“I have this moment finished the perusal of ‘Paul Clifford.’ I know that you are not so wrapped up in self-confidence as not to feel a real pleasure in the approbation of others. And I regard it as a duty not to withhold my approbation when I am morally certain that it will be received as it is intended.
“There are parts of the book that I read with transport. There are many parts so divinely written that my first impulse was to throw my implements of writing in the fire, and to wish that I could consign all that I have published in the province of fiction to the same pyre. But this would be a useless sacrifice: and superior as I feel you to be in whatever kindles the finest emotions of the heart, I may yet preserve my peace, so far as relates to the mechanism of a story. This is but little, and does not satisfy my self-love, but I am capable of a sentiment that teaches me to rejoice in the triumph of others, without subjecting me to the mean and painful drawback of envy.
“I am bound to add that the penetration and acuteness you display are not inferior to the delicacy.”
