[Gutenberg 4627] • The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

Excerpt from The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

Accompanying this volume, is a brief auto-biography. In circulating Mr. Arthur's Sketches of Life and Character, the publisher met so frequently with an expressed desire to know something of one whose writings had made him a gene ral favorite that he was led to solicit a personal sketch, to go with a new collection of his writings. It is but due to the author to say, that his concurrence in the matter was not without considerable reluctance. From this sketch it will be seen that Mr. Arthur is a self-made man, and that he has gained his present enviable position through long and patient labor, and against the pressure of much that was adverse and discouraging. In his elevation he has this pleasing re ection, that in seeking to gain a high place for himself, he has dragged no one down, but rather, sought to carry along, in his upward way, all who could be induced to go with him.

The portrait given in this volume, was engraved from one recently painted by Lambdin, and is considered a very good likeness. Mr. Arthur is now in his forty-second year, and looks somewhat younger than the artist has represented him.