F. A. B.

BUTLER PLACE, July 14th, 1839.

I wrote to you a short time ago, dearest Harriet; but I am still in your
debt, and though I have nothing to tell you (when should I write if I
waited for that?), I have abundant leisure to tell it in, and the mind
to talk with you. The last is never wanting, but now what a pity it is
that I must make this miserable sheet of paper my voice, instead of
having you here on this piazza, as we call our verandahs here, with the
pomegranate and cape jessamine bushes in bloom in their large green
boxes just before me, and a row of great fat hydrangeas (how is that
spelled?) nodding their round, fat, foolish-looking pink and blue heads
at me....

We are most strongly urged to try the effect of the natural hot sulphur
baths of Virginia; their efficacy being very great in cases of rheumatic
affections.... I am very much afraid, however, that I shall not be
allowed to go thither; and in that case shall probably take my way up to
my friends in Berkshire, Massachusetts, the Sedgwicks, who, though they
have sent a detachment of six to perambulate Europe just now, still form
with the remaining members of the family the chief part of the
population of that district of New England.

Catharine, who is one of them that I love best, is one among the gone;
but her brother and his wife, next door to whom I generally take up my
abode during some part of the summer, are as excellent, and nearly as
dear to me, as she is....

My occupations are nothing; my amusements less than nothing. Of what
avail is it that I should tell you of lonely rides taken in places you
never heard of, or books I have read, the titles of which (being
American) you never saw; or that I am revolutionizing the gravel walks
in my garden, opening up new and closing up old ones? There is no use in
telling you any of this. As long as I live, that is to all eternity, you
know that I shall love you; but it is decreed that in this portion of
that eternity you can know little else about me, however it may be
hereafter. I wonder if it will ever be for us again to interchange
communion daily and hourly, as we once did; I do not see how it should
come to pass in this our present life; but it may be one of the
blessings of a better and happier existence to resume our free and full
former intercourse with each other, without any of the alloy of human
infirmity or untoward circum