“The history of the Isle of Man since the Revestment (1765!) is not legendary, nor has it been otherwise than very clearly defined since the Reformation. It is an eventless history, but quite ascertained, and rigid within its narrow compass. Its constitution has been singularly unbroken; there is not the faintest hint of any such revolution as you postulate. The House of Keys was cooptative in my own time, and the change to the popular method of election was the merest emigration ‘from the blue bed to the brown.’ The stage is inadequate for your romance; and, moreover, it is quite occupied by the most obstinate fixtures. Your Dooiney (sic) Mooar is less than a fable. Where can you get him in? He is not, I suppose, the Earl of Derby, or the Duke of Athol; but, if he is not, he ought to be, for these gentlemen hold the field, and you can’t get rid of them. It is impossible to conceive the privileged class, or nobles, of whom you speak. The fact is, you would take the Isle of Man as the merest physical basis, and constand upon it a whole system of manners, institutions, a social system, in short, which it never knew. It can’t be done at the distance; it can’t be done at all.
“Now, why not cut away from your socio-politico-revolutionary setting altogether, and rely, as you no doubt desire to do, on the sheer humanities? The Dooiney Mooar need not be a Lear, but he might be an old Manx gentleman; and, instead of resigning a seigniory, he might resign his landed estate. Such a person, and grouped around him nearly all the rest of your story, you could place about the year 1800. The Duke of Athol held a sort of court in those days: he brought over with him to the island a choice assortment of shwash-bucklers, led captains and miscellaneous blackguards. There are some fierce stories about these fellows. Duelling was in vogue.
“It was a very corrupt society, and no doubt greatly demoralised the native population. … Bishop Wilson (1710) was an ‘epoch-making’ personage. The Church and State question was then prominent. He was a complicated man, or at anyrate, a composite one. Never was man more beloved, never was there a serener saint, never a more brutal tyrant. But why seek this sort of person in the Isle of Man? Think of Laud and his tremendous stage. Has anyone ever ‘done’ him, and the robin coming into his study, and ‘all to that’? But yours is a romance? not an unconditional romance though, I suppose?…
“But your fiction is splendid; the incidents are quite magnificent, and, from what I can see, the possibilities of character are highly promising. … It must not be thrown away; it is strong and vital; but the Isle of Man sinks beneath it. And besides the inadequacy of the stage there is the fact of its being preoccupied with social and historical furniture that will in no way fit with your invented properties.
“For my part, I think the interest attaching to the ‘transition period’ idea is adscititious, and rather vapid. And as for an epic—just write the words, ‘A Manx Epic’ and behold the totally impossible at once!
“If you cling to this form, however, take it out to the red men, and let the scene be the Alleghanies, temp. circiter 1730. I hope I have made my meaning clear. The story is good, but its setting is impossible. Drop the latter, but stick to the former. If you do, you can retain the Isle of Man as the scene of your action. … Most truly yours,
“T. E. Brown.”
He hopes he “has made his meaning clear.” Only too terribly clear! Almost every point necessary to the proper development of the plot was promptly knocked on the head; the vital links in the chain were broken, the structural backbone of the romance was destroyed. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have given up the idea in despair; but not Hall Caine. He seized on the hint of Bishop Wilson—the “epoch-making” personage; he altered this part of the plot, and developed that; he substituted one character for another, and introduced new dramatis personæ;—in a word, he not only recast the plot, but made it historically convincing, and this in the very face of the warnings and obstacles raised by one of the most erudite scholars the Isle of Man has yet produced. This, of course, involved immense labour, but it was done, and done successfully. Even Mr Brown himself had to acknowledge this. As Mr Caine has written me: “When the book was written there was no such sympathetic reader as T. E. B.”
Another eminent writer who generously acknowledged the power and beauty of The Deemster was the late R. D. Blackmore, who wrote the following letter immediately after reading Mr Caine’s book.
“Teddington, April 3, 1888.