This book was not written for private circulation
among friends; it was not written to cheer and instruct
a diseased relative of the author’s; it was
not thrown off during intervals of wearing labor to
amuse an idle hour. It was not written for any
of these reasons, and therefore it is submitted without
the usual apologies.
It will be seen that it deals with an entirely ideal
state of society; and the chief embarrassment of the
writers in this realm of the imagination has been
the want of illustrative examples. In a State
where there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed
desire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all simple-minded
and contented, and the rich are all honest and generous,
where society is in a condition of primitive purity
and politics is the occupation of only the capable
and the patriotic, there are necessarily no materials
for such a history as we have constructed out of an
ideal commonwealth.
No apology is needed for following the learned custom
of placing attractive scraps of literature at the
heads of our chapters. It has been truly observed
by Wagner that such headings, with their vague suggestions
of the matter which is to follow them, pleasantly inflame
the reader’s interest without wholly satisfying
his curiosity, and we will hope that it may be found
to be so in the present case.
Our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues;
this is done for the reason that very few foreign
nations among whom the book will circulate can read
in any language but their own; whereas we do not write
for a particular class or sect or nation, but to take
in the whole world.
We do not object to criticism; and we do not expect
that the critic will read the book before writing
a notice of it: We do not even expect the reviewer
of the book will say that he has not read it.
No, we have no anticipations of anything unusual
in this age of criticism. But if the Jupiter,
Who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to
peruse it in some weary moment of his subsequent life,
we hope that he will not be the victim of a remorse
bitter but too late.
One word more. This is—what it pretends
to be a joint production, in the conception of the
story, the exposition of the characters, and in its
literal composition. There is scarcely a chapter
that does not bear the marks of the two writers of
the book. S. L. C.
C.
D. W.
[Etext Editor’s Note: The following chapters
were written by Mark Twain: 1-11, 24, 25, 27,
28, 30, 32-34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51-53, 57, 59-62;
and portions of 35, 49, and 56. See Twain’s
letter to Dr. John Brown Feb. 28, 1874 D.W.]
June 18—. Squire Hawkins sat upon the
pyramid of large blocks, called the “stile,”
in front of his house, contemplating the morning.
