To my great regret and loss, I saw Mademoiselle Mars only in two parts, when, in the autumn of her beauty and powers, she played a short engagement in London. The grace, the charm, the loveliness, which she retained far into middle age, were, even in their decline, enough to justify all that her admirers said of her early incomparable fascination. Her figure had grown large and her face become round, and lost their fine outline and proportion; but the exquisite taste of her dress and graceful dignity of her deportment, and sweet radiance of her expressive countenance, were still indescribably charming; and the voice, unrivaled in its fresh melodious brilliancy, and the pure and perfect enunciation, were unimpaired, and sounded like the clear liquid utterance of a young girl of sixteen. Her Celimène and her Elmire I never had the good fortune to see, but can imagine, from her performance of the heroine in Casimir de la Vigne's capital play of "L'Ecole des Vieillards," how well she must have deserved her unrivaled reputation in those parts.
It is remarkable that one of the most striking points in Madame d'Orval was suggested by herself to the author. De la Vigne, according to the frequent usage of French authors, was reading his piece to the great actress, upon whom its success was mainly to depend, and when he came to the scene where the offended but unjustly suspicious husband recounts to his wife the details of his duel with the young duke whose attentions to her had excited his jealousy, and that when, full of the tenderest anxiety for his safety, she flies to meet him, and is repulsed by the bitter irony of his speech, beginning, "Rassurez-vous, madame, le duc n'est point blessé," Mademoiselle Mars, having listened in silence till the end of D'Orval's speech, exclaimed, "Mais, quoi! je ne dis rien, elle ne dit rien!" De la Vigne, who had made the young woman listen in speechless anguish to the bitter and unjust reproach conveyed by her husband's first words and his subsequent account of the duel, said, in some surprise at Mademoiselle Mars' suggestion, "Mais quoi encore—que peut-elle dire? que voudriez-vous qu'elle dise?" "Ah, quelquechose!" cried Mademoiselle Mars, clasping her hands in the imagined distress of the situation; "rien—deuxmots seulement. 'Ah, monsieur!' quand il dit, 'Rassurez-vous, madame, le duc n'est point blessé.'" "Eh bien! dites, dites comme cela," cried De la Vigne, amazed at all the expression the exquisite voice and face had given to the two words. And so the scene was altered, and the long recital of D'Orval was broken by the reproachful "Ah, monsieur!" of his wife, and seldom has the utterance of such an insignificant exclamation affected those who heard it so keenly. For myself, I never can forget the sudden, burning blush that spread tingling to my shoulders at all the shame and mortification and anguish conveyed in the pathetic protest of that "Ah, monsieur!" of Mademoiselle Mars.
Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, who knew her well, and used to see her very frequently in her later years of retirement from the stage, told me that he had often heard her read, among other things, the whole play of "Le Tartuffe," and that the coarse flippancy of the honest-hearted Dorinne, and the stupid stolidity of the dupe Orgon, and the vulgar, gross, sensual hypocrisy of the Tartuffe, were all rendered by her with the same incomparable truth and effect as her own famous part of the heroine of the piece, Elmire. On one of the very last occasions of her appearing before her own Parisian audience, when she had passed the limit at which it was possible for a woman of her advanced age to assume the appearance of youth, the part she was playing requiring that she should exclaim "Je suis jeune! je suis jolie!" a loud, solitary hiss protested against the assertion with bitter significance. After an instant's consternation, which held both the actors and audience silent, she added, with the exquisite grace and dignity which survived the youth and beauty to which she could no longer even pretend, "Je suis Mademoiselle Mars!" and the whole house broke out in acclamations, and rang with the applause due to what the incomparable artiste still was and the memory of all that she had been.]
New York, February 21, 1833.
It is a long time since I have written to you, my dearest H–.... My work is incessant, … and there is no end to the breathless hurry of occupation we pass our days in. Here is already a break since I began this letter, for we are now in Philadelphia, on our way to Washington, and it is Thursday, the 3d of March.... It has been matter of serious regret to me that I have not, from the very first day of my becoming a worker for wages, looked more into the details of my earnings and spendings. I have felt this particularly lately from circumstances relative to V–'s position, which is a very sad one, from which I have been very anxious to relieve her.... All I know at present is, that since we have been here in America our earnings have already been sufficient to enable us to live in tolerably decent comfort on the Continent.... Do you know, dearest H–, that it is not impossible that I may never return to England to reside there. See it again, I will, please God to grant me life and eyes, but the state of my father's property in Covent Garden is such that it seems more than likely that he may never be able to return to England without risking the little which these last toilsome years will have enabled him to earn for the support of his own and my mother's old age. He will be compelled, in all likelihood, to settle and die abroad, as my uncle John did, by the liabilities of that ruinous possession of theirs, the first theater of London. When first my father communicated this chance to me, and expressed his determination, should the affairs of the theater remain in their present situation, to buy a small farm in Normandy, and go and live there, my heart sank terribly. This was very different from my girlish dream of a life of lonely independence among the Alps, or by the Mediterranean; and the idea of living entirely out of England seems to me now very sad for all of us.... However, there are earth and skies out of England. What does Imogen say?—
"I prithee think, there's livers out of Britain;"
and if God vouchsafe me my faculties, and I can bid farewell to this life of distasteful toil, I have visions of studies and pursuits which I think might make existence very happy in a farm in Normandy, though such might not have been my own choice.... What special inquiries did you wish me to make about General Washington? I was, when at Washington, within fifteen miles of Mount Vernon, his home and burying-place, but could not make time to go thither. I have one of his autograph letters, and if there be any indication of character in handwriting—which I hope to goodness there is not—it certainly exists in his, for a firmer, clearer, and fairer hand I never saw—an excellent, honest handwriting. His likeness confronts one at every corner here; not only at every street corner, where he lends his countenance to the frequenters of drinking-houses, but over every chimney-piece in every sitting-room. He is like the frogs of the old Egyptian plague, except that they were in the king's chamber, where he was too good a Republican ever to have been.
I am amused at your summing up your account of the restless and perturbed state of poor Ireland by saying, "After all, I believe America is the land of peace and quiet." It seems to me, who am here, that everything at this moment threatens change and disintegration in this country. It is impossible to imagine more menacing elements of discord and disunion than those which exist in the opposite and antagonistic interests of its southern and northern provinces, and the anomalous mixture of aristocratic feeling and democratic institutions.... God bless you, my dear H–. I will write to you soon again; if possible, before the breathing-time this snow-storm is giving us is over.
Ever affectionately yours,F. A. K.New York, April 3, 1833.
My dearest H–,
… I am working very hard, what with rehearsing, acting, studying new parts, devising new dresses, and attending—which, of course, I am obliged also to do—to the claims of the society in which we are living, and my time is so full that I barely contrive to fulfill all my duties and answer all the claims made upon me.... The spring is in the sky, and in the air her soft smile and sweet breath are gladdening the world; but the process of vegetation is much later in beginning, and much more rapid in its operations when they do begin here, than with us. Though the last three days have been as hot as our midsummer weather, the trees are yet leafless and budless—as dry and unpromising-looking as they were in mid-winter; and, indeed, the transition from winter to summer is almost instantaneous here. The spring does not stand coaxing and beckoning the shy summer to the woods and fields as in our country, but while winter yet seems lord of the ascendant, and his white robes are still covering land and water, suddenly the summer looks down upon the earth from the cloudless sky, and, as by magic, the ice melts, the snow evaporates, the trees are clothed with green, the woods are full of flowers, and the whole world breaks out into a hallelujah of warmth, beauty, and blossoming like mid-July in our deliberate climate. This again lasts, as it were, but a day; the sun presently becomes so powerful that the world withers away under the intense heat, the flowers and shrubs fade, and instead of screening and refreshing the earth, are themselves scorched and parched with the glaring fierceness of the sky; the ground cracks, the watercourses dry up, the rivers shrink in their beds, and every human creature that can flies from the lowlands and the cities to go up into the north or to the mountains to find breath, shelter, and refreshment from the sultry curse. Then comes the autumn, and that is most glorious; not soft and sad as ours, but to the very threshold of winter bright, warm, lovely, and gorgeous. Two seasons remain to our earthly year, remembrances, I think, of Paradise; the spring in Italy, and autumn in America....
You ask me how I "fit in" to my American audiences? Why, very kindly indeed. At first they seemed to me rather cold, and I felt this more with regard to my father than myself, but I think they have grown to like us; I certainly have grown to like them, and their applause satisfies me amply.... I heard yesterday of one of Sir Thomas Lawrence's prints of me which was carried by a peddler beyond the Alleghany Mountains [the Alleghany Mountains then were further than the Rocky Mountains are now from the Atlantic seaboard], and bought at an egregious price by a young engineer, who with fifteen others went out there upon some railroad construction business, were bidding for it at auction in that wilderness, where they themselves were gazed at, as prodigies of strange civilization, by the half-savage inhabitants of the region. That touched and pleased me very much.... We are going to act here till the 12th of this month, when we go to Boston, where we shall remain for a month; after which we return here for a week, and then proceed to Philadelphia by the 1st of June, where we intend closing our professional labors for the summer. Thence we shall probably go to Niagara and the Canadas. My father has talked of spending a little quiet time in Rhode Island, where the weather is cool and we might recruit a little; but there does not seem much certainty about our plans at present. In the autumn we shall begin our progress toward New Orleans, where we shall probably winter, and act our way back here by the spring, when I hope and trust we shall return to England.... The book of Harriet Martineau's which you bade me read is delightful. I have not quite finished it yet, for I have scarcely any time at all for reading; for want of the habit of thinking and reading on such subjects I find the political economy a little stiff now and then, though the clearness and simplicity with which it is treated in this story are admirable. I did not know that I was supposed to be the original of Letitia.... God bless you, my dearest H–.
I am ever your most affectionate,F. A. K.
"For Each and for All" was, I think, the name of the volume taken from Miss Martineau's admirable series of political economy tales, which my friend, Miss S–, sent me. The heroine of the story is a young actress, and Miss Martineau once told me that she had derived some slight suggestion of the character from me.
New York, Friday, April 10, 1833.
My dearest H–,
… On Monday last I acted Lady Macbeth; on Tuesday, Lady Townley; on Wednesday, Belvidera; and last night, Portia, and Mary Copp in "Charles II." This is pretty hard work. To-morrow we start for Boston, which we shall reach on Sunday, and Monday our work begins there.... I think four nights a week as much as either my father or myself ought to work, and as much as we really can work profitably, the rest being money taken from our capital—i.e., our health. But in Boston we shall act for three weeks or a month every night but the Saturdays. [The days when four or five performances a week were considered a sufficient exertion for popular actors or singers are far enough in the past, and now there seems to be no limit to the capacity of such artists for earning money by the exercise of their talents. Five and six performances a week are the normal number now expected from great European stars, or rather those which great European stars expect to give and to be paid for. Their health is one invariable sacrifice to this over-work, and their artistic excellence a still more grievous one. It has been asked why artists invariably return to Europe comparatively coarse and vulgar in the style of their performances, and the result is attributed to the want of refined taste and critical judgment of the American audiences—in my opinion very unjustly, for if want of knowledge and nice perception in the public induces carelessness and indifference in performers, the grasping greed of gain and incessant over-exertion, mental and physical, for the sake of satisfying it, is a far more certain cause of artistic deterioration. During Madame Ristori's last visit to America, I went to see a morning performance of "Elizabeta d'Inglterra" by her. Arriving at the theater half an hour before the time announced for the performance, I found notices affixed to the entrances, stating that the beginning was unavoidably delayed by Madame Ristori's non-arrival. The crowd of expectant spectators occupied their seats and bore this prolonged postponement with American—i.e., unrivaled—patience, good-temper, and civility. We were encouraged by two or three pieces of information from some official personage, who from the stage assured us that the moment Madame Ristori arrived (she was coming by railroad from Baltimore) the play should begin. Then came a telegram, she was coming; then an announcement, she was come; and driving from the terminus straight to the theater, tired and harassed herself with the delay, she dressed herself and appeared before her audience, went through a part of extraordinary length and difficulty and exertion—almost, indeed, a monologue—including the intolerable fatigue and hurry of four or five entire changes of costume, and as the curtain dropped rushed off to disrobe and catch a train to New York, where she was to act the next morning, if not the evening, of that same day. I had seen Madame Ristori in this part in England, and was shocked at the great difference in the merit of her performance. Every particle of careful elaboration and fine detail of workmanship was gone; the business of the piece was hurried through, with reference, of course, only to the time in which it could be achieved; and of Madame Ristori's once fine delineation of the character, which, when I first saw it, atoned for the little merit of the piece itself, nothing remained but the broad claptrap points in the several principal situations, made coarse, and not nearly even as striking, by the absence of due preparation and working up to them, the careless rendering of everything else, and the slurring over of the finer minutiæ and more delicate indications of the whole character. It was a very sad spectacle to me.]
Besides your letter, the poor old Pacific (the ship that brought us to America) brought me something else to-day. While Washington Irving was sitting with me, a message came from the mate of the Pacific with a large box of mould for me. I had it brought in, and asking Irving if he knew what it was, "A bit of the old soil," said he; and that it was.... Washington Irving was sure to have guessed right as to my treasure, and I was not ashamed to greet it with tears before him.... He is so sensible, sound, and straightforward in his way of seeing everything, and at the same time so full of hopefulness, so simple, unaffected, true, and good, that it is a privilege to converse with him, for which one is the wiser, the happier and the better....
Here is Monday, April 15th, Boston, my dear H–. We arrived here yesterday evening, and in the course of this morning I have already received fourteen visitors, all of whom I shall have to go and waste my time with in return for their kind waste of theirs upon me.... To-morrow I begin my work with "Fazio" and go to a party afterward....
Tuesday, 16th.
… This morning I have been to rehearsal, and out shopping, and received crowds of strangers who come and call upon us.... To-night I make my first appearance here in "Fazio," and we hear the theater will be crammed, and I am going to a party after that dreadful play; not by way of delight, but of duty, and a severe one it will be. To-morrow I act Mrs. Haller, Thursday Lady Teazle, and Friday Bianca again; Saturday is a blessed holiday.... I have finished Smith's "Virginia," which I found rather tiresome toward the end. I have finished Harriet Martineau's political-economy story, which I liked exceedingly. I am reading a small volume of Brewster's on "Natural Magic," which entertains me very much; but I am dreadfully cramped for time, and my poor mind goes like a half-tended garden, which every now and then makes me feel sad.
You would have been pleased, dear H–, if you had heard Washington Irving's answer to me the other day when, in talking with him of my profession and my distaste for it, I complained of the little leisure it left me for study and improving myself, for reading, writing, and the occupations that were congenial to me. "Well," he said, "you are living, you are seeing men and things, you are seeing the world, you are acquiring materials and heaping together observations and experience and wisdom, and by and by, when with fame you have acquired independence and retire from these labors, you will begin another and a brighter course with matured powers. I know of no one whose life has such a promise in it as yours." Oh! H–, I almost felt hopeful while he spoke so to me....
[Alas! my kind friend was no prophet. Not many months after, sitting by him at a dinner-party in New York, he said to me, "So I hear you are engaged to be married, and you are going to settle in this country. Well, you will be told that this country is like your own, and that living in it is like living in England: but do not believe it; it is no such thing, it is nothing of the sort; which need not prevent your being very happy here if you make the best of things as you find them. Above all, whatever you do, don't become a creaking door." "What's that?" asked I, laughing. He then told me that his friend Leslie, the painter, who was, I believe, like his contemporary and charming rival artist, Gilbert Stewart Newton, an American by birth, had married an Englishwoman, whom he had brought out to America, "but who," said Irving, "worried and tormented his and her own life out with ceaseless complaints and comparisons, and was such a nuisance that I used to call her 'the creaking door.'"]
Good-by, and God bless you, dearest H–.
I am affectionately yours,Fanny Kemble.Boston, Sunday, April 21, 1833.
Dear Mrs. Jameson,
There lies in my desk, and has lain, I am ashamed to say, for a long time now, an unanswered letter of yours, which smites my conscience every time I open that useful receptacle (desk, not conscience), where it has, I am sorry to say, many companions in its own predicament. My time is like running water, and the quickest, but the rapids of Niagara, that ever ran, I think; and every hour, as it flies away, is filled with so much that must be done, letting alone so much that I would wish to do, that I am fairly out of breath, and feel as if I were flying myself in a whirling high wind, and if ever I stop for a moment, shan't be surprised to find that I have gone crazy. I think I should like to spend a few days entirely alone in a dark room, secluded from every sight and sound, for my senses are almost worn out, and my sense exhausted, with looking, hearing, feeling, going, doing, being, and suffering. Our work is incessant; we never remain a month in any one place, and we are scarce off our knees from putting things into drawers than we are down on them again to take them out and put them all back into trunks. My health has not suffered hitherto from this constant exertion, but I am occasionally oppressed with the dreadful unquietness of our life, and long for a few moments' rest of body and of mind.
This is our first visit to this place, and I am enchanted with it. As a town, it bears more resemblance to an English city than any we have yet seen; the houses are built more in our own fashion, and there is a beautiful walk called the Common, the features of which strongly resemble the view over the Green Park just by Constitution Hill. The people here take more kindly to us than they have done even elsewhere, and it is delightful to act to audiences who appear so pleasantly pleased with us....
Only think! a book was sent to me from Philadelphia the other day which proved to be the "Diary of an Ennuyée." I have no idea who it came from, or who made so good a guess at that old predilection of mine. I fell to forthwith—for that book has always had a most powerful charm for me—and read, and read on, though I have read it many a time through before, and though I had been acting Bianca, and my supper was on my plate before me.
I heard the other day mention of another work of yours, since the Shakespeare book. If you are not weary of writing to me, with such long intervals between your question and my reply, tell me something of this new work in your next letter.
Our plans for the summer are yet unsettled.... I was much disappointed on arriving here to find that Dr. Channing has left Boston for the South. His health is completely broken, and the bleak and bitter east wind that blows perpetually here is a formidable enemy to life, even in stronger frames than his....
The hotel in which we are lodging here is immediately opposite the box-office, and it is a matter of some agreeable edification to me to see the crowds gathering round the doors for hours before they open, and then rushing in, to the imminent peril of life and limb, pushing and pommeling and belaboring one another like madmen. Some of the lower class of purchasers, inspired by the thrifty desire for gain said to be a New England characteristic, sell these tickets, which they buy at the box-office price, at an enormous advance, and smear their clothes with treacle and sugar and other abominations, to secure, from the fear of their contact of all decently-clad competitors, freer access to the box-keeper. To prevent, if possible, these malpractices, and secure, to ourselves and the managers of the theater any such surplus profit as may be honestly come by, the proprietors have determined to put the boxes up to auction and sell the tickets to the highest bidders. It was rather barbarous of me, I think, upon reflection, to stand at the window while all this riot was going on, laughing at the fun; for not a wretch found his way in that did not come out rubbing his back or his elbow, or showing some grievous damage done to his garments. The opposite window of my room looks out upon a churchyard and a burial-ground; the reflections suggested by the contrast between the two prospects are not otherwise than edifying.... Good-by; God bless you!
I am ever yours, most truly,Fanny Kemble.New York, Friday, May 24, 1833.
My dearest H–,
I received your last letter, dated the 22d March, a week ago, when I was in Boston, which we have left, after a stay of five weeks, to return here, where we arrived a few days ago....
Boston is one of the pleasantest towns imaginable. It is built upon three hills, which give it a singular, picturesque appearance, and I suppose suggested the name of Tremonte Street, and the Tremonte Hotel, which we inhabited. The houses are many of them of fine granite, and have an air of wealth and solidity unlike anything we have seen elsewhere in this country. Many of the streets are planted with trees, chiefly fine horse-chestnuts, which were in full leaf and blossom when we came away, and which harmonize beautifully with the gray color and solid handsome style of the houses. They have a fine piece of ground, like a park, in one part of the town, which, together with the houses round it, reminded me a good deal of the Green Park and the walk at the back of Arlington Street.
[The addition of the new part of Boston, stretching beyond the Common and the public Gardens, has added immensely to the beauty of the city, and the variety of the buildings and alternate views at the end of the vistas of the fine streets, looking toward Dorchester Heights, and those ending in the blue waters of the bay and Charles River, not unfrequently reminded me both of Florence and Venice, under a sky as rich, and more pellucid, than that of Italy.]
The country all round the neighborhood of Boston is charming. The rides I took in every direction were lovely, and during the last fortnight of our stay nothing could exceed the exquisite brightness of the spring weather. The apple trees were all in bloom, the lilacs in flower, and everything as sweet, fresh, and enchanting as possible.... How I wish you could have seen the glorious Hudson with me the other day, now that the woods on its banks are dark with the shade of their thick and varied foliage! How you would have rejoiced in the beautiful and noble river scenery! This is "a brave new world," more ways than one, and we are every way bound to like it, for our labor has been most amply rewarded in its most important result, money; and the universal kindness which has everywhere met us ever since we first came to this country ought to repay us even for the pain and sorrow of leaving England. We are to remain here about ten days longer, and then proceed to Philadelphia, where we shall stay a fortnight, and then we start for cool and Canada, taking the Hudson, Trenton Falls, and Niagara on our way; act in Montreal and Quebec for a short time, and then adjourn, I hope, to Newport in Rhode Island, to rest and recruit till we begin our autumnal work.... And now I have done grumbling at "the state of life into which it has pleased God to call me." My dear H–, I began this letter yesterday, and am this moment returned from a long visit to Dr. Channing.... The outward man of the eloquent preacher and teacher is rather insignificant, and produces no impression at first sight of unusual intellectual supremacy; and though his eyes and forehead are fine, they did not seem to me to do justice to the mind expressed in his writings; for though Shakespeare says,
"There is no art to read the mind's construction in the face,"
I think the mental qualities are more often detected there than the moral ones. He is short and slight in figure, and looks, as indeed he is, extremely delicate, an habitual invalid; his eyes, which are gray, are well and deeply set, and the brow and forehead fine, though not, perhaps, as striking as I had expected. The rest of the face has no peculiar character, and is rather plain.
He talked to me a great deal about the stage, acting, the dramatic art; and, professing to know nothing about it, maintained some theories which proved he did not, indeed, know much. As far as knowledge of the stage and acting goes, of course this was not surprising, his studies, observation, and experience certainly not having lain in that direction; indeed, if they had, he might not have shown more comprehension of the subject. Sir Thomas Lawrence is the only unprofessional person I ever heard speak upon it whose critical opinion and judgment seemed to me worth anything; but it appeared to me that, in the course of the discussion, some of Dr. Channing's opinions (with all respect be it spoken) betrayed an ignorance of human nature itself, upon which, after all, dramatic literature and dramatic representation are founded. He asked me if at the present day, and in our present state of civilization, such a character as Juliet could be imagined possible; so that I believe I was a little disappointed, in spite of his greatness, his goodness, and my reverence and admiration for him.
I went to call on him with a Miss Sedgwick, a person of considerable literary reputation here, and whose name and books you may perhaps have heard of. One of them, "Hope Leslie," is, I think, known in England. Though she is a good deal older than myself, I have formed a great friendship with her; she is excellent, as well as very clever and charming. She knows Dr. Channing intimately, and is a member of his church....
It is now Monday morning, dear H–, and I am presently going to set off to the races. American races! only think of that! I who never saw but one in my own country, and was totally uninterested by it! But I am going chiefly to please a nice little woman who is just married, and whose husband has several horses that are to run, so perhaps I shall find these more exciting than I did the races I attended at home. They are very little supported or resorted to here; the religious and respectable part of the community disapprove of them. There is a general prejudice against them, and they are even preached against; so that they are entirely in the hands of a few gentlemen of fortune, who keep them up, partly for their amusement, and partly with a view to the improvement of the breed of horses in this country. The running is said to be very good, the show is nothing.... However, I am going, and therefore you may look hereafter to hear—what you shall hear now—because I'm just come back, and am happy to inform you that my friend's husband's horse won the race. The stake was only £2000—no very great matter—but still enough to make the result interesting, if not important; though I think the hazard we ran of our lives at starting was the most exciting part of the day.
The racecourse is on Long Island, and, to reach it, one crosses the arm of the sea that divides that strip of land from New York in a steam ferryboat. All these transports were so thronged to-day with carriages, horses, and a self-governed, enlightened, and very free people, that in all my life I never saw anything so frightful as the confusion of the embarking and disembarking....
Dr. Channing was talking to me the other day of Harriet Martineau's writings, and has sent me "Ella of Garvelock," recommending it highly as an interesting story, though he does not seem to think Miss Martineau's principles of political economy sufficiently sound to make her works as useful upon that subject, or to do all the good which she herself evidently hopes to produce by these tales....
God bless you, dear friend! I am ever most truly yours,
F. A. K.New York, Sunday, June 24, 1833.
Great was my surprise, dear Mrs. Jameson, to find accompanying your letter of April 9th a card of Mr. Jameson's. My father called upon him almost immediately, but had not the good fortune to find him at home, and I presume he is now gone on to Canada, whither we are ourselves proceeding, and where we may very possibly meet him. Our spring engagements are all over, and we are now going away from the hot weather to Niagara, into which, if all tales be true, I expect to fall headlong, with sheer surprise and admiration; after which I shall accompany my father to Montreal and Quebec, where we shall resume our professional labors....
I am very sorry you have been ill. You do not speak of your eyes, from which I argue that you were not painfully conscious of the existence of those valuable luminaries at the time you wrote....
The accounts, public and private, that we receive of the state of England are not encouraging, and the trouble seems such as neither Tory, Whig, nor even Radical, can cure. You talk of bringing out a colony to this country; bring out half of England, and those who starve at home will have to eat, and to spare, here. How I do wish our poor laboring people could be made to know how easily they might exchange their condition for a better one!
I wish you could have heard what my father was reading to us this morning out of Stewart's "North America;" not Utopian dreams of some imaginary land of plenty and fertility, but sober statements of authentic fact, telling of the existence of unnumbered leagues of the richest soil that ever rewarded human industry an hundredfold; wide tracts of lovely wilderness, covered with luxuriant pasture, and adorned profusely with the most beautiful wild flowers; great forests of giant timber, and endless rolling prairies of virgin earth, untouched by ax or plow; a world of unrivaled beauty and fertility, untenanted and empty, waiting to receive the over-brimming populations of the crowded lands of Europe, and to repay their labor with every species of abundance. It is strange how slow those old-world, weary, working folk have hitherto been to avail themselves of God's provision for them here.... You tell me you are working hard, but you do not say at what. Innumerable are the questions I have been asked about you, and a Philadelphian gentleman, a very intelligent and clever person, who is a large bookseller and publisher here, bade me tell you that you and your works were as much esteemed and delighted in in America as in your own country. He was so enthusiastic about you that I think he would willingly go over to England for the sole purpose of making your acquaintance.
[It is a pity that the American law on the subject of copyright should have rendered Mr. Carey's admiration of my friend and her works so barren of any useful result to her. Any tolerably just equivalent for the republication of her books in America would have added materially to the hardly earned gains of her laborious literary life.]