The descriptions and opinions came hot
on to the paper from their causes. I will not say that this is the
best way of writing a book intended to give accurate information.
But it is the best way of producing to the eye of the reader, and
to his ear, that which the eye of the writer has seen and his ear
heard. There are two kinds of confidence which a reader may have
in his author,--which two kinds the reader who wishes to use his
reading well should carefully discriminate. There is a confidence
in facts and a confidence in vision. The one man tells you accurately
what has been. The other suggests to you what may, or perhaps what
must have been, or what ought to have been. The former require simple
faith. The latter calls upon you to judge for yourself, and form
your own conclusions. The former does not intend to be prescient,
nor the latter accurate. Research is the weapon used by the former;
observation by the latter. Either may be false,--wilfully false; as
also may either be steadfastly true. As to that, the reader must
judge for himself. But the man who writes currente calamo, who
works with a rapidity which will not admit of accuracy, may be as
true, and in one sense as trustworthy, as he who bases every word
upon a rock of facts. I have written very much as I have, travelled
about; and though I have been very inaccurate, I have always
written the exact truth as I saw it ;--and I have, I think, drawn
my pictures correctly.
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