



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive









SILAS STRONG, EMPEROR OF THE WOODS

By Irving Bacheller

New York and London Harper and Brothers Publishers

1906

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TO MY FRIEND THE LATE ARCHER BROWN

in memory of summer days when we wandered far and sat down to rest by
springs and brooks in the doomed empire of Strong and talked of saving
it and of better times and knew not they were impossible.

Some of the people of these pages, when the author endeavored to
regulate their conduct according to well-known rules of literary
construction, declared themselves free and independent. When, urged by
him, they tried to speak and act in the fashion of most novels, they
laughed, and seemed to be ashamed of themselves, and with good reason.

They are slow, stubborn, modest, shy, and used to the open. Not for them
are the narrow stage, the swift action, the fine-wrought chain of artful
incident that characterize a modern romance.

Of late authors have succeeded rather well in turning people into
animals and animals into people. Why not, if one's art can perform
miracles? This book aims not to emulate or amend the work of the
Creator. Its people are just folks of a very old pattern, its animals
rather common and of small attainments. It is in no sense a literary
performance. It pretends to be nothing more than a simple account of
one summer's life, pretty much as it was lived, in a part of the
Adirondacks. It goes on about