sentir) the truth that there is another happiness, another
wisdom, another perfection, at once above the greatest human
happiness, above the highest wisdom, or intellectual and moral
perfection of which the human being is susceptible." (2)

Now, as Philosophy and Romance both take their origin in the Principle
of Wonder, so in the "Strange Story" submitted to the Public it will be
seen that Romance, through the freest exercise of its wildest vagaries,
conducts its bewildered hero towards the same goal to which Philosophy
leads its luminous Student, through far grander portents of Nature, far
higher visions of Supernatural Power, than Fable can yield to Fancy.
That goal is defined in these noble words:--

"The relations (rapports) which exist between the elements and the
products of the three lives of Man are the subjects of meditation,
the fairest and finest, but also the most difficult. The Stoic
Philosophy shows us all which can be most elevated in active life;
but it makes abstraction of the animal nature, and absolutely fails
to recognize all which belongs to the life of the spirit.
Its practical morality is beyond the forces of humanity. Christianity
alone embraces the whole Man. It dissimulates none of the sides of
his nature, and avails itself of his miseries and his weakness in
order to conduct him to his end in showing him all the want that he
has of a succor more exalted." (3)

In the passages thus quoted, I imply one of the objects for which this
tale has been written; and I cite them, with a wish to acknowledge one
of those priceless obligations which writings the lightest and most
fantastic often incur to reasoners the most serious and profound.

But I here construct a romance which should have, as a romance, some
interest for the general reader. I do not elaborate a treatise submitted
to the logic of sages. And it is only when "in fairy fiction drest" that
Romance gives admission to "truths severe."

I venture to assume that none will question my privilege to avail
myself of the marvellous agencies which have ever been at the legitimate
command of the fabulist.

To the highest form of romantic narrative, the Epic, critics, indeed,
have declared that a supernatural machinery is indispensable. That the
Drama has availed itself of the same license as the Epic, it would be
unnecessary to say to the countrymen of Shakspeare, or to the generation
th