Excerpt from "Crucible," Or Feathering a Mayor's Nest: A Mellow Drama All rights appertaining to the drama which follows are reserved - as much so as the contemporary Presidential candidates. The author will also, with the readers' permission, reserve his own opinion of his work. He is well aware that self praise, even when most deserved, is invariably received by all those to whom it is addressed - excepting, perhaps, too partial friends - with a very large number of grains of salt and a disrespect that is little short of brutal. He simply desires to remark that if the tragedy which he has created serves to raise the stage to a higher level, and to permanently close the controversy respecting its influence, he shall have considerably more than accomplished his purpose. He repeats it, considerably more. He would further state that his arrangements with his mercenary publishers are of such an exacting nature, that all Copies of the work which remain unsold on their hands will constitute the author's edition. The bearing of this remark lies in the application. Once again: This Drama is not a Collaboration, and is not to be confounded with a Collaboration of concurrent baptism. If confounded at all, it must be on its own demerits alone. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.