[Footnote 68: This was published in _facsimile_ from the Original MS. in _The Archivist and Autograph Review_, edited by S. Davey, F.R.S.L.--June, 1888. [H.]] On this view of the grandeur which belongs to the passion of Sexual Love in the economy of life, as it is and as it may be, Novels have an all-sufficient justification; and Novel-readers are obeying a higher and more philosophic impulse than they are aware of. They seek an imaginary world where the harsh hindrances, which in the real one too often fret and disturb the 'course of true love,' may be forced to bend to the claims of justice and the pleadings of the heart. In company with the agitations and the dread suspense--the anguish and the tears, which so often wait upon the uncertainties of earthly love, they demand at the hands of the Novelist a final event corresponding to the natural award of celestial wisdom and benignity. What they are striving after, in short, is--to realize an ideal; and to reproduce the actual world under more harmonious arrangements. This is the secret craving of the reader; and Novels are shaped to meet it. With what success, is a separate and independent question: the execution cannot prejudice the estimate of their aim and essential purpose. Fair and unknown Owner of this Album, whom perhaps I have never seen--whom perhaps I never _shall_ see, pardon me for wasting two pages of your elegant manual upon this semi-metaphysical disquisition. Let the subject plead my excuse. And believe that I am, Fair Incognita! Your faithful servant, THOMAS DE QUINCEY. _Professor Wilson's--Glocester Place, Edinburgh._ _Friday night, December 3, 1830._ DE QUINCEY'S PORTRAIT. The only one which can be considered satisfactory is that of which a copy is prefixed to these Volumes. It is from a steel engraving by Frank Croll, taken at Edinburgh from a daguerreotype by Howie in 1850. DE QUINCEY'S own opinion of it is expressed to me in the amusing letter which was published in _The Instructor_ (New Series, vol. vi. p. 145). TO THE EDITOR OF _THE INSTRUCTOR_. _September 21, 1850._