LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
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Leigh Hunt to Vincent Mary Sabilla Novello, 8 October 1825
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
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Contents
Preface
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX
John Keats
Charles Lamb
Mary Lamb
Leigh Hunt
Douglas Jerrold
Charles Dickens
Index
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Paris, October 8th, 1825.

Dear Friends,—I can write you but a word. We shall
230 RECOLLECTIONS OF WRITERS  
be in London next Thursday, provided there is room in the steamboat, as we understand there certainly will be; but we are not certain of the hour of arrival. They talk here at the agency office of the boats leaving Calais at two in the morning (night-time). If so, we ought to be in town at one. This, however, is not to be depended on; and there will not be time to write to you again. The best way, I think, would be to send a note for us (by the night post) to the place where the boat puts up, stating where the lodgings are. The lodgings you will be kind enough to take for us (if there is time) in the quietest and airiest situation you have met with. We prefer, for instance, the street in the Hampstead Road, or thereabouts, to the one in London Street, to which said street I happen to have a particular objection; said particular objection, however, being of no account, if it cannot be helped. Should any circumstance prevent our having a note at the boat-office we shall put up in the neighbourhood for the night, and communicate with you as fast as possible. . . . . I write in ill spirits, which the sight of your faces, and the firm work I have to set about, will do away. I feel that the only way to settle these things is to meet and get through them, sword in hand, as stoutly as I may. If I delayed I might be pinned for ever to a distance, like a fluttering bird to a wall, and so die in that helpless yearning. I have been mistaken. During my strength my weakness, perhaps, only was apparent; now that I am weaker, indignation has given a fillip to my strength. But how am I digressing! I said I should only write a word, and I certainly did not intend that that word should be upon any less agreeable subject than a steamboat. Yet I must add, that I remember the memorandum you allude to about the balance. I laid it to a very different account! Lord! Lord! Well, my dear Vincent, you have a considerable fool for your friend, but one who is nevertheless wise enough to be, very truly yours,

L. H.

P.S.—Thanks to the two Marys for their kind letters. I
LEIGH HUNT AND HIS LETTERS.231
must bring them the answers myself. This is what women ought to do. They ought to be very kind and write, and read books, and go about through the mud for their friends.