God bless you, dear.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
Dear Dorothy,
I send you a kiss, which Hal will give you for me.
Morrison's Hotel, Dublin, March 14th, 1847.
My dear Hal,
I think you must have begun to think that I never meant to write to you again; for it is seldom that three unanswered letters of yours are allowed to accumulate in my writing-book; but since I left Liverpool, I have really not had leisure to write....
The houses at Liverpool were crammed, but here last night there was a very indifferent one, partly, they say, owing to the fact that the Lord Lieutenant bespeaks the play for to-morrow night; but I should think it much more rational to account for it by the deplorable condition to which the famine has reduced the country, which ought to affect the minds of those whose bodies do not suffer with something like a sympathetic seriousness, inimical to public diversions....
I do not care to pursue the argument with you about the change produced by death in the existence of a child. That which you say about it appears to me to involve some absolute contradictions; but I would rather postpone the discussion till we meet.