Next November we shall have finished the tale of which we are at present
engaged, and shall have travelled together through twenty monthly parts
and eighty-seven weekly numbers. It is my design when we have gone so
far, to close this work. Let me tell you why.
I should not regard the anxiety, the close confinement, or the constant
attention, inseparable from the weekly form of publication (for to
commune with you in any form is to me a labour of love) if I had found it
advantageous to the conduct of my stories, the elucidation of my meaning,
or the gradual development of my characters. But I have not done so. I
have often felt cramped and confined in a very irksome and harassing
degree by the space in which I have been constrained to move. I have
wanted you to know more at once than I could tell you; and it has
frequently been of the greatest importance to my cherished intention,
that you should do so. I have been sometimes strongly tempted (and have
been at some pains to resist the temptation) to hurry incidents on, lest
they should appear to you who waited from week to week, and had not, like
me, the result and purpose in your minds, too long delayed. In a word, I
have found this form of publication most anxious, perplexing, and
difficult. I cannot bear these jerky confidences which are no sooner
begun than ended, and no sooner ended than begun again.
Many passages in a tale of any length, depend materially for their
interest on the intimate relation they bear to what has gone before, or
to what is to follow. I have sometimes found it difficult when I issued
thirty-two closely printed pages once a month, to sustain in your minds
this needful connection: in the present form of publication it is often,
especially in the first half of a story, quite impossible to preserve it
sufficiently through the current numbers. And although in my progress, I
am gradually able to set you right, and to show you what my meaning has
been, and to work it out, I see no reason why you should ever be wrong
when I have it in my power by resorting to a better means of
communication between us to prevent it.
Considerations of immediate profit and advantage ought in such a case to
be of secondary importance. They would lead me, at all hazards, to hold
my present course. But for the reason I have just now mentioned, I have
after long consideration, and with especial reference to the next new
tale I bear in my mind, arrived at the conclusion that it will be better
to abandon this scheme of publication in favour of our old and well-tried
plan which has only twelve gaps in a year, instead of fifty-two.
Therefore my intention is, to close this story (with the limits of which
I am of course by this time acquainted) and this work, within, or about,
the period I have mentioned. I should add, that for the general
convenience of subscribers, another volume of collected numbers will not
be published until the whole is brought to a conclusion.
Taking advantage of the respite which the close of this work will afford
me, I have decided, in January next, to pay a visit to America. The
pleasure I anticipate from this realization of a wish I have long
entertained, and long hoped to gratify, is subdued by the reflection that
it must separate us for a longer time than other circumstances would have
rendered necessary.
On the first of November, eighteen hundred and forty-two, I purpose, if
it please God, to commence my book in monthly parts, under the old green
cover, in the old size and form, and at the old price.
I look forward to addressing a few more words to you in reference to this
latter theme before I close the task on which I am now engaged. If there
be any among the numerous readers of _Master Humphrey’s Clock_ who are at
first dissatisfied with the prospect of this change—and it is not
unnatural almost to hope there may be some—I trust they will, at no very
distant day, find reason to agree with