My dear H——, you half fly into a rage with me all across the Atlantic, because I tell you that I hope ere long to see you; really that was not quite the return I expected for what I thought would be agreeable news to you; however, hear further.... If I am alive next summer, I hope to spend three months in England: one with my own family and Emily Fitzhugh: one in Scotland; and one with you, if you and Mrs. Taylor please.... I have been obliged to give up riding, for some time ago my horse fell with me, and though I was not at all hurt, I was badly frightened; so I trot about on my feet, and drive to and from town and the farm in a little four-wheeled machine called here a wagon.
The other day, for the first time, I explored my small future domain, which is bounded, on the right, by the high-road; on the left, by a not unromantic little mill-stream, with bits of rock, and cedar-bushes, and dams, and, I am sorry to say, a very picturesque, half-tumbled-down factory; on the north, by fields and orchards of our neighbors, and another road; and on the south, by a pretty, deep, shady lane, running from the high-road to the above-mentioned factory.... I think the extent of our estate is about three hundred acres. A small portion of it, perhaps some seventy acres, lies on the other side of the high-road. Except a kitchen-garden, there is none that deserves the name: no flower-beds, no shrubberies, no gravel-walks. A large field, now planted with maize, or Indian corn, is on one side of an avenue of maple-trees that leads to the house; on the other is an apple-orchard. There is nothing that can call itself a lawn, though coarse grass grows all round the house. There are four pretty pasture meadows, and a very pretty piece of woodland, which, coasting the stream and mill-dam, will, I foresee, become a favorite haunt of mine. There is a farm-yard, a cider-press, a pond, a dairy, and out-houses, and adjuncts innumerable.
I have succeeded, after difficulties and disasters manifold, in engaging an apparently tolerably decent staff of servants; the house is freshly painted and clean, the furniture being finished with all expedition, the carpets ready to lay down; next week I hope to send our household out, and the week after I sincerely hope we shall transfer ourselves thither, and I shall be in a home of my own.
Miss Martineau is just now in Philadelphia: I have seen and conversed with her, and I think, were her stay long enough to admit of so agreeable a conclusion, we might become good friends. It is not presumptuous for me to say that, dear H——, because, you know, a very close degree of friendship may exist where there is great disparity of intellect. Her deafness is a serious bar to her enjoyment of society, and some drawback to the pleasure of conversing with her, for, as a man observed to me last night, "One feels so like a fool, saying, 'How do you do?' through a speaking-trumpet in the middle of a drawing-room;" and unshoutable commonplaces form the staple of all drawing-room conversation. They are giving literary parties to her, and balls to one of their own townswomen who has just returned from abroad, which makes Philadelphia rather gayer than usual; and I have had so long a fast from dissipation that I find myself quite excited at the idea of going to a dance again.
I toil on, copying my Journal, and one volume of it is already printed; but now that the object of its publication is gone, I feel rather disgusted at the idea of publishing it at all. You know what my Journal always was, and that no word of it was ever written with the fear of the printer's devil before my eyes, and now that I have become careless as to its money value, it seems to me a mere mass of trivial egotism.... When I sold it, it was an excellent, good book, for I thought it would help to make a small independence for my dear Dall; now she is gone, and it is mere trash, but I have sold it....
COUNTRY LIFE. My country life will, I hope, be one of study, and I pray and believe, of quiet happiness. I drove out to the farm yesterday, and walked nearly four miles, through meadows and lanes and by-roads, and over plowed fields, and found mill-streams and bits of picturesque rock, and pretty paths to be explored at further length on horseback hereafter.... I have one very great pleasure almost in contemplation; I think it probable that my friend, Miss Sedgwick, will visit Philadelphia this winter. If she does, I am sure she will remain a short time here, which will be a great delight to me.... I wish to have no more acquaintance—that is a pure waste of time: I do not wish to know any one whom, if opportunity served, I should not desire to make my friend, as well as my visitor. I have begun learning book-keeping by double entry, and find it unspeakably tiresome; indeed, nothing in it engages my attention but various hypothetical cases of Loss of Ships and Cargoes (as per invoice, so and so, and so and so); Bankruptcies, with so much in the pound for creditors; Dissolutions of partnership, with estimates of joint property, or calculations of profit and loss; Insurances and fire-catastrophes; Divisions of capital invested in failing securities, or unlucky speculations; instead of attending to all which in their purely business aspect, my imagination flies off to the dramatic, passionate, human element involved in such accidents, and I think of all manner of plays and novels, instead of "Cash Accounts," to be extracted therefrom....
Good-bye, dearest H——.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. B.
[2] A lady's-maid was quite an unusual member of a household in America, at this time; I remember no lady in Philadelphia who then had such an [attendant]: it is not impossible that the singularity of her service, and therefore apparently anomalous character of her position, may have helped to disgust my maid Unity with her situation. Probably the influence of Quaker modes of thought, and feeling, and habits of life (even among such of the community as were not "friends"—technically so called), had produced the peculiarities which characterized the Philadelphian society of that day, and made people among whom I lived strange to me—as I to them.