John Murray to Lord Byron (December 1815): 'I tore open the packet you sent me, and have found in it a Pearl. It is very interesting, pathetic, beautiful -- do you know, I would almost say moral [...] I have been most agreeably disappointed (a word I cannot associate with the poem) at the story, which -- what you hinted to me and wrote -- had alarmed me; and I should not have read it aloud to my wife if my eye had not traced the delicate hand that transcribed it.'