Volume I Part 20 (1/2)

1855.

[Sidenote: Miss King.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday Evening, February 9th, 1855._

MY DEAR MISS KING,

I wish to get over the disagreeable part of my letter in the beginning.

I have great doubts of the possibility of publis.h.i.+ng your story in portions.

But I think it possesses _very great merit_. My doubts arise partly from the nature of the interest which I fear requires presentation as a whole, and partly on your manner of relating the tale. The people do not sufficiently work out their own purposes in dialogue and dramatic action. You are too much their exponent; what you do for them, they ought to do for themselves. With reference to publication in detached portions (or, indeed, with a reference to the force of the story in any form), that long stoppage and going back to possess the reader with the antecedents of the clergyman's biography, are rather crippling. I may mention that I think the boy (the child of the second marriage) a little too ”slangy.” I know the kind of boyish slang which belongs to such a character in these times; but, considering his part in the story, I regard it as the author's function to elevate such a characteristic, and soften it into something more expressive of the ardour and flush of youth, and its romance. It seems to me, too, that the dialogues between the lady and the Italian maid are conventional but not natural. This observation I regard as particularly applying to the maid, and to the scene preceding the murder. Supposing the main objection surmountable, I would venture then to suggest to you the means of improvement in this respect.

The paper is so full of good touches of character, pa.s.sion, and natural emotion, that I very much wish for a little time to reconsider it, and to try whether condensation here and there would enable us to get it say into four parts. I am not sanguine of this, for I observed the difficulties as I read it the night before last; but I am very unwilling, I a.s.sure you, to decline what has so much merit.

I am going to Paris on Sunday morning for ten days or so. I purpose being back again within a fortnight. If you will let me think of this matter in the meanwhile, I shall at least have done all I can to satisfy my own appreciation of your work.

But if, in the meantime, you should desire to have it back with any prospect of publis.h.i.+ng it through other means, a letter--the shortest in the world--from you to Mr. Wills at the ”Household Words” office will immediately produce it. I repeat with perfect sincerity that I am much impressed by its merits, and that if I had read it as the production of an entire stranger, I think it would have made exactly this effect upon me.

My dear Miss King, Very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: The same.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _24th February, 1855._

MY DEAR MISS KING,

I have gone carefully over your story again, and quite agree with you that the episode of the clergyman could be told in a very few lines.

Startling as I know it will appear to you, I am bound to say that I think the purpose of the whole tale would be immensely strengthened by great compression. I doubt if it could not be told more forcibly in half the s.p.a.ce.

It is certainly too long for ”Household Words,” and I fear my idea of it is too short for you. I am, if possible, more unwilling than I was at first to decline it; but the more I have considered it, the longer it has seemed to grow. Nor can I ask you to try to present it free from that objection, because I already perceive the difficulty, and pain, of such an effort.

To the best of my knowledge, you are wrong about the Lady at last, and to the best of my observation, you do not express what you explain yourself to mean in the case of the Italian attendant. I have met with such talk in the romances of Maturin's time--certainly never in Italian life.

These, however, are slight points easily to be compromised in an hour.

The great obstacle I must leave wholly to your own judgment, in looking over the tale again.

Believe me always, very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. M. Thackeray.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday Evening, 23rd March, 1855._

MY DEAR THACKERAY,[57]