he should master at least half the ascent of "the Hill of
Difficulty;" that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a
lady of rank. As Adam's son he should share Adam's doom, and
drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.

In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general
scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked something
more imaginative and poetical--something more consonant with a
highly wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments
more tender, elevated, unworldly. Indeed, until an author has
tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind, he can never know
what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he
would not have suspected of casketing such treasures. Men in
business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the
idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference for
the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling, and
harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober
surface.

Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have
reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative
must have gone through some struggles--which indeed it has. And
after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come
but it takes comfort--subdues fear--leans on the staff of a
moderate expectation--and mutters under its breath, while
lifting its eye to that of the public,

"He that is low need fear no fall."

CURRER BELL.