Dear Sir,
I thank you then sincerely for your generous review; and it is with
the sense of double content I express my gratitude, because I am now
sure the tribute is not superfluous or obtrusive. You were not severe
on _Jane Eyre_; you were very lenient. I am glad you told me my faults
plainly in private, for in your public notice you touch on them so
lightly, I should perhaps have passed them over, thus indicated, with
too little reflection.
I mean to observe your warning about being careful how I undertake new
works; my stock of materials is not abundant, but very slender; and
besides, neither my experience, my acquirements, nor my powers, are
sufficiently varied to justify my ever becoming a frequent writer. I
tell you this, because your article in _Fraser_ left in me an uneasy
impression that you were disposed to think better of the author of
_Jane Eyre_ than that individual deserved; and I would rather you had
a correct than a flattering opinion of me, even though I should never
see you.
If I ever _do_ write another book, I think I will have nothing of what
you call 'melodrama'; I _think_ so, but I am not sure. I _think_,
too, I will endeavour to follow the counsel which shines out of
Miss Austen's 'mild eyes', 'to finish more and be more subdued'; but
neither am I sure of that. When authors write best, or at least, when
they write most fluently, an influence seems to waken in them, which
becomes their master--which will have its own way--putting out of view
all behests but its own, dictating certain words, and insisting
on their being used, whether vehement or measured in their nature;
new-moulding characters, giving unthought-of turns to incidents,
rejecting carefully-elaborated old ideas, and suddenly creating and
adopting new ones.
Is it not so? And should we try to counteract this influence? Can we
indeed counteract it?
* * * * *
Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point.
What induced you to say that you would have rather written _Pride and
Prejudice_, or _Tom Jones_, than any of the Waverley Novels?
I had not seen _Pride and Prejudice_ till I read that sentence of
yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate,
daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully-fenced,
highly-cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but
no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh
air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with
her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. These
observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run the risk.
Now I can understand admiration of George Sand; for though I never saw
any of her works which I admired throughout (even _Consuelo_, which
is the best, or the best that I have read, appears to me to couple
strange extravagance with wondrous excellence), yet she has a grasp of
mind, which, if I cannot fully comprehend, I can very deeply respect;
she is sagacious and profound;--Miss Austen is only shrewd and
observant.
Am I wrong--or, were you hasty in what you said? If you have time,
I should be glad to hear further on this subject; if not, or if you
think the questions frivolous, do not trouble yourself to reply.