“My dear Patmore,—Though I have neither head nor heart for writing—the one being tortured with rheumatism, and the other weighed down with anxiety,—I seem to have treated you so ill by my long silence, that I make the attempt.
“You know, perhaps, by this, that I did not accompany my mournful wife and the poor invalid to town.
“I stayed behind partly because I could not brave
London, when my heart was so full upon so sad an occasion, where daily
suspense, too, as to her fate, was worse than bereavement; partly because, in
case we were ordered to
| 184 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“I have, however, only reaped greater uneasiness from it, in consequence of the daily miseries of the post.
“Latham is not yet decided upon anything, except that there is terrible mischief, and all the good I gather is, that she is not worse.
“Well, this is a long tale, nor do I know that it will explain, as I intend it, why I have not been able to perform my promises to you of renewing the subject of your MS., though it will account for my not calling upon you, at which you must have wondered.
“I have been reading your letter of the 20th June
again, and though, under your management, I absolutely long to see the plot of
your striking tale altered, I fear I cannot hope for an effort of such
magnitude. I enter, too, into your reasons, founded on the example of Othello, for making the king fall by the hand of
Evadne, and in their very bed. But,
then, I think, you should prepare us for it more; nay, make us ardently expect
and wish for it, by a great deal more than appears of the feeling about it in
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 185 |
“I am the more urgent about this, because I think it is the very subject in which your pen will shine, if you will undertake it. Remember, if you do, you must not be idle, or leave anything to conjecture, or suppose it the affair of a few lines; but must gird yourself to it—summon all your power of pathos, which is great,—in short, comply with Horace’s forcible direction to the true poet,
“‘Qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terrorisms implet, Ut magus.’ |
“Be the magus in this, and I will excuse you the other (I own) adventurous attempt I proposed.
“Adieu.
