Though the ensuing COLLECT and preceding SPECIMEN DAYS are both largely
from memoranda already existing, the hurried peremptory needs of copy
for the printers, already referr'd to--(the musicians' story of a
composer up in a garret rushing the middle body and last of his score
together, while the fiddlers are playing the first parts down in the
concert-room)--of this haste, while quite willing to get the consequent
stimulus of life and motion, I am sure there must have resulted sundry
technical errors. If any are too glaring they will be corrected in a
future edition.
A special word about PIECES IN EARLY YOUTH at the end. On jaunts over
Long Island, as boy and young fellow, nearly half a century ago, I heard
of, or came across in my own experience, characters, true occurrences,
incidents, which I tried my 'prentice hand at recording--(I was
then quite an "abolitionist" and advocate of the "temperance" and
"anti-capital-punishment" causes)--and publish'd during occasional
visits to New York city. A majority of the sketches appear'd first in
the "Democratic Review," others in the "Columbian Magazine," or the
"American Review," of that period. My serious wish were to have all
those crude and boyish pieces quietly dropp'd in oblivion--but to avoid
the annoyance of their surreptitious issue, (as lately announced, from
outsiders,) I have, with some qualms, tack'd them on here. _A Dough-Face
Song_ came out first in the "Evening Post"--_Blood-Money_, and _Wounded
in the House of Friends_, in the "Tribune."
_Poetry To-day in America_, &c., first appear'd (under the name of "_The
Poetry of the Future_,") in "The North American Review" for February,
1881. _A Memorandum at a Venture_, in same periodical, some time
afterward.
Several of the convalescent out-door scenes and literary items,
preceding, originally appear'd in the fortnightly "Critic," of New York.