19th Century Letters of Thanks by Famous People

How to Write a Letter



Following are actual letters of thanks written in the 19th Century by famous people. Study them to see if there are phrases or expressions in them that you'd like to emulate and use in your own letters.

From George Meredith to Lady Granby, acknowledging the receipt of a reproduction of a portrait by her of Lady Marjorie Manners:

Box Hill, Dorking,
Dec. 26, 1899.

Dear Lady Granby:

It is a noble gift, and bears the charms to make it a constant pleasure with me. I could have wished for the full face of your daughter, giving eyes and the wild sweep of hair, as of a rivule issuing from under low eaves of the woods--so I remember her. You have doubtless other sketches of a maid predestined to be heroine. I could take her for one. All the women and children are heaven's own, and human still, and individual too. Behold me, your most grateful

George Meredith

(From "Letters of George Meredith." Copyright, 1912, by Chas. Scribner's Sons.)

From Lord Alfred Tennyson to Walt Whitman:

Farringford, Freshwater, Isle of Wight,
Jan'y 15th, 1887.

Dear old man:

I the elder old man have received your Article in the _Critic_, and send you in return my thanks and New Year's greeting on the wings of this east-wind, which, I trust, is blowing softlier and warmlier on your good gray head than here, where it is rocking the elms and ilexes of my Isle of Wight garden.

Yours always,
Tennyson

(This and the following four letters are from "With Walt Whitman in Camden," by Horace Traubel. Copyright, 1905, 1906, 1912, 1914, by Doubleday, Page & Co.)

From Ellen Terry to Walt Whitman:

Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago,
January 4th, '88.

Honored Sir--and Dear Poet:

I beg you to accept my appreciative thanks for your great kindness in sending me by Mr. Stoker the little _big_ book of poems--As a Strong Bird, etc., etc.

Since I am not personally known to you I conclude Mr. Stoker "asked" for me--it was good of him--I know he loves you very much.

God bless you, dear sir--believe me to be with much respect

Yours affectionately,
Ellen Terry

From Moncure Conway to Walt Whitman:

Hardwicke Cottage, Wimbledon Common,London, S. W., Sept. 10, '67.

My dear friend:

It gave me much pleasure to hear from you; now I am quite full of gratitude for the photograph--a grand one--the present of all others desirable to me. The copy suitable for an edition here should we be able to reach to that I have and shall keep carefully. When it is achieved it will probably be the result and fruit of more reviewing and discussion. I shall keep my eyes wide open; and the volume with O'C.'s introduction shall come out just as it is: I am not sure but that it will in the end have to be done at our own expense--which I believe would be repaid. It is the kind of book that if it can once get out here will sell. The English groan for something better than the perpetual rechauffe of their literature. I have not been in London for some little time and have not yet had time to consult others about the matter. I shall be able to write you more satisfactorily a little later. I hear that you have written something in _The Galaxy_. Pray tell O'Connor I shall look to him to send me such things. I can't take all American magazines; but if you intend to write for _The Galaxy_ regularly I shall take that. With much friendship for you and O'Connor and his wife, I am yours,

Moncure Conway

From John Addington Symonds to Walt Whitman:

Clifton Hill House, Bristol,
July 12, 1877.

Dear Mr. Whitman:

I was away from England when your welcome volumes reached me, and since my return (during the last six weeks) I have been very ill with an attack of hemorrhage from the lung—brought on while I was riding a pulling horse at a time when I was weak from cold. This must account for my delay in writing to thank you for them and to express the great pleasure which your inscription in two of the volumes has given me.

I intend to put into my envelope a letter to you with some verses from one of your great admirers in England. It is my nephew--the second son of my sister. I gave him a copy of _Leaves of Grass_ in 1874, and he knows a great portion of it now by heart. Though still so young, he has developed a considerable faculty for writing and is an enthusiastic student of literature as well as a frank vigorous lively young fellow. I thought you might like to see how some of the youth of England is being drawn towards you.

Believe me always sincerely and affectionately yours.

J. A. Symonds

From Edward Everett Hale to Dr. Lyman Abbott:

Jan. 29, 1900, Roxbury,
Monday morning.

Dear Dr. Abbott:

I shall stay at home this morning -- so I shall not see you.

All the same I want to thank you again for the four sermons: and to say that I am sure they will work lasting good for the congregation.

More than this. I think you ought to think that such an opportunity to go from church to church and city to city--gives you a certain opportunity and honour--which even in Plymouth Pulpit a man does not have--and to congregations such a turning over the new leaf means a great deal.

Did you ever deliver the Lectures on Preaching at New Haven?

With Love always,
Always yours,

E. E. Hale

(From "Silhouettes of My Contemporaries," by Lyman Abbott.Copyright, 1921, by Doubleday, Page & Co.)

From Friedrich Nietzsche to Karl Fuchs:

Sils-Maria, Oberengadine, Switzerland,
June 30, 1888.

My dear Friend:

How strange! How strange! As soon as I was able to transfer myself to a cooler clime (for in Turin the thermometer stood at 31 day after day) I intended to write you a nice letter of thanks. A pious intention, wasn't it? But who could have guessed that I was not only going back to a cooler clime, but into the _most ghastly_ weather, weather that threatened to shatter my health! Winter and summer in senseless alternation; twenty-six avalanches in the thaw; and now we have just had eight days of rain with the sky almost always grey -- this is enough to account for my profound nervous exhaustion, together with the return of my old ailments. I don't think I can ever remember having had worse weather, and this in my Sils-Maria, whither I always fly in order to escape bad weather. Is it to be wondered at that even the parson here is acquiring the habit of swearing? From time to time in conversation his speech halts, and then he always swallows a curse. A few days ago, just as he was coming out of the snow-covered church, he thrashed his dog and exclaimed: "The confounded cur spoiled the whole of my sermon!"...

Yours in gratitude and devotion,

Nietzsche

(From "Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche," edited by Oscar Levy. Copyright, 1921, by Doubleday, Page & Co.)

In making a donation of L100,000 for branch libraries in the city of Glasgow, this is the letter that Andrew Carnegie sent to the Lord Provost of the city council:

My dear Lord Provost:

It will give me pleasure to provide the needed L100,000 for Branch Libraries, which are sure to prove of great advantage to the masses of the people. It is just fifty years since my parents with their little boys sailed from Broomielaw for New York in the barque _Wiscassett_, 900 tons, and it is delightful to be permitted to commemorate the event upon my visit to you. Glasgow has done so much in municipal affairs to educate other cities, and to help herself, that it is a privilege to help her. Let Glasgow flourish! So say all of us Scotsmen throughout the World.

Always yours,
Andrew Carnegie

(From "Andrew Carnegie, the Man and His Work," by Bernard Alderson.Copyright, 1902, by Doubleday, Page & Co.)

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