Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/132

132 advantage. This appeared in the same year. The principal portion of it was written in wretched health, but it needs no apology. "To show the necessity of a strong and guiding principle; to put in the strongest light, that no vanity, no pleasure, can ever supply the place of affection—to soften and to elevate,"—this was the object of her story. In detailing it, she acknowledges her inability to work out her own ideal, but feels that it is the beautiful and the true. Thus explaining it, L. E. L. makes a short confession, which is interesting, as indicative of her literary anxiety, and a deepened sense of moral responsibility. "I cannot," she says, "understand a writer growing indifferent from custom or success. Every new work must be the record of much change in the mind which produces it, and there is always the anxiety to know how such change will be received. It is impossible, also, that the feeling of your own moral responsibility should not increase. At first you write eagerly; composition is rather a passion than a power; but, as you go on, you cannot but find that, to write a book, is a far more serious charge than it at first appeared. Faults have been pointed out, and you are desirous of avoiding their recurrence; praise has been bestowed, and you cannot but wish to show that it has not been given in vain. Encouragement is the deepest and dearest debt that a writer can incur. Moreover, you have learnt that opinions are not to be lightly put forth, when there is even a chance of such opinions being matériel, wherewith others will form their own. I never saw any one reading a volume of mine without almost a sensation of fear. I write every day more earnestly and more seriously."

It would be absurd to say that there are not