Henry Crabb Robinson, 30 Russell Square, to Angelina Georgina Burdett-Cootts, Holly-Lodge, Highgate, 20 July [1859]. 

Dear Miss B. Cootts

       I anticipated the wish expressed in your last note by leaving with your porter in Stratton Street when I answerd your former note, what you term a “queer pocket book” but in fact is neither more nor less than a card case filled with slips of card paper of the breadth of the enclosed but three times the length, so that being doubled down on one side, they had burst the card case. In my profound ignorance of all the arts of civil life I could not guess to what purpose such slips might be applied And it only now occurs to me that they might be used for writing a name on – a botanical name in a flower pot & I left this with your porter, telling him that if it were enquired about, he might witht impropriety open the Envelope in which I placed it with a mem: [f. 26r] to the same effect –

       How does this suffocating weather with bursts of furious thunder & lightning suit dear Mrs Browns health? tho she is to a great degree recoverd, yet her hardness of hearing shews that there is some evil spirit flitting about her, and shifting its seat. A friend of mine who has a house in one of the Regent park terraces is accustomed to walk in one of the private plantations between 6 & 7 am – And speaks with rapture of the “morning breeze” – but how uncertain is this climate – It is now between 5 & 6 am And I am about to make a visit of sympathy & condolence to Tunbridge – And yesterday evening there was a cloudless sky – Now that sky is coverd with windy clouds under the special circumstances of my visit – no weather however bad must deter me –

       Wishing you and Mrs Brown full enjoyment of your delicious garden, at this Season –

                                     I am

                                                  &c &c &c

                                                            H. C. Robinson

[f.25v] N.B. When disposed to read a beautifully sad and deeply pathetical little 6d book get

                         Rab and his friend 

by John Brown M. D. Its a Scotch tale and the seventh thousand –

I can believe it  But no Invalid must read it

Postmark: London JY 20 59 

Text: Add. MS. 85291, ff. 25-26, British Library.