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Leigh Hunt letter to Bryan Waller Procter [Barry Cornwall], June 22, 1857

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Title	Leigh Hunt letter to Bryan Waller Procter [Barry Cornwall], June 22, 1857
Creator	Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859
Date Original	1857-06-22
Description	Concerning his illness; his gratitude for the illumination by Adelaide Procter and for Procter's poetry; his comments on Wilkie Collins; the cities of York and Chester; the value of words; Pauline Burette and his wish that she might talk French with him; towns in northern England; Procter's visits to madhouses; Hunt's love of old friends and his grandchildren.
Note	Envelope measures 6.8 cm x 12.0 cm
Personal Name Subject	Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859 Cornwall, Barry, 1787-1874 Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 Burette, Pauline
Geographic Subject	England -- London -- Hammersmith and Fulham -- Hammersmith
Chronological Subject	1850-1860
Type (DCMIType)	Text
Type (AAT)	Correspondence
Type (IMT)	jpeg
Digital Collection	Leigh Hunt Letters
Contributing Institution	University of Iowa. Libraries. Special Collections Dept.
Archival Collection	Brewer-Leigh Hunt Collection
Collection Guide	http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/resources/Brewer-LeighHunt.html
Location	bound MsL P96h leaf 18 (previous call number MsL P96h no. 7)
Rights Management	Educational use only, no other permissions given. This letter is owned by The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department, and is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without written permission of the Special Collections Department.
Contact Information	Contact the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
Height (cm)	18.0
Width (cm)	11.5
Number of Pages	11 + 1 blank + envelope
Number of Sheets of Paper	3
Digitization Specifications	Scanned with Ricoh Aficio 2335 scanner at 600 ppi, 24-bit color. Archival tiff image available.
Date Digital	2009-04-29
Transcript	Hammersmith - June 22. My dear Procter, The length of your letter from York was so far from rendering it the less welcome, that what with other correspondents, with visitors, and with debilitating effects of the weather (which together with bronchitis has begun to make my hand-writing unsteady) I have been putting off my answer from day to day, in the hope of writing as long a one to shew my gratitude. But though the bronchitis, which has pursued me further this year into the summer-time, has for these three or four days all but gone, my strength has become less promising than it was before you wrote, owing, I conceive, to the heat and the per- turbed state of the elements, and if I do not write what I can to-day, perhaps I shall be less able tomorrow. So first let me thank you (but how shall I be able at any time to do that properly?) for the illumination; or rather your daughter, again & again, for that, and you (ditto) for the poetry. I can only tell you, that it brought tears of thanks and tenderness into my eyes, and that the care bestowed upon the "gold and azure" as in the former instance, makes me steal a bit of your paternity towards the artist, and take a particular interest in her interesting face, and in all else that concerns her. This, too, I am sure, Mrs. Procter will allow to the grateful old man; and as to her own leave, you see I do not ask it. People cannot interest us, and then expect that we are not to be interested. - I am saying all this to you, you must know, in the presence of both ladies; for in my ignorance of your whereabouts, while you are thus from home, I have begged Mrs. Procter to con-vey to you what I write, and to read it accordingly as if it were spoken before all concerned, - ergo to Adelaide as well. I say "Adelaide" because in my right of the above little invisible bit of paternity, it will not be expected of me that I should confine myself to the more ceremonial designation. But, after all, how am I to retain this glori-fication of me in my parlour, and not put it, with another /---/ less flattering looking-glass, in my bed-room? Justice to the illuminatress &c. says nay to that; and yet, while proud of its being seen, I /---/ find myself making apologies for the pride; so that between duty to others, and modesty for myself, my magnanimity undergoes severe trials, and I know not what to conclude. Meantime the object is very ornamental, and makes a charming double to its predecessor. - So I go on with my letter. I rejoice that the evening was considered a pleasant one, and that you wish you had /wish you had/ been with us. Very pleasant it was to me, both for what was brought me and for the bringers; and speedy, I hope, will be another which is promised me, with additions, - for I think it was arranged that Edith should come (i.e. of course, if she would) and it has been intimated to me, through my daughter Julia, from Weymouth Street, that Mr. Wilkie Collins might join them, - a man whose books have long given me a wish to know him, for they are a /very/ veritable addition to the stock, and novels indeed; that is, things new, and to use a hackneyed, but in his case truly appropriate phrase, of "startling interest" besides containing such abundant evi- dence of right feeling, and of pleasantry to boot, as renders the wish to know a man a personal wish. --I am writing these last sentences on June 23rd . for I could not finish yesterday. - That York should appear to you "the most desolate city in England" surprised me. One fancies those famous cities to remain always what they were. I suppose the railways run away with the inhabitants to London and elsewhere. When I say "what they were" I mean in point of substance and occupancy: otherwise no old city in the times in which we live, unless it be absolutely deserted (as I have seen a town on the coast of Italy) or grass-grown in some of its streets, like Verona, can affect us with a sense of former ages, as it does in books. What are all the houses in York to the "houses of York & Lancaster"? and did you ever think of York at all, old or new, when the "Duke of York" was commander-in-chief? How different he sounded from the Duke of Richards and Edwards? I got a strong ancient sensation once out of Chester, with its walls and its curious-lifted corridors of footways; yet inasmuch as the waiters said "Yes, Sir" and there was "Smith, Grocer" over shop doors, the living impression would not let the old one alone; no, not though I saw the river Dee, on which King Edgar was rowed by eight kinglets, and for two or three minutes the "wizard stream" looked verily enchant-ed, the day was so hot, and everything was so still & motionless. Death however making dreadful distances all at once between past and present, I do not wonder that you felt as you did at sud-denly meeting with Etty /--- ---/ in the shape of his tombstone. but why should you end with calling what you say about it "gossipping nonsense"? I have observed more than once in you of late a tendency to undervalue what you say, and to call /them/ it "words"; as if words were not often things also, and very precious, especi-ally on the gravest occasions. I am afraid your very generosity has helped to mislead you in the matter, as well as your acquaint-tance with less generous men. But it becomes all who are sincere to stick by one another on such an occasion, whether able or not to prove their sincerity, at all times to the incredulous. So as a party greatly interested in the value of words (since I possess little else), I must beg you to turn aside from those gentlemen, and from your experiences of the law, and never to speak otherwise than becomes the man you are, and a poet; for without "words" and the truth of things that is in them, what were he! A pretty lecture! yet I think I am older enough as well as poorer enough, to be allowed to give it. Adversity & bad health con-spired to isolate me for so many years, not having a crust, as it were, with which to greet a friend, or a penny for coach-hire wherewith to seek him, that I began to be base enough to think my own best words of consequence to nobody, even when about themselves. Great was my joy at finding the case otherwise; and this is another reason why I must not have words undervalued by those whom I have /---/ never ceased to think sincere, however their own depreciation of their words may have pretended to puzzle me. I have also another reason, which I particularly desire to whisper in your ear, whenever I can speak apart with you vivâ voce for five minutes, and which it was of no use to tell before. And it is a very difficult reason too, at least to myself; and you will like it on that account. So come for the riddle as soon as you can. /I could not pity Pauline Burette for her want of a dinner, seeing how she made up for it; especially as in a certain habitual and luxurious sense of the word, I think I may say I have never dined myself. But if ever Pauline marries and has children, sad may be her misgiving at not having secured certain hereditary dinners for others, whatever good she may think to have done the community on her public stage./ I wish I could make it worth her while to come & talk French with me; for though I can "read French" (as the advertisements say) I "cannot speak it." I would get on very quickly too, septuagenarian though I be; and then I should not be ashamed as I was the other day, when Monckton Milnes introduced me to Mons. Merimee, "who spoke English." Yet I was glad of it too; and I bask in the brusque geniality of the said Monckton, who is a good fellow and large-brained withal. Item, his wife hath a smile as sweet as a sudden piece of good news. I remember the battle of Hexham, principally Colman's, and the protector of the fugitive queen; and was hand & glove with them & their drums at the Haymarket theatre, as if the whole war of the Roses was taking place in a hot little private room. "Haltwhistle" too, I am not unacquainted with, by means of a good old gazetteer which I possess (Luckcombe's) and which tells me, besides spelling it Haltwesel (which is as pleasant as the other name, but seemingly should be Wessel - another town, within, I suppose, a half's reach of it), that it "enjoys (to-wit in the year 1790) "an infant manufactory of baize." I hope the young gentleman, by this time, has become the delight of all who know him. Chester Le Street, or "Chester in the Street" that is to say, on the strait or high road between Durham and Berwick (you see how learned I am in your localities, by means of Mr. Luckcombe) was formerly a Roman camp. All Chesters, you know, are camps, - Castra. In Northumberland I find a "Chester in the Wall, near Busy-Gap." About fish in Hull (Marvel's place), I find this in Luckcombe: - "The first trade that enriched it was in Iceland fish dried and hardened; the same that is called stock-fish, because it is carried on by a joint-stock." This etymology of the word stock-fish being new to me, I fancied might be so to others. At Newcastle-on-Tyne, I suppose you take your hat off to the shade of Akenside, a very stately gentleman, who delighted in a full-bottomed or full-powdered doctor's wig and sables, analogous to the dignity of his blank verse. Going from "madhouse to madhouse" is indeed earning good payment hardly, especially for a poet; but then he is the man to do all the good possible to people so terribly out of the pale of commonplace, for he is used to those regions of imagination to which non-use or want of the complete round of brain has subjected them; and I have no doubt your pilgrimages have carried blessings with them. This must be, and of course is, your consolation. This year, I suspect, has been a particularly trying year to all delicate organizations, and you will probably find yourself younger again next. Meantime "St. Leon" or "the milk" won't do, will they? unless people could recover those whom they have lost, & by whom, during the fatigue of advanced life, they often feel willing to lie down "under the green turf" till the thought of survivors sets them again in motion. In one respect, besides the greater regard which I retain for "words" my sequestered unlegal, i.e. unlaw-mingled life (a terrible compound epithet that, I must own) has given me an advantage over you in keeping alive my tendency to see loveabilities in people, and thus to add to my stock of comforts: for I do not the less love old friends - quite the contrary - for when goodheartedness survives all trials & exacerbations, where can loveability be so well proved? Besides, I have grandchildren, which is a help in this matter to which you have not attained; and /---/ two of them live in the house with me, and think I take as much interest in what they do as if I were no older; which is a wonderful flattery to the would-be innocence in the "old Adam" and tends to make him fancy that he has as much right to remain in the borders of their paradise as they have to be in it, if for no better reason than his wish to do so, and his sorrows. But I am answering every point of your letter with a vengeance! and have been cramming the previous page with small writing, out of a fear that overtook me in the leaf before it, of my having no more room! whereas I am going to leave a couple of blank pages!! However, it will shew you, my dear old friend, how glad I am to have a talk with you, and how it bears me on, in spite of all languid, & hot, and cephalic, and dyspeptic misgivings of ability. So come to see me as soon as you can, as be assured I will you; only mind, that it must be under circumstances during which I can speak to you for a few minutes apart. It is upon nothing that can put you out in any way; - only something which I must call to your mind. But I think I can take you better apart (if you do not come alone), from several persons than from one: so your family first, if you please, and Forster afterwards. Or I will first come to Weymouth Street if you prefer it; and then Forster can be met, and all; after which I shall propose to join you some evening in Montagu Square. See - one of my two remaining pages is gone, after all; and I am writing hap-hazard by twilight. Twilight? Past nine. Ever truly yours (I would say "affectionately" if you didn't dash somehow my young septuagenarian blood, not-withstanding your verses) Leigh Hunt. [A good enough signature that. Dinner and tea /---/ brought back strength to my fingers.] [June 24.] Mrs. Procter , 32 Weymouth Street , Portland Place. L.H. [On envelope flap] Dear Mrs. Procter, you see what you have brought upon yourself by consenting to read my correspondence with your traveller. Here is, not a letter, but a pamphlet, and much of it, I fear, is hardly legible. - L.H.
Transcript By	Brewer, Luther
Transcript Location	University of Iowa. Libraries. Special Collections Dept.

Title	Page1
Relation - Is Part Of	Leigh Hunt letter to Bryan Waller Procter, June 22, 1857
Digital Collection	Leigh Hunt Letters
File Name	p96h-18_Page1.jpg
Transcript	Hammersmith - June 22. My dear Procter, The length of your letter from York was so far from rendering it the less welcome, that what with other correspondents, with visitors, and with debilitating effects of the weather (which together with bronchitis has begun to make my hand-writing unsteady) I have been putting off my answer from day to day, in the hope of writing as long a one to shew my gratitude. But though the bronchitis, which has pursued me further this year into the summer-time, has for these three or four days all but gone, my strength has become less promising than it was before you wrote, owing, I conceive, to the heat and the per-

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Leigh Hunt letter to Bryan Waller Procter [Barry Cornwall], June 22, 1857

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