PREFACE.
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F late years my enemies have driven me to
conclude that fixed truths are stumbling
blocks to the consummation of established
usages and modernized human life. Whenever I have advertised a lecture, sermon, book or
apparatus of a useful, scientific character, I have had
only a few patrons; but, when I made an impression,
by my advertisements, that I was going into the veriest mysteries of human nature, was going to teach the
public how to enjoy the feeling propensities without
danger of exposition, was going to shake the devil by
his horns and knock particular thunder out of ordinary things, I have always had an abundance of customers!
Therefore I have drawn a heavy picture in the novel before us; and, whilst all phases of humanity are portrayed, I think I have not overstepped the modesty of nature, nor left any thing undone to satiate all classes of people; whilst sensation, history, comedy and tragedy loom up truthfully, and I hope to the
