Livy darling, it is a busy Sunday with me, although in bed. I have written you a bit of translation, read a young woman’s (married, but a mere child), MS book through, & scribbled her a letter—which I must append here, to satisfy your curiosity:

My Dear Mrs. Whiteside:

I have read the story, & it has merit, but not enough to enable me to say the strong word necessary to rouse a publisher’s interest & desire. I should have b to be straightforward with him, & tell him the truth: that it is a moral essay, & an earnest & heartfelt essay, but more an essay than a story. And I should have to say it is crude, & betrays the unpractised hand all along; that it wants compression—is too wordy, too diffuse; that incidents & episodes & “situations[”] are hardly frequent enough, & when they occur are not successfully handled. I should have to say that with the exception of Malcolm’s letter to his wife, the whole book ought to be carefully & painstakingly re-written. You know that after I should have said all these things—& I should have to say them, for my opinion would be asked—the publisher would be sure to decline to take the book.

You must try to forgive me for speaking so plainly—I mean no harm by it, but only good. I would not affront you with glozing speeches—& they would profit neither of us.

You must not be surprised at what must be pronounced a non-success—nor discouraged by it. Literature is an art, not an inspiration. It is a trade, so to speak, & must be learned—one cannot “pick it up.” Neither can one learn it in a year, nor in five years. And its capital is experience—& you are too young, yet, to have much of that in your bank to draw from. When you shall have served on the stage a while (if you ever should), you will not send another heroine, unacquainted with the histrionic art, to ask a manager for a “star” part & succeed in her errand. And after you yourself shall have tried to descend a rain-waterⒶemendation pipe, once, unencumbered, you will always know better, after that, than to let your hero descend one, a with a woman in his arms. Is it hyper-criticism to notice these little blemishes? No—not in this case; for I wish to impress y Ⓐemendation upon you this truth: that the moment you venture outside your own experience, you are in peril—don’t ever do it. Grant that you are so young that your capital of experience is necessarily small: no matter, live within your literary means, & don’t borrow. Whatever you have lived, you can write—& by hard work & a genuine apprenticeship, you can learn to write well; but what you have not lived you cannot write, you can only pretend to write it—you will merely issue a plausible-looking bill which will be pronounced spurious at the first counter.

These sound like harsh facts; but it is only the harsh facts that a body will listen to—& I want these to take hold, & make an impression.