h you, but I much fear that I shall not see you this winter,
though I expect to sail for England next month....

You ask me of the distance between the Virginia Springs and Lenox, and I
am ashamed to say I cannot answer; however, almost half the length of
the United States, I think. This, my northern place of summer sojourn,
is in the heart of the hill country of Massachusetts, in a district
inhabited chiefly by Sedgwicks, and their belongings....

Our friends the Sedgwicks reached their homes about a fortnight ago, and
the hills and valleys hereabouts rejoiced thereat.... Katharine's health
and spirits are much revived by the atmosphere of love by which she is
surrounded in her home. She bids me give her love to you. I wonder, with
your miserable self-distrust, whether you have any idea of the
affectionate regard all these people bear you. Katharine, a short time
before leaving Europe, saw in a shop a dark gray stuff which resembled a
dress you used to wear; she immediately bought it for herself, and
carrying it home asked her brother who it reminded him of. He instantly
kissed the stuff, exclaiming, "H---- S----!" Young Kate's journal
contains a most affectionate record of their short intimacy with you at
Wiesbaden; and you have left a deep impression on these hearts, where as
little that is bad or base abides as in any frail human hearts I ever
knew....

I have regained so much of my former appearance that I trust when I do
see you I shall not horrify you, as you seemed some time ago to
anticipate, by an apparition altogether unlike your, ever _essentially_
the same,

F. A. B.

BUTLER PLACE, October 7th, 1840.

... Dearest Harriet, whatever may be the evils which may spring from the
amazing facilities of intercourse daily developing between distant
countries (and with so great good, how should there not be some evil?),
think of those whose lots are cast far from their early homes and
friends; think of the deathlike separation that going to America has
been to thousands who left England, and friends there, but a few years
ago; the uncertainty of intercourse by letter, the interminable
intervals of suspense, the impossibility of making known or understood
by hearts that yearned for such information the new and strange
circumstances of the exile's existence; the gradual dying out of
friendships, and cooling of w