5 July 1847 – 11 July 1847

A short interview with Hans Andersen. He had not English enough to allow of our conversing, asked me to write to him ; but I have nothing to say save that I love him, and many people tell him that. He is tall and lanky, with queer long face, but friendliness and intelligence shining through. Feels out-of-sorts in London. JVednesday^ July 7. — Evening at Leigh Hunt's. I give him Yityvjoodi's HieYWifiy' of Blessed Angels. 'A nice book to have ! ' he remarks. ' I see you are of a giving turn.' Religion, ' Painful to see any assemblage of fellow-creatures we cannot join. Ask a man why he does not worship Brahma, and he will begin to give you reasons. Believers in any form of religion don't like to be reminded of the possibility of doubt.' I met Andersen the other day at dinner and we were mutually unintelli- gible. I had the pleasure of feeling his arm, his arm in mine, on the way to dinner ; it was the thinnest arm I ever felt. He looks like a man in the last stage of con- sumption ; but, observe, I don't know that he is in the last stage of consumption. He looks like a large child, a sort of half-angel. There were many people of rank present, yet no one in the room looked more distingue than Andersen, the shoe-maker's son.'

Bruckless; boat to Killybegs, passing rocks with caverns. — Visit three vessels, Andromeda, South Durham and another Brig. Land and visit Roman Catholic Church, where is a good copy of a Murillo for altarpiece. Boat again, heavy rain. * Sowing wide the fruitless main,' — good line: whose } why, Leigh Hunt's. He has many happy lines and phrases. I feel in succession clammy, damp, wet, then rivulets running down the backs of my legs. Bruckless. Barrett lends me a suit of his clothes, a world too wide, including a monstrous dress coat with brass buttons. Dinner, Dr. M. and ladies, Sam Cassidy, etc. Songs, loo, supper, hot lobster — bed 2,30.

At Leigh Hunt's. He looks ^ wonderfully different in the street from in the house. ■' There, a spare old man in a frock-coat and black stock, f with weak eyes and rather careworn look ; here, a I young man (though of sixty), with luxuriant if gray \ locks, open shirt collar and flowing dressing-gown, f bright face, and the easiest way of talking in the world, \ He is fond of droll paradox, full of delicate appreciation, tgay, gentle, good-humoured, with a natural gift, well cultivated, of finding out the ' soul of goodness in things evil.'