f electricity in my
hair and skin; I never knew anybody but a cat who had so much.

Thank you for the paper about Theodore Hook. I knew him and disliked
him. He was very witty and humorous, certainly; but excessively coarse
in his talk and gross in his manners, and was hardly ever strictly sober
after dinner....

PHILADELPHIA, August 4th, 1843.
MY DEAREST HAL,

Indeed I am not spending my summer with my friends at Lenox, ... but
boarding at a third-rate watering-place about thirty miles from
Philadelphia, where there is a fine mineral spring and baths, remarkably
pure and bracing air, and a pretty, pleasant country, under which
combination of favorable influences we have all improved very much, and
dear little F---- looks once more as if she would live through the
summer, which she did not when we left Philadelphia. As for our
accommodations at this place, they are as comfortless as it is possible
to imagine, but that really signifies comparatively little.... I ride,
and walk, and fish, and look abroad on the sweet kindly face of Nature,
and commune gratefully with my Father in heaven whenever I do so; and
the hours pass swiftly by, and life is going on, and the rapid flight of
time is a source of rejoicing to me.... I laughed a very sad laugh at
your asking me if my watch and chain had been recovered or replaced.
How? By whom? With what? No, indeed, nor are they likely to be either
recovered or replaced. I offered, as a sort of inducement to
semi-honesty on the part of the thief or thieves, to give up the watch
and pencil-case to whoever would bring back my dear chain, but in vain.
Had I possessed any money, I should have offered the largest possible
reward to recover it; but, as it is, I was forced to let it go, without
being able to take even the usual methods resorted to for the recovery
of lost valuables. I will now bid you good-bye, dearest Hal. I have no
more to tell you; and whenever I mention or think of that chain, I feel
so sad that I hate to speak or move. I flatter myself that, were you to
see me now, you would approve highly of my appearance. I am about half
the size I was when last you saw me.

God bless you, dear. I am, therefore, only half yours,

FANNY.

PHILADELPHIA, August 15th, 1843.
MY DEAR T----,

Yesterday, at three o'clock, I was told that