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sought "might lie between"-it professing to be that mysterious point between mind and matter, too material in its effects to be all mind, and too subtile to be all matter!

Seriously, a particular circumstance brought the subject under my consideration in a very striking and a very startling point of view; and if the reference I have given must not necessarily prove more satisfactory than any assertion from an anonymous writer, I assure my readers that "I could a tale unfold," the slightest word of which would justify me for making the theory the foundation of a novel! -Still, justification falls so far short of approbation, and accquittal of applause, that I had no sooner attained the object of my ambition -an unhacknied subject, than I began to fear that it was too foreign to English sympathies, and that I should only draw upon myself that ridicule with which the subject has hitherto been treated here. Against this, the only defence I have to offer (without again

referring to the testimony of foreign but enlightened nations) is, that since a learned body has not disdained to make animal magnetism a subject of investigation, surely it should not be considered as beneath the dignity of a novel. But a truce to hopes and fears-to arguments and reasonings; I have launched my little bark on the tide of public opinion, and all I can say now in its favour will indeed be talking to the winds. The public breath alone can swell my sails, and as I have left the cape of good hope far behind me, I now equally dread the dead calm of neglect, or the storms of harsh criticism, and put my trust in the trade winds; praying, that instead of "blasts from hell" to damn my humble venture, they may prove "airs from heaven" to waft me "unto the wished-for haven of my bliss."

VANDELEUR.

CHAPTER I.

Tis not the painted canvass I admire,
However curiously the hues are blent ;
I seek the magic touch of living fire,
That needs no guide to tell us what is meant.
ANONYMOUS.

My friends and acquaintances consider me particularly deficient in what is commonly called "a taste for drawing;" which "taste" being rather prevalent in our family, the imputed want of it has been a source of not unfrequent mortification to me in my younger days. The half pettish, half contemptuous exclamation, "Oh no! not to her, she does not care for it, she has no taste for drawing," of some young

VOL. I.

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companion who had just suffered a pretty sketch to be wrested with gentle violence from her hands, and by thus excluding one poor luckless wight from the privilege of seeing it, at once affected displeasure, and gave permission to have it shown to all others, still rings in my ear; and I see myself seated at a little distance from the speakers, with book in hand, over the blazing fire, and shaking the foot that lay over the other, with all the nonchalance I could assume, sufficiently conscious of my own moral deficiency on the subject not to challenge the declaration made against me, yet sufficiently indignant at the wanton affront, to feel my cheek colour as much as the previous good offices of the fire would permit to become visible. And so poignant was my feeling on these occasions, that, when afterwards emancipated from the sweet thralls of home and childhood, I determined to try whether it was not possible for me, by industry and perseverance, to overcome this plaguespot in my education: but no, it would not do.

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