Letter from Geraldine Jewsbury, Green Heys, to Chapman and Hall, 1844 August 9 : autograph manuscript signed.

Writing, at length and in detail, on her narrative decisions for her first novel in reply to suggestions from her publishers; saying "The whole chapter of the 'Religion of Humanity' can be cancelled, except just the narrative part at the beginning of it - nothing positive will then be said about Everhard's faith & people will be left at liberty to support any thing they like best, the generality of readers will settle it that he turned Unitarian wh. in those days was not a recognised Sect - only I am not going to tell them what he took up with - no Catholic of any mark who leaves the Church ever remains long the member of a protestant Sect;" suggesting several minor characters she could expand upon to "...give some quiet wholesome domestic scenes, to correct the somewhat un-English tone of other portions of the work and I would do the best in my power to make them interesting as well as respectable & of course they w'd all be sober members of the Established Church - This I think would introduce a sort of libration as painters term it, & tone down the whole affair and now that I have got the principal characters off my mind I shall be able to attend better to these minor people - With regard to marrying the hero & heroine as you seem to desire I can only say that the parties themselves would have entertained a strong repugnance to taking any such step. A Catholic priest who leaves his faith makes himself hateful to the Church, but a Priest who marries is thought disgraceful - it is the standing sneer that no priest ever left the Church except from the temptation to get married. It is a singular fact that the obligation of 'vows of Chastity' is felt very often to be still binding, when the parties have left the pale of the Church altogether[.] They are brought up with romantic notions about it, wh. never leave them[.] Luther himself married when he broke with the Church of Rome but it was the one point that brought him remorse for wh. he was afflicted with the most horrible misgivings of conscience - Some of my own most intimate friends are amongst the Catholic Clergy & I really cd never look them in the face again if I were to offer such a deliberate insult - I am very sorry to find my judgment at variance with yours, but having taken a Catholic Priest for my hero I must not commit any solecisms, & I assure you that Matrimony wd. be a very grievous one. Besides being an old maid myself I may be pardoned for not painting matrimony as the climax of human felicity. - If it will be any sort of satisfaction to you I will indite a solemn, definite moral in so many words for the confounding of gainsayers tho' I have had a strong moral purpose in view thro' the whole work wh. I did hope made itself felt & visible - viz: That the spirit of purity & sincerity, the negation of self in all its forms - or what Göthe called 'Renunciation' is the foundation of every thing that is great or noble in humanity and is equally incumbent on men whether they have a religious faith or whether they have not - and it was because in books these things are always made contingent on a creed, & identical & inseparable from some form of Belief more or less illogical, that I have endeavoured to shew their intrinsic necessity. The book is not intended for those who are comfortable in their catechisms, but for the multitude of those who are disturbed in their old forms of belief and who fear that when their Rule of Faith is lost, the great truths to wh. that Rule was to guide, will be non-extant also. These are the persons who in the present day want a word spoken to them, & they are becoming every day more numerous. If however people will not be satisfied without a moral 'four-square' as children say, why in the devil's name let them have it, they can want nothing more harmless - I fear I have wearied yr. patience with this long letter, I have only to say that in all practicable points I shall be most happy to meet yr. views - If you tell me how soon you will require the 140 pages I will make the best speed possible & if you are so very desperate about having heros & heroines married, why I have another novel designed & partly written in wh. all shall be selon les régles, & end in a marriage in the Parish Church[.] Allow me in conclusion to express my acknowledgment for the very gentlemanly tone of yr. suggestions and believe me yrs. faithfully & obediently / Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury."