Dato: 28. januar 1853
Fra: Richard Bentley   Til: H.C. Andersen
Sprog: engelsk.

New Burlington Street. January 28, 1853.

My dear Friend,

your own excellent heart will imagine with what pleasure I received your letter of the 18th instant. With great sincerity I respond to your expressions of good will during the year upon which we have just entered. May you be blessed with every happiness! and be spared to gratify us, yr. old friends in Merry England, yes, still Merry England! But you must know, that I have left the sweet shades of Sevenoaks, for I wished to be with my young men in town. Still New Burlington Street will hail your return to us with the heartiest of welcomes of an English fireside if in winter, or by other entertainment in the Country if in Summer. Ever welcome to us is Hans Christian Andersen!

With regard to the tales you sent me, they will be published in a few days now; but I have met with more difficuIty than I had reason to expect, in getting them translated. At last, however, I have secured a translator in Mrs Bushby, a friend of yours I believe. This fair lady had had the sad calamity of losing her son, in our navaiservice, and this affliction has retarded the completion of the work, and prevente d me from urging on her labours. In a few days now, however, no doubt I shall receive the translation, and then in a very few days it shall be published.

Your account of the Christmas tree entertained us all very much. We have introduced them in England, but not such grand ones as you seem to have - we have no hobgoblins or sprites, nor anything so poetical in those we see here.

Come to us, my dear friend, and refresh our hearts by the sight of yau again. In this brief pilgrimage we cannat prize too dearly those we know to be really attached to us.

Ever believe me to be Yours sincerely attached,

Richard Bentley.

All around me, and my brothers and sisters, desire to be remembered to you with their kindest regards.

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