his intention that Mrs. Newsome, away off with her finger on the
pulse of Massachusetts, should yet be no less intensely than
circuitously present through the whole thing, should be no less
felt as to be reckoned with than the most direct exhibition, the
finest portrayal at first hand could make her, such a sign of
artistic good faith, I say, once it's unmistakeably there, takes
on again an actuality not too much impaired by the comparative
dimness of the particular success. Cherished intention too
inevitably acts and operates, in the book, about fifty times as
little as I had fondly dreamt it might; but that scarce spoils for
me the pleasure of recognising the fifty ways in which I had
sought to provide for it. The mere charm of seeing such an idea
constituent, in its degree; the fineness of the measures taken--a
real extension, if successful, of the very terms and possibilities
of representation and figuration--such things alone were, after
this fashion, inspiring, such things alone were a gage of the
probable success of that dissimulated calculation with which the
whole effort was to square. But oh the cares begotten, none the
less, of that same "judicious" sacrifice to a particular form of
interest! One's work should have composition, because composition
alone is positive beauty; but all the while--apart from one's
inevitable consciousness too of the dire paucity of readers ever
recognising or ever missing positive beauty--how, as to the cheap
and easy, at every turn, how, as to immediacy and facility, and
even as to the commoner vivacity, positive beauty might have to be
sweated for and paid for! Once achieved and installed it may
always be trusted to make the poor seeker feel he would have
blushed to the roots of his hair for failing of it; yet, how, as
its virtue can be essentially but the virtue of the whole, the
wayside traps set in the interest of muddlement and pleading but