the circle of your friends in the world of fiction--or whether you will
hurry through the narrative, and only discover on a later reading that
it is the characters which have interested you in the story--remains to
be seen. Either way, your sympathy will find me grateful; for, either
way, my motive has been to please you.

During its periodical publication correspondents, noting certain
passages in "Heart and Science," inquired how I came to think of
writing this book. The question may be readily answered in better words
than mine. My book has been written in harmony with opinions which have
an indisputable claim to respect. Let them speak for themselves.

SHAKESPEARE'S OPINION.--"It was always yet the trick of our
English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common."
_(King Henry IV., Part II.)_

WALTER SCOTT'S OPINION--"I am no great believer in the extreme
degree of improvement to be derived from the advancement of Science;
for every study of that nature tends, when pushed to a certain extent,
to harden the heart." _(Letter to Miss Edgeworth.)_

FARADAY'S OPINION.--"The education of the judgment has for its
first and its last step--Humility." _(Lecture on Mental Education, at
the Royal Institution.)_

Having given my reasons for writing the book, let me conclude by
telling you what I have kept out of the book.

It encourages me to think that we have many sympathies in common; and
among them, that most of us have taken to our hearts domestic pets.