My Dear Sir, To you, in testimony of my regard for you, as a Statesman, a Scholar, and a Lover of the Fine Arts, do I dedicate this little volume. Had not my maiden effort in the world of letters been received by the public with such marked favor, I should not venture to publish again. The same motives, however, which prompted the first, have also prompted the present collection of my productions, and I desire no other reward than the one already bestowed upon me in the approving smile of honest and sincere hearts. As my title-page implies, I am now a professional Landscape Painter, my inclinations having compelled me to relinquish the "cotton trade and sugar line," and these letters, originally written to a literary friend in New York, are but the offspring of one who claims the only merit of being a lover of iv Nature and his fellow men. I confess myself to be a creature of impulse, and each paper that I now publish, I would have considered as a mere record of my thoughts and feelings during the hour it may have been indited. Having been a sojourner in various portions of the country during the past summer, in search of the picturesque, you must not be surprised to find yourself one moment scrambling through a mountain gorge, and the next on the margin of the boundless sea. With this preliminary, I lay aside my pen, and return to my palette and pencils. Your sincere friend, CHARLES LANMAN.
