History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield ...

Miscellaneous Notes. 253
Thus we travelled eighteen miles a stage, sometimes obliged to
get out and help the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire
or rut, and arriving in New York after a week's hard travelling,
[from Boston] wondering at the ease as well as the expedition
with which our journey was effected." Of course all the difficulties
and disasters of the way were compensated for by the happy
termination of the wooing. But the poor shoe-manufacturer
was too often compelled to travel the route with misgivings that
were not to be thus satisfactorily relieved.
Perplexities and Duties of Authorship. In the Preface
to the 1865 editon of our History, a word is said about the labor
and perplexity attending the preparation of a work for the press,
especially one in which a multitude of dates and facts appear.
Dr. Livingstone, in the preface to his South African Researches
says :
" Those who have never carried a book through the press
can form no idea of the amount of toil it involves." The toil,
however, is not so great as the anxiety a careful author must
feel to have his statements correct. Dates and facts are not
always so readily obtained as the inexperienced may imagine.
We remember that once, after a fruitless search for a certain date
the thought occurred that it might be found on a grave-stone in
the Old Burying Ground. The printer's call for " copy " was
imperative ; and so, on a dreary winter night, borrowing a
lantern of the undertaker and receiving his comforting caution
to beware lest a bullet, intended by some wary watchman for a
body-snatcher, should suddenly put a period to the search, we
entered the ground, found the stone, and after scraping away
the snow, were rewarded by finding the object searched for.
This is given only as an illustration of what is often necessary
to ensure accuracy, and to bespeak indulgence for trifling errors.
In the Preface first mentioned, too, a word is said about the
redundant, inappropriate, and often ridiculous use of titles in
which we Americans indulge. The writer has been somewhat
sparing in the use of the titular pepper-box, believing that such
free application of nominal distinctions seldom adds to the dignity
of a name, though sometimes useful for identification. Horace
Smith defines "Esquire" as "a title very much in use by vulgar
people." But on this subject nothing further need be said here.