The Cotman Letters 1834

[Note in pencil:] Probably May 1834.
Addressed to Mr J. J. Cotman
27 Charlotte St. Bloomsbury.
London.

Sunday afternoon.

My dear John,
After having finished my letter to Papa and Mama, I do not find that I have much to tell you in the shape of news but will thank you for your good and kind advice respecting my drawing and will profit by it if possible. I do think the last two or three are rather better than the one you have seen, but John do not attempt to make me believe that after having drawn a twelvemonth you did not do better than that. for shame! shame! to tell such stories, I know much better than you if you say so. I go on with it regularly, and am quite counting of going out sketching which Mr. Geldart says I ought to do soon, in preference to copying so much, let me know what you think as I like to hear all your opinions.
You give me such a good description of London together that you almost make me like it without ever having seen it. You can not wish more than I do dear John to be with you sometimes when you are taking a long walk to have a little chat with you, the very idea makes me believe you now with me, and reminds me of the very happy hours we have spent together sometimes chatting so seriously that one might very well have supposed us to have been forty or fifty instead of twenty, at another time so merry, that one scarcely could have imagined us to have been the same two persons. I hope I shall not have my dress made with bows down the front they are prettier without. I could not help laughing the other day