Arthur Dixon letters
Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Reference Number: SDK/1/3/1/1
Page: 17 recto
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Description
Letter of Arthur Dixon to John Joseph Cotman, 14 June 1834
A letter from JJC has gladdened Dixon, in spite of the pain caused by their separation; he quotes Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, III. 30. 3-8. He refers to his earlier letter of 8 June and regrets that JJC has not written to him. Ryffel has a cold. He asks if JSC could finance a passage to Switzerland for Alfred Cotman. A young lady has just been discovered alive after fifteen year 'in a cleft of a rock'. Geldart is well. JJC has rejected the possibility of Edmund wishing to stay in Norwich.
Date: 1834
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Transcription
[Note added in pencil by Kitson:
7
]
Norwich June 14, 1834.
My very dear John
I never sit down to write to you without feeling how entirely useless & inadequate are words, and yet I know that I never receive a dozen of them from you without thinking what delightful things they are & how very calculated to strike out happiness for me and to give me all, quite all that our separated lot would allow me to anticipate. Even when with my favourite the dark Poet
"I stood beneath the fresh green tree
Which living, waves where thou wert wont to be,
And saw around me the wild field revive
With fruits & fertile promise, and the Spring
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
I turned from all she brought, to him she could not bring."
Still even through my loneliness & regrets have your words of kindness & friendship heightened [lightened?] like the rainbow through dark humid skies the gloomy
