[figure description] Preface iii.[end figure description]

“I RECKON our folks don't want none of them
fixings,” said an Ohio housewife to a Connecticut
pedler, who produced a pair of beaded moccasins, a
shooting-pouch, and other hunting paraphernalia from
his pack: “the boys have plenty of such trash of
their own providing.”

The patient pedestrian offered next some prettily
woven basket-ware and carved wooden bowls, to
tempt a purchase from the settler's wife.

“No! nor them nother,” cried the virago: “the
Miami Injuns do our basketing, and the Buck-eyes
make better bowls than you can carve from your
Yankee poplars. What does the fool mean by trying
to sell us things we can make better nor him?
Throw open your pack, manny, and let me choose
for myself among your knicknacks.”

The recollection of this shrewish monologue, as
once overheard by the Author in a western cabin,
came vividly to his mind when about to select and
remodel some of his lucubrations for Mr. Bentley;

[figure description] Preface iv.[end figure description]

and, after cutting and carving, altering and amending,
never to his own satisfaction, he finally concluded to
abide by the lesson given to the worthy pedler.
Instead, therefore, of attempting to cater for, or conform
to, tastes of which, as an untravelled foreigner,
he knows but little, he has thrown open his pack to
let the British reader choose for himself from its
contents.

In a word, these American sketches, written in the
first instance without any view to European publication,
are here committed to the hospitality of strangers
nearly in their original shape, as they have from
time to time accumulated during the rambles of the
Author. The reader may perhaps detect in them the
fragmentary execution of a more finished and com
prehensive plan of scenic and legendary illustration
of American subjects. The want of an international
copyright law, however, with the paralizing effect
upon American letters, which results from this barbaric
anomaly in modern enlightenment, forbids any
but the affluent among my countrymen to embark
fully in such an undertaking.

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