My greatest pleasure, in the midst of all this praise, is to think of the pleasure which my success will give to my father and my sisters.

It is happy for me that ambition has in my mind been softened into a kind of domestic feeling, and that affection has at least as much to do as vanity with my wish to distinguish myself.

This I owe to my dear mother, and to the interest which she always took in my childish successes.

From my earliest years, the gratification of those whom I love has been associated with the gratification of my own thirst for fame, until the two have become inseparably joined in my mind.
Ever yours T.B.M.
To Hannah M Macaulay London: July 8, 1831.
My dear Sister,--Do you want to hear all the compliments that are paid to me?
I shall never end, if I stuff my letters with them; for I meet nobody who does not give me joy.

Baring tells me that I ought never to speak again.