"I only ask now a good physical condition, and I go to warmer climes hoping to save time there. I put everything and everybody off that interferes with this, except 'Pussy Willow,' which will be a pretty story for a child's 'series.'"
At last she sailed away, about the 1st of March, 1867, with that delightful power of knowing what she wanted, and being content when she attained her end, which is too rare, alas! Her letters glowed and blossomed and shone with the fruit and flowers and sunshine of the South. It was hardly to be expected that her literary work could actually reach the printers' hands under these circumstances as rapidly as if she had been able to write at home: therefore it was with no sense of surprise that we received from her, during the summer of 1868, what proved to be a chapter of excuses instead of a chapter of her book: "I have a long story to tell you of what has prevented my going on with my story, which you must see would so occupy all the nerve and brain force I have that I have not been able to write a word except to my own children. To them in their needs I must write chapters which would otherwise go into my novel."
About this period she found herself able to come again to Boston for a few days' visit. There were often long croonings over the fire far into the night; her other-worldliness and abstractions brought with them a dreamy quietude, especially to those whose harried lives kept them only too much awake. Her coming was always a pleasure, for she made holidays by her own delightful presence, and she asked nothing more than what she found in the companionship of her friends.
After her return to Hartford and in December of the same year, I find some curious notes showing how easily she was attracted by new subjects of interest away from the work she had in hand; not that she saw it in that light, or was aware that her story was in the least retarded by such digressions, but her keen sympathy with everything and everybody made it more and more difficult for her to concentrate her power upon the long story which she considered after all of the first importance. She writes to the editor of the "Atlantic Monthly:" "I see that all the leading magazines have a leading article on 'Planchette.'
"There is a lady of my acquaintance who has developed more remarkable facts in this way than any I have ever seen; I have kept a record of these communications for some time past, and everybody is very much struck with them.
"I have material to prepare a very curious article. Shall you want it?
And when?"
We can imagine the feeling of a publisher waiting for copy of her promised story on reading this note! Also the following of a few days later:—
"I am beginning a series of articles called 'Learning to Write,' designed to be helpful to a great many beginners…. I shall instance Hawthorne as a model and speak of his 'Note Book' as something which every young author aspiring to write should study…. My materials for the 'Planchette' article are really very extraordinary,… but I don't want to write it now when I am driving so hard upon my book…. It costs some patience to you and certainly to me to have it take so long, yet I have conscientiously done all I could, since I began. Now the end of it is in plain sight, but there is a good deal to be done to bring it out worthily, and I work upon it steadily and daily. I never put so much work into anything before."
A week later she says again:—
"I thank you very much for your encouraging words, for I really need them. I have worked so hard that I am almost tired. I hope that you will still continue to read, and that you will not find it dull…. I have received the books. What a wonderful fellow Hawthorne was!"