To Mrs. George Payson, Dec. 20, 1877.
Before the year quite departs, I must tell you, my dear Margaret, how glad I am that you appreciate my dear, good bad Kezia. It is nineteen years since I read Adam Bede, but I remember Mrs. Poysen in general. Kezia is not an imitation of her; the main points of her character were written out long before Adam Bede appeared; I destroyed the book in which I trotted her out, but kept her, and once in a while tried her on my husband, but as he did not seem to see it, put her away in her green box, biding my time. As to Juliet, my good man loathes so to read about bad people that he almost made me cut out all my last mention of her. I was in an unholy frame when I did it, and with reason, for they who like Pemaquid best, say it was a mistake not to dispose of her in some way. But as to Mrs. Woodford being a model mother, I did not aim to make her a model anything. All I wanted of her was to bring out the New England pecularities as they would appear to a worldly stranger. As to all parties seeming indifferent about Juliet, you may be right; I was behind the scenes and knew they were not; but as I say, what I thought the best part of her, George made me cut out. No, I never knew any one sing exactly like Kezia, but there are such cases on record. There was "the Singing Cobbler," whose wife complained of him in court, and he defended himself so wittily in verse, that everybody sided with him, and his wife forgave his offence, whatever it might be. [22]
[1] The following is the passage referred to: "If you aspire to be a son of consolation; if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy; if you would pour something beyond commonplace consolation into a tempted heart; if you would pass through the intercourse of daily life with the delicate tact that never inflicts pain; if to that most acute of human ailments—mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succor, you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like Him, you must suffer, being tempted."
[2] By the late Rev. William James, D.D.
[3] See appendix G, p.557.
[4] Then pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Church, Fifth avenue and Forty-eighth street, now of Brooklyn.
[5] "Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874."
[6] "Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874." P. 59.
[7] GRISELDA; A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts. Translated from the German of FRIEDERICH HALM (Baron Münch-Bellinghausen), by Mrs. E. Prentiss.
[8] How glad I was to see Griselda's fair face! She is a gem, and I am sure will prove a blessing as she moves about the world in her nobleness and purity, so exceedingly womanly and winning. The book is full of poetry, and held me spell-bound to the close. It is very musical, too, in its rich, pure English. I don't know how much of its poetic charm lies in the original or in your rendering, but as it is, it is "just lovely," as the girls say.—Letter from Miss Warner.