[Footnote: It
was on the publication of these, her first two works, in the German
language that the authoress was honored with being made a lady of the
Chapter of St. Joachim, and received the gold cross of the order from
Wirtemburg.]
"Thaddeus of Warsaw" being the first essay, in the form of such an
association between fact and fancy, was published by its author with
a natural apprehension of its reception by the critical part of the
public. She had not, indeed, written it with any view to publication,
but from an almost resistless impulse to embody the ideas and
impressions with which her heart and mind were then full. It was
written in her earliest youth; dictated by a fervent sympathy with
calamities which had scarcely ceased to exist, and which her eager
pen sought to portray; and it was given to the world, or rather to
those who might feel with her, with all the simple-hearted enthusiasm
which saw no impediment when a tale of virtue or of pity was to be
told.
In looking back through the avenue of life to that time, what events
have occurred, public and private, to the countries and to the
individuals named in that tale! to persons of even as lofty names and
excellences, of our own and other lands, who were mutually affected
with me in admiration and regret for the virtues and the sorrows
described! In sitting down now to my retrospective task, I find
myself writing this, my second preface to the story of "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," just thirty years from the date of its first publication.
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