Memoir of John Murray
Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, May 1824
Your very kind letter induces me to trouble you with this
most trivial of trifles. My plan has been in these few ![]()
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pages so to mix up any observations
which I had to make on the present state of society with the bustle and hurry
of a story, that my satire should never be protruded on my reader. If you will
look at the last chapter but one, entitled “Lady
Modeley’s,” you will see what I mean better than I
can express it. The first pages of that chapter I have written in the same
manner as I would a common novel, but I have endeavoured to put in action at the end, the present
fashion of getting on in the world. I write no humbug about “candidly
giving your opinion, etc, etc.” You must be aware that you cannot do me a
greater favour than refusing to publish it, if you think it
won’t do; and who should be a better judge than yourself?
Believe me ever to be, my dear Sir,
Your most faithful and obliged,
P.S.—The second and the last chapters are
unfortunately mislaid, but they have no particular connection with the
story. They are both very short, the first contains an adventure on the
road, and the last Mr. Papillon’s
banishment under the Alien Act from a ministerial misconception of a
metaphysical sonnet.
Thursday morn.: Excuse want of seal, as we’re doing
a bit of summer to-day, and there is not a fire in the house.
