But life is short, and prefaces should be.  And so, my good friends, to whom this introductory epistle is addressed, farewell.  Though some of you have remonstrated with me, I shall never write any more ’Biglow Papers,’ however great the temptation,—­great especially at the present time,—­unless it be to complete the original plan of this Series by bringing out Mr. Sawin as an ‘original Union man.’  The very favor with which they have been received is a hindrance to me, by forcing on me a self-consciousness from which I was entirely free when I wrote the First Series.  Moreover, I am no longer the same careless youth, with nothing to do but live to myself, my books, and my friends, that I was then.  I always hated politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not likely to grow, fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and personal prejudice, or can conceive the possibility of another’s doing so.  I feel as if I could in some sort claim to be an emeritus, and I am sure that political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and delightful humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby.  I regret that I killed off Mr. Wilbur so soon, for he would have enabled me to bring into this preface a number of learned quotations, which must now go a-begging, and also enabled me to dispersonalize myself into a vicarious egotism.  He would have helped me likewise in clearing myself from a charge which I shall briefly touch on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has found it needful to defend me in his preface to one of the English editions of the ‘Biglow Papers.’  I thank Mr. Hughes heartily for his friendly care of my good name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), I should leave the matter where he left it.  The charge is of profanity, brought in by persons who proclaimed African slavery of Divine institution, and is based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series—­

  ‘An’ you’ve gut to git up airly,
    Ef you want to take in God,’

and,

  ‘God’ll send the bill to you,’

and on some Scriptural illustrations by Mr. Sawin.

Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself.  Will any one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he does not speak of sacred things familiarly? that Biblical allusions (allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his church-going habits, he is intimate) are not frequent on his lips?  If so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons as I have assumed