t all
together, the book struck me as if you had been hurried at the last, but
particularly hurried over the proofs, and could still spend a very
profitable fortnight in earnest revision and (towards the end) heroic
compression. The book, in design, subject, and general execution, is
well worth the extra trouble. And even if I were wrong in thinking it
specially wanted, it will not be lost; for do we not know, in Flaubert's
dread confession, that "prose is never done"? What a medium to work in,
for a man tired, perplexed among different aims and subjects, and
spurred by the immediate need of "siller"! However, it's mine for what
it's worth; and it's one of yours, the devil take it; and you know, as
well as Flaubert, and as well as me, that it is _never done_; in other
words, it is a torment of the pit, usually neglected by the bards who
(lucky beggars!) approached the Styx in measure. I speak bitterly at the
moment, having just detected in myself the last fatal symptom, three
blank verses in succession--and I believe, God help me, a hemistich at
the tail of them; hence I have deposed the labourer, come out of hell by
my private trap, and now write to you from my little place in purgatory.
But I prefer hell: would I could always dig in those red coals--or else
be at sea in a schooner, bound for isles unvisited: to be on shore and
not to work is emptiness--suicidal vacancy.

I was the more interested in your _Life_ of your father, because I
meditate one of mine, or rather of my family. I have no such materials
as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with
despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to
me--lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance
that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple
passages. I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do
of mine? I wonder if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I
wonder; I can tell you at least what is wrong with yours--they are
treated in the spirit of verse. The spirit--I don't mean the measure, I
don't mean you fall into bastard cadences; what I mean is that they seem
vacant and smoothed out, ironed, if you like. And in a style which (like
yours) aims more and more successfully at the academic, one purple word
is already much; three--a whole phrase--is inadmissible. Wed yourself to
a clean austerity: that is your force. Wear a linen ephod, splendidly
candid. Arrange i