My dear Sir,
Here is a young lady—Miss Power, Lady Blessington's niece—has "gone and been" and translated a story by Georges Sand, the French writer, which she has printed, and got four woodcuts engraved ready for. She wants to get it published—something in the form of the Christmas books. I know the story, and it is a very fine one.
Will you do it for her? There is no other risk than putting a few covers on a few copies. Half-profits is what she expects and no loss. She has made appeal to me, and if there is to be a hard-hearted ogre in the business at all, I would rather it should be you than I; so I have told her I would make proposals to your mightiness.
Answer this straightway, for I have no doubt the fair translator thinks I am tearing backwards and forwards in a cab all day to bring the momentous affair to a conclusion.
Faithfully yours.
Mr. James Sheridan Knowles.
[31]148, King's Road, Brighton, 26th May, 1847.
My dear Knowles,
I have learned, I hope, from the art we both profess (if you will forgive this classification of myself with you) to respect a man of genius in his mistakes, no less than in his triumphs. You have so often read the human heart well that I can readily forgive your reading mine ill, and greatly wronging me by the supposition that any sentiment towards you but honour and respect has ever found a place in it.
You write as few lines which, dying, you would wish to blot, as most men. But if you ever know me better, as I hope you may (the fault shall not be mine if you do not), I know you will be glad to have received the assurance that some part of your letter has been written on the sand and that the wind has already blown over it.