HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 



The Argument* 



IT will be perceived by the reader who has been 

 kind enough to follow me thus far, that this 

 book neither professes to be wholly practical, nor 

 jet wholly fanciful. It is if I may use a profes 

 sional expression the fruit from a graft of the fan 

 ciful, set upon the practical ; and this is a style of 

 grafting which is of more general adoption in the 

 world than we are apt to imagine. Commercial life 

 is not wholly free from this easy union, nor yet the 

 clerical. All speculative forays, whether in the 

 southern seas or on the sea of metaphysics, are to be 

 credited to the graft Fancy ; and all routine, whether 

 of ledger or of liturgy, go to the stock-account of the 

 Practical. Nor is the last necessarily always profit, 

 and the other always loss. There are, I am sure, a 



