BANNISTERS, August 1st, 1837.
MY DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

After a riotous London season, my family has broken itself into small
pieces and dispersed. My mother is at her cottage in Surrey, where she
intends passing the rest of the summer; my father and sister are gone to
Carlsbad--is not that spirited?--though indeed they journey in search of
health, rather than pleasure. My father has been far from well for some
time past, and has at length been literally packed off by Dr. Granville,
to try the Bohemian waters.

I am at present staying with my friends, the Fitz Hughs, at Bannisters.
I leave this place on Friday for Liverpool, where I shall await the
arrival of the American packet; after that, we have several visits to
pay, and I hope, when we have achieved them, to join my father and
Adelaide at Carlsbad. I am pretty sure that we shall winter in America;
for, indeed, I was to have written to you, to beg you to spend that
season with us in Philadelphia, but as I had already received your
intimation of your intended return to England in the autumn, I knew
that such an offer would not suit your plans.

How glad you will be to see England again! and how glad your friends
will be to see you again! Miss Martineau, who was speaking of you with
great kindness the other day, added that your publishers would rejoice
to see you too.

I do not know whether her book on America has yet reached you. It has
been universally read, and though by no means agreeable to the opinions
of the majority, I think its whole tone has impressed everybody with
respect for her moral character, her integrity, her benevolence, and her
courage.

She tells me she is going to publish another work upon America,
containing more of personal narrative and local description; after
which, I believe, she thinks of writing a novel. I shall be quite
curious to see how she succeeds in the latter undertaking. The stories
and descriptions of her political tales were charming; but whether she
can carry herself through a work of imagination of any length with the
same success, I do not feel sure.

I saw the Montagues, and Procters, and Chorley (who is, I believe, a
friend of yours), pretty often while I was in London, and they were my
chief informers as to your state of being, doing, and suffering. I am
sorry that the latter has formed so large a portion of your experience
in that strange and desolate land of your present sojourn.