blows sky-high all scornful prefaces, such as some modern authors paste on the foreheads of their little bantlings, which they send forth to angle for favor in the muddy and shifting stream of popular applause. How mortified are these scribbling autocrats, when their very _cartels_ of defiance are unanswered, and unread! Yet, on the other hand, is there something of courtesy,--nay, of indulgence, due to him, who neither assumes, nor dictates, but offers, in the words, and with the spirit of humility, what he hopes may please, and possibly instruct. I steal not--I borrow not. Scanty though be my cloak in breadth, and coarse in texture, yet I wove it in mine own loom, and with mine own hands. Whatever I give is mine, or rather, _was_--for it is _thine_ now. It is all I have--the widow’s mite--and, as such, receive it. I would not bring a “vain oblation” to the literary altar--that blood-stained shrine, on which so many a helpless victim is dissected by unfeeling butchers. I have not time to give thee much, (I fear me thou art not sorry,) nor can I ‘lick into shape’ what I _do_ give.