d left a comrade for the
idle hours of all future ages. Other friends we have, then living, but
none so intimate or well beloved. Mr. Waller, whom Dorothy may have
known, Mr. Cowley, Sir Peter Lely,--who painted our heroine's
portrait,--and Dr. Jeremy Taylor; very courtly and superior persons are
some of these, and far removed from our world. Milton is too sublime to
be called our friend, but he was Cromwell's friend at this time. Evelyn,
too, is already making notes in his journal at Paris and elsewhere; but
little prattling Pepys has not yet begun diary-making. Other names will
come to the mind of every reader, but many of these are "people we know
by name," as the phrase runs, mere acquaintances,--not friends.
Nevertheless even these leave us some indirect description of their
time, from which we can look back through the mind's eye to this year of
grace 1653, in which Dorothy was living and writing. Yes, if we cannot
actually visualize the past, these letters will at least convince us
that the past did exist, a past not wholly unlike the present; and if we
would realize the significance of it, we have the word of one of our
historians, that there is no lamp by which to study the history of this
period that gives a brighter and more searching light than contemporary
letters. Thus he recommends their study, and we may apply his words to
the letters before us: "A man intent to force for himself some path
through that gloomy chaos called History of the Seventeenth Century, and
to look face to face upon the same, may perhaps try it by this method as
hopefully as by another. Here is an irregular row of beacon fires, once
all luminous as suns; and with a certain inextinguishable crubescence
still, in the abysses of the dead deep Night. Let us look here. In
shadowy outlines, in dimmer and dimmer crowding forms, the very figure
of the old dead Time itself may perhaps be faintly discernible here."

* * * * *

With this, I feel that I may cast off some of the forms and solemnities
necessary to an editorial introduction, and, assuming a simpler and more
personal pronoun, ask the reader, who shall feel the full charm of
Dorothy's bright wit and tender womanly sympathy, to remember the thanks
due to my fellow-servant, whose patient, single-hearted toil has placed
these letters within our reach. And when the reader shall close this
volume, let it not be without a feeling of gratitude to the unknown,