“Pray accept my excuses for what must have been a very bungling expression in my last note, and which has caused you an apprehension that, although only momentary, I am sincerely sorry for,—sorry, I will own not only on your account, but on my own—my amour propre, having no more tender point than the dread of being a bore. I never intended to inflict my MS. on you, for after some ninety-nine good and sufficient reasons comes the hundredth,—I never wrote more at any time than was sufficient for the monthly call of my printers, and that only at the spur of the emergency. In taking what I felt to be the great liberty of asking your counsel, I had still a sense of moderation for an author, and would not worry you by what is called a sketch. Indeed, it is your opinion as to the intention of the tale I would sue for, and your judgment of how far the story seems suited to such a hand as mine,—whether in itself it contains enough of romantic and dramatic element to be a good theme to work out.
“And now à l’ouvrage! It occurred to me when attached to a British Embassy to learn that the whole scheme and game of Irish politics were not only known to the members of the Roman Catholic clergy, but that they took the very deepest interest in the cause and progress of events, and, strangest of all, were informed thoroughly on all the points of social distinctions at issue amongst us—knowing the very names of such localities and obscure people as were the scenes or actors in outrage or disturbance,—were conversant with the petty details of magisterial justice, and aware of all that terrible machinery of crime which for years back has been at work in Ireland. That such knowledge should have originated in mere curiosity would be absurd to conceive; that it sprung from a deep interest in the events is far easier to see, and in some cases I even believe from a controlling, regulating power that, if not exercised to promote actual crime, yet could watch its progress and effect, withholding the opposing influences the Church could supply if she would. This, of course, is surmise, and mere surmise,—the former part I know. I know also that details of Irish outrage have been transmitted to Rome, not by post, but by a secret system of transmission from priest to priest, from Belgium to the Vatican, by journées d’étapes. This, to say the least, is very curious, but I think it is more. I believe it to be highly dangerous. I do not know whether you will smile at my fancies that the days of Hildebrand might yet be in store for us, but I feel if I were known to you personally I should scarcely be supposed likely to be regarded as an alarmist, and least of all on such grounds. My friends generally accuse me of having, from long foreign residence, a very tolerant feeling towards Romanism.
“Now, without tormenting you with any details, my idea would be to take this theme as the groundwork of a story, whose scene should lie alternatively in Ireland and abroad, the characters being home and foreign as occasion required. My priest (Machiavellian, of course) would be the cheval de bataille—not attempted, I need scarcely say, in any rivalry with Eugene Sue, whose vast superiority in every way as a writer refutes such a presumption, but because the object would open up a very different class of character and interest. My people would be enlisted from various ranks and conditions of men, and afford contrasts of country as well as of individuality.
“This meagre outline it is I would ask your opinion of. Indeed, I scarce knew how shadowy and vague it was till I wrote it down here, and yet there is that within it which a really strong hand might turn to account. Will you kindly say if this be the kind of material that such [? a hand] as mine could work out with interest?
“I told you I would not inflict a MS. upon you, and here I have been doing something so very like it that I am ashamed to look back. However, if you knew how much more prosy and tedious I could have been, and on the very same subject, too, you would be gratified to be let off so easily.
“My best thanks for the hints about the two books. I have already written for them. Strange enough you should have suggested Spain as a likely locale for interest, at a time when I was actually meditating a visit to the Peninsula, my former chief being made Ambassador at the Court of Lisbon, and having pressed me to visit him.
“Your last letter put me into such good-humour with my ‘Knight,’ that I set about writing a new No., and with your criticism so fully in my head, I believe I did better than at any previous stage of his monthly existence.
“There is no part of your praise I set more value on than what you observe as to the good-breeding of certain characters, for while our fashionable (!) writers depict ladies and gentlemen by a hundred distinctive traits of manners and taste, all evidencing the most vulgar views of life, there is another class who love to represent every person of station as a species of moral monster, made of sensuality, deceit, and utter selfishness. If I have avoided these opposite errors, I wish I may have hit the middle course without at the same time making good manners insipid. Your praise lets me hope this, and I could not wish for a more competent authority. I need not now say with what eagerness I will read any remarks you are so kind as to make on my ‘Knight.’ The book only occupies any place in my esteem by reason of your opinion. If you see cause to continue it, I am but too happy to be reconciled to my unworthy offspring.
“My Tyrol stories* I have shelved for the present. They grew to be triste in spite of me, so I resolved to wait for better weather and better spirits, or in other words (such as my children tell me), ‘until Papa gets another pleasant letter from Miss Edge worth.’”
* Two of these tales of Tyrol, probably the only Tyrol
stories written by him, were subsequently included in
‘Horace Templeton.’—E. D.