away, because it is not equal to these. Whether the use I have made of supernatural agency, and the colouring I have given to the mind of Ernestus Berchtold, are original or not, I leave to the more erudite in novels and romances to declare. I am not conscious of having seen any where a prototype of either; yet I fear that whatever is original, is not always pleasing. Nor is this my only apprehension. A tale that rests upon improbabilities, must generally disgust a rational mind; I am therefore afraid that, though I have thrown the superior agency into the back ground as much as was in my power, still, that many readers will think the same moral, and the same colouring, might have been given to characters acting under the ordinary agencies
that they themselves would wish to make the amende honorable to the public, I allowed them to recall the letter which had lain some days at that paper’s office.
