Volume I Part 34 (1/2)
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Hotel d'Odessa, Spezzia, _May_ 2, 1863.
”I hasten to answer and thank you for your letter. I am glad you like the line I have taken on Italy. I believe it to be the true one, and I know that it is, so far, new.
”As to my story, I'd give you my whole plan in detail at once but for this reason, which you will acknowledge to be good--that the very moment I revealed it I should be obliged to invent another! To such an extent do I labour under this unfortunate disability, that in my own family no one ever questions me as to the issue of any tale I am engaged on, well knowing that once I have discussed, I should be obliged to change it.
”You ask me how I write. My reply is, just as I live--from hand to mouth! I can do nothing continuously--that is, without seeing the printed part close behind me. This has been my practice for five-and-twenty years, and I don't think I could change it. At least, I would deem it a rash experiment to try.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Hotel d'Odessa, Spezzia, _May_ 8, 1863.
”You will have had my note about my story, and all that I have to say on that score is already said. Only that I have not written any more, nor can I, without either a proof in print or a look at my MS.; for, as I had to own to you, most ignominiously, I have only one way of writing!
And like the gentleman mentioned by Locke, who, having learned to dance in a room where there was an old hairbrush, never could accomplish a step without that accompaniment, so I must stick to my poor traditions, of which an old coat and an old ink-bottle, and a craving impatience to see how my characters look in type, are chief; and I seriously believe, if you cut me off from these--there's an end of me!
”I think there is material for a pleasant half-gossiping sort of paper on social Italy--'Life in Italian Cities,'--those strange wildernesses where rare plants and weeds live together on a pleasant equality, and where you may find the cowslip under a gla.s.s and the cactus on a dunghill. Is it not strange, there is nothing so graphic about Italy as the sketches in Byron's letters? Perhaps it was the very blending of Dirt and Deity in himself led him into the exact appreciation.
”My hand o' write is none of the clearest, but I'll do my best to be legible _to_ you and _by_ you; and with my hearty thanks for your very cordial note.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Hotel d'Odessa, Spezzia, _May_ 16, 1863.
”Thanks for your note and its enclosure, which reached me this morning.
”I am glad you have understood what, after I had sent it off, appeared to me a very unintelligible note, being in fact an attempt to explain what even to myself is not explicable--the [only] mode in which I can write a story.
”You are perfectly right as to looking at the thing in proof: it is the same test as the artists' one of seeing their drawing in a looking-gla.s.s,--all that is good is confirmed, and all that is out of drawing or wrong in perspective is just as sure of being displayed strongly.
”If your opinion be favourable, the point which will most interest me to know is the time of publis.h.i.+ng; for, seeing that I want some material which I can only obtain by personal intercourse, the longer the interval, moderately speaking, the better for me.
”Secondly. Should we travel this road together, I want to beg that you will be as free to tell me what you think of what I send as though I was the rawest recruit in literature. I never write with the same spirit as under such criticism--given when not too late to amend; and if anything reaches you that you think ill of, do not hesitate to say so at once. I can change--in fact, it is the one compensation for all the inartistic demerits of my way of work--I can change as easily as I can talk of changing. These are all that I want to stipulate for on my part; the rest is with you. I am so eager to get on, that when you send me a proof (I cannot till then) I'll have at it at once. Meanwhile I lie in the sun and suck oranges.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Hotel d'Odessa, Spezzia, _May_ 28, 1863.
”Though I have been, not without some anxiety, waiting for a proof of my story, or some tidings of it,--for I cannot go on without a clue,--I now write to send you a paper on 'Why Italy has not Done More,' knowing from my own experiences the benefit of being early in Mag. 'make up.'
”I hope much you will like it. If you think that any addition to it would be necessary, or in fact, if you have any changes to suggest, pray let me know.”