Do not be alarmed about the emptiness of your purse on Monday. In the course of the day you will receive some money at all events—enough to go on with ... Meantime I send you two sixpence (mighty sum!) which I have in the last corner of my pocket. You will not despise them, coming with his heart’s love, and his best thanks for your cheerful letters.—Oct. 4, 1829, to Mrs. Hunt at Epsom.
Heaven seems to afford us consolatory thought, and show to us almost certain glimpses of happiness, in proportion as we do its work with cheerfulness:—and what work is more properly the work of heaven than that of helping one another to bear our burdens and strengthen our patience?—Letter, Florence, 4 Nov., 1824, to Bebs, his wife’s sister.
He writes Mrs. Hunt, his “Dearest Molly mine,” thus cheerfully:
I have got the twenty guineas, and settled with Hyatt; but I felt so new, with my waistcoat pocket full of sovereigns, and it seemed such a charge, that I thought I had better bring it up to you myself.
I am again, with bitter heart, forced to disappoint you; but Mr. Bell says, that “certainly, certainly” (emphatically repeating it) I shall have the six sovereigns tomorrow morning ... Keep up your spirits.
I forgot to mention ... that I have still one of the sovereigns which I brought away with me, as well as five shillings and sixpence in silver; so that I hope I shall have enough, if not quite enough, to pay for the fly on Sunday. If not, perhaps you can borrow a few shillings till the Treasury pay-day.
I shall cut short my sighs as I am wont to do.
I shall regard the whole period as the beginning of that true sunset of life, of which I have so often spoken; for if clouds are still about it, they only serve to enrich what the light of love (the only heavenly light) makes beautiful.
My friends who know me most intimately say there are two things in my life that may not be quite normal—my fondness for work, and my liking for Leigh Hunt. I do not have any apologies to make for either of these characteristics. My admiration for Hunt and my consequent desire to acquire Hunt incunabula could not be brought to fruition if I did not work and earn. The first characteristic noted therefore is the sequence of the second.
I have not seen fit to apologize for either of these traits—the one a luxury perhaps, the other a necessity.