says (but I have not heard it elsewhere) that Thackeray and Dickens
are to winter at Rome, and Alfred Tennyson at Florence. Mrs.
Trollope has quite recovered, and receives as usual. How full of
beauty Mr. Hillard's book is! thank him for it again and again. Did
I tell you that they are going to engrave a portrait of me by
Haydon, now belonging to Mr. Bennoch, for the Dramatic Works? God
bless you, my very dear friend. Say everything for me to Mr. Ticknor
and Dr. Holmes and Dr. Parsons, and all my friends in Boston. Little
Henry grows a very sensible, intelligent boy, and is a great
favorite at his school. He is getting on with French.

Once more, ever yours, M.R.M.

1854.

(January, 1854.)

My Beloved Friend: They who correspond with sick people must be
content to receive such letters as are sent from hospitals. For many
weeks I have been wholly shut up in my own room, getting with
exceeding difficulty from the bed to the fireside, quite unable to
stir either in the chair or in the bed, but much less miserable up
than when in bed. The terrible cold of last summer did not allow me
to gain any strength, so that although the fire in my room is kept
up night and day, yet a severe attack of influenza came on and would
have carried me off, had not Mr. May been so much alarmed at the
state of the pulse and the general feebleness as to order me two
tablespoonfuls of champagne in water once a day, and a teaspoonful
of brandy also in water, at night, which undoubtedly saved my life.
It is the only good argument for what is called teetotalism that it
keeps more admirable medicines as medicine; for undoubtedly a
wine-drinker, however moderate, would not have been brought round by
the remedy which did me so much good. Miserably feeble I still am,
and shall continue till May or June (if it please God to spare my
life till then), when, if it be fine weather, Sam will lift me down
stairs and into the pony-chaise, and I may get stronger. Well, in
the midst of the terrible cough, which did not allow me to lie down
in bed, and a weakness difficult to describe, I finished "Atherton."
I did it against orders and against warning, because I had an
impression that I should not live to complete it, and I sent it
yesterday to London to dear Mr. Bennoch, so I suppose you will soon
receive the s