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Published: 2015-07-12

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9781331281955

Excerpt from Poetical Works of Alfred Osmond To appear before the public as an author is to expose one's self to just and unjust criticism of friends and foes. Though it would be absolutely impossible for me to be passively indifferent as to what may be said of the merits and demerits of my poems, still I am, I believe, reasonably well prepared to receive all kinds of criticism. I am too deeply interested in the cause of meritorious literature to have the slightest wish that anything that I have produced which would tend to tarnish or disgrace it should escape the fate that all such literature deserves. A man who will persist in cherishing evil within the chambers of his own heart, is unreasonable if he believes that success will crown the efforts that he may make to purify the hearts of others; and he who wishes praise for something that is only worthy of condemnation, because it happens to be a creation of his own, is more in love with himself than he is with the cause of truth. In justice to my own taste, I will state that I am cognizant of the fact that there are many very serious mistakes in this work. But I trust that I shall not be accused of being abnormally egotistical when I express a conviction that it never will, as a whole, be consumed in the fiery furnace of just and intelligent criticism. The only excuse that I am-desirous of offering at present for the mistakes referred to is that many of the following poems have been written under very unfavorable circumstances. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.