From what you say of the prevailing taste in literature, I cannot flatter you with the hope that you will gain much by the undertaking.

And I tell you beforehand that you will find it not a little laborious." "Is your work a romance ?" "It is a romance, and it is not a romance.

It is a truth for those who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who cannot." At last there arrived the manuscripts, with a brief note from my deceased friend, reminding me of my imprudent promise.
With mournful interest, and yet with eager impatience, I opened the packet and trimmed my lamp.

Conceive my dismay when I found the whole written in an unintelligible cipher.

I present the reader with a specimen: (Several strange characters.) and so on for nine hundred and forty mortal pages in foolscap.