indicate the true reasons which serve to keep the masses of mankind from any direct intercourse with their authors:-show why society, itself, works to this very end, as if moved by a common necessity, and governed by a positively selfish interest. "RICHARD HURDIS" was singularly successful with the public in spite of much hostile criticism. It was objected, to the story, that it was of too gloomy and savage a character. But the entire aspect of a sparsely-settled forest, or mountain country, is grave and saddening, even where society is stationary and consistent; and, where society is only in process of formation. the saddening and the grave in its aspect are but too apt to take on even sterner features, and to grow into the gloomy and ferocious. It is quite enough, in answer to the objection, to say that the general portraiture is not only a truthful one, in the present case, but that the materials are really of historical character. The story is a genuine chronicle of the border region where the scene is laid, and of the period when the date is fixed. Its action, throughout, is founded on well-known facts. Its personages were real, living men; being, doing, and suffering, as here reported. Nothing has been "extenuate," nothing has been "set down in malice." A softer coloring might have been employed, and, more frequently, scenes of repose might have been introduced for relieving the intense and fierce aspects of the story; but these would have been out of place in a narrative so dramatic of cast, and where the action is so rapid. Some doubts have been expressed touching the actual existence of the wild and savage confederacy which I have here described; but nobody, at all familiar with the region and period of the story, can possibly entertain a question of the history. There are hundreds of persons, now living, who knew, and well remember, all the parties; and the general history of the outlawry prevailing in the Mississippi valley, twenty years ago, can hardly have escaped the knowledge, in some degree, of every inhabitant of the southwest, during that period. I knew Stuart, the captor of Murrell, personally; and had seveeral conferences with him, prior to the publication of his narrative. I have also met certain of the dramatis persona, during my early wanderings in that then wild country. The crimes here recorded, were then actually in progress of commission; and some of my scenes, and several of my persons, were sketched from personal observation, and after the current reports from the best local authorities. I repeat, briefly, that the facts here employed are beyond question, and still within the memory of living men. I need scarcely add, that, as a matter of course, I have exercised the artist's privilege of placing my groups, in action, at my own pleasure; using what accessories I thought proper, and dismissing others; suppressing the merely loathsome; bringing out the heroic, the bold and attractive, into becoming prominence, for dramatic effect; and, filling out the character, more or less elaborately, according to the particular requisitions of the story, without regarding the individual claims of the subordinate. Let me say, further, -though this, perhaps, is scarcely necessary—that, in most cases, I have used other than the true names, and altered certain localities, simply that living and innocent affections should not be unnecessarily outraged. One other matter. It will be seen that there is a peculiarity in the arrangement of the story. The hero tells, not only what he himself performed, but supplies the events, even as they occur, which he yet derives from the report of others. Though quite unusual, the plan is yet strictly within the proprieties of art. The reader can readily be made to comprehend that the hero writes after a lapse of time, in which he had supplied himself with the necessary details, filling up the gaps in his own experience. I have persuaded myself that something is gained by such a progress, in the more energetic, direct and dramatic character of the story; and the rapidity of the action : is a necessary result, from the exclusion of all circuitous narration. The hero and author, under the plan, become identical; a union which the reader will be pleased to believe only fictitious while the real writer was unknown, it was of little consequence whether the parties were confounded or not. Even now, the disclaimer is hardly necessary; since nobody need be mystified in the matter, unless it be some inveterate Dogberry, who prides himself on the length of his ears, and insists upon the whole road in his daily crossing of the Pons Asinorum. There are two other stories- "Border Beagles," and "Beauchampe," which belonged originally to this unnamed family. These will succeed to "Richard Hurdis," in the present classification of my writings. WOODLANDS, S. C. March 1 1855, THE AUTHOR. RICHARD HURDIS. CHAPTER I. A TRUANT DISPOSITION. "Enough of garlands, of the Arcadian crook, Teach what they learn?"-WORDSWORTH. Of the hardihood of the American character there can be no doubts, however many there may exist on the subject of our good manners. We ourselves seem to be sufficiently conscious of our security on the former head, as we forbear insisting upon it; about the latter, however, we are sore and touchy enough. We never trouble ourselves to prove that we are sufficiently able and willing, when occasion serves, to do battle, tooth and nail, for our liberties and possessions; our very existence, as a people, proves this ability and readiness. But let John Bull prate of our manners, and how we fume and fret, and what fierce action and wasteful indignation we expend upon him! We are sure to have the last word in all such controversies. Our hardihood comes from our necessities, and prompts our enterprise; and the American is bold in adventure to a proverb. Where the silk-shodden and sleek citizen of the European world would pause and deliberate to explore our wilds, we plunge incontinently forward; and the forest falls before our axe, and the desert blooms under the providence of our cultivator, as if the wand of an enchanter had waved over them with the rising of a sudden moonlight. Yankee necessities, and southern and western curiosity, will probe to the very core of the dusky woods, and palsy, by the exhibition of superior powers, the very souls of their old possessors. I was true to the temper and the nature of my countrymen. The place in which I was born could not keep me always. With manhood—ay, long before I was a man- -came the desire to range. My thoughts craved freedom, my dreams prompted the same desire, and the wandering spirit of our people, perpetually stimulated by the continual opening of new regions and more promising abodes, was working in my heart with all the volume of a volcano. Manhood came, and I burst my shackles. I resolved upon the enjoyment for which I had dreamed and prayed. I had no fears, for I was stout of limb, bold of heart, prompt in the use of my weapon, a fearless rider, and a fatal shot. Here are the inevitable possessions of the southern and western man, from Virginia to the gulf, and backward to the Ohio. I had these, with little other heritage, from my Alabama origin, and I was resolved to make the most of them as soon as I could. You may be sure I lost no time in putting my resolves into execution. Our grain-crops in Marengo were ripe in August, and my heart bounded with the unfolding of the sheaves. I was out of my minority in the same fortunate season. I waited for the coming October only. I felt that my parents had now no claims upon me. The customs of our society, the necessities of our modes of life, the excursive and adventurous habits of our people, all justified a desire, which, in a stationary community, would seem so adverse to the nicer designs of humanity. But the life in the city has very few standards in common with that of the wilderness. We acknowledge few, at least. The impulses of the latter, to our minds, are worth any day all the mercantile wealth of the former; and that we are sincere in this opinion may be fairly inferred from the preference which the forester will always show for the one over the |