These, O Slade Professor, are my unvarnished sentiments: I was a little surprised to find them so extreme, and, therefore, I communicate the fact.
Belabour thy brains, as to whom it would be well to question. I have a small space; I wish to make a popular book, nowhere obscure, nowhere, if it can be helped, unhuman. It seems to me the most hopeful plan to tell the tale, so far as may be, by anecdote. He did not die till so recently, there must be hundreds who remember him, and thousands who have still ungarnered stories. Dear man, to the breach! Up, soldier of the iron dook, up, Slades, and at 'em! (which, conclusively, he did not say: the at 'em-ic theory is to be dismissed). You know piles of fellows who must reek with matter; help! help!
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are indeed a backward correspondent, and much may be said against you. But in this weather, and O dear! in this political scene of degradation, much must be forgiven. I fear England is dead of Burgessry, and only walks about galvanised. I do not love to think of my countrymen these days; nor to remember myself. Why was I silent? I feel I have no right to blame any one: but I won't write to the G. O. M. I do really not see my way to any form of signature, unless "your fellow criminal in the eyes of God," which might disquiet the proprieties.
About your book, I have always said go on. [This refers to some kind of a scheme, I forget what, for the republication of stray magazine-work of mine under the title Pictures, Places, and People.] The drawing of character is a different thing from publishing the details of a private career. No one objects to the first, or should object, if his name be not put upon it; at the other, I draw the line. In a preface, if you choose, you might distinguish: it is besides, a thing for which you are eminently well equipped, and which you would do with taste and incision. I long to see the book. People like themselves (to explain a little more); no one likes his life, which is a misgotten issue, and a tale of failure. To see these failures either touched upon, or _coasted_, to get the idea of a spying eye and blabbing tongue about the house is to lose all privacy in life. To see that thing, which we do love, our character set forth, is ever gratifying. See how my _Talk and Talkers_ went; everyone liked his own portrait, and shrieked about other people's; so it will be with yours: if you are the least true to the essential, the sitter will be pleased: very likely not his friends, and that from _various motives_.