shall put so much of myself my experiences notions convictions and modes of thought as these recollections i give with small reserve my mental history whatever view may be taken of s opinions and all will that he has been and is a man of industry of strong convictions of continual and immense intellectual activity and of wide spread influence laboring in the metropolis f the country he has there planted and with his own life a journal whose political and social ideas have been powerful in viii circular the public mind beyond any other one agency and he himself intimately associated as he has been with all tlie great men and great events of the time is a singularly interesting character the mental history of such a man and tlie varied reminiscences of his life and experience cannot fail to attract the attention and excite the interest of all who take any pains to understand the history of the day while the practical hints to young men and tlie familiar chat about political literary agricultural social and personal topics contained in the book must make it welcome to the general reader of the illustrations the views of mr s various homes c it is only necessary to say that they have been engraved from the most sources � generally photographs the fine portrait of mr b engraved on steel by mr j and that of the accomplished and lamented margaret fuller is from the artistic hand of mr w j whose personal remembrance of that gifted lady has been aided by an excellent portrait in every way the have endeavored to make the book one and desirable by all and feel sure that it will prove its own best apology these owe their existence wholly to an impulse external to their author who of his own choice writes on many topics himself not included when years ago he was introduced to mr james and that he had been chosen by that gentleman as the subject of a volume he said that every person whose career was in some sense public was a fair subject for public comment and criticism but that he could not furnish materials for nor in any wise make himself a party to the undertaking as it had never occurred to him that he should have time and inclination to write concerning himself he had never saved even a scrap with reference to such and he has chosen not to avail himself of mr s labors in order that the following chapters should so far as possible justify their title of mr robert is justly entitled to the credit or otherwise of having called these recollections into even though fleeting existence he had previously invited me to write for his and had paid me liberally for so doing but our engagement and intimacy had long ceased when on the occasion of the by my of he a long suspended correspondence and once more urged me to write for his columns suggesting a series of reminiscences which x apology i at first declined to on mature reflection however i perceived that he had me to commend to many thousands of mainly young persons convictions which are a part of my being and of public events and interests which might never so fairly their attention if i this opportunity and that therefore i ought not to reject it hence i soon recalled my hasty negative him that i would accept his offer and immediately commenced writing as i could snatch time from other pressing duties the printed that they are less personal and more political than mr would have wished them i was early aware yet he allowed all but two of them to appear and to have the post of honor in successive issues of his excellent and widely i have added somewhat however to nearly half of them in them for publication in this shape but the reader who may note the will be so just as to attribute it to the proper source in a single instance only was i requested by mr to change an expression in one of the numbers he published and therein he was clearly right as i instantly the papers which i have chosen to add to my recollections in giving them this permanent form my views on certain topics which i was not able to present fully in my to the yet which i hoped would reward the attention of most readers that in which protection is explained and commended was printed as it was hurriedly written more than twenty five years ago i present it now without the change of a sentence as a statement of views contemptuously rejected by most writers on political economy in our day who never really i i apology gave them consideration or thought that they deserve a different and more respectful treatment i profoundly believe the public must judge between me and their i hope to be spared to write hereafter a fuller and more of political economy from the stand point and i do not expect henceforth to write or print any other work whatever if then my friends wiu accept the essays which conclude this volume as a part of my mental biography i respectfully this book as my account of au of myself that is worth their consideration and i will cherish the hope that some portion at least of its contents lessons of and patience which wiu not have been set forth in the with mr respecting marriage and divorce which is printed at the end of the volume was wholly on my part yet i had so clearly though provoked mr s first letter that i could not refuse to print it and i could not suffer it to appear without a reply my a response and so the discussion ran on till each had said what seemed to him on a subject of wide and enduring 