DEDICATION. MY DEAR DAGENTREE, I hope you will allow me to dedicate to you these recollections of a pleasant visit, notwithstanding your churlish criticism on the proof-sheets. You say I have held you up to the public as a bore, who talks like a book, and proses and tells stories after dinner. Be under no apprehensions on that score. No one who knows you would for a moment suspect you of being able to express yourself as I have represented you. You furnished the rude materials and very rude they were. They owe their harmony and symmetry to me. You were "But as the wind passing heedlessly o'er, But all the wild sweetness they woke is my own." With this explanation, which is no more than your due, this volume is affectionately inscribed to you by Your friend, E. C. |