Yours most truly,
F. A. B.
Philadelphia, January 15th, 1840.
Dearest Harriet,
My last to you was dated the fourteenth of December, and it is now the tenth of January, a whole month; and you and Dorothy are, I presume, sundered, instead of together, and surrounded with ice and snow, and all wintry influences, instead of those gentle southern ones in which you had imagined you would pass the dismal season.
I can fancy Ardgillan comfortably poetical (if that is not a contradiction in terms) at this time of year, with its warm, bright, cheerful drawing-room looking out on the gloomy sea. But perhaps you are none of you there?—perhaps you are in Dublin?—on Mr. Taylor's new estate?—or where—where, dear Harriet—where are you? How sad it seems to wander thus in thought after those we love, and conjecture of their whereabouts almost as vaguely as of the dwelling of the dead!...
I am annoyed by the interruption which all this ice and snow causes in my daily rides. My horse is rough-shod, and I persist in going out on him two or three times a week, but not without some peril, and severe inconvenience from the cold, which not only cuts my face to pieces, but chaps my skin from head to foot, through my riding-dress and all my warm under-clothing. I do not much regret our prolonged sojourn in the North, on my children's account, who, being both hearty and active creatures, thrive better in this bracing climate than in the relaxing temperature of the South....
FORESTER. Dear Harriet, I have nothing to tell you; my life externally is nothing; and who can tell the inward history of their bosom—that internal life, which is often so strangely unlike the other? Suppose I inform you that I have just come home from a ride of an hour and a half; that I went out of the city by Broad Street, and returned by Islington Lane and the Ridge Road—how much the wiser will you be? that the roads were frozen as hard as iron, and here and there so sheeted with ice that I had great difficulty in preventing my horse from slipping and falling down with me, and, being quite alone, without even a servant, I wondered what I should do if he did. I have a capital horse, whom I have christened Forester, after the hero of my play, and who grins with delight, like a dog, when I talk to him and pat him. He is a bright bay, with black legs and mane, tall and large, and built like a hunter, with high courage and good temper. I have had him four years, and do not like to think what would become of me if anything were to happen to him. It would be necessary that I should commit suicide, for his fellow is not to be found in "these United States." Dearest Harriet, we hope to come over to England next September; and if your sister will invite me, I will come and see you some time before I re-cross the Atlantic. I am very anxious about my father, and still more anxious about my sister, and feel heart-weary for the sight of some of my own people, places, and things; and so. Fate prospering, to speak heathen, I shall go home once more in the autumn of this present 1840: till when, dearest Harriet, God bless you! and after then, and always,
I am ever your affectionate,
F. A. B.