Excerpt from Leisure Hours: A Selection of Short Poems and Miscellaneous Scraps
Although it has of late become fashionable among authors, to attribute the publication of their works to the earnest and repeated solicitations of a host of friends, I regret that I cannot conform myself to the general rule of etiquette on this point. My only apology for intruding myself, or rather my work, on the public is, that, as the first edition of my poems met with a considerable success, the second, I hope, may receive equal, if not greater, favor from the public.
Tastes differ with individuals; one delights in the description of a battle field, another reads with pleasure anything relating to the picturesque. To please all is an impossibility; to try, therefore, to do so, would be a mistake, and one must be satisfied, as I am at present, with the consciousness that he has done all that laid in his power to please himself. Of course, therein I have not incurred censure, for such is the precept of wisdom. It may be asked why nearly all my poems relate in some way, either directly or indirectly, to Nova Scotia. I deem this a sufficient answer; it is the place of my birth.
"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said.
This is my own, my natrve land."
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