Autograph letter signed : Torquay, to Richard Hengist Horne, Friday, May 15th [1840].

Thanking him for his expression of sympathy which "...touched me so nearly & deeply...for in the exhaustion consequent upon fever I have been too weak to hold a pen - As to reluctancy of feeling...believe me that I must change more than illness or grief can change me, before it becomes 'a painful effort' to communicate with one so very kind as you have been to me. Kindness & sympathy are not such common things. And as to the stranger-ship - why a friend is proved by remaining one in adversity. You b̲e̲ga̲n̲ to be one in mine - a̲n̲d̲ f̲̲o̲r̲ t̲h̲̲a̲t̲ r̲e̲a̲s̲o̲n̲ - a peculiarity which in separating you from the class of ordinary friends, removes you still farther from that of strangers - It is easier for you to forget this, than for me, dear M. Horne...I knew you w'd be sorry for me when you heard -) it was a heavy blow for all of us - & I, being weak you see, was struck down as by a bodily blow, in a moment, without having time for tears. I did not think indeed to be better anymore - but I have quite rallied now - except as to strength - & they say that on essential points I shall not suffer permanently - and this is a comfort to poor Papa;" continuing the letter on Saturday; commenting at length on his play "Gregory VII" which her father had given her to read; saying "Only you do more honor to the stage & the actorship than I c'd do. Tragedy is a high form of poetry - perhaps the highest - & absolutely independent in its own essence, of stages - which involve to my mind little more than its translation into a grosser form, in order to its apprehension by the vulgar. What Macready can touch Lear? - In brief, if the union between Tragedy & the gas lights be less incongruous & absurd than the union between Church & State, is it less desecrative of the divine Theory? In the clashing of my no against your yes, I must write goodbye;" asking him, in a postscript, to let her know when the reviews come out for his play.