If Hester had remained in London after the success of her _Idyll_
she would have met with so much sympathy and admiration that her next
book would probably have suffered in consequence. She is so susceptible,
so expansive, that repression is positively necessary to her to enable
her, so to speak, to get up steam. There is no place for getting up
steam like a country vicarage with an inner cordon of cows round it and
an outer one of amiable country neighbors, mildly contemptuous of
originality in any form. She cannot be in sympathy with them in her
present stage. It is her loss, not theirs. At forty she will be in
sympathy with them, and appreciate them as I do; but that is another
story. She has been working at this new book all winter with a fervor
and concentration which her isolation has helped to bring about. She
owes a debt of gratitude to her surroundings, and some day I shall tell
her so."
"She says her temper has become that of a fiend."
"She is passionate, there is no doubt. She nearly fell on us both this
afternoon. She is too much swayed by every little incident. Everything
makes a vivid impression on her and shakes her to pieces. It is rather
absurd and disproportionate now, like the long legs of a foal, but it is
a sign of growth.
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