My dearest Mrs. Martin, ... I have had a great gratification within this week or two in receiving a letter--nay, two letters--from Miss Martineau, one of the last strangers in the world from whom I had any right to expect a kindness. Yet most kind, most touching in kindness, were both of these letters, so much so that I was not far from crying for pleasure as I read them. She is very hopelessly ill, you are probably aware, at Tynemouth in Northumberland, suffering agonies from internal cancer, and conquering occasional repose by the strength of opium, but 'almost forgetting' (to use her own words) 'to wish for health, in the intense enjoyment of pleasures independent of the body.' She sent me a little work of hers called 'Traditions of Palestine.' Her friends had hoped by the stationary character of some symptoms that the disease was suspended, but lately it is said to be gaining ground, and the serenity and elevation of her mind are more and more triumphantly evident as the bodily pangs thicken.... And now I am going to tell you what will surprise you, if you do not know it already. Stormie and Georgie are passing George's vacation on the Rhine. You are certainly surprised if you did not know it. Papa signed and sealed them 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.