"Mr. B. will not allow himself to think for one moment that there can be any uncertainty as to the work being completed. Not to mention his own deep disappointment, Mr. B. would almost consider it a crime if a work possessing so much interest and useful instruction were not given to the world. The author is the only critic of whom Mr. B. is afraid, and after what he has said, he anxiously hopes that this censor of the press will very speedily affix the imprimatur."
In allusion to Sir Walter's eulogium on the novel above quoted, Mr.
Blackwood writes to the author:—
"I have the pleasure of enclosing you this concluding sentence of the new Tales of my Landlord, which are to be published to-morrow. After this call, surely you will be no longer silent. If the great magician does not conjure you I shall give up all hopes."
But Miss Ferrier seems to have been proof against the great magician even. Marriage became deservedly popular, and was translated into French, as appears from the annexed:—
"We perceive by the French papers that a translation of Miss Ferrier's clever novel Marriage has been very successful in France."-New Times, 6 Oct. '25.
For Marriage she received the sum of £150. Her second venture was more successful in a pecuniary sense. Space, however, prohibits me from dwelling any longer on Marriage, so we come next to The Inheritance. This novel appeared six years after, in 1824, and is a work of very great merit. To her sister (Mrs. Kinloch, in London) Miss Ferrier writes:—
"John (her brother) has now completed a bargain with Mr. Blackwood, by which I am to have £1000 for a novel now in hand, but which is not nearly finished, and possibly never may be. Nevertheless he is desirous of announcing it in his magazine, and therefore I wish to prepare you for the shock. I can say nothing more than I have already said on the subject of vigilence, if not of secrecy. I never will avow myself, and nothing can hurt and offend me so much as any of my friends doing it for me; this is not faron de parler, but my real and unalterable feeling; I could not bear the fuss of authorism!"
Secrecy as to her authorship seems to have been the great desire of her heart, and much of The Inheritance was written in privacy at Morningside House, old Mr. Ferrier's summer retreat near Edinburgh, and she says, "This house is so small, it is very ill-calculated for concealment."
It was not till 1851 that she publicly avowed herself by authorising her name to be prefixed to a revised and corrected edition of her works. [1] Sir Walter Scott was delighted with this second novel, a proof of which was conveyed to Miss Ferrier by Mr. Blackwood:—
[1] Published by the late Mr. Richard Bentley, to whom she sold her copyrights in 1841. A previous edition was published by him in 1841.