Letters Books

PREFACE.Weintend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement to the "Life of Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That work, perfect and exhaustive as a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters, or hardly any, besides those addressed to Mr. Forster. As no man ever expressedhimselfmore in his... more...

PREFATORY NOTE. T HE Pierpont Morgan Library, itself a work of art, contains masterpieces of painting and sculpture, rare books, and illuminated manuscripts. Scholars generally are perhaps not aware that it also possesses the oldest Latin manuscripts in America, including several that even the greatest European libraries would be proud to own. The collection is also admirably representative of the... more...

CHAPTER VII Since they first settled in Florence the Brownings had made no long or distant expeditions from their new home. Their summer excursions to Vallombrosa, Lucca, or Siena had been of the nature of short holidays, and had not taken them beyond the limits of Tuscany. Now they had planned a far wider series of travels, which, beginning with Rome, Naples, Venice, and Milan, should then be extended... more...

CHAPTER 1. GEORGE SELWYN—HIS LIFE, HIS FRIENDS, AND HIS AGE During the latter half of the eighteenth century no man had more friends in the select society which comprised those who were of the first importance in English politics, fashion, or sport, than George Selwyn. In one particular he was regarded as supreme and unapproachable; he was the humourist of his time. His ban mots were collected and... more...

RECORDS OF LATER LIFE. Philadelphia, October 26th, 1834. Dearest Mrs. Jameson, However stoutly your incredulity may have held out hitherto against the various "authentic" reports of my marriage, I beg you will, upon receipt of this, immediately believe that I was married on the 7th of June last, and have now been a wife nearly five mortal months. You know that in leaving the stage I left... more...

BURNS'S LETTERS. It is not perhaps generally known that the prose of Burns exceeds in quantity his verse. The world remembers him as a poet, and forgets or overlooks his letters. His place among the poets has never been denied—it is in the first rank; nor is he lowest, though little remembered, among letter-writers. His letters gave Jeffrey a higher opinion of him as a man than did his poetry,... more...

BEETHOVEN'S LETTERS. 216.TO STEINER & CO. The Adjutant's innocence is admitted, and there is an end of it! We beg you to be so good as to send us two copies in score of the Symphony in A. We likewise wish to know when we may expect a copy of the Sonata for Baroness von Ertmann, as she leaves this, most probably, the day after to-morrow. No. 3--I mean the enclosed note--is from a musical... more...

PREFACE The object of this book is to give the English-speaking public, in a convenient form, as faithful and readable a copy as the translator was capable of making of a document unique in the literature of antiquity. Whether we regard the correspondence of Cicero from the point of view of the biographer and observer of character, the historian, or the lover of belles lettres, it is equally worthy of... more...

PREFACE. [Pg v] The ladies to whom these letters were written have been, throughout their brightly tranquil lives, at once sources and loadstones of all good to the village in which they had their home, and to all loving people who cared for the village and its vale and secluded lake, and whatever remained in them or around of the former peace, beauty, and pride of English Shepherd Land. Sources they... more...

FIRST PART. LIFE'S JOYS AND SORROWS.1783 TO 1815. 1.TO THE ELECTOR OF COLOGNE, FREDERICK MAXIMILIAN. ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE,-- Music from my fourth year has ever been my favorite pursuit. Thus early introduced to the sweet Muse, who attuned my soul to pure harmony, I loved her, and sometimes ventured to think that I was beloved by her in return. I have now attained my eleventh year, and my Muse often... more...