Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/12

 *gence and original comicality would have served to give a perhaps needed sparkle to our pages; but historical exigences, to which we felt bound to adhere, forbade the tempting anachronism.

The Yankee is an amalgam which had not then issued from the crucible of the ages; the strange ubiquitous creature, ever upon his feet, ever ready with hand and speech, had not then asserted himself; and we had no warrant for chipping the egg-shell of Time, in which he was then fussily inchoating.

In conclusion, we will say, in the borrowed words of an apocryphal writer, "If I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto."