“Riedenburg, Jan. 9, 1847.
“You will see by the papers that Dickens, as well as Bulwer, has fallen under the lash of ‘The Times.’ It matters little however; the [? love] for low verbiage and coarse pictures of unreality is a widespread—and a spreading—taste. People will buy and read what requires no effort of mean capacities to follow, and what satisfies lowbred tastes by a standard of morality to which they can, with as little difficulty, attain. I have suffered—I am suffering—from the endeavour to supply a healthier, more manly, and more English sustenance, but it may be that before I succeed—if I do succeed at all—the hand will be cold and the heart still, and that I may be only a pioneer to clear the way for the breaching party.
“That such a taste must rot of its own corruption is clear enough, but, meanwhile, literature is an unattractive career for those who would use it for a higher purpose.
“I hope you like my ‘Knight’—because, while I perceive many and grave faults in its construction and development, I still would fain hope that the writing (as writing) is pure, and the tone throughout such as a gentleman might write and a lady read. If you agree with me, I shall feel that my book requires no better eulogy.
“Miss Edgeworth and O’Sullivan give me warm encouragement and high commendation; but I take it much of both proceeds from kindness of feeling, which, perhaps, guesses with intuitive good-nature that such are as much ‘bids for the future’ as flatteries for the past.”
To Mr Hugh Baker.
“Bregenz, Jan. 22, 1847.
“....I know Cumming has burked my ‘Knight,’—not intentionally, but from the blundering of a lethargic bad habit of business, and the result has been most disheartening and unpleasant to me.
“I am suffering severely from gout in the head and palpitations of the heart, and not able to write: even correcting is too much for me.”
To Mr Hugh Baker.