Underneath it
was a border of pale-golden, open sky, and below was the sea. The
hills hid it, but I knew it was there. I was hushed and reassured.
When I got home I transferred my emotion to my deserted heroine, and
tears blotted the paper. But it was a mere episode, without
connection and, in fact, an obstruction.
I sent my manuscript to a publisher and need hardly say that it was
returned as unsuitable. I tried two others, but with no success.
The third enclosed a copy of his reader's opinion. Here it is:-
' . . . is obviously a first attempt. It evinces some power in
passages, but the characters lack distinction and are limited by
ordinary conventional rules. I cannot recommend it to you for its
own sake, and there is no prospect in it of anything better. The
author might be capable of short stories for a religious magazine.
It is singular that Miss C.'s Mariana, which you also sent me,
should be on somewhat the same lines, but Mariana, his first love,
is seduced by the man who forsakes her and, in the end, marries her
as his second wife.
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