Tekst achterflap

THE history of the life of every individual who has, for any reason, attracted extensively the attention of mankind, has been written in a great variety of ways by a multitude of authors, and persons sometimes wonder why we should have so many different acco-unts of the same thing. The reason is, that each one of these accounts is intended for a different set of rea-ders, who read with ideas and purposes widely dissimi-lar from each other. Among the twenty millions of pe-ople in the United States, there are perhaps two milli-ons, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, who wish to become acquainted, in general, with the lea-ding events in the history of the Old World, and of an-cient times, but who, coming upon the stage in this land and at this period, have ideas and conceptions so widely different from those of other nations and of ot-her times, that a mere republication of existing acco-unts is not what they require. The story must be told expressly for them. The things that are to be explai-ned, the points that are to be brought out, the compa-rative degree of prominence to be given to the various particulars, will all be different.

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