"There can be no doubt that it is a most unusual
work, a daring and sustained flight of the imagination.
You will have to rest after it, for some of
your life has gone into it."
"March 14th, 1889.
"You must bear in mind that in giving an opinion I am bound to have an eye upon what I deem defect, rightly or wrongly. I have no need to call your attention to merits—if I had, I could write a quarto letter on the merits of Al-Kyris, in which I include, by the way, the beautiful scene on Ardath, and the first introduction of Edris. So in the epilogue I quite agree with your critic in his high admiration of the Cathedral scene, and the reappearance of Edris.
"Please do what you wish—you may be quite right and I wrong. I shall be very glad to be wrong, as I sincerely desire your success, because you have a worthy motive and an honorable ambition in writing, and not any lower aim competing with your Art-Love.
"I enter into your feelings about being 'passed over,' but I observe that reputations which grow gradually and always grow, come to compel attention at some time or other."
It would appear from the next letter that the
novelist had been throwing out a hint that the
doughty knights of Grub Street might be approached
with a preface of a nature to make them
pause ere they ground her latest work under heel.
