Fragment of an autograph letter signed with initials : [London], to Richard Hengist Horne, [1844 June].

Commenting on a conversation with someone about Horne's book, "A New Spirit of the Age;" quoting, at the start of the fragment, 'Now I am going to talk to you about how the New Spirit of the Age was concocted - f̲o̲r̲ I̲ h̲a̲v̲e̲ h̲e̲a̲r̲d̲ a̲l̲l̲ a̲b̲o̲u̲t̲ i̲t̲;' continuing, "Gods & goddesses, how frightened I was! I have no more presence of mind than a child (as I confessed to you once) although I am not without fortitude - & as I felt his eyes . . very strong, capable eyes full in my face, . . . I felt also my two pale cheeks growing more præternaturally scarlet, & having no power in the world to help it. All I could do was, to push my head into the pillows as far as it w'd go. Well, but it was a false alarm. He knew nothing in the world as to how 'it was concocted' - at least nothing of certain elements in the concoction of certain segments of it...Now I cannot write any more. You entered a lion's den, in undertaking this work; & if nothing had been heard as a consequence, but a bleating of lambs, it w'd have been something greater than a miracle. It is satisfactory to observe that, wherever the prejudice or forgone conclusion of the critic is n̲o̲t̲ o̲b̲v̲i̲o̲u̲s̲, you have passed by with a clapping of hands. So do not mind - & take care not to s̲p̲l̲a̲s̲h̲ u̲p̲ the hot water."