JAMES STREET, BUCKINGHAM GATE, August 23, ——. 
     MY DEAREST H——­,

I received your last on my return from the country, where I had been staying a fortnight, and I assure you that after an uncomfortable and rainy drive into town I found it of more service in warming me than even the blazing fire with which we are obliged to shame the month of August.

I have a great deal to tell you about our affairs, and the effect that their unhappy posture seems likely to produce upon my future plans and prospects.  Do you remember a letter I wrote to you a long time ago about going on the stage? and another, some time before that, about my becoming a governess?  The urgent necessity which I think now exists for exertion, in all those who are capable of it among us, has again turned my thoughts to these two considerations.  My father’s property, and all that we might ever have hoped to derive from it, being utterly destroyed in the unfortunate issue of our affairs, his personal exertions are all that remain to him and us to look to.  There are circumstances in which reflections that our minds would not admit at other times of necessity force themselves upon our consideration.  Those talents and qualifications, both mental and physical, which have been so mercifully preserved to my dear father hitherto, cannot, in the natural course of things, all remain unimpaired for many more years.  It is right, then, that those of us who have the power to do so should at once lighten his arms of all unnecessary burden, and acquire the habit of independent exertion before the moment comes when utter inexperience would add to the difficulty of adopting any settled mode of proceeding; it is right and wise to prepare for the evil day before it is upon us.  These reflections have led me to the resolution of entering upon some occupation or profession which may enable me to turn the advantages my father has so liberally bestowed upon me to some account, so as not to be a useless incumbrance to him at present, or a helpless one in future time.  My brother John, you know, has now determined, to go into the Church.  Henry we have good although remote hopes of providing well for, and, were I to make use of my own capabilities, dear little A——­ would be the only one about whom there need be any anxiety.  I propose writing to my father before he returns home (he is at present acting in the provinces) on this subject.  Some step I am determined to take; the nature of it will, of course, remain with him and my mother.  I trust that whatever course they resolve upon I shall be enabled to pursue steadily, and I am sure that, be it what it may, I shall find it comparatively easy, as the motive is neither my own profit nor reputation, but the desire of bringing into their right use whatever talents I may possess, which have not been given for useless purposes.  I hope and trust that I am better fitted for either of the occupations I have mentioned than I was