Page:The partisan leader- a novel, and an apocalypse of the origin and struggles of the southern confederacy (IA partisanleadernotucker).pdf/12

 flowers, we observed all the varieties of growth and scenery remarked by the author. We counted thirteen vertebra in the "Devil's Backbone," or "notches in the Hen's Ladder," and it required no fertile imagination to locate the rocky covert of the sentinel, the stand of the piquet, and the headquarters of "The Partisan Leader"—marked as the wide, wild gorge, with its difficult approaches of steep precipice, and its clear, dashing river, "pouring over rugged barriers of yellow stone."

The reader will observe that I have avoided the mention of the mere objective political features of the story, such as the person, and time of service of the President, whose election, by a sectional vote, caused the dissolution, as also the date of the occurrences, and such like, which, to the great subjective features that have been so strikingly realized, are as the drapery to the picture, and have sought simply to give him, at a glance, an insight into the character of the book, and to actualize some of its minor circumstances of scenery and character.

A word of personal explanation, and I am done. My attention being called to the work by the notice alluded to, in the Literary Messenger, some twelve months since, I had felt the intensest curiosity to read and compare it with the momentous events of the present crisis, but had found my inquiries vain during that period, and had despaired of obtaining my object. A few weeks since, however, in the regular routine of duty, by a happy accident I blundered upon it. Amazed, and gratified in finding it a greater literary curiosity than I had even supposed, it immediately occurred to me that thousands must realize a similar interest with myself in its perusual; and that while its republication was due alike to the fame of its author and to historical propriety, its general circulation would tend to illustrate the necessity of our position, to vindicate the justice of our cause, and to intensify Southern patriotism. Astonished that it had not been republished, I determined that if others would not undertake the work, with the approval of those who have the first right to represent the author and his interests, I would myself engage in the enterprise. Deferring as far as practicable to these, I was assured that they were desirous of its republication, and had once made arrangements for it; but owing to the fall of Norfolk the work had been estopped in that direction, and that I could therefore feel free to go forward with it. Pleased that I am permitted, in a manner consonant with the proprieties of the case, thus to minister, as I humbly conceive, at once to the public gratification and the public good, I commit the great work, in its original form, to its own vindication, trusting to the intelligence of the reader to apply the coincidences which mark its fulfillment as a political prophecy. THOS. A. WARE.