Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/18

 of committing them to the press, little thought of writing a book in America, least of all in these letters, and of that they bear internal evidence. Had such a thought been present with me, they would have been different to what they are; they would have been less straightforward and natural; more polished, more attired for company, but whether better—I cannot say. My mind in America was too much occupied by thoughts of living, to think of writing about life. Life was overpowering.

The idea of writing letters on America did not occur to me until I was about to leave the great land of the West, and the feeling became more and more strong in me, that what I had seen and experienced during these two years journeyings was not my own property alone, but that I had a duty to fulfil as regarded it. I had, it is true, a presentiment from the first that the great New World would supply me with many subjects for thought, to be made use of at some future time, perhaps even in books, but in what manner, in what books—of that I had no distinct idea. I confess to you that I went about in America with the thought of metamorphosing the whole of America in—a novel; and you, my friends, into its heroes and heroines: but that with such subtle delicacy, that none of you should be able to recognise either America or yourselves.

But the realities of your great country could not be compressed into a novel. The novel faded away like a rainbow in the clouds, and the reality stood only the stronger forward, in all its largeness, littleness, pleasantness, sorrow, beauty, completeness, manifold and simple,