away on the ground of its being good and
refreshing for both of them, and I was even mixed up a little with the
diplomacy of it, until I found _they were going_, and then it was a
hard, terrible struggle with me to be calm and see them go. But _that_
was childish, and when I had heard from them at Ostend I grew more
satisfied again, and attained to think less of the fatal influences of
_my star_. They went away in great spirits, Stormie 'quite elated,' to
use his own words, and then at the end of the six weeks they _must_ be
at home at Sessions; and no possible way of passing the interim could
be pleasanter and better and more exhilarating for themselves. The
plan was to go from Ostend by railroad to Brussels and Cologne, then
to pass down the Rhine to Switzerland, spend a few days at Geneva, and
a week in Paris as they return. The only fear is that Stormie won't go
to Paris. We have too many friends there--a strange obstacle.

Dearest Mrs. Martin, I am doing something more than writing you a
letter, I think.

May God bless you all with the most enduring consolations! Give my
love to Mr. Martin, and believe also, both of you, in my sympathy. I
am glad that your poor Fanny should be so supported. May God bless her
and all of you!

Dearest Mrs. Martin's affectionate
BA.

I am very well for _me_, and was out in the chair yesterday.

_To H.S. Boyd_
September 8, 1843.

My very dear Friend,--I ask you humbly not to fancy me in a passion
whenever I happen to be silent. For a woman to be silent is ominous, I
know, but it need not be significant of anything quite so terrible as
ill-humour. And yet it always happens so; if I do not write I am sure
to be cross in your opinion. You set me down directly as 'hurt,' which
means _irritable_; or 'offended,' which means _sulky_; your ideal of
me having, in fact, 'its finger in its eye' all day long.

I, on the contrary, humbled as I was by your hard criticism of my soft
rhymes about Flush,[81] waited for Arabel to carry a message for me,
begging to know whether you would care at all to see my 'Cry of the
Children'[82] before I sent it to you. But Arabel went without telling
me that she was going: twice she went to St. John's Wood and made no
sign; and now I find myself thrown on my own resources. Will you see
the 'Cry of the Human'[83] or not? It will not please you, probably.
It wants melody. The versification is eccentric to the ear, and the
subject (the factory miseries)