My Diary - North and South (vol. 1 of 2)

A book which needs apologies ought never to have been written. This is a canon of criticism so universally accepted, that authors have abstained of late days from attempting to disarm hostility by confessions of weakness, and are almost afraid to say a prefatory word to the gentle reader.

The contest, of which no man can predict the end or result, still rages, but notwithstanding the darkness and clouds which rest upon the scene, I place so much reliance on the innate good qualities of the great nations which are settled on the Continent of North America, as to believe they will be all the better for the sweet uses of adversity; learning to live in peace with their neighbours, adapting their institutions to their necessities, and working out, not in their old arrogance and insolence—mistaking material prosperity for good government—but in fear and trembling, the experiment on which they have cast so much discredit, and the glorious career which misfortune and folly can arrest but for a time.