For my own part, my dearest Mrs. Martin, my heart has been lightened lately by kind, honest Dr. Scully (who would never give an opinion just to please me), saying that I am ‘quite right’ to mean to go to London, and shall probably be fit for the journey early in June.  He says that I may pass the winter there moreover, and with impunity—­that wherever I am it will probably be necessary for me to remain shut up during the cold weather, and that under such circumstances it is quite possible to warm a London room to as safe a condition as a room here.  So my heart is lightened of the fear of opposition:  and the only means of regaining whatever portion of earthly happiness is not irremediably lost to me by the Divine decree, I am free to use.  In the meantime, it really does seem to me that I make some progress in health—­if the word in my lips be not a mockery.  Oh, I fancy I shall be strengthened to get home!

Your remarks on Chaucer pleased me very much.  I am glad you liked what I did—­or tried to do—­and as to the criticisms, you were right—­and they sha’n’t be unattended to if the opportunity of correction be given to me.

Ever your affectionate
BA.

To H.S.  Boyd August 28, 1841.

My very dear Friend,—­I have fluctuated from one shadow of uncertainty and anxiety to another, all the summer, on the subject to which my last earthly wishes cling, and I delayed writing to you to be able to say I am going to London.  I may say so now—­as far as the human may say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ of their futurity.  The carriage, a patent carriage with a bed in it, and set upon some hundreds of springs, is, I believe, on its road down to me, and immediately upon its arrival we begin our journey.  Whether we shall ever complete it remains uncertain—­more so than other uncertainties.  My physician appears a good deal alarmed, calls it an undertaking full of hazard, and myself the ‘Empress Catherine’ for insisting upon attempting it.  But I must.  I go, as ‘the doves to their windows,’ to the only earthly daylight I see here.  I go to rescue myself from the associations of this dreadful place.  I go to restore to my poor papa the companionships family.  Enough has been done and suffered for me.  I thank God I am going home at last.

How kind it was in you, my very kind and ever very dear friend, to ask me to visit you at Hampstead!  I felt myself smiling while I read that part of your letter, and laid it down and suffered the vision to arise of your little room and your great Gregory and your dear self scolding me softly as in the happy olden times for not reading slow enough.  Well—­we do not know what may happen!  I may (even that is probable) read to you again.  But now—­ah, my dear friend—­if you could imagine me such as I am!—­you would not think I could visit you!  Yet I am wonderfully better this summer; and if I can but reach home and bear the first painful excitement, it will do me more good than anything—­I know it will!  And if it does not, it will be well even so.