“The songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh bard, also translated by myself, with notes critical, philological, and historical.”
“Pass on—what else?”
“Nothing else,” said I, folding up my manuscript with a sigh, “unless it be a romance in the German style; on which, I confess, I set very little value.”
“Wild?”
“Yes, sir, very wild.”
“Like the Miller of the Black Valley?”
“Yes, sir, very much like the Miller of the Black Valley.”
“Well, that’s better,” said the publisher; “and yet, I don’t know, I question whether any one at present cares for the miller himself. No, sir, the time for those things is also gone by; German, at present, is a drug; and, between ourselves, nobody has contributed to make it so more than my good friend and correspondent;—but, sir, I see you are a young gentleman of infinite merit, and I always wish to encourage merit. Don’t you think you could write a series of evangelical tales?”
“Evangelical tales, sir?”
“Yes, sir, evangelical novels.”