Whatever interest may be possessed by a collection of detached papers,
issued at considerable intervals during a term of several years, and
written without special reference one to the other, or, at the first,
with any view to subsequent publication, depends as much upon the date
at which they were composed, and the condition of affairs then
existent, as it does upon essential unity of treatment. If such unity
perchance be found in these, it will not be due to antecedent purpose,
but to the fact that they embody the thought of an individual mind,
consecutive in the line of its main conceptions, but adjusting itself
continually to changing conditions, which the progress of events
entails.
The author, therefore, has not sought to bring these papers down to
the present date; to reconcile seeming contradictions, if such there
be; to suppress repetitions; or to weld into a consistent whole the
several parts which in their origin were independent. Such changes as
have been made extend only to phraseology, with the occasional
modification of an expression that seemed to err by excess or defect.
The dates at the head of each article show the time of its writing,
not of its publication.
The thanks of the author are expressed to the proprietors of the
"Atlantic Monthly," of the "Forum," of the "North American Review,"
and of "Harper's New Monthly Magazine," who have kindly permitted the
republication of the articles originally contributed to their pages.