BIB_ID
403493
Accession number
MA 8917.39
Creator
Hunter, George Barrett, 1798-1857.
Display Date
1838 September 26-27.
Credit line
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 24.8 x 20 cm
Notes
Hunter gives the place of writing as "Axtr"; it is known that he was living in Axminster during this period, and there is an Axminster postmark on the letter.
Addressed to: "Miss Barrett/ (--Hedley's Esqre) Braddon's Hill/ Torquay."
Hunter begins the letter on the evening of the 26th (a Wednesday) and continues it in two additional sections, ending on Thursday morning.
Crossed writing is employed throughout. A transcription of the letter is available in the Collection File.
With a seal.
Addressed to: "Miss Barrett/ (--Hedley's Esqre) Braddon's Hill/ Torquay."
Hunter begins the letter on the evening of the 26th (a Wednesday) and continues it in two additional sections, ending on Thursday morning.
Crossed writing is employed throughout. A transcription of the letter is available in the Collection File.
With a seal.
Provenance
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Summary
Apologizing for having upset her, explaining that it was entirely inadvertent, and attempting to figure out what in his previous letters had given her the impression that he was angry and accusing her of being ungrateful: "O, my ever kindest & dearest Friend how could I ever associate 'ingratitude' and You? It is in many ways utterly impossible, and I am altogether bewildered and astonished. Had I ever made such an association--my very consciousness would become a shuddering self-disgust, and I should wear away in the wretchedness of having impaired--yea, of having deservedly & for ever forfeited a regard wh. is dearer to me than that of all the world besides"; explaining that he had simply wanted to see her very much, though she has told him that he should delay coming to visit; thanking her for a package; praising specific poems in the book The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838); commenting on and quoting from reviews of the book by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and John Wilson (who wrote under the pseudonym "Christopher North") in the Monthly Chronicle and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine; telling her about a letter he has had from his daughter Mary (who is in London with other members of the Moulton-Barrett family); discussing Mary's progress under Arabella's instruction, their excursions to the zoo, and her new friendship with Mary Trepsack; asking after EBB's health; encouraging her not to worry about being away from her family; telling her that he has been to meet the coach, in the hopes that her brother was on it, with no luck; predicting that her brother Edward will be her guardian at Torquay; returning to the opening subject of the letter and explaining that she must have mistaken an ill-advised joke he had made for anger: "well I will give up this trying to make you laugh--I am the beautiful White Polar Bear trying to dance & sing for your amusement, and you take it for a growling passion"; mentioning that Mary told him in her letter that she had not yet been made EBB's "Lady of the study chamber", and also that Greek scholars (referring to Hugh Stuart Boyd) "can talk a great deal of nonsense... and that as for Mr. Boyd he does not know where Madagascar is."
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