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.
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 throughThe Christian Union, it has been repeatedlytaken for granted by the public pressthat certain of the characters are designed as portraitsof really existing individuals.
They are not. The supposition has its rise in animperfect consideration of the principles of dramaticcomposition. The novel-writer does not profess topaint portraits of any individual men and women in hispersonal acquaintance. Certain characters are requiredfor the purposes of his story. He conceives and createsthem, and they become to him real living beings,acting and speaking in ways of their own. Buton the other hand, he is guided in this creation byhis knowledge and experience of men and women, andstudies individual instances and incidents only to assurehimself of the possibility and probability of thecharacter he creates. If he succeeds in making thecharacter real and natural, people often are led toidentify 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 bywhich Professor Agassiz from one bone reconstructsthe whole form of an unknown fish. But to apply to [iv]any single living person such delineation is a mistake,and might be a great wrong both to the author and tothe person designated.
For instance, it being the author's purpose toshow the embarrassment of the young champion ofprogressive principles, in meeting the excesses ofmodern reformers, it came in her way to paint thepicture of the modern emancipated young woman ofadvanced ideas and free behavior. And this characterhas