The End of the World: A Love Story

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  THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER_(Frontispiece. See page 40.)_]

  The End of the World.

  A LOVE STORY,

  BY

  EDWARD EGGLESTON

  AUTHOR OF "THE HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER," ETC.

  WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.

  1872

  PREFACE.

  [IN THE POTENTIAL MOOD.]

  It is the pretty unanimous conclusion of book-writers that prefaces aremost unnecessary and useless prependages, since nobody reads them. Andit is the pretty unanimous practice of book-writers to continue to writethem with such pains and elaborateness as would indicate a belief thatthe success of a book depends upon the favorable prejudice begotten of ugraceful preface. My principal embarrassment is that it is not customaryfor a book to have more than one. How then shall I choose between thehalf-dozen letters of introduction I might give my story, each betterand worse on many accounts than either of the others? I am ratherinclined to adopt the following, which might for some reasons bestyled the

  PREFACE SENTIMENTAL.

  Perhaps no writer not infatuated with conceit, can send out a book fullof thought and feeling which, whatever they may be worth, are his own,without a parental anxiety in regard to the fate of his offspring. Andthere are few prefaces which do not in some way betray this nervousness.I confess to a respect for even the prefatory doggerel of good TinkerBunyan--a respect for his paternal tenderness toward his book, not atall for his villainous rhyming. When I saw, the other day, the whitehandkerchiefs of my children waving an adieu as they sailed away fromme, a profound anxiety seized me. So now, as I part company with Augustand Julia, with my beloved Jonas and my much-respected Cynthy Ann, withthe mud-clerk on the Iatan, and the shaggy lord of Shady-Hollow Castle,and the rest, that have watched with me of nights and crossed the ferrywith me twice a day for half a year--even now, as I see them waving meadieu with their red silk and "yaller" cotton "hand-kerchers," I knowhow many rocks of misunderstanding and criticism and how many shoals ofdamning faint praise are before them, and my heart is full of misgiving.

  --But it will never do to have misgivings in a preface. How often havepublishers told me this! Ah! if I could write with half the heart andhope my publishers evince in their advertisements, where they talk about"front rank" and "great American story" and all that, it would doubtlessbe better for the book, provided anybody would read the preface orbelieve it when they had read it. But at any rate let us not have apreface in the minor key.

  A philosophical friend of mine, who is addicted to Carlyle, hasrecommended that I try the following, which he calls

  THE HIGH PHILOSOPHICAL PREFACE.

  Why should I try to forestall the Verdict? Is it not foreordained in thevery nature of a Book and the Constitution of the Reader that a certainvery Definite Number of Readers will misunderstand and dislike a givenBook? And that another very Definite Number will understand it anddislike it none the less? And that still a third class, also definitelyfixed in the Eternal Nature of Things, will misunderstand and like it,and, what is more, like it only because of their misunderstanding? Andin relation to a true Book, there can not fail to be an Elect Few whounderstand admiringly and understandingly admire. Why, then, make bows,write prefaces, attempt to prejudice the Case? Can I change the Reader?Will I change the Book? No? Then away with Preface! The destiny of theBook is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet. But let usnot hope to change the Fates by our prefatory bowing and scraping.

  --I was forced to confess to my friend who was so kind as to offer tolend me this preface, that there was much truth in it and that truth isnowhere more rare than in prefaces, but it was not possible to adopt itfor two reasons: one, that my proof-reader can not abide so manycapitals, maintaining that they disfigure the page, and what is apreface of the high philosophical sort worth without a profusion ofcapitals? Even Carlyle's columns would lose their greatest ornament iftheir capitals were gone. The second reason for declining to use thispreface was that my publishers are not philosophers and would never becontent with an "Elect Few," and for my own part the pecuniary interestI have in the copyright renders it quite desirable that as many aspossible should be elected to like it, or at least to buy it.

  After all it seems a pity that I can not bring myself to use astraightforward

  APOLOGETIC AND EXPLANATORY PREFACE.

  In view of the favor bestowed upon the author's previous story, both bythe Public who Criticise and the Public who Buy, it seems a littleungracious to present so soon, another, the scene of which is also laidin the valley of the Ohio. But the picture of Western country life in"The Hoosier School-Master" would not have been complete without thiscompanion-piece, which presents a different phase of it. And indeedthere is no provincial life richer in material if only one knew how toget at it.

  Nothing is more reverent than a wholesome hatred of hypocrisy. If anyman think I have offended against his religion, I must believe that hisreligion is not what it should be. If anybody shall imagine that this isa work of religious controversy leveled at the Adventists, he will havewholly mistaken my meaning. Literalism and fanaticism are not vicesconfined to any one sect. They are, unfortunately, pretty widelydistributed. However, if--

  --And so on.

  But why multiply examples of the half-dozen or more that I might, could,would, or should have written? Since everybody is agreed that, nobodyreads a preface, I have concluded to let the book go without any.

  BROOKLYN, September, 1872.

  "_And as he [Wordsworth] mingled freely with all kinds of men, he founda pith of sense and a solidity of judgment here and there among theunlearned which he had failed to find in the most lettered; from obscuremen he heard high truths.... And love, true love and pure, he found wasno flower reared only in what was called refined society, and requiringleisure and polished manners for its growth.... He believed that incountry people, what is permanent in human nature, the essentialfeelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity andstrength_."--PRINCIPAL SHAIRP.

  * * * * *

  A DEDICATION.

  It would hardly be in character for me to dedicate this book in good,stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have put in thebackground of scenery without being reminded of the two boys,inseparable as the Siamese twins, who gathered mussel-shells in theriver marge, played hide-and-seek in the hollow sycamores, and led ahappy life in the shadow of just such hills as those among which theevents of this story took place. And all the more that the generous boywho was my playmate then is the generous man who has relieved me of manyburdens while I wrote this story, do I feel impelled to dedicate it toGEORGE CARY EGGLESTON, a manly man and a brotherly brother.