Go on just as you have begun, and make it
appear in as many ways as you like,--that, whatever creed may be true,
it is _not_ true and never will be that man can be saved by
machinery. I can speak with some chance of being right, for I confess
a strong sympathy with many parts of Calvinistic theology, and, for
one thing, believe in hell with all my might, and in the goodness of
God for all that.
I have not said anything. What could I say? One might almost as well
advise a mother about the child she still bears under her heart, and
say, give it these and those qualities, as an author about a work yet
in the brain.
Only this I will say, that I am honestly delighted with "The
Minister's Wooing;" that reading it has been one of my few editorial
pleasures; that no one appreciates your genius more highly than I, or
hopes more fervently that you will let yourself go without regard to
this, that, or t'other. Don't read any criticisms on your story:
believe that you know better than any of us, and be sure that
everybody likes it. That I know. There is not, and never was, anybody
so competent to write a true New England poem as yourself, and have no
doubt that you are doing it. The native sod sends up the best
inspiration to the brain, and you are as sure of immortality as we all
are of dying,--if you only go on with entire faith in yourself.
Faithfully and admiringly yours,
J.
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