An Epistle to Posterity/Frontmatter
Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers.
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All rights reserved.
I Dedicate this Book
TO MY SONS
SAMUEL SHERWOOD
AND
ARTHUR MURRAY SHERWOOD
Ita, filii mei dilectissimi, vivitote ut majoribus vestris decori
sitis, posteri vero memoria vestra glorientur et honestentur
PREFACE
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Rousseau once sent to Voltaire an ode addressed to Posterity.
"Voici une lettre qui n'arrivera jamais à son adresse," said Voltaire, in his cruel way.
Perhaps this should discourage me from attempting to collect my rambling recollections under a title which is stolen from Petrarch; but I am encouraged by thinking that Petrarch will not care for this transparent appropriation of his forgotten title, and I am sure that I shall not care if Posterity never receives my letter. I shall not be here to watch for an answer.
And yet I shall be glad if a record of the changeful times in which I have lived gives pleasure to any one who reads my book now, or to those who come after me. It has been a remarkable era. Progress has harnessed several new steeds to her car since I started to travel onward. Life is much more full of comfort now than it has ever been. Some one asks, Is not life stifled in appliances? Are we any happier than our ancestors were? Is a single day of Europe worth a cycle of Cathay? Have we not taken on some neuralgias and malarias and nervous prostrations? I leave that question for Posterity to answer, and I am rather glad that I shall not be responsible for the reply.
But I will answer Mallock's question, "Is life worth living?" in the affermative. I have found it eminently so. Life has been an enjoyable experiment, and amusing, in spite of its sorrows and disappointments. Life is a success if we can work and laugh. It has been a perpetual pleasure to me to see luxury march on with giant tread; to watch the great city of New York grow; to welcome art and beauty into our houses; to see the statues and the buildings improve in every decade. It has even been a pleasure (the sure accompaniment of advancing years) to say, "Oh, we had greater geniuses on the stage and in the forum, and greater beauties at the balls, in the old time!" That gentle murmur of complaint is, however, lost in the magnificent march of the coming centuries. Quite worth while it is to have seen the transition period.