I am glad the book did not come to me in manuscript; for an unfamiliar handwriting prejudices me I can tell hardly anything about a book which is written in an unfamiliar hand; & so, ◊ lest I express a lame & unjust opinion, I express none at all. People are greatly surprised that publishers off often reject books which afterwards achieve high celebrity: I believe that it was the unfamiliar handwriting that made the trouble., usually.

I like your book so much that I am glad of the chance to say so. Your style is so simple, sincere, direct, & at the same time so clear & so strong, that I think it must have been born to you, not made. Your pictures of that arid village life, & the insides & outsides of its people, are vivid, & what is more, true; I know, for I have seen it all, lived it all.

Your book is a history; your scissors could have turned it into a tale—& that would have been better, maybe, for many can write a history, whereas few can write a tale. You could have knocked out an obstruction here & there, & then your history would have become a story, flowing with gathering speed & uninterrupted current.

By the small space which you give to Big Adam, I judge you do did not perceive that you were contributing a mighty figure to the procession of originals that is marching out of the ark of American literature to possess the land. Your other characters are good, they are well done, & worth the patient art you lavished upon them; but when Big Adam strides by,Ⓐemendation it is Gulliver in Lilliput. You give the others twenty-nine thirtieths of big space in the book, & Adam a thirtieth: little: now then, bring him on the stage again, & reverse these proportions; so shall you deserve well of the nation. You see I can speak calmly; but when I read passages about Big Adam to Mr. George W. Cable, he forgot himself & shouted “Superb, superb—he is colossal!”

You write as a man talks; & very few can reach that height of excellence. I think a man who possesses that gift & a reas is quite sure to write a readable book—& you have done that.

bottom portion of page (about 4 lines) cut away, presumably to cancel; letter continues on a new page, numbered ‘1’

Private.

All that is public—to use as you please—or any part of it. But this is private, & not the public’s business. You have allowed the tears to plash on the floor once in the preface & thrice in the book. The figure is very striking—& jokes & striking figures should not be repeated. You might retort that Adam’s corks should not be repeated, then; but not so—no time to explain why, but you know why. I’d rather hear Adam draw an imaginary cork than another man a real one—even at my thirstiest. ⟦Look you y ⟦You ought to write a drama at once & make Adam the central figure—keep him on the stage all through the piece—there’s sixty or eighty thousand dollars in it if you get the right man—a new actor—because an a celebrated one would have to have the bulk of the cash. I don’t know whether you care for the cash, but still——well, give it away.⟧

Next time, I wish you’d leave out Biggs, or anybody else whose diversions interrupt the story. Nothing should ever be allowed to break the speed of a story.

Mateel carried my heart & sympathy right along, & into her grave with her; but from the beginning to the end I was pretty generally down on Joe; & when Mateel made her appeal to him—oh, but damnation I cut him dead, there & then, & we have never spoken since. Usually I don’t care a rap what becomes of the people in a story, just so I have a reasonable hope that they are all going to h Ⓐemendation but I was interested in these folks.

You are like the Frenchman, who said “I will drown, nobody shall help me”—which was just the reverse of what he meant. Everybody has his some small grammatical infelicity or other—yours is the continuous & accurate misplacing of your wills & shalls. But you won’t do it any more.

There—that’s all; except that you apologiz[e] in the preface; & you handicap Joe there, too—though you didn’t for me, because I read the book through first. Cable & I are of one mind that the preface should have been left out.

I am talking pretty freely, but I mean no harm. You may have caught the only fish there was in your pond—it’s a thing that has occurred before—but if I believe it may I be Ⓐemendation I am not able to think so. And so I talk—otherwise I would be silent.

Still, it is the first time I ever did talk. Out of the six & thirty million times I have been asked for an opinion about a book, I believe this is the first time I have ever furnished one——not that I am loathsome & unsympathetic, but because they just d upon becauseⒶemendation the books were not worth a dam Ⓐemendation worthless.

I wish you would come & see me. I should be very glad. You would be welcome.