The Emancipation of Massachusetts

I wrote this little volume more than thirty years ago, since when I have hardlyopened it. Therefore I now read it almost as if it were written by another man, andI find to my relief that, on the whole, I think rather better of it than I did when Ipublished it. Indeed, as a criticism of what were then the accepted views ofMassachusetts history, as expounded by her most authoritative historians, I seenothing in it to retract or even to modify. I do, however, somewhat regret therather acrimonious tone which I occasionally adopted when speaking of the moreconservative section of the clergy. Not that I think that the Mathers, forexample, and their like, did not deserve all, or, indeed, more than all I ever said orthought of them, but because I conceive that equally effective strictures mighthave been conveyed in urbaner language; and, as I age, I shrink from anything akinto invective, even in what amounts to controversy.