I often read her stories partly from
my interest in her, and partly because I find merit enough in them to
deserve something, better than the rough handling they got from her
coarse-fibred critic, whoever he was. I see evidence that her thoughts
are wandering from her task, that she has fits of melancholy, and bursts
of tremulous excitement, and that she has as much as she can do to keep
herself at all to her stated, inevitable, and sometimes almost despairing
literary labor. I have had some acquaintance with vital phenomena of
this kind, and know something of the nervous nature of young women and
its "magnetic storms," if I may borrow an expression from the physicists,
to indicate the perturbations to which they are liable. She is more in
need of friendship and counsel now than ever before, it seems to me, and
I cannot bear to think that the Lady, who has become like a mother to
her, is to leave her to her own guidance.
It is plain enough what is at the bottom of this disturbance. The
astronomical lessons she has been taking have become interesting enough
to absorb too much of her thoughts, and she finds them wandering to the
stars or elsewhere, when they should be working quietly in the editor's
harness.
The Landlady has her own views on this matter which she communicated to
me something as follows:
--I don't quite like to tell folks what a lucky place my boarding-house
is, for fear I should have all sorts of people crowding in to be my
boarders for the sake of their chances.
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