rinting the second edition, and
it was not in the bond to do so. I am told that the liberality of
the proceeding was appreciated by the author and her friends
accordingly--and there's the end of my story. Two hundred pounds is a
good price--isn't it?--for a novel, as times go. Miss Lynn had only
a hundred and fifty for her Egyptian novel, or perhaps for the Greek
one. Taking the long run of poetry (if it runs at all), I am half
given to think that it pays better than the novel does, in spite of
everything. Not that we speak out of golden experience; alas, no! We
have had not a sou from our books for a year past, the booksellers
being bound of course to cover their own expenses first. Then this
Christmas account has not yet reached us. But the former editions paid
us regularly so much a year, and so will the present ones, I hope.
Only I was not thinking of _them_, in preferring what may strike you
as an extravagant paradox, but of Tennyson's returns from Moxon last
year, which I understand amounted to five hundred pounds. To be
sure, 'In Memoriam' was a new success, which should not prevent our
considering the fact of a regular income proceeding from the previous
books. A novel flashes up for a season and does not often outlast it.
For 'Mary Barton' I am a little, little disappointed, do you know. I
have just done reading it. There is power and truth--she can shake and
she can pierce--but I wish half the book away, it is so tedious
every now and then; and besides I want more beauty, more air from the
universal world--these classbooks must always be defective as works
of art. How could I help being disappointed a little when Mrs. Jameson
told me that 'since the "Bride of Lammermoor," nothing had appeared
equal to "Mary Barton"?' Then the style of the book is slovenly,
and given to a kind of phraseology which would be vulgar even as
colloquial English. Oh, it is a powerful book in many ways. You are
not to set me down as hypercritical. Probably the author will, write
herself clear of many of her faults: she has strength enough. As to
'In Memoriam,' I have seen it, I have read it--dear Mr. Kenyon had the
goodness to send it to me by an American traveller--and now I really
do disagree with you, for the book has gone to my heart and soul;
I think it full of deep pathos and beauty. All I wish away is
the marriage hymn at the end, and _that_ for every reason I wish
away--it's a discord in the music. The monotony is a part of the