There was a certain air of
humorous respect about the titles, which he wrote with a flourish, as
compared with the involved minuteness of the rest of the script, and
the latter covers every limit of the page in a devoted way. His
letters were formed obscurely, though most fascinatingly, and he was
almost frolicsome in his indifference to the comfort of the
compositor. Still he had none of the frantic reconsiderations of Scott
or Balzac. If he made a change in a word it was while it was fresh,
and no one could obliterate what he had written with a more fearless
blot of the finger, or one which looked more earnest and interesting.
There was no scratching nor quiddling in the manner with which he
fought for his art. Each day he thought out the problems he had set
himself before beginning to write, and if a word offended him, as he
recorded the result, he thrust it back into chaos before the ink had
dried. I think that the manuscript of "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret" is an
exception, to some extent. There are many written self-communings and
changes in it. My father was declining in health while it was being
evolved. But yet, in "The Dolliver Romance," the last work of all in
process of development, written while he was physically breaking down,
we see the effect of will and heroic attempt. It is the most beautiful
of his compositions, because his mind was greater at that time than
ever, and because death could not frighten him, and in its very face
he desired to complete the proof of his whole power, as the dying
soldier rises to the greatest act of his life, having given his
life-blood for his country's cause.
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