Satanstoe | Page 2

in calling such things by their right
names. The great enemy of the race has made a deep inroad upon us,
within the last ten or a dozen years, under cover of a spurious delicacy
on the subject of exposing national ills; and it is time that they who
have not been afraid to praise, when praise was merited, should not
shrink from the office of censuring, when the want of timely warnings
may be one cause of the most fatal evils. The great practical defect of
institutions like ours, is the circumstance that "what is everybody's
business, is nobody's business;" a neglect that gives to the activity of

the rogue a very dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory
correctives of the honest man.

CHAPTER I.
"Look you, Who comes here: a young man, and an old, in solemn talk."
As You Like it.
It is easy to foresee that this country is destined to undergo great and
rapid changes. Those that more properly belong to history, history will
doubtless attempt to record, and probably with the questionable
veracity and prejudice that are apt to influence the labours of that
particular muse; but there is little hope that any traces of American
society, in its more familiar aspects, will be preserved among us,
through any of the agencies usually employed for such purposes.
Without a stage, in a national point of view at least, with scarcely such
a thing as a book of memoirs that relates to a life passed within our
own limits, and totally without light literature, to give us simulated
pictures of our manners, and the opinions of the day, I see scarcely a
mode by which the next generation can preserve any memorials of the
distinctive usages and thoughts of this. It is true, they will have
traditions of certain leading features of the colonial society, but
scarcely any records; and, should the next twenty years do as much as
the last, towards substituting an entirely new race for the descendants
of our own immediate fathers, it is scarcely too much to predict that
even these traditions will be lost in the whirl and excitement of a throng
of strangers. Under all the circumstances, therefore, I have come to a
determination to make an effort, however feeble it may prove, to
preserve some vestiges of household life in New York, at least; while I
have endeavoured to stimulate certain friends in New Jersey, and
farther south, to undertake similar tasks in those sections of the country.
What success will attend these last applications, is more than I can say,
but, in order that the little I may do myself shall not be lost for want of
support, I have made a solemn request in my will, that those who come
after me will consent to continue this narrative, committing to paper
their own experience, as I have here committed mine, down as low at

least as my grandson, if I ever have one. Perhaps, by the end of the
latter's career, they will begin to publish books in America, and the
fruits of our joint family labours may be thought sufficiently matured to
be laid before the world.
It is possible that which I am now about to write will be thought too
homely, to relate to matters much too personal and private, to have
sufficient interest for the public eye; but it must be remembered that the
loftiest interests of man are made up of a collection of those that are
lowly; and, that he who makes a faithful picture of only a single
important scene in the events of single life, is doing something towards
painting the greatest historical piece of his day. As I have said before,
the leading events of my time will find their way into the pages of far
more pretending works than this of mine, in some form or other, with
more or less of fidelity to the truth, and real events, and real motives;
while the humbler matters it will be my office to record, will be entirely
overlooked by writers who aspire to enrol their names among the
Tacituses of former ages. It may be well to say here, however, I shall
not attempt the historical mood at all, but content myself with giving
the feelings, incidents, and interests of what is purely private life,
connecting them no farther with things that are of a more general nature,
than is indispensable to render the narrative intelligible and accurate.
With these explanations, which are made in order to prevent the person
who may happen first to commence the perusal of this manuscript from
throwing it into the fire, as a silly attempt to write a more silly fiction, I
shall proceed at once to the commencement of my proper