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
that is yet studying the enigmas of Goethe's "Faust." Prose Romance has
immemorially asserted, no less than the Epic or the Drama, its heritage
in the Realm of the Marvellous. The interest which attaches to the
supernatural is sought in the earliest Prose Romance which modern times
take from the ancient, and which, perhaps, had its origin in the lost
Novels of Miletus; [4] and the right to invoke such interest has, ever
since, been maintained by Romance through all varieties of form and
fancy,--from the majestic epopee of "Telemaque" to the graceful fantasies
of "Undine," or the mighty mockeries of "Gulliver's Travels" down to