And so Charles Clarke is
very angry with me for not sooner answering his two letters, and talks to my
friends about my “regal scorn.” Well,—I have been guilty
certainly of not sooner answering said two;—I have not answered them, even
though they pleased me infinitely:—Charles Clarke also
sent me some verses, the goodness of which (if he will not be very angry) even
surprised me, yet I answered not:—he sent me them again, yet I answered
not:—undoubtedly I have been extremely unresponsive; I have seemed to neglect
him,—I have been silent, dilatory,
| 200 | RECOLLECTIONS OF WRITERS |
C. C. C. (meditative, but quick)—Ho, not without an excuse, I dare say. Come, come, I ought to have thought of that, before I used the words “regal scorn.” I did not mean them in fact, and therefore I thought they would touch him. Bless my soul, I ought to have thought of an excuse for him, now I think of it;—let me see;—he must have been very busy;—yes, yes, he was very busy, depend upon it:—I should not wonder if he had some particular reason for being busy just now;—I warrant you he has been writing like the Devil;—I’ll stake my life on’t,—he has almost set his tingling head asleep like my foot, with writing;—and then too, you may be certain he reproached himself every day nevertheless with not writing to me;—I’ll be bound to say that he said: I will write to Charles Clarke to-day, and I will not forget to give another notice to him in the Examiner (for he did give one), and above all, he will see his verses there, and then he will guess all;—then one day he is busy till it is too late to write by the post, and in some cursed hurry he forgets me on Saturday, and then—and what then? Am I not one of his real friends? Have I not a right to be forgotten or rather unwritten to by him, for weeks, if by turning his looks, not his heart, away from me, he can snatch repose upon the confidence of my good opinion of him? I think I see him asking me this; and curse me (I beg your pardon, Miss Jones), but confound me, I should say—no, I should not say,—but the deuce take—in short, here’s the beginning of his letter, and so there’s an end of my vagaries.
My dear friend, you are right. I have
been very busy,—so busy both summer and winter, that summer has scarcely been
any to me; and my head at times has almost grown benumbed over my writing. I have
been intending everything and anything, except loyal anti-constitutionalism and
Christian want of charity. I have written prose, I have written poetry, I have
written levities and gravities, I have written two acts of a Tragedy, and (oh Diva pecunia) I have written a Pocket-Book! Let my Morocco blushes
speak for me; for with this packet comes a copy. When you read
| LEIGH HUNT AND HIS LETTERS. | 201 |
P.S.—The verses marked ϕ in the Pocket-Book are mine, Δ Mr. Shelley’s, P.R. a Mr. Procter’s, and I. Keats’s, who has just lost his brother Tom after a most exemplary attendance on him. The close of such lingering illness, however, can hardly be lamented. Mr. Richards, who has just dropped in upon me, begs to be remembered to you.
