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I don’t know how to weave a roundelay,

I couldn’t voice a sighing song of love;

No mellow lyre that on which I play;

I plunk a strident lute without a glove.

The rhythm that is running through my stuff

Is not the whisp of maiden’s trailing gown;

The metre, maybe, gallops rather rough,

Like river-drivers storming down to town.

—It’s more than likely something from the

wood,

Where chocking axes scare the deer and

moose;

A homely rhyme, and easy understood

—An echo from the weird domain of Spruce.

Or else it’s just some Yankee notion, dressed

In rough-and-ready “Uncle Dudley” phrase;

Some honest thought we common folks suggest,

—Some tricksy mem’ry-flash from boyhood’s

days.

I cannot polish off this stilted rhyme

With all these homely notions in my brain.

A sonnet, sir, would stick me every time;

Let’s have a chat ’bout common things in

Maine.

Holman F. Day.

|ABOUT three thousand years ago the “Preacher” declared that “of making many books there is no end.” This sublimely pessimistic truism deserves to be considered in connection with the time when it was written; otherwise it might accomplish results not intended by its author.

It must be remembered that in the “Preacher’s” time books were altogether in writing. It should also be borne in mind that if the handwriting which we have in these days, speaking of the period prior to the advent of the female typewriter, is to be accepted as any criterion—and inasmuch as all concede that history repeats itself, that may well be assumed—is easy to understand how, by reason of its illegibility, he was also led to declare that “much study is a weariness of the flesh.” It is quite obvious that this was the moving cause of his delightfully doleful utterance as to books. Had he lived in this year nineteen hundred, at either the closing of the nineteenth or the dawning of the twentieth century—as to whether it is closing or dawning I make no assertion—he might well have made same criticism, but from an optimistic standpoint.

A competent litterateur informs me that there are now extant 3,725,423,201 books; that in America and England alone during the last year 12,888 books entered upon a precarious existence, with the faint though unexpressed hope of surviving “life’s fitful fever!” If the conditions of the “Preacher’s” time obtained to-day, the vocabulary of pessimism would be inadequate for the expression of similar views.

A careful examination by the writer, of all these well-nigh innumerable monuments of learning, discloses the fact that the work now being introduced to what I trust may be an equally innumerable army of readers has no parallel in literature. If justification were needed, that fact alone justifies its existence. This fact, however, is not necessary, as the all-sufficient fact which warrants the collection of these unique sketches in book form is that no one can read them without being interested, entertained, and amused, as well as instructed and improved. “The stubborn strength of Plymouth Rock” is nowhere better exemplified than on the Maine farm, in the Maine woods, on the Maine coast, or in the Maine workshop. From them, the author of “Up in Maine” has drawn his inspiration. Rugged independence, singleness of purpose, unswerving integrity, philosophy adequate for all occasions, the great realities of life, and a cheerful disregard of conventionalities, are here found in all their native strength and vigor. These peculiarities as delineated may be rough, perhaps uncouth, but they are characteristic, picturesque, engaging, and lifelike. His subjects are rough diamonds. They have the inherent qualities from which great characters are developed, and out of which heroes are made.

Through every chink and crevice of these rugged portrayals glitters the sheen of pure gold, gold of standard weight and fineness, “gold tried in the fire.” Finally it should be said that this is what is now known as a book with a purpose, and that purpose, as the author confidentially informs me, is to sell as many copies as possible, which he confidently expects to do. To this most worthy end I trust I may have, in a small degree, contributed by this introduction.