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.

[My dear horse, having been sold to a livery-stable keeper, I
repurchased him by the publication of a small volume of poems, which
thus proved themselves to _me_ excellent verses. The gallant animal
broke his hip-joint by slipping in a striding gallop over some wet
planks, and I had to have him shot. His face--I mean the anguish in
it after the accident--is among the tragical visions in my memory.]

PHILADELPHIA, February 9th, 1840.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

... You ask me if I have read your book on Canada. With infinite
interest and pleasure, and great sympathy and admiration, and much
gratitude for the vindication of women's capabilities, both physical and
mental, which all your books (but this perhaps more than all the others)
furnish.

It has been, like all your previous works, extremely popular here; and
if you have received no remuneration for it, you are not justly dealt
by, as I am sure its sale has been very considerable, and very
profitable. [Mrs. Jameson was, undoubtedly, one of the greatest
sufferers by the want of an author's copyright in America: her works
were all republished there; and her laborious literary career, her
careful research and painstaking industry, together with her restricted
means and the many claims upon them, made it a peculiar hardship, in her
case, to be deprived of the just reward of the toil by which she gave
pleasure and instruction to so many readers in America, as well as in
her own country.] Your latest publication, "Social Life in Germany," I
have not seen, but have read numerous extracts from it, in the American
literary periodicals.

You ask me