University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

This tale was published in successive parts
in the “Atlantic Monthly,” under the name of
“The Professor's Story,” the first number having
appeared in the third week of December,
1859. The critic who is curious in coincidences
must refer to the Magazine for the date of publication
of the Chapter he is examining.

In calling this narrative a “romance,” the Author
wishes to make sure of being indulged in
the common privileges of the poetic license.
Through all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific
doctrine may be detected lying beneath
some of the delineations of character. He has
used this doctrine as a part of the machinery
of his story without pledging his absolute belief
in it to the extent to which it is asserted
or implied. It was adopted as a convenient
medium of truth rather than as an accepted
scientific conclusion. The reader must judge

for himself what is the value of various stories
cited from old authors. He must decide how
much of what has been told he can accept,
either as having actually happened, or as possible
and more or less probable. The Author
must be permitted, however, to say here, in his
personal character, and as responsible to the students
of the human mind and body, that since
this story has been in progress he has received
the most startling confirmation of the possibility
of the existence of a character like that which
he had drawn as a purely imaginary conception
in Elsie Venner.