PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. MORE than six years ago I offered the manuscript of the following work to the then principal bookseller of this city. Engagements which promised to be more lucrative obliged him to decline the publication. The result has shown, that with his instrumentalities of trade he might have made a profitable sale of it; especially as, with my motives in authorship, I would have freely given the whole right of the edition to him. I made no second offer of the manuscript to any other; for as it had been rejected by the foremost publishing patron of American works, I deprecated the influence of his example against me. Thus the first step of my authorship was unfortunate; and as in these days of anxious benevolence, a very few misfortunes are sure to bring down contempt,-to save further ill luck, I printed it myself: and subsequently found an individual not unwilling to interest himself in disposing of it. -- I remember one of the objections to publishing the 'Philosophy of the Human Voice' was its not being suited to this country. I know well that the higher views of science and taste, and all originality in an individual, as being the minimum of a minority, where nothing is undertaken but through numbers and linked opinions,—are considered as con B PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. MORE than six years ago I offered the manuscript of the following work to the then principal bookseller of this city. Engagements which promised to be more lucrative obliged him to decline the publication. The result has shown, that with his instrumentalities of trade he might have made a profitable sale of it; especially as, with my motives in authorship, I would have freely given the whole right of the edition to him. I made no second offer of the manuscript to any other; for as it had been rejected by the foremost publishing patron of American works, I deprecated the influence of his example against Thus the first step of my authorship was unfortunate; and as in these days of anxious benevolence, a very few misfortunes are sure to bring down contempt,-to save further ill luck, I printed it myself: and subsequently found an individual not unwilling to interest himself in disposing of it. me. I remember one of the objections to publishing the 'Philosophy of the Human Voice' was-'its not being suited to this country. I know well that the higher views of science and taste, and all originality in an individual, as being the minimum of a minority, where nothing is undertaken but through numbers and linked opinions,—are considered as con B |