‘My dear Sir,—I have now been in London a week, but so incessantly occupied with arrears of business, added to by three journeys to patients in the country, that I have not before found time to tell you of my return, as you were good enough to ask me to do.
‘First of yourself—My last direct tidings of you were through Prescott, at whose house in Boston I dined on the 1st of this month, with Everett, Ticknor, and one or two other Boston worthies—a most agreeable close to my American excursion. Prescott spoke with much earnestness of your kindness to him, awakening much affectionate memory of the same in our friend Everett. Your portrait is in the drawing-room of the latter, opposite to that of Lord Aberdeen.
‘From Mr. Prescott’s report I infer favourably of your progress to that time. I shall rejoice in learning that it has continued the same since; and that you have gained good to your strength and to your general health by your stay at Brighton. All that relates, too, to the state of the limb, I shall gladly learn-—gladly, at least, if the account be good.
‘I lived with Everett at Cambridge, near Boston, both when disembarking in
America and returning to Europe; and had great enjoyment in his society and in
that of the learned and scientific of Cambridge congregated around him. In the
interval between my visits to him I accomplished 3,900 miles of travel,
stretching as far westwards as the great prairies between Lake Michi-
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‘I accomplished my travels without a single accident or misadventure of any kind, and with very great good to my health, both present and prospective, for the labours of the winter. The transition is indeed sudden: from prairies, forests, lakes, and rapids, to diarrhoea, catarrh, rhubarb, and antimony; but these changes are agreeable and refreshing to me, and the former make me better competent to deal with the latter.
‘Farewell, my dear Sir. Believe me, ever yours most faithfully,
