_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Feb._ 13_th_, 1886.
MY DEAR STODDARD,—I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have at last
taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This is already my
sixth letter to-day, and I have many more waiting; and my wrist gives me
a jog on the subject of scrivener’s cramp, which is not encouraging.
I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you wrote your last. I
am as usual pretty cheerful, but not very strong. I stay in the house
all winter, which is base; but, as you continue to see, the pen goes from
time to time, though neither fast enough nor constantly enough to please
me.
My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and the interval of
widowery explains my writing. Another person writing for you when you
have done work is a great enemy to correspondence. To-day I feel out of
health, and shan’t work; and hence this so much overdue reply.
I was re-reading some of your South Sea Idyls the other day: some of the
chapters are very good indeed; some pages as good as they can be.
How does your class get along? If you like to touch on _Otto_, any day
in a by-hour, you may tell them—as the author’s last dying
confession—that it is a strange example of the difficulty of being ideal
in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy-mindedness, which spoils
the book and often gives it a wanton air of unreality and juggling with
air-bells, comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too great realism of
some chapters and passages—some of which I have now spotted, others I
dare say I shall never spot—which disprepares the imagination for the
cast of the remainder.
Any story can be made _true_ in its own key; any story can be made
_false_ by the choice of a wrong key of detail or style: Otto is made to
reel like a drunken—I was going to say man, but let us substitute
cipher—by the variations of the key. Have you observed that the famous
problem of realism and idealism is one purely of detail? Have you seen
my ‘Note on Realism’ in Cassell’s _Magazine of Art_; and ‘Elements of
Style’ in the _Contemporary_; and ‘Romance’ and ‘Humble Apology’ in
_Longman’s_? They are all in your line of business; let me know what you
have not seen and I’ll send ’em.
I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was a pleasant old spot,
and I remember you there, though still more dearly in your own strange
den upon a hill in San Francisco; and one of the most San Francisco-y
parts of San Francisco.
Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend,