t to be placed for years together
out of the reach of all society; to be left day after day to the
solitude of an absolutely lonely life; to be deprived of all stimulus
from without; to hear no music; to see no works of art; to hear no
intellectually brilliant or even tolerably cultivated or interesting
conversation; indeed, often to pass days without exchanging a thought or
even a word with any grown person but my servants; to ride for hours
every day alone through lonely roads and paths, sit down daily to a
solitary dinner, and pass most of my evenings listening to the ticking
of the clock, or wandering round and round the dark garden-walks;--to
lead, I say, such a life for a length of time, and then be plunged into
the existence, the sort of social Maelstrom we are living in here now,
is surely a great trial to a person constituted like myself, and would
be something of one, I think, to a calmer mind and more equable
temperament than mine....

You ask if my father has been told of our intended return to America. I
have told him, but neither he nor any one else appears to believe in it;
and from what I wrote you in my last letter, I think you will agree that
they are justified in their incredulity.

You ask how Adelaide is. Flourishing greatly; the annoyance and
vexation of the late difficulties with the theatre being past, she has
recovered her spirits, and seems enjoying to the full her present hopes
of future happiness....

God bless you, my dear Hal.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

OATLANDS, June 16th, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,

An hour's railroading from London has brought me into a lovely country,
a perfect English landscape of broad lawns, thick tufted oaks, and
placid waters, under my windows. But an hour from that glare, confusion,
din, riot, and insanity, to the soothing sights and sounds of this rural
paradise! And after looking at it till my spirits have subsided into
something like kindred composure and placidity, I open my letter-case,
and find your last unanswered epistle lying on the top of it. "If Cunard
and Harnden have proved true," you must have received by this time our
reply to your proposition touching the Coster business. Thus far on
Monday last; and having proceeded thus far, I fell fast asleep, with the
pen in my hand, the sound of the rustling trees in my ear