'Tis a great disadvantage to read them in MS., as one cannot readily turn to passages; but life is too short to be peeping into other peoples' MSS.

_I prefer your prose to your verse_.
Let me know if you receive it safely, and pray give no notion to any one that I have seen the MS." _Mr.D'Israeli to John Murray_.
"It is a most disagreeable office to give opinions on MSS.; one reads them at a moment when one has other things in one's head--then one is obliged to fatigue the brain with _thinking_; but if I can occasionally hinder you from publishing nugatory works, I do not grudge the pains.

At the same time I surely need not add, how very _confidential_ such communications ought to be." _Mr.I.D'Israeli to John Murray_.
I am delighted by your apology for not having called on me after I had taken my leave of you the day before; but you can make an unnecessary apology as agreeable as any other act of kindness....
You are sanguine in your hope of a good sale of "Curiosities," it will afford us a mutual gratification; but when you consider it is not a new work, though considerably improved I confess, and that those kinds of works cannot boast of so much novelty as they did about ten years ago, I am somewhat more moderate in my hopes.
What you tell me of F.F.from Symond's, is _new_ to me.

I sometimes throw out in the shop _remote hints_ about the sale of books, all the while meaning only _mine_; but they have no skill in construing the timid wishes of a modest author; they are not aware of his suppressed sighs, nor see the blushes of hope and fear tingling his cheek; they are provokingly silent, and petrify the imagination....
Believe me, with the truest regard, Yours ever, I.D'ISRAELI.
_Mr.D'Israeli to John Murray_.

_Saturday, May_ 31, 1806.