Summerfield or, Life on a Farm

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "GOLDEN STEPS," &c.

Works of fiction are to be approved when they subserve the interests of morality and religion. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments—the ancient classics—the most distinguished productions of modern ages—afford striking illustrations of the beautiful and instructive lessons of virtue and piety, which may be conveyed in fabulous narration. The Parables of the Saviour; Milton's Paradise Lost; Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, are samples of salutary and saving truth exhibited in stories of the imagination.

I have made myself familiar with the contents of the following tale, from the manuscript copy. The aim of the author is of the highest description. He endeavors to instil into the minds of his readers a lesson of the utmost practical importance, intimately connected with the experience of every-day life. He would instruct them of the wisdom of being contented with a useful and productive occupation, which is honorable in its character, healthful in its nature, and conducive to the welfare of society, rather than to aspire to callings, not so laborious perhaps, yet more deceptive and uncertain in substantial remuneration, and far less calculated to promote public good.

This object the author successfully accomplishes. No reader can arise from a perusal of his pages, without feeling a higher respect for such pursuits as benefit the world, and a stronger inclination to avoid the more showy and worthless callings into which too many are disposed to crowd. The story is most happily conceived, and is narrated in a style highly finished and attractive. There is nothing insipid or over-wrought, in the frame-work or filling up; but all is natural and lifelike. The witty, the lively, the startling, are finely interwoven with the more grave and instructive. A fertile and vivid imagination has enabled the author to bring characters upon his stage which represent almost every phase in human nature, and to indulge in personal and scenic descriptions, whether in painting a landscape, or delineating some humorous or some noble quality of the heart, of the most charming character. The reader is enamored with the quiet enjoyments of rural life, and disgusted with the schemes of hackneyed sharpers. A high moral tone runs throughout the narrative. Vice is rebuked and punished—virtue is commended and rewarded. The idle, the vicious, the unprincipled schemer and deceiver, are painted to the life, and placed in such a light, as to act as examples of warning to the inexperienced, while the industrious, the wise and good, stand forth in the true nobleness of their nature, to the admiration of all.

To those who would discountenance the puerile and trashy novels, full of debasing and licentious tendencies, with which our country is flooded, I would earnestly recommend this work. It can be placed in the hands of the youthful not only with safety, but with the utmost confidence that it will exert a highly salutary influence upon them....