ary 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....

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