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| Volume 4, Page 468
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vexation at his ill success. This will explain to milder natures, the
wondrous malediction with wh. he closes the Short Story. Still the
suspicion arises, from the anxious reference to "laying down the order
and sense of the story," that the ill arangement is due to design rather
than accident. How else could occur the interrupt. on p. 43, where the
parag. ends wiht the words "issue whereof is set down in the next,"
when we are unable to find the next, and connnect. thread for more than
fifteen pages onward, or a chasm of near one quarter of the surface of
the vol. Would not any ingenuous mind, on sec. reading, become suspicious
at the apparent anxiety express. in that "addr. to the Reader"
(whether spring. from fear or ill-will), lest the writer of the long preface,
might be thot. to have had too intimate connex. with the prodution of
the ensuing short story? Words are liable to misapprehens. we all
know, from carelessness or ignor. of him who uses them; but especially
when equivocat. is resolv. on; and in writing much more than in oral
speech, we wish for precision, not ambiguity. Yet an author's idea may
be mistaken when he intended to be punctiliously precise, tho. less frequent.
than if he be habitual. careless. His words convey sometimes
more, or others less than he intend. Of course two readers may obtain
from the same words quite dissimilar impressions. A recent example
will illustrate. In note 1, on p. 238 of Winthrop I. my first ed. 1825, I had
printed this remark. "The work has not, I presume, been often quoted
within a century." Of course the same words stand in the next ed.
1853. Citing this passage, the writer, careless or over cautious, of the
review in Geneal. Reg. 1854, adds, "and yet we know that it has been
very often quoted within a quarter of a century." On cursory perusal,
this may, in one man's opin. seem a contradiction; while a slower reader
would perhaps give it very differ. name. If the two readers call for
solution of the oracular ambiguity of the writer, prob. a short minute's
explanat. would make their judgments agree.
Now to conclude the point of priority of issue -- the fictitious titlepage
"Antinom. and Fam. condemn." assum. in Geneal. Reg. to be
"no doubt a printer's error," as if by fortuitous concourse of atoms, it
fell into that place, I had presum. to be unique, having only heard of the
single copy in the Coll. Libr. I have gain. recent knowl. of ano. copy
in the collection of Rev. Dr. Choules, since his d. together with his copy
of Short Story, dispers. by auction. Whatever value, more or less, was
then due to my infer. from the Coll. copy, as a device to cover Weld's
connect. with the Book, is of course doubled, and proportional. weaken.
is the assumpt. that it was "no doublt printer's error." Evidence positive,
is, also, obtain. that the Choules copy of Short Story, with the note
to Reader, Preface, and P. S. and ano. own. by Col. Aspinwall, whichever
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