My very dear Friend,--I have fluctuated from one shadow of uncertainty
and anxiety to another, all the summer, on the subject to which my
last earthly wishes cling, and I delayed writing to you to be able to
say I am going to London. I may say so now--as far as the human may
say 'yes' or 'no' of their futurity. The carriage, a patent carriage
with a bed in it, and set upon some hundreds of springs, is, I
believe, on its road down to me, and immediately upon its arrival
we begin our journey. Whether we shall ever complete it remains
uncertain--_more_ so than other uncertainties. My physician appears a
good deal alarmed, calls it an undertaking full of hazard, and myself
the 'Empress Catherine' for insisting upon attempting it. But I must.
I go, as 'the doves to their windows,' to the only earthly daylight I
see here. I go to rescue myself from the associations of this dreadful
place. I go to restore to my poor papa the companionships family.
Enough has been done and suffered for _me_. I thank God I am going
home at last.

How kind it was in you, my very kind and ever very dear friend, to ask
me to visit you at Hampstead! I felt myself smiling while I read that
part of your letter, and laid it down and suffered the vision to arise
of your little room and your great Gregory and your dear self scolding
me softly as in the happy olden times for not reading slow enough.
Well--we do not know what _may_ happen! I _may_ (even that is
probable) read to you again. But now--ah, my dear friend--if you could
imagine me such as I am!--you would not think I could visit you! Yet
I am wonderfully better this summer; and if I can but reach home
and bear the first painful excitement, it will do me more good than
anything--I know it will! And if it does not, it will be _well_ even
so.