Washington, Monday Afternoon, March 21st, 1842.
My dear Irving,
We passed through—literally passed through—this place again to-day. I did not come to see you, for I really have not the heart to say "good-bye" again, and felt more than I can tell you when we shook hands last Wednesday.
You will not be at Baltimore, I fear? I thought, at the time, that you only said you might be there, to make our parting the gayer.
Wherever you go, God bless you! What pleasure I have had in seeing and talking with you, I will not attempt to say. I shall never forget it as long as I live. What would I give, if we could have but a quiet week together! Spain is a lazy place, and its climate an indolent one. But if you have ever leisure under its sunny skies to think of a man who loves you, and holds communion with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person alive—leisure from listlessness, I mean—and will write to me in London, you will give me an inexpressible amount of pleasure.
Your affectionate friend.
Professor Felton.
Montreal, Saturday, 21st May, 1842.
My dear Felton,
I was delighted to receive your letter yesterday, and was well pleased with its contents. I anticipated objection to Carlyle's[18] letter. I called particular attention to it for three reasons. Firstly, because he boldly said what all the others think, and therefore deserved to be manfully supported. Secondly, because it is my deliberate opinion that I have been assailed on this subject in a manner in which no man with any pretensions to public respect or with the remotest right to express an opinion on a subject of universal literary interest would be assailed in any other country. . . . .