Mr. Hawthorne mistakes exceedingly
when he thinks that fiction should be based upon, or rather seen
through, some ideal medium. The greatest fictions of the world are
the truest. Look at the "Vicar of Wakefield," look at the "Simple
Story," look at Scott, look at Jane Austen, greater because truer
than all, look at the best works of your own Cooper. It is precisely
the want of reality in his smaller stories which has delayed Mr.
Hawthorne's fame so long, and will prevent its extension if he do
not resolutely throw himself into truth, which is as great a thing
in my mind in art as in morals, the foundation of all excellence in
both. The fine parts of this book, at least the finest, are the
truest,--that magnificent search for the body, which is as perfect
as the search for the exciseman in Guy Mannering, and the burst of
passion in Eliot's pulpit. The plot, too, is very finely
constructed, and doubtless I have been a too critical reader,
because, from the moment you and I parted, I have been suffering
from fever, and have never left the bed, in which I am now writing.
Don't fancy, dear friend, that you had anything to do with this. The
complaint had fixed itself and would have run its course, even
although your ... society has not roused and excited the good
spirits, which will, I think, fail only with my life. I think I am
going to get better. Love to all.

Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

Tuesday. (No date.)

My Dear Friend: Being fit for nothing but lying in bed and reading
novels, I have just finished Mr. Field's and Mr. Jones's "Adrien,"
and as you certainly will not have time to look at it, and may like
to hear my opinion, I will tell it to you. Mr. Field, from the
Preface, is of New York. The thing that has diverted me most is the
love-plot of the book. A young gentleman, whose father came and
settled in America and made a competence there, is third or fourth
cousin to an English lord. He falls in love with a fisherman's
daughter (the story appears to be about fifty years back). This
fisherman's daughter is a most ethereal personage, speaking and
reading Italian, and possessing in the fishing-cottage a pianoforte
and a collection of books; nevertheless, she one day hears her
husband say something about a person being "well born and well
bred," and forthwith