I have had critiques
of "Dred" from the two very wisest people I know--perfectly unlike
each other (the critics, I mean), and they delight me by thinking
exactly like each other and like me. They distinctly prefer it to
"Uncle Tom." To say the plain truth, it seems to me so splendid a work
of genius that nothing that I can say can give you an idea of the
intensity of admiration with which I read it. It seemed to me, as I
told my nieces, that our English fiction writers had better shut up
altogether and have done with it, for one will have no patience with
any but didactic writing after yours. My nieces (and you may have
heard that Maria, my nurse, is very, very clever) are thoroughly
possessed with the book, and Maria says she feels as if a fresh
department of human life had been opened to her since this day week. I
feel the freshness no less, while, from my travels, I can be even more
assured of the truthfulness of your wonderful representation. I see no
limit to the good it may do by suddenly splitting open Southern life,
for everybody to look into. It is precisely the thing that is most
wanted,--just as "Uncle Tom" was wanted, three years since, to show
what negro slavery in your republic was like. It is plantation-life,
particularly in the present case, that I mean. As for your exposure of
the weakness and helplessness to the churches, I deeply honor you for
the courage with which you have made the exposure; but I don't suppose
that any amendment is to be looked for in that direction.
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