Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

INTRODUCTION. ix
the country by the publication of her noble "Appeal
in behalf of that Class of Americans called Africans.'
It, is quite impossible for any one of the present generation to imagine the popular surprise and indignation which the book called forth, or how entirely its
author cut herself off from the favor and sympathy
of a large number of those who had previously delighted to do her honor. Social and literary circles,
which had been proud of her presence, closed their
doors against her. The sale of her books, the subscriptions to her matgazine, fell off to a ruinous extent. She knew all she was hazarcling, and made the
great sacrifice, prepared for all the consequences which
followed. In the prefa:ce to her book she says, "I
amll fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have
uindertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure,
I do notfear them. A few years hence, the opinion
of the world wvill be a nlatter in which I have not,
even the most transient interest; bat this book will
be abroad on its mission of humanity long after the
band that wrote it is mingling with the dust. Should
it be the means of aldvancinc, even one single hour,
the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I -would
not exchatnge the consciousness for all Rothschild's
wealth or Sir AWialter's fame."
Thenceforth her life was a battle; a constant roving hard against the stream of popular prejudice and
hatred. And1 thrLough it all-pecuniary privation,
loss of friends and position, the painfulness of being
suddenlv thrust from " the still air of delightful studie s" into the bitterest and sternest controversy of the
age —she bore herself with patience, fortitude, and
unshaken reliance upon the justice and ultimate triumph of the cause she had espoused. Her pen was