BOSTON, January, 1861.




A SECOND PREFACE.

This is the story which a dear old lady, my very good friend, spoke of as
"a medicated novel," and quite properly refused to read. I was always
pleased with her discriminating criticism. It is a medicated novel, and
if she wished to read for mere amusement and helpful recreation there was
no need of troubling herself with a story written with a different end in
view.

This story has called forth so many curious inquiries that it seems worth
while to answer the more important questions which have occurred to its
readers.

In the first place, it is not based on any well-ascertained physiological
fact. There are old fables about patients who have barked like dogs or
crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded by those animals. There
is nothing impossible in the idea that Romulus and Remus may have imbibed
wolfish traits of character from the wet nurse the legend assigned them,
but the legend is not sound history, and the supposition is nothing more
than a speculative fancy. Still, there is a limbo of curious evidence
bearing on the subject of pre-natal influences sufficient to form the
starting-point of an imaginative composition.

The real aim, of the story was to test the doctrine of "original sin" and