THE event on which this fiction is founded has
been supposed, by Dr.
Darwin, and some of the
physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible
occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotest
degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming
it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself
as merely weaving a series of
supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the
story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of
spectres or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the
situations which it developes; and, however impossible as a
physical fact, affords a point
of view to the imagination for the delineating of human
passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the
ordinary relations of existing events can yield.
I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary
principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to
innovate upon their combinations. The Iliad, the
tragic poetry of Greece, Shakespeare, in the Tempest and
Midsummer Night's Dream and most especially Milton, in
Paradise Lost, conform to this rule; and the most humble
novelist, who seeks to confer or receive amusement from his labours, may, without
presumption, apply to prose fiction a licence, or rather a rule,
from the adoption of which so many exquisite combinations of
human feeling have resulted in the highest specimens of
poetry.
