It will be gathered from what I have said that Mr. Moore has vastly outstripped his own public form, even as shown in _A Mummer's Wife_. But it may be as well to set down, beyond possibility of misapprehension, my belief that in _Esther Waters_ we have the most artistic, the most complete, and the most inevitable work of fiction that has been written in England for at least two years. Its plainness of speech may offend many. It may not be a favorite in the circulating libraries or on the bookstalls. But I shall be surprised if it fails of the place I predict for it in the esteem of those who know the true aims of fiction and respect the conscientious practice of that great art. MRS. MARGARET L. WOODS Nov. 28, 1891. "Esther Vanhomrigh." Among considerable novelists who have handled historical subjects--that is to say, who have brought into their story men and women who really lived and events which have really taken place--you will find one rule strictly observed, and no single infringement of it that has been followed by success. This rule is that the historical characters and events should be mingled with poetical characters and events, and _made subservient to them_. And it holds of books as widely dissimilar as _La Vicomte de Bragelonne_ and _La Guerre et la Paix_; _The Abbot_ and _John Inglesant_. In history Louis XIV. and Napoleon are the most salient men of their time: in fiction they fall back and give prominence to D'Artagnan and the Prince André. They may be admirably painted, but unless they take a subordinate place in the composition, the artist scores a failure. A Disability of "Historical Fiction."