Leigh Hunt letter to Marianne Kent Hunt, November 17, 1808

              Thursday 17th November 1808.  
Why am I not with you, my dearest girl, at such a time? Why am I not with you to support you, & smile at you, & tend you as affectionately as you did me? Pray write to me every thing you suffer, for I know the communication will lessen the suffering; and who will sympathize with you more sincerely than I?  Your two letters I received almost at the same time yesterday, but I rather think that the first of them had been carelessly laid about somewhere at the Ex. Off. as you sent it to the post on Sunday ,morning early; I say early, because you say you had received no letter on that morning or on Saturday, and yet I wrote you one on Friday evening by the post. I am half in love with Miss Rivers for her kindness to you, but as you are the medium through which my hear passes, you can easily stop it by the way, you know. Some day perhaps I shall have the pleasure of knowing her and of thanking her for taking such care of my happiness. At present she is my idol in one sense at any rate, for she must receive my congratulations without hearing a word of them. Your second letter relieved me a little after the first: your chest is bad from cold & not from your original disorder, you may depend on it; and I should have half a mind to scold you for catching cold, did I not believe that kind words from me do you more good than anybody's physic. I am glad to see that you are able not only to read, but to read history and digest it too. Louis the 14th was like the Prince of Wales inasmuch as he was fond of pleasure; but his ambition rendered him at once a better & a worse man than the Prince, for it made him founder of literature & the arts, which he knew would immortalize him, and it plunged him into a hundred useless wars, which the Prince