The End of the World

A free download from http://www.dertz.in


The End of the World

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The End Of The World, by Edward
Eggleston This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The End Of The World A Love Story
Author: Edward Eggleston
Release Date: November 15, 2004 [EBook #14051]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE END
OF THE WORLD ***

Produced by Rick Niles, John Hagerson, Charlie Kirschner and the PG
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration: THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER _(Frontispiece.
See page 40.)_]

The End of the World.

A LOVE STORY,

BY
EDWARD EGGLESTON
AUTHOR OF "THE HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER," ETC.
WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.
1872

PREFACE.
[IN THE POTENTIAL MOOD.]
It is the pretty unanimous conclusion of book-writers that prefaces are
most unnecessary and useless prependages, since nobody reads them.
And it is the pretty unanimous practice of book-writers to continue to
write them with such pains and elaborateness as would indicate a belief
that the success of a book depends upon the favorable prejudice
begotten of u graceful preface. My principal embarrassment is that it is
not customary for a book to have more than one. How then shall I
choose between the half-dozen letters of introduction I might give my
story, each better and worse on many accounts than either of the others?
I am rather inclined to adopt the following, which might for some
reasons be styled the
PREFACE SENTIMENTAL.
Perhaps no writer not infatuated with conceit, can send out a book full
of thought and feeling which, whatever they may be worth, are his own,

without a parental anxiety in regard to the fate of his offspring. And
there are few prefaces which do not in some way betray this
nervousness. I confess to a respect for even the prefatory doggerel of
good Tinker Bunyan--a respect for his paternal tenderness toward his
book, not at all for his villainous rhyming. When I saw, the other day,
the white handkerchiefs of my children waving an adieu as they sailed
away from me, a profound anxiety seized me. So now, as I part
company with August and Julia, with my beloved Jonas and my
much-respected Cynthy Ann, with the mud-clerk on the Iatan, and the
shaggy lord of Shady-Hollow Castle, and the rest, that have watched
with me of nights and crossed the ferry with me twice a day for half a
year--even now, as I see them waving me adieu with their red silk and
"yaller" cotton "hand-kerchers," I know how many rocks of
misunderstanding and criticism and how many shoals of damning faint
praise are before them, and my heart is full of misgiving.
--But it will never do to have misgivings in a preface. How often have
publishers told me this! Ah! if I could write with half the heart and
hope my publishers evince in their advertisements, where they talk
about "front rank" and "great American story" and all that, it would
doubtless be better for the book, provided anybody would read the
preface or believe it when they had read it. But at any rate let us not
have a preface in the minor key.
A philosophical friend of mine, who is addicted to Carlyle, has
recommended that I try the following, which he calls
THE HIGH PHILOSOPHICAL PREFACE.
Why should I try to forestall the Verdict? Is it not foreordained in the
very nature of a Book and the Constitution of the Reader that a certain
very Definite Number of Readers will misunderstand and dislike a
given Book? And that another very Definite Number will understand it
and dislike it none the less? And that still a third class, also definitely
fixed in the Eternal Nature of Things, will misunderstand and like it,
and, what is more, like it only because of their misunderstanding? And
in relation to a true Book, there can not fail to be an Elect Few who
understand admiringly and understandingly admire. Why, then, make

bows, write prefaces, attempt to prejudice the Case? Can I change the
Reader? Will I change the Book? No? Then away with Preface! The
destiny of the Book is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet.
But let us not hope to change the Fates by our prefatory bowing and
scraping.
--I was forced to confess to my friend who was so kind as to offer to
lend me this preface, that there was much truth in it and that truth is
nowhere more