“My Dear Mr Caine,—I am deeply engaged with your interesting book, and thank you for so kindly sending it. The Son of Hagar has not come this way yet, and I put him vainly upon my book-list. However, it is good not to have one’s pleasures too abundantly—commendat rarior usus.
“Have you ever dealt at all with ⸺, the great ‘organiser’ of Newspaper novels? He has asked me more than once to be distributed in that way; but hitherto I have declined. His terms are fair—so far as I can judge—and he seems a sharp man of business. Writers of higher repute than mine have marched under his standard; but I doubt me whether my ‘politics’ would suit his mighty horde.
“I conclude that you have left the Isle of Man, and hope you are working at a book of the quocunque jeceris stabit. Any work of yours will now command a larger circle than the critics; to whom (like myself) you owe little. If the matter were of more interest, I would print the first notices of Lorna Doone, which they now quote as a standard. I have them somewhere, and a damp bed they are to smother a shy guest in. But you know well enough how these men fumble the keys of an open door.
“I must now be off to my pipes and Coleridge. I am heartily glad to find you [1] against that far inferior—and, to my mind, prosy fellow—Southey.—With kind regards, I am very truly yours,
“R. D. Blackmore.”
“Hall Caine, Esq.”
[1] Word undecipherable.
Mr Caine has inscribed this note at the head of the following. “This letter was written about A Son of Hagar, which was dedicated to Blackmore. The censorious part of it is very just.—H. C.”
“Teddington, August 25, 1887.
“My Dear Mr Caine,—I would not write again until I had read your book, which I have now done with great care. My opinion is of very little value, but so far as I can distinctly form one, it is nearly as follows. There is any amount of vigour and power, and some real pathos (which is, of course, a part of power), also there are many other merits—strong English style, great knowledge of character, keen observation, and much originality.