And what do you and Mrs. Martin say about O’Connell?  Did you read last Saturday’s ‘Examiner’?  Tell her that I welcomed her kind letter heartily, and that this is an answer to both of you.  My best love to her always.  May God bless you, dear Mr. Martin!  Probably I have written your patience to an end.  If papa or anybody were in the room, I should have a remembrance for you.

I remain, myself,

Affectionately yours,
BA.

To Mrs. Martin Wednesday [December 1844].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,—­Hardly had my letter gone to you yesterday, when your kind present and not et arrived.  I thank you for my boots with more than the warmth of the worsted, and feel all their merits to my soul (each sole) while I thank you.  A pair of boots or shoes which ‘can’t be kicked off’ is something highly desirable for me, in Wilson’s opinion; and this is the first thing which struck her.  But the ‘great idea’ ‘a propos des bottes,’ which occurred to myself, ought to be unspeakable, like Miss Martineau’s great ideas—­for I do believe it was—­that I needn’t have the trouble every morning, now, of putting on my stockings....

My voice is thawing too, with all the rest.  If the cold had lasted I should have been dumb in a day or two more, and as it was, I was forced to refuse to see Mrs. Jameson (who had the goodness to come again) because I couldn’t speak much above my breath.  But I was tolerably well and brave upon the whole.  Oh, these murderous English winters.  The wonder is, how anybody can live through them....

Did I tell you, or Mr. Martin, that Rogers the poet, at eighty-three or four years of age, bore the bank robbery[119] with the light-hearted bearing of a man ‘young and bold,’ went out to dinner two or three times the same week, and said witty things on his own griefs.  One of the other partners went to bed instead, and was not likely, I heard, to ‘get over it.’  I felt quite glad and proud for Rogers.  He was in Germany last year, and this summer in Paris; but he first went to see Wordsworth at the Lakes.

It is a fine thing when a light burns so clear down into the socket, isn’t it?  I, who am not a devout admirer of the ‘Pleasures of Memory,’ do admire this perpetual youth and untired energy; it is a fine thing to my mind.  Then, there are other noble characteristics about this Rogers.  A common friend said the other day to Mr. Kenyon, ’Rogers hates me, I know.  He is always saying bitter speeches in relation to me, and yesterday he said so and so. But,’ he continued, ’if I were in distress, there is one man in the world to whom I would go without doubt and without hesitation, at once, and as to a brother, and that man is Rogers.’  Not that I would choose to be obliged to a man who hated me; but it is an illustration of the fact that if Rogers is bitter in his words, which we all know he is, he is always benevolent and generous in his deeds.  He makes an epigram on a man, and gives him a thousand pounds; and the deed is the truer expression of his own nature.  An uncommon development of character, in any case.