PREFACE. 



In offering this book to the reading public the author of the Isles of Summer 

 is not unmindful of the maxim that "silence is golden." But silence is often 

 a grave mistake, and may be a crime. The gift of speech has rendered possi- 

 ble the intellectual development which distinguishes the human race. The 

 different stages in the progress and perfection of language are the tide marks 

 of civilization. Take from man the power to express his thoughts, and you 

 degrade him to a beast. There is a time to speak and a time to abstain from 

 speaking. More than golden are those gems of thought which inspired genius 

 has in by-gone times wedded to imperishable language and given as a rich 

 legacy to the ages. But he is a wise man who knows how properly and when 

 to address the great public and challenge its attention. The loud din of a 

 garrulity stale and insipid, is ever mingled with the elevated and ennobling 

 notes of inspired voices. Many of the utterances that evidence man's divine 

 origin, to which the Present listens, broke the stillness of dim and distant 

 ages in the morning of civilization, while the genius of each succeeding age 

 has imparted to the literary air vibrations of its own, that mingle with those 

 of the past, and a great tide of melody that never ebbs, rolls grandly down 

 to our own times. 



It would seem to be sufficient for the Present to sit at the footstool of the Past 

 and listen. The public ear is not only filled but trained, educated and critical, 

 so that a new voice has no more chance of being heard, than a little ripple of 

 attracting attention when ocean's great lieart throbs with the quickening 

 breath of a hurricane. A new book by a new author is like a new leaf amid 

 the evergreen and varied foliage of a tropical forest. When one unknown to 

 fame, takes his first born literary child in manuscript sheets to any of the 

 notable publishers in either of our great cities, the cordiality with which he is 

 received is like that with which a tramp is welcomed at the front door of a 

 palatial dwelling. The chance that the latter is an angel in disguise, is con~ 

 sidered -equal to the probability that the former is inspired. In many cases, 



