| Description | 5 Onslow Gardens
1 March [1879?]
Dear Sir Frederick
I am taking a very great liberty. One which I would not venture if I did not believe that the suggestion which I am about to make will not be unwelcome to you. You pay [-] letters the [-] honour of writing some of them to you Annual Dinner. A distinguished American man of letters Bret Harte holds a diplomatic appointment in Germany a few [-] distant from us and you have an opportunity of paying a compliment to Anglo-American literature which will be greatly valued on both sides of the Atlantic if you will include Harte in your list of guests. Most English people know him only as the author of ['The H- Chin?'] and think of him as more [-] jests. This is not his character at all. In the first place he is a high and gentlemanlike man. In the second he is very [-] by turn but able to form an opinion, as a man of real original [-].
The literature of the two countries is a link between them which grows in strength - and nothing I am sure will more please the Americans than to see one of their Poets whom they best like and most respect taken by the hand by the President of the Royal Academy.
If I am trespassing beyond my province in writing to you about this matter you will I am sure forgive me. I respect and admire Bret Harte, and for this reason and for no other I wish to see him [-] a distinction which I think that he deserves.
Pardon me for my coldness
And believe me faithfully yours
[J A French?]
|