TO H.K.F.G.

Eccelsfield. December, 1882.

...  I rather HOPE to have a story for you for March, which will be laid in France.  Will it do if you have it by February 8?...

It is a terribly close subject, and I shall either fail at it, or make it I hope not inferior to “Jackanapes.”  I don’t think it will be long.  The characters are so few, I have only plotted it.  It will be called—­

“THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN”:  AN OLD
SOLDIER’S STORY.

DRAM.  PERS.

MADAME. 
HER MAID. 
THE FATHER OF MADAME. 
THE FATHER OF THE SERGEANT. 
THE MOTHER OF THE SERGEANT. 
THE SERGEANT. 
THE PRIEST.
THE MURDERER. 
A POODLE.

Soldiers, Peasants, Priests, Gendarmes, a Rabble, Reapers—­but you know I generally overflow my limits.  I hope I can do it, but it tears me to bits! and I’ve walked myself to bits nearly in plotting it this morning,—­a very little written, but I believe I could be ready by February 8.  I don’t think it will be as long as “Daddy Darwin,” not nearly.

Please settle with Mr. B. what you will do about an illustration.  The first scene is that of the death-bed of the sergeant’s father.  I think it would be quite as good a scene for illustration as any, and will, I trust, be ready in a day or two.  Is it worth Mr. B.’s while to see if R.C. would do it in shades of brown or grey? (a very chiaroscuro scene in a tumble-down cottage, light from above).  All I must have is a good illustration or none at all. (I would send copy of scene to R.C. and ask him.) I think it might pay, because I am certain to want to republish it, and whoever I publish it with will pay half-price for the old illustration.  I do myself believe that it might be colour-printed in (say seven instead of seventeen) shades of colour (blues, and browns, and black, and yellow, and white) at much less cost than a full-coloured one, but that I leave to Mr. B.:  only I have some strong theories about it, and when I come to town I mean to make Edmund Evans’s acquaintance.

Strange to say, I believe I could make the tale illustrate the “Portrait of a Sergeant” if it were possible to get permission to have a thing photoed and reduced from that!!!—­Goupil would be the channel in which to inquire—­but the artist would not be a leading character, as far as I can see, so it might not be all one could wish.  But it is worth investigating....

Or again, I wonder what Herkomer would charge for an etching of the dying old Woodcutter, and his kneeling son?  I believe THAT would be the thing!—­But the plate must be surfaced so that A.J.M. mayn’t exhaust all the good impressions.  If Herkomer would etch that, and add a vignette of a scene I could give him with a beautiful peasant girl—­or of the old sergeant and the portly and worldly “Madame,” we SHOULD “do lovely!” Will you try for that, please?