to manage of my pretty new books and my three hyacinths, and a pot of primroses which dear Mr. Kenyon had the good nature to carry himself through the streets to our door.  But all the flowers forswear me, and die either suddenly or gradually as soon as they become aware of the want of fresh air and light in my room.  Talking of air and light, what exquisite weather this is!  What a summer in winter!  It is the fourth day since I have had the fire wrung from me by the heat of temperature, and I sit here very warm indeed, notwithstanding that bare grate.  Nay, yesterday I had the door thrown open for above an hour, and was warm still!  You need not ask, you see, how I am.

Tell me, have you read Mr. Dickens’s ‘America;’ and what is your thought of it like?  If I were an American, it would make me rabid, and certain of the free citizens are furious, I understand, while others ‘speak peace and ensue it,’ admire as much of the book as deserves any sort of admiration, and attribute the blameable parts to the prejudices of the party with whom the writer ‘fell in,’ and not to a want of honesty or brotherhood in his own intentions.  I admire Mr. Dickens as an imaginative writer, and I love the Americans—­I cannot possibly admire or love this book.  Does Mr. Martin?  Do you?

Henrietta would send her love to you if I could hear her voice nearer than I do actually, as she sings to the guitar downstairs.  And her love is not the only one to be sent.  Give mine to dear Mr. Martin, though he can’t make up his mind to the bore of writing to me.  And remember us all, both of you, as we do you.

Dearest Mrs. Martin, your affectionate BA.

To James Martin February 6, 1843.

You make us out, my dear Mr. Martin, to be such perfect parallel lines that I should be half afraid of completing the definition by our never meeting, if it were not for what you say afterwards, of the coming to London, and of promising to come and see Flush.  If you should be travelling while I am writing, it was only what happened to me when I wrote not long ago to dearest Mrs. Martin, and everybody in this house cried out against the fatuity of the coincidence.  As if I could know that she was travelling, when nobody told me, and I wasn’t a witch!  If the same thing happens to-day, believe in the innocence of my ignorance.  I shall be consoled if it does—­for certain reasons.  But for none in the world can I help thanking you for your letter, which gave me so much pleasure from the first sight of the handwriting to the thought of the kindness spent upon me in it, that after all I cannot thank you as I would.