Mary Cowden Clarke letter to J. Rogers Rees, February 18, 1890

              Villa Novello 
Genoa 
18th February 1890  

My dear Sir  

Cordial thanks for your most amiable letter of 14th [ ? ], wherein three things particularly delighted me,-- to find you are intimate with my dear and honoured friend Alexander Ireland, to learn that your "booklets are the results of odd evening leisure after the daily duties of Bank Office are over", and to have you tell me that your wife joins you in sending kindly greetings to me. Dear Alexander Ireland wrote me an enthusiastic account last May of his pilgrimage with a "friend" (evidently you!) to [?Wistenlow Hutt], where our admirable Hazlitt wrote [?or] much of his literary work. It is pleasant confirmation of my conviction that it is judicious to make a [ ? ] for writing the recreation of a professional life. And I was charmed to become acquainted