IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. COMPREHENDING OBSERVATIONS ON DOMESTIC HABITS AND MANNERS, RELIGION For not to know at large of things remote Is the prime wisdom, Milton The third American Edition, IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. New-York: Printed and sold by T. & J. Swords, PREFACE. WHEN I quitted home, on a little excursion in the spring of this present year, 1808, a thought struck me, which I began to put into immediate execution. I determined to commit to paper any little circumstances that might arise, and any conversations in which I might be engaged, when the subject was at all important, though there might be nothing particularly new or interesting in the discussion itself. I fulfilled my intention as occasions arose to furnish me with materials, and on my return to the north, in the autumn of this same year, it was my amusement on my journey to look over and arrange these papers. As soon as I arrived at my native place, I lent my manuscript to a confidential friend, as the shortest way of imparting to him whatever had occurred to me during our separation, together with my reflections on those occurrences. I took care to keep his expectations low, by apprizing him, that in a tour from my own house in Westmoreland, to the house of a friend in Hampshire, he must not look for adventures, but content himself with the every day details of common life, diversified only by the different habits and tempers of the persons with whom I had conversed. |