Records of a Girlhood

My dearest H–,

I had just left my father at the window that overlooks the Forth, watching my poor mother's ship sailing away to England, when I received your letter; and it is impossible to imagine a sorer, sadder heart than that with which I greeted it.... Thank you for the pains you are taking about your picture for me; crammed with occupation as my time is here, I would have done the same for you, but that I think in Lawrence's print you have the best and likest thing you can have of me.... I cannot tell you at what hour we shall reach Liverpool, but it will be very early on Monday morning.... I am glad you have not deferred sitting for your picture till you came to Liverpool, for it would have encroached much upon our time together. I remember when I returned from abroad, a school-girl, I thought I had forgotten my mother's face. This copy of yours will save me from that nonsensical morbid feeling, and you will surely not forget mine.... You bid me, if anything should go ill with me, summon you across the Atlantic. Alas! dear H–, you forget that before a letter from that other world can reach this, more than a month must have elapsed, and the writer may no longer be in either. You say you hope I may return a new being; and I have no doubt my health will be benefited, and my spirits revived by change of external objects; but oh, how dreary it all is now! You bid me cheer my father when my mother shall have left us, without knowing that she is already gone. I make every exertion that duty and affection can prompt; but, you know, it is my nature rather to absorb the sorrow of others than to assist them in throwing it off; and when one's own heart is all but frozen, one knows not where to find warmth to impart to those who are shivering with misery beside one.... I have left myself scarcely any room to tell you of my present life. I work very hard, rehearsing every morning and acting every night, and spending the intervening time in long farewell rides round this most beautiful and beloved Edinburgh. Mr. Combe says I am wearing myself out, body and mind; but I am already looking better, and less thin, than when I left London; and besides, I shall presently have a longer rest—holiday I cannot call it—on board ship than I have had for the last three years. We acted "Francis I." here last night, for the first time; and I am sure that, mingled with the applause, I heard very distinct hissing; whether addressed to the acting, which was some of it execrable, or to the play itself, which I think quite deserving of such a demonstration, I know not.... You know my opinion of the piece; and as, with the exception of the two parts of De Bourbon and the Friar, and not excepting my own, it really was vilely acted, hissing did not appear to me an unnatural proceeding, though perhaps, under the circumstances, not altogether a courteous one on the part of the modern Athenians. I tell you this, because what else have I to tell you, but that I am your ever affectionate

    F. A. K.

Tuesday, 10th.—At half-past twelve rode out with Liston and his daughter, Mr. Murray, and Allen (since Sir William, the celebrated artist, friend, and painter, of Walter Scott and his family).... In the evening, at the theater, the house was very full, and I acted very well, though I was so tired that I could hardly stand, and every bone in my body ached with my hard morning's ride. While I was sitting in the greenroom, Mr. Wilson came in, and it warmed my heart to see a Covent Garden face. He tells me Laporte is giving concerts in the poor old playhouse: well, good luck attend him, poor man (though I know it won't, for "there's nae luck about that house, there's nae luck at a'"). Walter Scott has reached Edinburgh, and starts for Abbotsford to-morrow: I am glad he has come back to die in his own country, in his own home, surrounded by the familiar objects his eyes have loved to look upon, and by the hearts of his countrymen, and the prayers, the blessings, the gratitude, and the love they owe him. All Europe will mourn his death; and for years to come every man born on this soil will be proud, for his sake, to call himself a Scotchman.

Wednesday, 11th.– … At half-past twelve met Mr. Murray, Mr. Allen, and Mr. Byrne.... As we started for our ride, and were "cavalcading" leisurely along York Place, that most enchanting old sweetheart of mine, Baron Hume, came out of a house. I rode toward him, and he met me with his usual hearty, kind cordiality, and a world of old-fashioned stately courtesy, ending our conference by devoutly kissing the tip of my little finger, to the infinite edification of my party, upon whose minds I duly impressed the vast superiority of this respectful style of gallantry to the flippant, easy familiarity of the present day. These old beaux beat the young ones hollow in the theory of courtship, and it is only a pity that their time for practice is over. Commend me to this bowing and finger-kissing! it is at any rate more dignified than the nodding, bobbing, and hand-shaking of the present fashion. The be-Madaming, too, has in it something singularly pleasing to my taste; there's a hoop and six yards of brocade in each of its two syllables.... At the theater the play was "Francis I." I acted well, and the play went off very well. Mr. Allen came and sat in the greenroom, telling me all about Constantinople and the Crimea, and the beautiful countries he has seen, and where his memory and his wishes are forever wandering; a rather sad comment upon the perfect vision of content his charming home at Laurieston had suggested to me.

Thursday, 12th.– … At the theater the play was "The Hunchback." The house was very good, and I acted very well. Dear Mr. Allen came into the greenroom, and had a long gossip with me.

Friday, 13th.– … Went with Mr. Combe to the Phrenological Museum, and spent two hours listening to some very interesting details on the anatomy of the brain, which certainly tended to make the science more credible to my ignorance, though the general theory has never appeared to me as impossible and extravagant as some people think it. The insuperable point where I stick fast is a doubt of the practically beneficial result which its general acceptance would produce. I think they overrate the reforming power of their system, though Mr. Combe's account of the numbers who attend his lectures, and of the improvement of their bodily and mental conditions which he has himself witnessed, must, of course, make me feel diffident of my own judgment in the matter. Their own experience can alone test the utility of their system, and whether it does or does not answer their expectations. I thought of Hamlet as I sat on the ground, with my arms and lap full of skulls. It is curious enough to grasp the empty, worthless, unsightly case in which once dwelt the thinking faculty of a man. One of the best specimens of the human skull, it seems, is Raphael's; a cast of whose head I held lovingly in my hands, wishing it had been the very house where once abode that spirit of immortal beauty. [The phrenological authorities were mistaken, it seems, in attributing this skull to Raphael. I believe that it has been ascertained to be that of his friend, the engraver, Marc Antonio.] At the theater the play was "The Hunchback;" the house very good, and I played very well.

Saturday, 14th.—My last day in Edinburgh for two years; and who can tell for how many more? At eleven o'clock, Mr. Murray, Mr. Allen, Mr. Byrne, and myself sallied forth on horseback toward the Pentlands, having obtained half an hour's grace off dinner-time, in order to get to Habbies How. We went out by the Links, and up steep rises over a white and dusty road, with a flaring stone dyke on each side, and neither tree nor bush to shelter us from the scorching sunlight till we came to Woodhouseleigh, the haunted walk of a white specter, who, it seems, was fond of the shade, for her favorite promenade was an avenue overarched with the green arms of noble old elm trees; and we blessed the welcome shelter of the Ghost's Haunt.... A cloud fell over all our spirits as we rode away from this enchanting spot, and Mr. Murray, pointing to the sprig of heather I had put in my habit, said they would establish an Order of Knighthood, of which the badge should be a heather spray, and they three the members, and I the patroness; that they would meet and drink my health on the 14th of July, and on my birthday, every year till I returned; and a solemn agreement was made by all parties that whenever I did return and summoned my worthies, we should again adjourn together to the glen in the Pentlands. When we reached home, Mr. Allen, who cannot endure a formal parting, shook hands with me and bade me good-by as I dismounted, as if we were to ride again to-morrow. [And I never saw him again. Peace be with him! He was a most amiable and charming companion, and during these days of friendly intimacy, his conversation interested and instructed me, and his poetical feeling of Nature, and placid, unruffled serenity, added much to the pleasure of those delightful rides.] … At the theater the play was "The Provoked Husband," for my benefit; the house was very fine, and I played pretty well. After it was over, the audience shouted and clamored for my father, who came and said a few words of our sorrow to leave their beautiful city.... Mrs. Harry, Lizzie, and I were in my dressing-room, crying in sad silence, and vainly endeavoring to control our emotion. Presently my father came hurriedly in, and folding them both in his arms, just uttered in a broken voice, "Good-by! God bless you!" and I, embracing my dear friends for the last time, followed him out of the room. It is not the time only that must elapse before I can see her again, it is the terrible distance, the slowness and uncertainty of communication; it is that dreadful America.

Thursday, 19th, Liverpool.– … At eleven went to the theater for rehearsal; it was very slovenly. I wonder what the performance will be? In the evening to the theater; the play was "Francis I.," and the house was very good, which was almost to be wondered at in this plague-stricken city. [The cholera was raging in Liverpool.] I was frightened, as I always am at a new part, even in my own play, though glad enough to resign that odious dignity, the queen-mother. [The part of Louisa of Savoy had been given to me when first the piece was brought out at Covent Garden; I was now playing the younger heroine, Françoise de Foix.] I played pretty well, though there is nothing to be done with the part. She is perfectly uninteresting and ineffective; but it is better for the cast of the play that I should act her instead of Louisa. And when one can have such a specimen of a queen as we had to-night, it would be a thousand pities the audience should be put off with my inferior views of royalty. Such bouncing, frowning, growling, and snarling might have challenged a whole zoological garden full of wild beasts to surpass. It's a comfort to see that it is possible to play that part worse than I did.

Friday, 20th.—Went to rehearsal.... Received a letter from Lizzie, giving me an account of my dear old Newhaven fish-wife, poor body! to whom I had sent a farewell present by her. I received also a long copy of anonymous verses, in which I was rather pathetically remonstrated with for seeking fame and fortune out of my own country. The author is slightly mistaken; neither the love of money nor notoriety would carry me away from England, but the love of my father constrains me.... The American Consul and Mr. Arnold called. After dinner I read Combe's "Constitution of Man," which interested me very much, though it fails to convince me that phrenology can alone bestow this insight into human nature. At the theater "The School for Scandal;" I played pretty well, though the actors were all dreadfully imperfect, and some of them so nervous and quick, and some so nervous and slow, that it was hardly possible to keep pace with them.

Saturday, 21st.—From Liverpool to Manchester. After all, this Liverpool, with all its important wealth and industry, is a dismal-looking place, a swarming world of dingy red houses and dirty streets.... How well I remember the opening of this railway!… They have placed a marble tablet in the side of the road to commemorate the spot where poor Huskisson fell; I remembered it by the pools of dark-green water that, as we passed them then, made a dismal impression on me; they looked like stony basins of verdigris. How glad I was to see Chatmoss—that villainous, treacherous, ugly, useless bog—trenched and ditched in process of draining and reclaiming, with the fair, holy, healthy grain waving in bright green patches over the brown peaty soil! Next to moral conversion, and the reclaiming to their noble uses the perverted powers of human nature, there is nothing does one's heart so much good as the sight of waste and barren land reclaimed to the uses and wants of man; to see vegetation clothe the idle space, and the cursed and profitless soil teeming with the means of life and bringing forth abundant produce to requite the toil that fertilized it; to see the wilderness crowned with bounteous increase, and the blessing of God rising from the earth to reward the labor of His creatures. It forcibly reminds one of all that is left undone, and might be done, with that far more precious waste land, those multitudes of our ignorant poor, whose minds and spirits are as dark, as profitless, as barren, as dreary, and as dangerous, as this wild bog was formerly, and who were never ordained to live and die like so many human morasses.... In the evening to the theater, which was crammed from the floor to the ceiling; they are a pleasant audience, too, and make a delightful quantity of sympathetic noise. I did not play well, which was a pity and a shame, because they really deserved that one should do so; but my coadjutors were too much for me.

Sunday, 22d, Liverpool.—I did not think there was such another day in store for me as this. I thought all was past and over, and had forgotten the last drop in the bitter cup.... The day was bitter cold, and we were obliged to have a fire.

    Liverpool, July 22.

My dear Mrs. Jameson,

I fear you are either anxious or vexed, or perhaps both, about the arrival of your books, and my non-acknowledgment of them. They reached me in all safety, and but for the many occupations which swallow up my time would have been duly receipted ere this. Thank you very much for them, for they are very elegant outside, and the dedication page, with which I should have been most ungracious to find any fault. The little sketch on that leaf differs from the design you had described to me some time ago, and I felt the full meaning of the difference. I read through your preface all in a breath; there are many parts of it which have often been matters of discussion between us, and I believe you know how cordially I coincide with most of the views expressed in it. The only point in your preliminary chapter on which I do not agree with you is the passage in which you say that humor is, of necessity and in its very essence, vulgar. I differ entirely with you here. I think humor is very often closely allied to poetry; not only a large element in highly poetic minds, which surely refutes your position, but kindred to the highest and deepest order of imagination, and frequently eminently fanciful and graceful in its peculiar manifestations. However, I cannot now make leisure to write about this, but while I read it I scored the passage as one from which I dissented. That, however, of course does not establish its fallacy; but I think, had I time, I could convince you of it. I acted Juliet on Wednesday, and read your analysis of it before doing so. Oh, could you but have seen and heard my Romeo!… I am sure it is just as well that an actress on the English stage at the present day should not have too distinct a vision of the beings Shakespeare intended to realize, or she might be induced, like the unfortunate heroine of the song, to "hang herself in her garters." To be sure there is always my expedient to resort to, of acting to a wooden vase; you know I had one put upon my balcony, in "Romeo and Juliet," at Covent Garden, to assist Mr. Abbott in drawing forth the expression of my sentiments. I have been reading over Portia to-day; she is still my dream of ladies, my pearl of womanhood.... I must close this letter, for I have many more to write to-night, and it is already late. Once more, thank you very much for your book, and believe me,

    Ever yours very truly,
    F. A. K.

August 1st.—Sailed for America.

The book referred to in this letter was Mrs. Jameson's "Analysis of Shakespeare's Female Characters," which she very kindly dedicated to me. The etching in the title-page was changed from the one she at first intended to have put in it, and represented a female figure in an attitude of despondency, sitting by the sea, and watching a ship sailing toward the setting sun; a design which I know she meant to have reference to my departure. I believe she subsequently changed it again to the one she had first executed, and which was of a less personal significance.... I exchanged no more letters with my friend Miss S–, who joined me at Liverpool, and remained with me till I sailed for America.... "A trip," as it is now called, to Europe or America, is one of the commonest of experiences, involving, apparently, so little danger, difficulty, or delay, that the feelings with which I made my first voyage across the Atlantic must seem almost incomprehensible to the pleasure-seeking or business-absorbed crowds who throng the great watery highway between the two continents.

But when I first went to America, steam had not shortened the passage of that formidable barrier between world and world. A month, and not a week, was the shortest and most favorable voyage that could be looked for. Few men, and hardly any women, undertook it as a mere matter of pleasure or curiosity; and though affairs of importance, of course, drew people from one shore to the other, and the stream of emigration had already set steadily westward, American and European tourists had not begun to cross each other by thousands on the high seas in search of health or amusement.

I was leaving my mother, my brothers and sister, my friends and my country, for two years, and could only hear from them at monthly intervals. I was going to work very hard, in a distasteful vocation, among strangers, from whom I had no right to expect the invariable kindness and indulgence my own people had favored me with. My spirits were depressed by my father's troubled fortunes, and I had just received the first sharp, smarting strokes in the battle of life; those gashes from which poor "unbruised youth," in its infinite self-compassion, fancies its very life-blood must all pour away; little imagining under what gangrened, festering wounds brave life will still hold on its way, and urge to the hopeless end its warfare with unconquerable sorrow. There is nothing more pathetic than the terrified impatience of youth under its first experience of grief, and its vehement appeal of "Behold, and see if any sorrow be like unto my sorrow!" to the patient adepts in suffering such as it has not yet begun to conceive of. Orlando's adjuration to the exiled duke in "As You Like It," and the wise Prince's reply, seem to me one of the most exquisite illustrations of the comparative griefs of youth and age.

    Off Sandy Hook, Monday, September 5.

My dearest H–,

We are within three hours' sail of New York, having greeted the first corner of Long Island (the first land we saw) yesterday morning; but we are becalmed, and the sun shines so bright, and the air is so warm and breathless, that we seem to have every chance of lying here for the next—Heaven knows how long! In point of time, you see, our voyage has been very prosperous, and I am surprised that we have made such good progress, for the weather has been squally, with constant head-winds. I do not think we have had, in all, six days of fair wind, so that we have no reason whatever to complain of our advance, having come thus far in thirty-two days. You bade me write to you by ships passing us, but though we have encountered several bound eastward, we only hailed them without lying to; notwithstanding which, about a fortnight ago, on hearing that a vessel was about to pass us, I wrote you a scrawl, which none but you could have made out (so the fishes won't profit much by it), and a kind fellow-passenger undertook to throw it from our ship to the other as it passed us. She came alongside very rapidly, and though he flung with great force and good aim, the distance was too great, and my poor little missive fell into the black sea within twenty feet of its destination. I could not help crying to think that those words from my heart, that would have gladdened yours, should go down into that cold, inky water.... I pray to God that we may return to England, but I am possessed with a dread that I never shall....

I have been called away from this letter by one of those little incidents which Heaven in its mercy sends to break the monotony of a sea-voyage. Ever since daybreak this morning an English brig has been standing at a considerable distance behind us. About an hour ago we went on deck to watch the approach of a boat which they were sending off in our direction. The distance was about five miles, and the men had a hard pull in the broiling heat. When they came on board, you should have seen how we all clustered about them. The ship was a merchantman from Bristol, bound to New York; she had been out eleven weeks, her provisions were beginning to run short, and the crew was on allowance. Our captain, who is a gentleman, furnished them with flour, tea, sugar, porter, cold tongue, ham, eggs, etc., etc. The men remained about half an hour on board, and as they were remanning their boat we saw a whole cargo of eatables carried to it from our steerage passengers. You know that these are always poor people, who are often barely supplied themselves with necessaries for their voyage. The poor are almost invariably kind and compassionate to one another, and Gaffer Gray is half right when he says—

"The poor man alone,
When he hears the poor moan,
Of his morsel one morsel will give."

They (the men from the brig) gave us news from Halifax, where they had put in. The cholera had been in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York; the latter town was almost deserted, and the people flying in numbers from the others. This was rather bad news to us, who were going thither to find audiences (if possible not few, whether fit or not), but it was awful to such as were going back to their homes and families. I looked at the anxious faces gathered round our informer, and thought how the poor hearts were flying, in terrible anticipation of the worst, to the nests where they had left their dear ones, and eagerly counting every precious head in the homes over which so black a cloud of doom had gathered in their absence.... My father, though a bad sailor, and suffering occasionally a good deal, has, upon the whole, borne the voyage well. Poor dear Dall has been the greatest wretch on board; she has been perfectly miserable the whole time. It has made me very unhappy, for she has come away from those she loves very dearly on my account, and I cannot but feel sad to see that most excellent creature now, in what should be the quiet time of her life, leaving home and all its accustomed ways, habits, and comforts, and dear A–, who is her darling, to come wandering to the ends of the earth after me.... These distant and prolonged separations seem like foretastes of death.... We have seen an American sun, and an American moon, and American stars, and we think they "get up these things better than we do." We have had several fresh squalls, and one heavy gale; we have shipped sundry seas; we have had rat-hunting and harpooning of porpoises; we have caught several hake and dogfish.

    New York, America, Wednesday, September 5, 1832.

Here we really are, and perhaps you, who are not here, will believe it more readily than I who am, and to whom it seems an impossible kind of dream from which I must surely presently wake. We made New York harbor Monday night at sunset, and cast anchor at twelve o'clock off Staten Island, where we lay till yesterday morning at half-past nine, when a steamboat came alongside to take the passengers to shore. A thick fog covered the shores, and the rain poured in torrents; but had the weather been more favorable, I should have seen nothing of our approach to the city, for I was crying bitterly. The town, as we drove through it from the landing, struck me as foreign in its appearance—continental, I mean; trees are mixed very prettily with the houses, which are painted of various colors, and have green blinds on the outside, giving an idea of coolness and shade.

The sunshine is glorious, and the air soft and temperate; our hotel is pleasantly situated, and our rooms are gay and large. The town, as I see it from our windows, reminds me a little of Paris. Yesterday evening the trees and lighted shop-windows and brilliant moonlight were like a suggestion of the Boulevards; it is very gay, and rather like a fair.

The cholera has been very bad, but it is subsiding, and the people are returning to town. We shall begin our work in about ten days. I have not told you half I could say, but foolscap will contain no more. God bless you, dear!

    Affectionately yours,
    F. A. K.

The foreboding with which I left my own country was justified by the event. My dear aunt died, and I married, in America; and neither of us ever had a home again in England.

    New York, September 16, 1832.

My dearest H–,

What shall I say to you? First of all, pray don't forget me, don't be altered when I see you again, don't die before I come back, don't die if I never come back.... You cannot imagine how strange the comparisons people here are perpetually making between this wonderful sapling of theirs and our old oak seem to me.... My father, thank God, is wonderfully improved in health, looks, and spirits; the fine, clear, warm (hot it should be called) atmosphere agrees with him, and the release from the cares and anxieties of that troublesome estate of his in St. Giles' will, I am sure, be of the greatest service to him. He begins his work to-morrow night with Hamlet, and on Tuesday I act Bianca. It is thought expedient that we should act singly the two first nights, and then make a "constellation." Dall is in despair because I am to be discovered instead of coming on (a thing actors deprecate, because they do not receive their salvo of entrance applause), and also because I am not seen at first in what she thinks a becoming dress. For my part, I am rather glad of this decision, for besides Bianca's being one of my best parts, the play, as the faculty have mangled it, is such a complete monologue that I am less at the mercy of my coadjutors than in any other piece I play in....

Dall is very well, very hot, and very mosquito-bitten. The heat seems to me almost intolerable, though it is here considered mild autumn weather: the mornings and evenings are, it is true, generally freshened with a cool delicious air, which is at this moment blowing all my pens and paper away, and compensating us for our midday's broiling. I do nothing but drink iced lemonade, and eat peaches and sliced melon, in spite of the cholera.

Baths are a much cheaper and commoner luxury (necessary) in the hotels here than with us; a great satisfaction to me, who hope in heaven, if I ever get there, to have plenty of water to wash in, and, of course, it will all be soft rainwater there. What a blessing! On board ship we were not stinted in that respect, but had as much water as we desired for external as well as internal purposes.

There are no water-pipes or cisterns in this city such as we have, but men go about as they do in Paris, with huge water-butts, supplying each house daily; for although a broad river (so called) runs on each side of this water-walled city, the one—the East River—is merely an arm of the sea; and the Hudson receives the salt tide-water, and is rendered brackish and unfit for washing or cooking purposes far beyond the city. There are fine springs, and a full fresh-water stream, at a distance of some miles; but the municipality is not very rich, and is economical and careful of the public money, and many improvements which might have been expected to have been effected here long ago are halting in their advance, leaving New York ill paved, ill lighted, and indifferently supplied with a good many necessaries and luxuries of modern civilization.

[This was fifty-six years ago. Times are altered since this letter was written. New York is neither ill paved nor ill lighted; the municipality is rich, but neither economical, careful, nor honest, in dealing with the public moneys. The rapid spread of superficial civilization and accumulation of easily-got wealth, together with incessant communication with Europe, have made of the great cities of the New World, centres of an imperfect but extreme luxury, vying with, and in some respects going beyond, all that London or Paris presents for the indulgence of tastes pampered by the oldest civilization of Europe.

One day, after the Croton water had been brought into New York, I was sitting with the venerable Chancellor Kent at the window of his house in Union Square, and, pointing to the fountain that sprang up in the midst of the inclosure, he said, "When I was a boy, much more than half a century ago, I used to go to the Croton water, and paddle, and fish, and bathe, and swim, and loiter my time away in the summer days. I cannot go out there any more for any of these pleasant purposes, but the Croton water has come here to me." What a ballad Schiller or Goethe would have made of that! That morning visit to Chancellor Kent has left that pretty picture in my mind, and the recollection of his last words as he shook hands with me: "Ay, madam, the secret of life is always to have excitement enough, and never too much." But he did not give me the secret of that secret.]

There are, on an average, half a dozen fires in various parts of the town every night—I mean houses on fire. The sons of all the gentlemen here are volunteer engineers and firemen, and great is the delight they take in tearing up and down the streets, accompanied by red lights, speaking trumpets, and a rushing, roaring escort of running amateur extinguishers, who make night hideous with their bawling and bellowing. This evening as I was observing that we had had no fire to-day, Dall said the weather was so hot, she thought they must have left off fires for the season.

Speaking of carriages and the devices on the panels of them here, which appear to be rather fancy pieces than heraldic bearings, my father said, "I wonder what they do for arms." "Use legs," said Dall immediately, not at all bethinking herself how ancient a device on the shield of the Island of Man the three legs were, or knowing how much more ancient on the coins of Crotona, I think, or some other of the Magna Grecian colonies.

The hours which prevail here are those of our shop-keeping population; they rise and go to business very early, dine at three, which indeed is considered late, take tea at five, and supper at nine, which seems to us very primitive.... The women here are, generally speaking, very pretty little creatures, with a great deal of freshness and brilliancy; they dress in the extreme of the French fashion, and, I suppose from some unfavorable influence of the climate, they lose their beauty prematurely—they become full-blown very early, and their bloom is extremely evanescent; they fade almost suddenly.... There seems to be a great deal of consumption here. The climate is as capricious as ours, with this additional disadvantage, that the extremes of heat and cold are much more intense, and the transitions much more violent, the temperature varying occasionally as much as thirty degrees in the twenty-four hours. I have just left off writing for five minutes to watch the lightning, which is dancing in a fiery ring all round the horizon—summer lightning, no thunder, although the flashes are strong and vivid....

We have had such a tremendous storm—really gorgeous, grand, and awful; lightning that stretched from side to side of the sky, making a blaze like daylight for several seconds at a time. The mere reflection of it on the ground was more than the eye could endure; great forked ribbons of fire darting into the very bosom of the city and its crowded dwellings, or zigzagging through the air to an accompaniment of short, sharp, crackling thunder, succeeded by endless, deep, full-toned rolls that made the whole air shake and vibrate with the heavy concussion; pelting and pouring rain, a perfect tornado of wind. Heaven and earth are all, while I write, one livid, violet-colored flame, and the thunder resounds through the wild frenzy of the elements like the voice of "the Ruler of the spirits." My eyes ache with the incessant glare, and I must close my letter, for it is past eleven o'clock, and I have to rehearse to-morrow morning.... I have seen Mr. Wallack since our arrival, whom I never saw in England, either on or off the stage. I went the other night to see him in one of his favorite pieces, "The Rent-Day," which made me cry dreadfully, but chiefly, I believe, because, when they are ruined, he asks his wife if she will go with him to America. You see I am taking to play-going in my old age. The theater is very pretty, of the best possible dimensions for me, and tolerably good for the voice. We leave this place for Philadelphia on the 10th of October, and remain there a fortnight, and then go on to Boston....

Last Thursday we crossed the Hudson in one of the steamers constantly plying between the opposite shores and New York, and took a delightful walk along the New Jersey shore to a place called Hoboken, famous once as a dueling-ground, now the favorite resort of a pacific society of bon vivants, who meet once a week to eat turtle, or, as it is expressed on their cards of invitation, for "spoon exercise." The distance from our landing-point to the place where these meetings are held is about five miles, a charming walk through a strip of forest-ground, which crowns the banks of the river, gradually rising to a considerable height above it. We were delighted with the vivid, various, and strange foliage of the trees, the magnificent river, broad and blue as a lake, with its high and richly wooded shore, and the sparkling, glittering town opposite. We looked down to the Narrows, the defile through which the waters of this noble estuary reach the Atlantic, and between whose rocky walls two or three ships stood out against the brilliant sky. The ebbing tide plashed on the rocks far below us, and the warm grass through which we walked was alive with grasshoppers, whose scarlet wings, suddenly unfolded when they flew, made me take them for some strange species of butterfly. It was all indescribably bright and joyous-looking, and the air of a transparent clearness that was one of the most striking characteristics of the whole scene, and one of the most delightful.... [In discussing the relative merits of England and America, Dr. Channing once said to me, "The earth is yours, but the heavens are ours;" and I quite agree with him. I have never seen a sky comparable, for splendor of color or translucent purity, to that of the Northern States.]

I have been reading your favorite book, "Salmonia." … I am rather surprised at your liking it so very much, because, though the descriptions are beautiful, and the natural history interesting, and the philosophical and moral reflections scattered through it delightful, yet there is so much that is purely technical about fishing and its processes, and addressed only to the hook-and-line fraternity, that I should not have thought it calculated to charm you so greatly. However, you may have some associations connected with it; liking is a very complex and many-motived thing....

We went through the fish and fruit markets the other day; unfortunately it was rather late in the morning, and of course the glory of the market was over, but yet there remained enough to enchant us, with their abundant plenteousness of good things. The fruit-market was beautiful; fruit-baskets half as high as I am, placed in rows of a dozen, filled with peaches, and painted of a bright vermilion color, which throws a ruddy becoming tint over the downy fruit. It looked like something in the "Arabian Nights;" heaps, literally heaps of melons, apples, pears, and wild grapes, in the greatest profusion. I was enchanted with the beautiful forms, bright colors, and fragrant smell, but I saw no flowers, and I have seen hardly any since I have been here, which is rather a grief to me....

Americans are the most extravagant people in the world, and flowers are among them objects of the most lavish expenditure. The prices paid for nosegays, wreaths, baskets, and devices of every sort of hot-house plants, are incredible to any reasonable mind. At parties and balls ladies are laden with costly nosegays which will not even survive the evening's fatigue of carrying them. Dinner and luncheon parties are adorned, not only with masses of exquisite bloom as table ornaments, but by every lady's plate a magnificent nosegay of hot-house flowers is placed; and I knew a lady who, wishing to adorn her ballroom with rather more than usual floral magnificence, had it hung round with garlands of white camellias and myosotis.