EPILOGUE.
Now that the book is completed, a brief analysis of it may be given, with a few hints concerning the author's leading purpose. It was in a time of tedious recovery from serious illness, and while I lay in a perfectly helpless state, that the principal details of this work passed through my mind. When I found myself restored to health I made a prolonged stay at the scene of the strange opening, and stranger close, of the story. The exuberance of imagination which some may find in my work is at least excused by illustrious examples such as have been set by Virgil, Dante, Milton, or as may be found in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Vathek,' 'King Solomon's Mines,' and works of a similar class.
The Demon of the under-world has often been personified, and his appearance has been graphically described. In the Book of Job he is presented to us as a being capable of going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down in it; and the experience of poor Job testifies that he did not exercise himself in that way—which to us appears harmless and even commendable—for nothing. It is dreadful to reflect that, but for a merciful restraining influence, we are all at the mercy of this being. The great author of 'The Talisman' addresses some such potent individual, and asks;
'Say, hast thou feeling, sense, and form,
Thunder thy voice, thy garments storm,
As eastern magi say;
With sentient soul of hate and wrath,
And wings to sweep thy deadly path,
And fangs to tear thy prey?"
I have not given wings to my Demon, but presented him with a handsome balloon, worked by powerful machinery, and guided by a clever and obedient driver. I have not, it
