I have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt of your
obliging communication. Allow me to thank you for it, in the first
place, with great cordiality.
Although I cannot say that I came without any prepossessions to the
perusal of your play (for I had favourable inclinings towards it before
I began), I _can_ say that I read it with the closest attention, and
that it inspired me with a strong interest, and a genuine and high
admiration. The parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of
your task appear to me those in which you shine most. I would
particularly instance the end of Julia as a very striking example of
this. The delicacy and beauty of her redemption from her weak rash
lover, are very far, indeed beyond the range of any ordinary dramatist,
and display the true poetical strength.
As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, and in seeing the child of your
fancy on his stage, I will venture to point out to you not only what I
take to be very dangerous portions of "Love's Martyrdom" as it stands,
_for presentation on the stage_, but portions which I believe Mr. Phelps
will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before him in the
persons of live men and women on the wooden boards. Knowing him, I think
he will be then as violently discouraged as he is now generously
exalted; and it may be useful to you to be prepared for the
consideration of those passages.
I do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the play of modern
times best known to an audience proceeds upon the main idea of this,
namely, that there was a hunchback who, because of his deformity,
mistrusted himself. But it is certainly a grain in the balance when the
balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most
carefully trimmed. The incident of the ring is an insignificant one to
look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to convey to an audience,
and the least thing will make it ludicrous. If it be so well done by Mr.
Phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be
disagreeable. If it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so,
because you revert to it. The quarrel scene between the two brothers in
the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and
impetuosity--which can alone bear out Franklyn, before the bodily eyes
of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own
brother--is lost. That the two should be parted, and that Franklyn
should again drive at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a
state of things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong
direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave
unhappy. I would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by
that picture, more than once. All the most sudden inconstancy of
Clarence I would soften down. Margaret must act much better than any
actress I have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places;
therefore, I think she needs compression too.
All this applies solely to the theatre. If you ever revise the sheets
for readers, will you note in the margin the broken laughter and the
appeals to the Deity? If, on summing them up, you find you want them
all, I would leave them as they stand by all means. If not, I would blot
accordingly.
It is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by anticipating
what I believe Mr. Phelps will discover--or what, if ever he should pass
it, I have a strong conviction the audience will find out--that I have
ventured on these few hints. Your concurrence with them generally, on
reconsideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands, can not
in the least affect my interest in your success. On the other hand, I
have a perfect confidence in your not taking my misgivings ill; they
arise out of my sincere desire for the triumph of your work.
With renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me,