December 15th, 1910.
Dear Mr. Lane,
I am sorry to hear that you have been laid up with bronchitis, and hope that you are on the way to health again.
I finished reading last night the translation of Sudermann's novel, "Das hohe Lied," that you sent me a few days back. I am not in a position to advise positively whether or not you should withdraw it, but I think that, viewing it as a practical question merely, which I imagine to be your wish, I should myself withdraw it in the circumstances.
A translation of good literary taste might possibly have made such an unflinching study of a woman's character acceptable in this country, even though the character is one of a somewhat ignoble type, but unfortunately, rendered into the rawest American, the claims that the original (which I have not seen) no doubt had to be considered as literature, are largely reduced, so that I question if there is value enough left in this particular translation to make a stand for.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
John Lane, Esq., Thomas Hardy.
The Bodley Head.
3, Fitzjohn's Mansions,