PREFACE.
The Author, in sending forth these "trifles light as air," is anxious to offer to her readers this one fact, that they were written between the ages of eleven and seventeen. In making this confession, she is in no way desirous of extenuating their many faults, or of soliciting a more charitable criticism than they deserve. They have been called forth at the desire of many to whom they have been made known; and to those who may be good enough to peruse them she would use the words of the gentle Goldsmith:
"Blame where you must, be candid where you can,
And be each critic the good-natured man."—
And be each critic the good-natured man."—
adding these words of a later poet:
"What is writ is writ,—
Would it were worthier!"—(Byron.)
Would it were worthier!"—(Byron.)
July, 1872.
