It was not that I forgot to mail you the magazine that I mentioned; I could not find it; but now I send it.
My health is bad again, and I fear that I shall have to abandon my experiment of living here, and go back to the mountain—or some mountain. But not directly.
You asked me what books would be useful to you—I'm assuming that you've repented your sacrilegious attitude toward literature, and will endeavor to thrust your pretty head into the crown of martyrdom otherwise. I may mention a few from time to time as they occur to me. There is a little book entitled (I think) simply "English Composition." It is by Prof. John Nichol—elementary, in a few places erroneous, but on the whole rather better than the ruck of books on the same subject.
Read those of Landor's "Imaginary Conversations" which relate to literature.
Read Longinus, Herbert Spencer on Style, Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (don't groan—the detractors of Pope are not always to have things their own way), Lucian on the writing of history—though you need not write history. Read poor old obsolete Kames' notions; some of them are not half bad. Read Burke "On the Sublime and Beautiful."
Read—but that will do at present. And as you read don't forget that the rules of the literary art are deduced from the work of the masters who wrote in ignorance of them or in unconsciousness of them. That fixes their value; it is secondary to that of natural qualifications. None the less, it is considerable. Doubtless you have read many—perhaps most—of these things, but to read them with a view to profit as a writer may be different. If I could get to San Francisco I could dig out of those artificial memories, the catalogues of the libraries, a lot of titles additional—and get you the books, too. But I've a bad memory, and am out of the Book Belt.
I wish you would write some little thing and send it me for examination. I shall not judge it harshly, for this I know: the good writer (supposing him to be born to the trade) is not made by reading, but by observing and experiencing. You have lived so little, seen so little, that your range will necessarily be narrow, but within its lines I know no reason why you should not do good work. But it is all conjectural—you may fail. Would it hurt if I should tell you that I thought you had failed? Your absolute and complete failure would not affect in the slightest my admiration of your intellect. I have always half suspected that it is only second rate minds, and minds below the second rate, that hold their cleverness by so precarious a tenure that they can detach it for display in words.
God bless you, A. B.
St. Helena,
August 28,
1892.