Leigh Hunt letter to Marianne Kent Hunt, August 30, 1806

              [London] Sunday Evening.   August 30th. 1806.  
You should not imagine, my dear girl, that I am angry with you for writing so badly, as you are pleased to say: I really think your writing was very good considering your bad pens and bad ink, and I should have written to you before, but I reserved my paper for Sunday, that I might have better leisure to write you a long letter.  
Nothing could please me more than the attention your hosts pay you, and particularly that of Mrs. Bonnycastle:[1] always recollect, that it is a compliment paid to a girl's good sense, when a lady much older than herself enters into a rational conversation with her; and it is for this reason, that I have so often expressed my wishes that you should read oftener than you do, that you might be enabled to maintain such a conversation with credit both to yourself and to your immediate friends: not that I should be gratified in seeing you forward to question and to raise arguments, but nothing that is moderate & rational can be injurious to a female, and it is indeed one of her greatest charms to be able to express her admiration of sense and virtue in terms worthy those exalted qualities; to shew that we recollect the great actions of men, the wisdom of poets and of other writers, and the lives of those who rendered themselves illustrious by public or beloved by private virtue, is to shew that we have an inclination for virtue and wisdom ourselves, or we should not have studied to recollect them.  I hope when you return that we shall become quite literary on Sunday afternoons: if I can prevail upon your bashfulness, you will read out a little to me from a book of lives or of travels, two of the most instructive as well as entertaining kinds of writing, for it is a delightful blessing of providence, that the road to the highest wisdom, which is a knowledge of the human heart, is beguiled by so many agreeable stories; if you meet in the course of your reading with some account of an exploit or virtue that peculiarly interests you, and point it out to me, I am sure I shall be grateful enough to give you a kiss for your pains; and if I undertake to teach you some particular emphasis on a word or sentence, or to explain some obscure passage to you, I know you will not deny me one for mine.  Will not this sort of study be delightful?
And now for a little conversation still more serious; but before I enter upon a subject that interests us both most deeply, I assure you that I should not venture to hint at instructing you in any matters, did I not know that you