W. SYNGE.
I will quote two letters from Mr. Chorley, written before we left
England, to show that even writers and friends there could be a trifle
irksome in comment. My mother amused me sometimes by telling me how
she had written warringly to this noted critic (a cherished
acquaintance), when he had printed a disquisition upon "Monte Beni"
which did not hit the bull's-eye. But the last supplementary chapter
in the Romance was due to his fainting desire for more revelation,--a
chapter which my father and mother looked upon as entirely useless,
and British.
13 EATON PLACE, WEST, March 6, '60.
DEAR MRS. HAWTHORNE,--I cannot but affectionately thank you for your
remembrance of me, and your patience with my note.--If I do not return
on my own critical fancies about the "Romance" (and pray, recollect, I
am the last who would assume that critics wear a mail celestial, and
as such can do no wrong)--it may be from some knowledge, that those
who have lived with a work while it is growing--and those who greet
it, when it is born, complete into life,--cannot see with the same
eyes. I don't think, if we three sate together, and could talk the
whole dream out, a matter, by the way, hardly possible, we should have
so much difference as you fancy--so much did I enjoy, and so deeply
was I stirred by the book, that (let alone past associations and
predilections) I neither read, nor wrote (meant to write, that is) in
a caviling spirit: but that which simply and clearly seemed to present
itself in regard to a book which had possessed me (for better for
worse) in no common degree--by one on whom (I think is known) I set no
common store.
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