occupy yourself as much as possible. You are even now half a
day nearer to seeing me again; by the time you get this
letter it will be a whole day; thirteen more and I am again
within your arms. To-morrow Seymour will bring you further
news of me. Your most devoted

ALBERT.

LEIGH HUNT AND HIS MARIANNE.

Leigh Hunt carried his versatility into his love-letters to Miss Marianne
Kent, his future wife. Below is an example written when he was nineteen:

MY DEAREST MARIANNE: I am very uncomfortable; I get up at
five in the morning, say a word to nobody, curse my stars
till eleven at night, then creep into bed to curse my stars
for to-morrow; and all this because I love a little
black-eyed girl of fifteen, whom nobody knows, with all my
heart and soul. You must not suppose I love you a bit the
better for being fifty miles out of my reach in the daytime,
for I travel at a pretty tolerable pace every night and have
held many a happy chat with you about twelve or one o'clock
at midnight, though you have forgotten it by this time.

Here follows a stanza of poetry, after which he proceeds:

You see, lovers can no more help being poets than poets can
help being lovers. I shall see you again and will pay you
prettily for running away from me, for you shall not stir
from my side the whole evening. If you are well and have
been so at Brighton, you are everything I could wish you.
God bless you and yours. You see I can still pray for
myself. Heaven knows that every blessing bestowed on you is
a tenfold one bestowed on your

H.

THE KINGLY LOVE OF CHARLES I.

In a way which proved him an adept in the art, Charles I wrote to the
Princess Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France, when she was
coming to join him:

DEAR HEART: I never knew till now the good of ignorance, for
I did not know the danger thou wert in by the storm before I
had assurance of thy happy escape, we having had a pleasing
false report of thy safe landing at Newcastle, which thine
of the 19th of January so far confirmed us in that we were
at least not undeceived of that hope till we knew certainly
how great a danger thou hast passed, of which I shall not be
out of apprehension until I have the happiness of thy
company.

For indeed I think it not the least of my misfortunes that
for my sake thou hast run