No. 25
LIFE WITHOL Union St.

BY

HANNAH GARDNER CREAMER.

" To go through life, unloving and unloved ;

To feel that thirst and hunger of the soul
We cannot still; that longing, that wild impulse,
And struggle after something we have not
And cannot have; the effort to be strong;
And, like the Spartan boy, to smile, and smile,
While secret wounds do bleed beneath our cloaks — "

LONGFELLOW.

BOSTON:
JAMES FRENCH, 78 WASHINGTON STREET,

1850.

KD 37274

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850,

BY JAMES FRENCH,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

MY READER, you have probably, like the author, left the preface to serve as epilogue. Indeed, it was not my design to give you any thing in the form of introduction. What is a preface but an apology? I am not in the habit of begging the world's pardon for any of my performances. But, here, at the completion of the work, I receive, from my worthy friend, the publisher, a request, or rather, “a command in the guise of a request,” that I would indite a preface. With my usual obstinacy, I resolve that you shall have nothing of the kind save the following CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND HER FRIENDS.

Dramatis personæ.
THE AUTHOR.
FATHER CYRUS, quondam preceptor to the author.
PASTOR MELANCHTHON, her clergyman.
FADLADEEN, a cynical acquaintance.
MARIELLE, her confidential friend.
EMMA,
LILIAN, ( her former schoolmates.
CELIA,
ALICE,
EDITH, )
LUCIA,

y her sometime pupils. CARRIE, )

MESSENGERS.