My Library

of romance, that is to say, are tales of fiction founded on a basis of fact, the superstructure being ten thousand times larger than the foundations would justify, provided things went at their proper value and importance. How, then, through the mesmeric force, do you expect to dive beneath this superincumbent ocean of fancy, and fetch up what few grains of truth yet sparkle at the bottom? Can you answer me that?’ “Ravalette smiled, gazed sorrowfully at me, and then went on— “ ‘Believe me, my excellent young friend, that Mesmerism is a fine thing for inducing a “superior condition,” enabling one to write books which send their readers to suicides’ graves; to discover the art of marrying other people’s spouses; for procuring “Air-line” dispatches, and filling lunatic asylums with poor reason-bereft creatures; for stultifying a man’s conscience, and for emboldening one to pass for a philosopher when one is but an ass!’ and Ravalette smiled gravely. ‘Distrust all mesmeric railways,’ said he, ‘for many of the passengers, like Andrew Jackson Davis, after riding on that train for many years, have landed either in the swamps and mires of fantasy, or on the sides of moonshine mountains, called “Mornia,” and “Hornia,” “Forlornia,” and “Starnos,” and “Sternas,” and “Cor,” and “Hor,” and “Bore,” “Gupturion,” and “Spewrion,” and forty thousand more!’