1890-02-14 to Clara Lanza

Autograph letter signed, Columbia University, 542 words

[Edited for paragraph breaks, capitalization, spelling and punctuation.]

8 Kings Bench Walk, Temple

[Friday] February 14th 1890

My dear Clara Lanza

It seems to me that I have not heard from you for a long time, and it seems to me that I have neglected our correspondence lately. And if I judge you rightly you are not a person to put up with the slightest negligence.

The last time I wrote to you I asked you to tell me if I might send you some trifle and I asked you to tell me if there was any English trifle that you would care for, which is [not] easily obtainable in New York. That letter has not been answered. Was my letter indiscreet? You know an indiscretion between us seems an impossibility. I should not ask my aunt if I might dine with her but I should not mind asking you. Do write and put me out of suspense.

Your book is in Downey’s hands and I have little doubt that they will republish it, for in truth it is an excellent book. I shall press them a bit now for they tell me that Mike Fletcher, although badly reviewed, is not a commercial failure. I was ashamed to go near them before.

Nature always contradicts us when we draw conclusions — no one is braver than I in one way, [in another] no one is so great a coward; I am easily disheartened. You never sent me any of the American reviews so I suppose they were dreadful.

My play is nearly finished. I will send you a copy and if you see Wilson Barrett, ask him to read it. The copy I shall send is for you to keep. I want you to see it. I think I told you what Harris thinks about it. The worst of it is that it will, on account of the way I have attacked the dramatists, be very difficult to get produced in London. The first night would be awful. The papers here are full of paragraphs about it, or rather full of comments on the fact that I am writing a play. It is all the fault of a stupid woman who thought she would serve me [by] announcing my intentions. These preliminary paragraphs and articles have done me, I am convinced, a great deal of harm. Still if the play is absolutely first rate it will bear away all opposition however strong it may be.

I believe implicitly in the chef d’oeuvre. The chef d’oeuvre cannot be destroyed. I do not mean by this that I think my play is a chef d’oeuvre. But I am satisfied with it and confess que je ne voix pas plus loin.

This is a dreary letter, I should say scribble, containing nothing of interest to anybody. Next time I write I will try and write better — that is to say, I will try and write more personally. You have the happiest knack of revealing your mood of mind in a letter and creating a picture of your life. This I have not got.

Goodbye dear Clara Lanza and believe me

Most sincerely yours

George Moore