Side by side with Caldecott's missives to little children might be printed many a kindly letter to a young author who had sent him manuscripts to read. These letters had to be read and answered always in the evenings. A long letter of this kind was written to a lady at Didsbury, near Manchester, in 1878, from which the following extracts are taken[11]:—
"Dear Miss M.,—Your packet reached me safely, and as I call to mind very readily my feelings in times gone by, after I had posted a piece of literary or artistic composition to some friend acquainted with the dread editor of some magazine, or even to the dread editor himself, I think it only your due that I should write to you without delay about the sketches of country life which you have kindly allowed me to read, and my opinion of which you flatter me by desiring to know. You asked me for my candid opinion; in these cases I always try to be candid.... I think that your papers are, as they stand, hardly interesting enough for the mass of readers, though to me they draw out pictures which please, and also revive old associations.... Their fault, however, if I may speak of faults, is not so much in subject as in style. You have chosen simple subjects, in which is no harm of course; but simple subjects in all kinds of art require a masterly hand to delineate them. The slightest awkwardness of execution is noticed, and mars the simplicity of the whole. When a thrilling story is told, or a very interesting and novel operation described, faults of style are overlooked during the excitement of hearing or reading. Is it not so?...
"R. C."
In another letter some remarks on the misuse of old English words (a subject on which he says, "I am very ignorant") are worth recording.
"As regards the misuse of certain words, I consult the authorities when a doubt crosses my mind, and I find with sorrow, in which I am joined by other anxious spirits, that the English language is being ruined, chiefly by journalists, English and American. Words of good old nervous meaning, because common, are discarded for words of less force but finer sound, borrowed from other tongues. The use of these new words is often a difficulty to all but classical scholars, for the pronunciation, the accent, the quantities, are varied even amongst equally educated people.
"On the introduction of a new word there is always a halo of pedantry about it. Some admire the halo and adopt the word. The journalists cuddle it. The readers ask what it means, think it sounds rather fine—perhaps genteel—throw over the humble friend who has done them and their conservative forefathers such good service.
"The poor ill-used old fellow of a word then only finds friends amongst the lowly and the loyal; and if in course of time the usurping word, as he rolls by in his carriage and footmen, hears the former wearer of his honours come out from the passing pedestrians, he curls his proud lip, pulls up his haughty collar, distends his Grecian nose, and wonders where vulgar people will go to—albeit this vulgar word is better born, and has a higher instep than the carriage word."
In the late Autumn of 1878 Caldecott is again in the south of France, sending home letters—one with a portrait of himself (back view), seated next to a young lady, "whose father is rather deaf."