Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

Name: Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters
Author: Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797 -- Correspondence

“I had time to write but a short note with the ‘Castle of
    Otranto,’ as your messenger called on me at four o’clock, as I
    was going to dine abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry
    have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story.
    You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of
    this place. When you read of the picture quitting its panel,
    did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland, all in
    white, in my Gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what was the
    origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the beginning
    of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover
    was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very
    natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story),
    and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I
    saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and
    began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended
    to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond
    of it--add, that I was very glad to think of anything, rather
    than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which
    I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote
    from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o’clock, till half
    an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers
    were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the
    sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle
    of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I
    have amused you, by retracing with any fidelity the manners of
    ancient days, I am content, and give you leave to think me as
    idle as you please.…

    “When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble
    you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not
    to go a step out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister
    at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of
    them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and
    turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them
    up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings a-piece
    from different farm-houses in Herefordshire. I have long
    envied and coveted them. There may be such in poor cottages,
    in so neighbouring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge
    any expense for purchase or carriage; and should be glad even
    of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying
    inscriptions in a churchyard in any village, think of me, and
    step into the first cottage you see--but don’t take further
    trouble than that.…

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His LettersWalpole, Horace

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Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797 -- Correspondence

“I had time to write but a short note with the ‘Castle of
    Otranto,’ as your messenger called on me at four o’clock, as I
    was going to dine abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry
    have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story.
    You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of
    this place. When you read of the picture quitting its panel,
    did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland, all in
    white, in my Gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what was the
    origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the beginning
    of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover
    was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very
    natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story),
    and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I
    saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and
    began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended
    to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond
    of it--add, that I was very glad to think of anything, rather
    than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which
    I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote
    from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o’clock, till half
    an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers
    were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the
    sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle
    of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I
    have amused you, by retracing with any fidelity the manners of
    ancient days, I am content, and give you leave to think me as
    idle as you please.…

    “When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble
    you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not
    to go a step out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister
    at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of
    them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and
    turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them
    up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings a-piece
    from different farm-houses in Herefordshire. I have long
    envied and coveted them. There may be such in poor cottages,
    in so neighbouring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge
    any expense for purchase or carriage; and should be glad even
    of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying
    inscriptions in a churchyard in any village, think of me, and
    step into the first cottage you see--but don’t take further
    trouble than that.…

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

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