--If I have seemed to yourselves hasty or superficial or
flippant--all I can say is, such was not my meaning.--Surely the best
things can bear the closest looking at,--whether as regards beauty or
blemish.--
I repeat that, while I thank you affectionately for the trouble you
have taken to expostulate with my frowardness (if so it be)--I am just
as much concerned if what was printed gave any pain. But, when I look
again (I have been interrupted twenty times since I began this)--did I
not say that Hilda was "cousin"--that is, family likeness, not
identity--though it means, what I meant, the same sort of light of
purity and grace, and redemption let into a maze, through somewhat the
same sort of chink.--I totally resist any idea of mannerism, dear
friend Hawthorne,--on your part,--and as to the story growing on you,
as you grow into it: well, I dare' say that has happened ere
this:--the best creations have come by chance: and if Hawthorne did
not mean to excite an interest when he wanted merely to make a Roman
idyl, why did we go into those Catacombs?--
Might I say (like Moliere's old woman) how earnestly I desire, that
for a second edition, a few more openings of the door should be added
to the story--towards its close?
You have been so kind in bearing with me,--in coming to me when in
London,--and in remembering the nothing I could do here to make you
welcome, as I fancied you might like best to be welcomed,--that I
venture to send you this letter out of my heart,--and if there be
nonsense in it, or what may seem spectacled critical pedantry, I must
trust to your good nature to allow for them.
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