The Selected Letters of Elizabeth Stoddard

Letter 68. To Lilian Whiting, June 25, [1888]

202 letter 68 To Lilian Whiting June 25, [1888] [New York City, New York] 25th June My dear You could not have made the paragraph about spouse neater—it is just the thing, & I hope it will be copied. The question is if you should suddenly withdraw from the Traveller,1 what would become of it? Your review is excellent.2 I see that you as well as the Tribune3 (Mr Parsons4 ) avoid the Lang episode. In the first reviews I remember two things said. The late Charles Briggs5 said it was the best anti-slavery sermon ever preached, and another told me, that I had allowed Parke to seduce, and kill a young girl without a “word of disapprobation, either by the6 or her characters.”7 Do you remember the interview between Parke & Philippa at Mrs Rogers tea drinking, when some feeling impelled her to give him a kiss, the first?—then—“so fell his sin into the depths of his soul.” The “shadow of something prophetic fell on him—” I must have failed, where Balzac8 would have succeeded in a masterly delineation of the cause and effect of emotion. It was the reflex of Parke’s state of mind that moved Philippa to caress him— and he recognized his sin by his horror of the caress of purity & innocence. Oh why why was I not given that genius whose insight teaches and makes the mysteries of the human heart understood— Two Men when it came out was received with a sort of shock—in looking for some thing else, I came upon a bundle of reviews I had forgotten—one said never was such a novel published and it was to be hoped never would be again! Therefore you see I have reason to be grateful now. There is truth in me and my truth should, if it hasn’t, make my characters find their truth. People go to their graves blind & dumb as to their capacities, passions, traits, appetites etc.—just as countries and nations do. Did any body ever believe 25 years before 203 that the North and the South would spring at each others throats— and drink deeply of each others blood? Two Men has a special interest for me. I began it, wrote about half and discovered that Master Lorimer was also being edited.9 I stopped till he was well under way in the arms of his wet nurse and finished it. That period of my life was the most dramatic. My brother Col Barstow was a staff officer on Gen Dix’s10 staff—and Edwin Booth & his young wife11 almost lived with us. Daily contact with war matters, our first connection with the stage made life scintillate, as if a sword was drawn from its scabbard. Remind me to tell you something when I see you. Lorimer’s name is Lorimer-Edwin. You will perhaps perceive I am praty this morning, it may be that it is from the terrible heat—my brain dissolving in its own gravy. Please look out for yourself, but Boston is cooler than NY its east wind is a boon in summer. Lorry has just handed me the Boston Courier notice—whoever wrote it did not feel it but he is right. Lorimer has written you but he sends his regards in his shirt sleeves this morning. We cant get off yet—and we are as snappy and cross a family as need be. We very sincerely oppose every individual plan and proposition offered. I wish I could help you on your paper— Ever yours EDBS After a while take up Two Men again. I think that my readers at a second reading overcome the obscurity of my style or rather get through it and “see me as I am said Cromwell’12 —I am anxious to have the other novels & such republished. Manuscript: Lilian Whiting Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library notes 1. Whiting was the editor of the Boston Traveller from 1880 to 1890. 2. Whiting’s review of Two Men appeared in the Traveller on June 21, 1888. In it, she praises Stoddard’s “relentless fidelity to detail” and compares Stoddard to Charlotte Brontë. 3. The review of Two Men in the Tribune on June 17, 1888, was one of the first to be published. The anonymous reviewer insisted that the time had come for 204 Stoddard’s work to be reappraised and...