t contribution of R. L. S., has
by an accident been preserved, and is so interesting, both for its
occasion and for the light it throws on the writer's care and
kindness as an editor, that by permission of his representatives I
here print it. '93 stands, of course, for the novel _Quatre-vingt
Treize_.

_15 Waterloo Place, S. W., 15/5/74_

DEAR SIR,--I have read with great interest your article on Victor
Hugo and also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan. I
shall be happy to accept Hugo, and if I have been rather long in
answering you, it is only because I wished to give a second reading
to the article, and have lately been very much interrupted.

I will now venture to make a few remarks, and by way of preface I
must say that I do not criticise you because I take a low view of
your powers: but for the very contrary reason. I think very highly
of the promise shown in your writings and therefore think it worth
while to write more fully than I can often to contributors. Nor do I
set myself up as a judge--I am very sensible of my own failings in
the critical department and merely submit what has occurred to me
for your consideration.

I fully agree with the greatest portion of your opinions and think
them very favourably expressed. The following points struck me as
doubtful when I read and may perhaps be worth notice.

First, you seem to make the distinction between dramatic and
novelistic art coincide with the distinction between romantic and
18th century. This strikes me as doubtful, as at least to require
qualification. To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than
Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well)
a use of scenery and background which would hardly be admissible in
drama. I am not able--I fairly confess--to define the dramatic
element in Hugo or to say why I think it absent from Fielding and
Richardson. Yet surely Hugo's own dramas are a sufficient proof that
a drama may be romantic as well as a novel: though, of course, the
pressure of the great moral forces, etc., must be indicated by
different means. The question is rather a curious one and too wide
to discuss in a letter. I merely suggest what seems to me to be an
obvious criticism on your argument.

Secondly, you speak very sensibly of the melodramatic and cla