e the wildest fictionist
for the most extravagant adventure--the more improbable, the nearer
truth. Talk of the devil, said our ancestors--let "&c." save us from the
consequence. Think of any thing vehemently, and it is an even chance it
happens: be confident, you conquer; be obstinate in willing, and events
shall bend humbly to their lord: nay, dream a dream, and if you
recollect it in the morning, and it bother you next day, and you cannot
get it out of your head for a week, and the matter positively haunt you,
ten to one but it finds itself or makes itself fulfilled, some odd day
or other. Just so, doubtless, will it prove to be with Roger's dream: I
really cannot help the matter.

Again, it is more than likely that the reader is clever, very clever,
and that any attempts at concealment would be merely futile. From the
first page he has discovered who is the villain, and who the victim: the
title alone tells him of the golden hinge on which the story turns: he
can look through stone walls, if need be, or mesmerically see, without
making use of eyes: no peep-holes for him, as for Pyramus and Thisbe: no
initiation requisite for any hidden mysteries; all arcana are revealed
to him, every sanctum is a highway. No art of mortal pen can defeat this
mischief of acuteness: character is character; oaks grow of acorns, and
the plan of a life may be detected in a microscopic speech. The career
of Mr. Jennings is as much predestined by us to iniquity, from the first
intimation that he never makes excuse, as honest Roger is to trouble
and temptation from the weary effort wherewithal he woke. And, even now,
pretty Grace and young Sir John, the reader thinks that he can guess at
nature's consequence; while, with respect to Roger's going forth to dig
this morning, he sees it straight before him, need not ask for the
result. Well, if the shrewd reader has the eye of Lieuenhoeeck, and can
discern, cradled in the small triangular beech-mast, a noble
forest-tree, with silvery trunk, branching arms, and dark-green foliage,
he deserves to be complimented indeed, for his own keen skill; but, at
the same time, Nature will not hurry herself for him, but will quietly
educe results which he foreknew--or thought he did--a century ago. And
is there not the highest Art in this unveiled simplicity: to lead the
reader onwards by a straight road, with the setting sun a-blaze at the
end of it, knowing his path, knowing its object, yet still borne on w