"For a long period of time the term 'romance' has been misunderstood. Romance was supposed to lie outside the regions of the ordinary occurrences of everyday life. There was a glamour about the word, a kind of lustre which lifted it above and beyond the commonplace features of human struggle. It was, as it were, a castle built upon an eminence, with spires, and turrets, and gables, whose points shone brightly in the sun; it was, as it were, a species of ideal garden in which grew only rare flowers and stately trees; or a land of enchantment peopled by knights in silver armor, and by dainty ladies flinging kisses to their lords and lovers as they rode forth to the tournament or the battle. This was the bygone notion of Romance, the false idea which, thanks in a great measure to our efforts, is now utterly exploded. It has been found and proved that the truest regions of romance lie in humble courts and alleys, where the commonest flowers grow, where the air is not perfumed by odorous blossoms, where people dwell not in turreted castle or stately palace, but in the humblest homes and narrowest spaces, where common fustian and dimity, not glittering armor and silken sheen, are the ordinary wear; where faces are thin and anxious from the daily cares of toil, where the battle is not for vast tracts of country worth millions, but for the daily loaf of bread worth fourpence halfpenny. It has been found and proved that the police courts are a veritable hot-bed in which romance is forever springing up. When we contemplate the shattering of old false idols and ideals, it would almost seem as if we were living in an age of topsy-turvydom, but the sober fact is that the world is healthfully setting itself right, and is daily and hourly stripping off the veneer which lay thick upon what have been ridiculously called the good old times. We were the first to practically recognize this truth, and we have done our best to make it popular. It is from lowly annals that we culled the romance of 'Great Porter Square,' and it is from somewhat similar annals that we cull the present 'Mystery of M. Felix.' The story will be found as strange as it is true. All the passions of human nature are expressed in it, and there is one episode at least--even up to the point which it has already reached--so singular and startling as to be absolutely unique.