I have read your story “On the Road.” If I were the editor of an
illustrated magazine, I should publish the story with great pleasure; but
here is my advice as a reader: when you depict sad or unlucky people, and
want to touch the reader’s heart, try to be colder--it gives their grief as
it were a background, against which it stands out in greater relief. As it
is, your heroes weep and you sigh. Yes, you must be cold.
But don’t listen to me, I am a bad critic. I have not the faculty of
forming my critical ideas clearly. Sometimes I make a regular hash of
it....