He hopes he “has made his meaning clear.” Only too terribly clear! Almost every point necessary to the proper development of the plot was promptly knocked on the head; the vital links in the chain were broken, the structural backbone of the romance was destroyed. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have given up the idea in despair; but not Hall Caine. He seized on the hint of Bishop Wilson—the “epoch-making” personage; he altered this part of the plot, and developed that; he substituted one character for another, and introduced new _dramatis personæ_;—in a word, he not only recast the plot, but made it historically convincing, and this in the very face of the warnings and obstacles raised by one of the most erudite scholars the Isle of Man has yet produced. This, of course, involved immense labour, but it was done, and done successfully. Even Mr Brown himself had to acknowledge this. As Mr Caine has written me: “When the book was written there was no such sympathetic reader as T. E. B.”
Another eminent writer who generously acknowledged the power and beauty of _The Deemster_ was the late R. D. Blackmore, who wrote the following letter immediately after reading Mr Caine’s book.
“MY DEAR MR CAINE,—I thank you heartily for your kind and friendly letter, which was a comfort to me. It has always seemed to me that your turn of mind and power of creation are especially dramatic; and that you will write (if once you take to that form) a very grand and moving play. There is no one who can do that now, so far at least as I can judge; and I shall be proud if I live long enough to see you achieve it.
“For novel-writing you have not yet (according to my small judgment) the sense of proportion and of variety which are needful for pleasant work. I have read with great care your _Deemster_, and have admired and been stirred by it. But to my mind (which is not at all a critical one) there is not the sliding, and the quiet shifting, and the sense of pause, which are perhaps only the mechanical parts of great work, but help to lift it. I cannot exactly express my meaning, and I have no science to second it; and I know that I cannot do the thing myself, and never attempt it consciously. But it will come to you, with time, and give grace to your excelling power.