Excuse a scrawl but I am not very well.
1 LLOYDS PLACE, BLACKHEATH
5th Decr 1835
MY DEAR ALLAN,—I have sent you a book and have ten times the pleasure
in sending you one now that ever I had, because I hear you have
detached yourself from all reviews. Heaven be praised therefor; for
now you can sit down quietly by your own ingle nook and pick out all
that is good—if there be any—in my One in a Thousand and palate it
all, without the prospect, the damning prospect, of a broad sheet and
small print before your eyes, and without wracking your honest brain
to find out any small glimmerings of wit and wisdom in your friend’s
book in order to set it forth as fairly as may be to the carping
world.
By the way, I thought you were honest and true; and yet you have
deceived me wofully. You promised to come down to Blackheath and you
have not appeared. I have been writing night and day or I should have
presented myself to call you to account. Will you come down even yet,
and take a family dinner with me? Any Sunday at five you will be sure
to find me but if you come on another day, let me have a day’s notice
by post, lest I be engaged, which would be a great disappointment to
Yours ever truly,
G. P. R. JAMES
He always wrote frankly and freely to Cunningham. This letter deals with
_Attila_.
THE COTTAGE, GREAT MARLOW, BUCKS,
15th April 1837