100. Mrs. Burton's Advice to Novelists. 4th September 1880.
The following letter from Mrs. Burton to Miss Stisted, who had just written a novel, A Fireside King, [328] gives welcome glimpses of the Burtons and touches on matters that are interesting in the light of subsequent events. "My dearest Georgie, On leaving you I came on to Trieste, arriving 29th May, and found Dick just attacked by a virulent gout. We went up to the mountains directly without waiting even to unpack my things or rest, and as thirty-one days did not relieve him, I took him to Monfalcone for mud baths, where we passed three weeks, and that did him good. We then returned home to change our baggage and start for Ober Ammergau, which I thought glorious, so impressive, simple, natural. Dick rather criticises it. However, we are back.... I read your book through on the journey to England. Of course I recognised your father, Minnie, [329] and many others, but you should never let your heroine die so miserably, because the reader goes away with a void in his heart, and you must never put all your repugnances in the first volume, for you choke off your reader.... You don't mind my telling the truth, do you, because I hope you will write another, and if you like you may stand in the first class of novelists and make money and do good too, but put your beasts a little further in towards the end of the first volume. I read all the reviews that fell in my way, but though some were spiteful that need not discourage... Believe me, dearest G., your affectionate Zookins."
Miss Stisted's novel was her first and last, but she did write another book some considerable time later, which, however, would not have won Mrs. Burton's approval. [330]