THE AUTHOR'S REPLY THROUGH THE POST OFFICE.
Miss —; for such the style and character of your letter, as well
as the graceful penmanship betray you, I acknowledge the honor of receiving
your inquisitorial missile, duly by post, and take pleasure in replying
to it. I must confess myself guilty of a slip of the pen, and throw
myself upon the clemency of the fair tribunal before which I find myself
arraigned. Carleton is a real character. His outline was only sketched
when I altered the frame-work of my story, to reduce it to the size desired
by its publisher. If the original plan had been carried out, Carlton
would have come forth in bold relief from his “misty indistinctness,” and
been the hero of the novel. But as ten chapters were quite too confined
a space for two heroes to figure in, I resolved quietly to drop him and make
his Lieutenant, Morris Græme, my chief character. But some of the chapters
had already been printed with Carleton a principal character. I therefore
was under the necessity of alluding to him occasionally lest some
reader, as observing and critical as you have proved yourself to have been,
should accuse me of forgetting a personage of my story (for my readers
were not in the secret') My error was, I perceive, and which has given
rise to the difficulty to which I owe the honor of this correspondence, in
quite forgetting at the “winding up” that such a “misty” personage as
Carleton had been introduced, and referring his acts to Morris Græme! If
Carleton's name had taken the place of Morris Græme's in the text, the mystery
you speak of would not have occurred: nor would the honor of receiving
your note, now have been mine to acknowledge! If I should one day de
cide on publishing a Sequel to “The Dancing Feather,” be assurred
that neither Carleton nor Blanch Hillary, the true hero and heroine of that
novel in its original form! shall be forgotten; nor the subsequent career of
Morris Græme (whom I should still, perhaps, make the hero;) for the supposition
with which a clever friend of mine interpolated, unknown to me,
the last paragraph but one in that print, that the Dancing Feather with her
Captain and Lieutenants had foundered in the Gulf of Mexico, turns out
to have been incorrect; the vessel in question proving to have been a Carthagenian
Cruiser, on board which Red Fred had shipped. The career of
the Dancing Feather, and with her, of Carleton and Morris Græme, from
the night of her bird-like flight from the cove is fully known to me and
may one day afford material for a second Tale, in which rest assured, fair
questioner, I shall take pleasure in explaining the difficulties with which
you have charged me, touching the first story. In the meanwhile I have
the honor to be, very sincerely
Yours,
The Author of the Dancing Feather.
P. S.—In reply to your postcript, usually the most important part of a
lady's letter, I answer that Blanche should have been the heroine and married
the hero. But what could I do, dear young lady, condensing forty
chapters into one? But heroines sometimes survive their marriage
and are heroines still. If I should publish a sequel you may hear of
Blanche yet, and her “naval hero” to boot.
To J. T. T.
