Mrs. Milman,
however, has read to me the whole of the MS. It is a very remarkable
production--very wild, very extravagant, very German, very powerful,
very poetical. It will, I think, be much read--as far as one dare
predict anything of the capricious taste of the day--much admired, and
much abused. It is much more in the Macaulay than in the Croker line,
and the former is evidently in the ascendant. Some passages will startle
the rigidly orthodox; the phrenologists will be in rapture. I tell you
all this, that you may judge for yourself. One thing insist upon, if you
publish it-that the title be changed. The whole beauty, of the latter
part especially, is its truth. It is a rapid volume of travels, a
"Childe Harold" in prose; therefore do not let it be called "a Romance"
on any account. Let those who will, believe it to be a real history, and
those who are not taken in, dispute whether it is truth or fiction. If
it makes any sensation, this will add to its notoriety. "A Psychological
Auto-Biography" would be too sesquipedalian a title; but "My Life
Psychologically Related," or "The Psychology of my Life," or some such
title, might be substituted.
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