“The business part of the criticism has occupied much of my thoughts; but important, and unfavourable, as I may say, it appears to be, I have at least the pleasure of not feeling embarrassed by it, so as to occasion delay. I know precisely where I agree and where I disagree; and I hope I do not flatter myself in thinking that some of his censure (that is, where he remarks on a want of unity)* is owing to his not having read more than half the work. To judge of the keeping of a story, it seems surely as necessary to have the whole before you as in the keeping of a picture; and no one, perhaps, could pronounce upon the latter without seeing the whole at once. Still, for all this, your friend may be right, and myself wrong. This, however, only relates to the general action of the story, which, I told you myself, I thought not so
* It was not on a “want of unity” that I had remarked, but only on a breach of the “feeling of unity” in the reader. |
| 30 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“In part of this I agree with him, and will strive to remedy it. In toto I do not. Where I agree is, as to the introduction of too much machinery; and I will therefore strike out the whole of the editor’s preface, and all that concerns the personal history of the supposed relater, Beauclerk, which, however, is very short. What your friend says is quite true. He is an interloper, and has nothing to do with the story as it goes on.
“Where I disagree with your friend (and I do it questionably, only because of my deference to him, not
from the least hesitation as to my own opinion), is, where he seems to hold it
as a rule that you cannot introduce a matured character in the commencement of
a history, and then go back to show how that character was produced. Your
friend thinks that the knowledge at once of what a man is, precludes interest in tracing him from what he was. Or, as he
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 31 |
“My story is this. De Vere, at a matured period of his age, is introduced with a certain character belonging to him. Having attempted at least to interest you as to this character, I go back to his childhood (which was a most remarkable one) to show you how he came by it. What is there unnatural, or even unusual in this? As it happens, it is the very plan of Tremaine, who is introduced to you with a very particular character, full formed, and grown inveterate, and also in a very different situation as to circumstances to what he had been; and to account for it we go back* full twenty years of his life, marking all its vicissitudes. All the difference is, that in De Vere I go rather
* This going back, and by that and other equally objectionable means complicating his machinery, is in fact the characteristic defect of Mr. Plumer Ward’s first two productions—“Tremaine” and “De Vere.” In his third, “De Clifford,” he has entirely avoided this defect, and the result is that, in point of construction at least, it is by far the best of his works. |
| 32 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 33 |
“As you have not read the MS. yourself, I will just tell you that the action attending the introduction is this:—Beauclerk, a young man on a tour, meets De Vere, who interests him much, and invites him home
| 34 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“I own myself not prepared, and even at a loss, to make out the disadvantages of such a plan. There may however be an unnecessary diversity of interest in the one or two pages respecting Beauclerk personally, and them I will omit; but unless I have misunderstood your friend, and he shows me that his objections are different from what I have represented them, he will not be angry with me if I cannot agree with him.”
