“You have written a remarkable work of fiction—a great advance on The Shadow of a Crime (to my mind)—a powerful and pathetic story—the characters vividly conceived, and set in action with a master hand. Within the limits of a letter, I cannot quote a tenth part of the passages which have seized on my interest and admiration. As one example, among many others which I should like to quote, let me mention the chapters that describe the fishermen taking the dead body out to sea in the hope of concealing the murder. The motives assigned to the men and the manner in which they express themselves show a knowledge of human nature which place you among the masters of our craft, and a superiority to temptations to conventional treatment that no words of mine can praise too highly. For a long time past, I have read nothing in contemporary fiction that approaches what you have done here. I have read the chapters twice, and, if I know anything of our art, I am sure of what I say.
“Now let me think of the next book that you will write, and let me own frankly where I see room for improvement in what the painters call, ‘treatment of the subject.’
“When you next take up your pen, will you consider a little whether your tendency to dwell on what is grotesque and violent in human character does not require some discipline? Look again at ‘The Deemster’ and at some of the qualities and modes of thought attributed to ‘Dan.’
“Again—your power as a writer sometimes misleads you, as I think, into forgetting the value of contrast. The grand picture which your story presents of terror and grief wants relief. Individually and collectively, there is variety in the human lot. We are no more continuously wretched than we are continuously happy. Next time, I want more humour, which breaks out so delightfully in old ‘Quilleash.’ More breaks of sunshine in your splendid cloudy sky will be a truer picture of nature—and will certainly enlarge the number of your admiring readers. Look at two of the greatest tragic stories—Hamlet and The Bride of Lammermoor, and see how Shakespeare and Scott take every opportunity of presenting contrasts, and brightening the picture at the right place.
“I believe you have not—even yet—written your best work. And here you have the proof of my sincerity. Always truly yours,
“Wilkie Collins.”
The criticism contained in this letter is both sound and just, and though Mr Collins declares that in penning it he was not sitting in the chair of the critic, but in that of the novelist, yet the advice afforded is such as only the most competent critic who united the qualities of the imaginative writer could possibly have given.
Where Mr Caine particularly shows his strength in this novel, to my mind, is in the last part of all—the document written by Dan just before his death. The situation offers so many temptations to write in a falsely pathetic style that one cannot offer too much praise for the admirably firm and manly way in which Mr Caine has written this part of his novel.
I have before me as I write two letters written in October 1886. One is from Mr Hall Caine to the late Thomas Edward Brown (of Fo’c’stle Yarns fame), re the plot and mise-en-scène of what afterwards became The Deemster; and the other is Mr Brown’s reply. The letters are too long to reproduce exactly as they stand, but I give here sufficiently important extracts to show the reader what enormous and seemingly insuperable difficulties Mr Caine had to overcome before even beginning the actual writing of the book that brought him fame. Mr Caine’s letter is dated 3rd October 1886, from Aberleigh Lodge, Bexley Heath, London.