“It is so pleasant to write as if one were talking by the fireside in winter, or on some quiet garden-seat in summer-time.”

Presenting correspondence as an intimate conversation between friends · Letter to Joanna Baillie, 1827

• Art
• Friendship
• Nature

“If my sister were near me now, I should lay my head down upon her shoulder and cry like a tired child.”

A strikingly unguarded expression of weariness and longing for comfort · Letter fragment, familiar correspondence

• Childhood
• Friendship
• Love

“I bear being long shut up in the house about as ill as a gipsy or an Arab would.”

Expressing her strong need for movement, open air and the natural world · Letter fragment, familiar correspondence

• Nature
• Solitude