FANNY.

PHILADELPHIA, Sunday, June 9th, 1844.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,

I am sure you will be sorry to hear of the accident which has befallen
my poor little F----. She fell last week over the bannisters of the
stairs, and broke her arm. The fracture was fortunately a simple one of
the smaller bone of the arm, which, I suppose, in a little body of that
sort, can hardly be much more than gristle. She is doing well, and, as
she appears to have escaped all injury to the head, which was my first
horrible apprehension, I have every reason to be thankful that the
visitation has not been more severe. The accident occasioned me a
violent nervous shock. I am now far from well myself, and I am pursued
with debilitating feverish tendencies, which I vainly endeavor to get
rid of....

I am much puzzled, my dear Lady Dacre, what to say to you beyond this
bulletin. My circumstances do not afford any great variety of cheerful
topics for correspondence, and the past and the future are either
painful or utterly uncertain.

I am studying German, in the midst of the small facilities for mental
culture which my present not very easy or happy position affords, and
have serious thoughts of beginning to work at Euclid, and trying to make
myself something of a mathematician. Possibly some knowledge of the
positive sciences might be of use to me in my further dealings with the
world; for the proper comprehension and appreciation of and judicious
commerce with which some element, either natural or acquired, is
undoubtedly wanting in me.

I have always wished very much that I had been made to study mathematics
as a young person, and considering that Alfieri betook himself to Greek
at forty-eight, I see no very good reason why I should not get at least
as far as the _pons asinorum_ at thirty-four.

I believe this latent hankering after mathematics has been a little
fanned in me by reading De Quincey's letters to a young man upon the
subject of a late education, which have fallen into my hands just now,
and which so earnestly recommend the zealous cultivation of this species
of knowledge.

I hope Lord Dacre is well. Pray remember me to him very affectionately,
and tell him that I am afraid, in answer to his question, I must reply
that the Americans in this part of the United States do not at present
appear over-scrupulous about paying their debts. Their dem