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Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library, Misc 3575. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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One reason why you have not for so long time heard from me you will readily have imagined, – knowing how idly I am
disposed to pass my time, & how many employments there are for me, whenever I sit down to the desk. Another has been that I have
very long been expecting to see the end of your old acquaintance Kehama,
Thank you for remembering my little Neapolitan or Sicilian book,
Herbert was delighted at the arrival of his picture, – a single speck only of
paper has stuck to it, but Mrs Lovell is seriously injured in this manner, paper
having clung to the whole of the hair, luckily the other parts of the picture have escaped, & this can be easily washed out &
replaced. Had the face sufferd it would have really grieved me, for it is as fine & perfect a likeness as ever was produced. – Do
you know that I have a daughter Katharine – who is now two months old? &
little Bertha is grown big enough & beautiful enough for your pencil were
you here. I call her my live Doll, she is such a kissable & play-able creature. Last week she had a smart bilious attack which has
reduced her a good deal, – during its continuance there were two others persons who sufferd more than she did, – Edith is easily alarmed, & my philosophy stands me in less stead than it ought
to do on these occasions.
If you can procure me Dolignonsfrequent dream of her sometimes even now, – proof
enough how deeply the recollections of those days <years> is impressed upon my soul me. Happy will the
woman be who marries him, – for if that mans heart had not proved good I could almost have disbelieved the moral order of the world, –
so admirable was x his mother in every point of her character & conduct.
We expect every day to see the Montagues.thxx any
immediate work, – & if possible, – that is if she can prevaild upon, Edith is
to accompany me –