He could not endure hearing a good word said for the "Letters" now.
The great public, I believe, always preferred the "Letters," but among important sections of it the new book was a delight, and for various reasons.

For instance, it was no mere story.

That got the thoughtful public.

Its style, again, got the public which knows it is the only public that counts.
Society still held aloof (there was an African traveller on view that year), but otherwise everything was going on well, when the bolt came, as ever, from the quarter whence it was least expected.

It came in a letter from Grizel, so direct as to be almost as direct as this: "I think it is a horrid book.