'I have only got about half through Cyral Thornton as yet and cannot therefore be decided on its merits. But I suspect it to have one grievious fault that of introducing innumerable curous [sic] and original characters of whom you would like to be well acquainted and of whom you hear no more. I have no patience at all with this rambling and deesultory mode of running through a life, and if it do not turn out better embodied ultimately than it has done thus far I shall damn it as the work of a man of high accomplishments given to prosing and garrulity'