Dear Longfellow:
Will you dine with me on Saturday at six? I have a Baltimore friend coming, and depend on you.
I had such a pleasure yesterday that I should like to share it with you to whom I owed it. J. R. Osgood & Co. sent me a copy of your Household Edition to show me what it was, as they propose one of me. I had been reading over with dismay my own poems to weed out the misprints, and was awfully disheartened to find how bad they (the poems) were. Then I took your book to see what the type was, and before I knew it I had been reading two hours and more. I never wondered at your popularity, nor thought it wicked in you; but if I had wondered, I should no longer, for you sang me out of all my worries. To be sure they came back when I opened my own book again—but that was no fault of yours.
If not Saturday, will you say Sunday? My friend is a Mrs. ——, and a very nice person indeed.
Yours always,
J. R. L.
[[2]] From "Letters of James Russell Lowell," edited by C. E. Norton. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Bros.
George Meredith ("Robin") accepting an informal dinner invitation from his friend, William Hardman ("Tuck"):[3]
Jan'y 28, 1863.
Dear "at any price" Tuck: