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Cone cut corners. Benauly..
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CONE CUT CORNERS: THE EXPERIENCES OF A CONSERVATIVE FAMILY IN FANATICAL TIMES; INVOLVING SOME ACCOUNT OF A CONNECTICUT VILLAGE, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN IT, AND THOSE WHO CAME THERE FROM THE CITY.

BY

BENAULY

NEW YORK: MASON BROTHERS, 23 PARK ROW.

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by MASON BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. ELECTROTYED ELECTROTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 82 & 84 Beekman St. PRINTED BY JOHN A. GRAY, 97 Cliff St.

PREFACE.

READER, will you take a glass of bitters before dinner?

In other words, will you listen to a few words of serious conversation before a novel?

If you will, we shall be glad of the opportunity to say somewhat of the character and purpose of this work.

Cone Cut Corners is a story of American life. Its scenes lie in American cities and villages, and its moral is an American moral. It is hoped that the reader may find in it an introduction to many pleasant friends, and perhaps, become sufficiently acquainted to recognize them, if he should ever meet them hereafter in real life; and that he may from it derive some amusement, some instructive suggestion, some sympathy for those who are burdened page: iv-v[View Page iv-v] with their constitutional liberties, and some sources of confidence and hope in respect to the future of such.

But a story of American life can not safely ignore the faults and follies of American life; if it were to do so, its power to sanction the virtues, and the freshness and strength of that life, would fall to the ground.

And a story which has the teaching of truth for its object, can not safely forget that there is such a thing as error.

It is said that History is Philosophy teaching by example. In Fiction, it is sometimes necessary that Philosophy should teach by bad examples. There are, therefore, some bad examples exhibited in Cone Cut Corners; but the careful reader will find that Philosophy has always a purpose in their exhibition.

Let us also disavow any unkindly feeling in these memoirs. If any where the current of the narrative trenches upon delicate ground, if we have in any case too liberally employed actual and not yet forgotten incidents, or have too freely painted from living models, we trust that those who are sensitive to these features of the work, will not entirely condemn it on this account; since, after all, without these, the full lesson of the history could not have been evolved.

By way of more detailed explanation, it may be confessed that we anticipate some criticism from several of our friends and acquaintance.

Mrs. Stuccuppe will notice her name in these pages, as she turns over the new books in the course of some morning's shopping, a few weeks hence, and on that account will take the work home with her, and in the Stuccuppe family carriage;—oh! what an honor. But she will regard it as a low and even vulgar book; not, indeed, in a moral sense, but socially speaking, since it introduces her unawares to many rough country people, to tradesfolk, and to many of those lower orders who do labor for their living. Nor will any redeeming feature of the book be recognized in the Stuccuppe mansion, except that Mr. S. may commend the exposé here made of the hollowness of the Chesslebury estates, and of the manner in which that family maintained their pretensions to rank in the upper circles of society.

The ex-deacon, Mr. Ficksom, would probably never see the book, except that we shall send him a presentation copy. He will read it through, chiefly on Sunday afternoons, and pronounce it irreverent. page: vi-vii (Table of Contents) [View Page vi-vii (Table of Contents) ] We know he will say this, for we have noticed that the man who cats least of the kernel of the nut, always has most leisure to grit his teeth against the shell.

Miss Provy Pease will adjudge the whole a gossiping mass of rubbish;—and will take the greater interest in it on that very account.

Messrs. Bagglehall & Co. will denounce the book as personal and libelous; in which sentiment the late lamented Mr. Floric would undoubtedly join, had he been longer spared.

But Mr. Mayferrie—what will he say? He will read the volume with attention; it may bring a tear to his eye, but never a flush to his heart. For we know the nobility of his nature so well, that we already hear him saying, as he lays it down, borrowing the language of Mr. Rundle:—

"Do not spare my example, if it can do them good."

CONE CUT CORNERS, CONN., 1st June, 1855.

DIRECTORY TO CONE CUT CORNERS.

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