THE PREFACE HE writings of the Transcendentalists of New England have been from youth of especial interest to me. An investigation of the phenomena of New-England Transcendentalism was instigated by a reading of the chapter on Transcendentalism in Professor Barrett Wendell's Literary History of America. The idea of making a specialty of the French influence in its relation to New-England Transcendentalism as a subject for a doctorate thesis was intimated to me by Professor LeB. R. Briggs, Dean of the Harvard University faculty. Thanks for assistance in the course of actually drawing up the dissertation are due-first, to Dr. Albert Lefevre, professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia, for valuable suggestions concerning the definition of Transcendentalism; next, to Dr. R. H. Wilson and adjunct-professor Dr. E. P. Dargan, of the department of Romance Languages at the University of Virginia, for kind help in the work of revision and correction, and, finally, to Dr. Charles W. Kent, professor at the head of the department of English at the University of Virginia, for general supervision of my work on the thesis. In the work of compiling and writing the thesis I have been swayed by two motives: first, the purpose to gather by careful research and investigation certain definite facts concerning the French philosophers and the Transcendental movement in New England; and, secondly, the desire to set forth the information amassed in a cursory and readable style. APRIL 15, 1908. W. L. L. |