Cambridge, February 4, 1859.
My dear Mrs. Stowe,--I certainly did mean to write you about your story, but only to cry bravissima! with the rest of the world.
I intended no kind of criticism; deeming it wholly out of place, and in the nature of a wet-blanket, so long as a story is unfinished.
When I got the first number in Ms., I said to Mr. Phillips that I thought it would be the best thing you had done, and what followed has only confirmed my first judgment.
From long habit, and from the tendency of my studies, I cannot help looking at things purely from an esthetic point of view, and what I valued in Uncle Tom was the genius, and not the moral.
That is saying a good deal, for I never use the word genius at haphazard, and always (perhaps, too) sparingly.
I am going to be as frank as I ought to be with one whom I value so highly.
What especially charmed me in the new story was, that you had .taken your stand on New England ground.
You are one of the few persons lucky enough to be born with eyes in your head,--that is, with something behind the eyes which makes them of value.
To most people the seeing apparatus is as useless as the great telescope at the observatory is to me,--something to stare through with no intelligent result.
Nothing could be better than the conception of your plot (so far as I divine it), and the painting — in of your figures.
As for “theology,” it is as much a part of daily life in New England as in Scotland, and all I should have to say about it is this: let it crop out when it naturally comes to the surface, only don't dig down to it. A moral aim is a fine thing, but in making a story an artist is a traitor who does
