Lenox, August 15th, 1840.
Dearest Harriet,
... You bid me tell you when I shall leave America to pay my promised visit to my father. I have been thrown into a state of complete uncertainty by receiving a letter from my brother John, which informs me of my sister's engagement at Naples and Palermo, and possible further engagements at Malta and Constantinople! Think of her going to sing to the Turks!... I am at present alone here, and of course cannot myself determine the question of my going alone all over the Continent to join my father and Adelaide.... It is possible that I may have to renounce my visit to Europe altogether for the present, and, but for my father, I could do so without a moment's hesitation, but I dread postponing seeing him again, and, while I do so, shall live in a perpetual apprehension that I shall hear of his death as I did of that of my poor mother. I consider the visit I contemplated making him our probable last season of reunion, and cannot banish the thought that if it is indefinitely postponed I may perhaps never see him again....
An intense interest is felt by all good Democrats in the coming election, which determines whether Mr. Van Buren is to retain the Presidency or not; and no zealous member of his party would leave the country while that was undetermined. John writes me, too, that he expects my father and sister both in London after Easter next year, and I have no doubt it will be thought best that I should wait till then to join them in England. However, all my plans must remain for the present in utter uncertainty, and I shall surely not meet you and Emily at Bannisters, which I could well have liked to do....
What lots of umbrellas you must wear out at Grasmere! [Miss S—— and Miss W—— were passing the summer at the English lakes.] I am writing pretty late at night, but if the Sedgwicks, whom you know, and those who, through them, know you, were round me, I should have showers of love to send you from them: your rainy lake country suggested that image, but that would be a warm shower, which you don't get in Westmoreland. I am growing very fat, but at the present there is no fatty degeneracy of the heart, so that I still remain
Affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
Lenox, Massachusetts, August 28th, 1840.
My dear Lady Dacre,
I have always considered your writing to me a very unmerited kindness towards one who had so little claim on your time and attention; and I need not tell you how much this feeling is increased by your present state of mind, and the effort I am sure it must be to you to remember one so far off, in the midst of your great sorrow [for the death of her daughter, Mrs. Sullivan].... I shall come alone to England; and this is the more dismal, that I have it in prospect to go down to Naples to join my father and sister, and stay with them till her engagements there and at Palermo are ended. This journey (once my vision by day and dream by night) will lose much of its delight by being a solitary pilgrimage to the long-desired Italy. I think of pressing one of my brothers into my service as escort; or if they are not able to go with me, shall write to my father to come to England, as he lately sent me word he would do, at any time that I would meet him there—of course, to return immediately with him to my sister. They will both, I believe, be in England after Easter next year; and then I shall hope to be allowed to see you, my dear Lady Dacre, and express to you how much I have sympathized with you in all you have suffered.