Autograph letter signed with initial : [London], to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Saturday" [1844 July 20].

Asking to visit her before he leaves for Germany and asking if he should write to Mr. Mathews to thank him for "his kind present;" saying "Yes, I suppose I ought and if I possibly can find time, and anything to say, I will before I leave for Germany. But I cannot go till I have seen you; and yet if I do not go next week I hardly know what will become of all my arrangements. Will you please to be in a state of gigantic health on Tuesday next, some time between 3 and 5 o'clock - or else in a condition of irritable calm, so thus, by holding my breath, I may advance a corporal foot with velvet pace before you? Do let it be Tuesday, if you can - and let me know by Monday morning. I am delighted to hear that the American's [sic] seem likely to appreciate your poetry. It could hardly have been expected of a people with so much harsh practicality among them. Has Miss Mitford told you of the 'hour' we normally sat up to, after 'the guests' were gone?" adding, in a postscript written on the inside flap of the envelope, that he would like one of her volumes next week "...and the other to come soaring and pouncing after me?"