Details
COLLINS, WILKIE. Autograph letter signed to the southern American poet Paul Hamilton Hayne, London, 28 January 1885. 4 pages, 8vo, in brown ink on Collins' tan stationery with his printed address and monogram, first page a trifle darkened; with a portrait photograph (cabinet-style) of Collins.
A fine letter. "The bodily part of you, my dear friend, lives at Copse Hill [Hayne's home near Augusta, Georgia]. That I don't deny. But the spiritual part of you, I firmly believe, crossed the Atlantic not long since -- discovered that I was sorely in want of some encouragement -- and sent me, not only the kindest of letters, but a tribute of poetry which I received as one of the memorable events in my literary life -- which I read with admiration -- and which I shall remember...to the end of my days. That middle-age Oracle had his reasons for not speaking plainly. He is one of the men whom I hate most - a discreet man. If he had been bold enough to tell the truth, he would have answered you in these words: 'Look here, Paul Hamilton Hayne: The less you say about your friend Wilkie Collins, the better. His stars, for the last three months, have given him up as a bad job...' In a playful manner Collins describes how his left eye had been injured on a sea voyage (for the pain "Laudaman -- divine laudaman -- was his only friend"), and closes: "...I could write much more -- but I must spare the sound eye (especially after a long day's work on the first chapter of a new novel) and ask you to consider my letters as periodical publications 'to be continued'..."
A fine letter. "The bodily part of you, my dear friend, lives at Copse Hill [Hayne's home near Augusta, Georgia]. That I don't deny. But the spiritual part of you, I firmly believe, crossed the Atlantic not long since -- discovered that I was sorely in want of some encouragement -- and sent me, not only the kindest of letters, but a tribute of poetry which I received as one of the memorable events in my literary life -- which I read with admiration -- and which I shall remember...to the end of my days. That middle-age Oracle had his reasons for not speaking plainly. He is one of the men whom I hate most - a discreet man. If he had been bold enough to tell the truth, he would have answered you in these words: 'Look here, Paul Hamilton Hayne: The less you say about your friend Wilkie Collins, the better. His stars, for the last three months, have given him up as a bad job...' In a playful manner Collins describes how his left eye had been injured on a sea voyage (for the pain "Laudaman -- divine laudaman -- was his only friend"), and closes: "...I could write much more -- but I must spare the sound eye (especially after a long day's work on the first chapter of a new novel) and ask you to consider my letters as periodical publications 'to be continued'..."