Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/12

 form, that the poor fellow was hovering on the borders of insanity.

I put aside that work and never thought of it again until lately, when being asked by my publishers whether I had no more marvels to relate, and replying in the negative, suddenly the association of ideas brought back to my mind this story of Pedro's; which if marvels are at a premium in the literary market should surely command a sale. As to credibility—but there, I will say nothing on that head. The question of publication gave me much trouble to decide. It was not merely that the book would have to be translated, and while on the one hand I was unwilling to trust the translation to any pen but my own, on the other my Spanish had grown rusty by twenty year's disuse; though this difficulty was formidable enough. What troubled me more was the moral question,—Had I the right to give to the world, however greedy of wonders it might be, a production so calculated to pander to that morbid taste? Was it