CCCXIII. To MAURICE SAND
Tuesday evening, 27th
All I can say to you, in the first place, my dear friend, is, that
your book has made me pass a sleepless night. I read it instantly,
at one fell swoop, only stopping to fill my good pipe from time to
time and then to resume my reading.
When the impression is a little less fresh I shall take up your book
again to find the flaws in it. But I think that there are very few.
You must be content? It ought to please? It is dramatic and as
amusing as possible!
Beginning with the first page I was charmed with the sincerity of
the description. And at the end I admired the composition of the
whole, the logical way the events were worked out and the characters
related.
Your chief character, Miss Mary, is too hateful (to my taste) to be
anything but an exact picture. That is one of the choicest parts of
your book, together with the homelife, the life in New York?
Your good savage makes me laugh out loud when he is at the Opera.
I was struck by the house of the missionaries (Montaret's first
night). You make it seem real. Naissa scalping, and then wiping her
hands on the grass, seemed to me especially well done. As well as
the disgust that she inspires in Montaret,
I venture a timid observation: it seems to me that the flight of
father Athanasius and of Montaret, when they escape from their
prison, is not perfectly clear? Is not the material explanation of
the event too short?
I do not care for, as language, two or three ready-made locutions,
such as "break the ice." You can see that I have read you
attentively! What a pedagogue I make, eh! I am telling you all that
from memory, for I have lent your book, and it has not been returned
to me yet. But my recollection of it is of a thing very well done.
Don't you agree with me that a play of very great effect could be
made from it for a boulevard theatre?
By the way, how is Cadio going?
Tell your dear mamma that I adore her.
Harrisse, from whom I have received a letter today, charges me to
remember him to her, and, for my part, I charge you to embrace her
for me.
And I grasp your two hands heartily and say "bravo" to you again,
and faithfully yours.