The Importance of a Custom House Sketch

The first time was three or four years since, when i favoured the reader inexcusably. Some authors indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy. To this extent, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical without violating either the reader's rights or his own. It will be seen likewise that this customs house sketch has a certain propriety of ind always recognized in literature as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession. Therein contained this desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or a very little more, of the most prolix among the tales