Elsie Venner | Page 4

in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of
publication of the chapter he is examining.
In calling this narrative a "romance," the Author wishes to make sure of
being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. Through
all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may be detected
lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He has used this
doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story without pledging his
absolute belief in it to the extent to which it is asserted or implied. It
was adopted as a convenient medium of truth rather than as an accepted

scientific conclusion. The reader must judge for himself what is the
value of various stories cited from old authors. He must decide how
much of what has been told he can accept either as having actually
happened, or as possible and more or less probable. The Author must
be permitted, however, to say here, in his personal character, and as
responsible to the students of the human mind and body, that since this
story has been in progress he has received the most startling
confirmation of the possibility of the existence of a character like that
which he had drawn as a purely imaginary conception in Elsie Venner.
BOSTON, January, 1861.

A SECOND PREFACE.
This is the story which a dear old lady, my very good friend, spoke of
as "a medicated novel," and quite properly refused to read. I was
always pleased with her discriminating criticism. It is a medicated
novel, and if she wished to read for mere amusement and helpful
recreation there was no need of troubling herself with a story written
with a different end in view.
This story has called forth so many curious inquiries that it seems
worth while to answer the more important questions which have
occurred to its readers.
In the first place, it is not based on any well-ascertained physiological
fact. There are old fables about patients who have barked like dogs or
crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded by those animals.
There is nothing impossible in the idea that Romulus and Remus may
have imbibed wolfish traits of character from the wet nurse the legend
assigned them, but the legend is not sound history, and the supposition
is nothing more than a speculative fancy. Still, there is a limbo of
curious evidence bearing on the subject of pre-natal influences
sufficient to form the starting-point of an imaginative composition.
The real aim, of the story was to test the doctrine of "original sin" and
human responsibility for the disordered volition coming under that
technical denomination. Was Elsie Venner, poisoned by the venom of a
crotalus before she was born, morally responsible for the "volitional"
aberrations, which translated into acts become what is known as sin,
and, it may be, what is punished as crime? If, on presentation of the
evidence, she becomes by the verdict of the human conscience a proper

object of divine pity and not of divine wrath, as a subject of moral
poisoning, wherein lies the difference between her position at the bar of
judgment, human or divine, and that of the unfortunate victim who
received a moral poison from a remote ancestor before he drew his first
breath?
It might be supposed that the character of Elsie Veneer was suggested
by some of the fabulous personages of classical or mediaeval story. I
remember that a French critic spoke of her as cette pauvre Melusine. I
ought to have been ashamed, perhaps, but I had, not the slightest idea
who Melusina was until I hunted up the story, and found that she was a
fairy, who for some offence was changed every Saturday to a serpent
from her waist downward. I was of course familiar with Keats's Lamia,
another imaginary being, the subject of magical transformation into a
serpent. My story was well advanced before Hawthorne's wonderful
"Marble Faun," which might be thought to have furnished me with the
hint of a mixed nature,--human, with an alien element,--was published
or known to me. So that my poor heroine found her origin, not in fable
or romance, but in a physiological conception fertilized by a
theological dogma.
I had the dissatisfaction of enjoying from a quiet corner a well- meant
effort to dramatize "Elsie Veneer." Unfortunately, a physiological
romance, as I knew beforehand, is hardly adapted for the melodramatic
efforts of stage representation. I can therefore say, with perfect truth,
that I was not disappointed. It is to the mind, and not to the senses, that
such a story must appeal, and all attempts to render the character and
events objective on the stage, or to make them real by artistic
illustrations, are almost of necessity failures. The story has won