“Do not imagine that I have any intention of letting you
forget me, my dear Mr. Harness, or that I mean to
delegate to newspapers, and such like unsatisfactory channels of information, the task
of keeping my recollection alive with you. I certainly have suffered a tolerably long
interval to escape since the writing of my first epistle; but that it did not follow
from thence that I never meant to write to you again, this is
proof. If I were to ask you all the questions I should like answered with regard to
things in general, and particularly in my poor dear little country, I might fill my
letter with one huge note of interrogation, and leave you to answer all that is
‘being, doing and suffering’ in England; but I rather think some
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“We are all in excellent health, except that my father is lame and cross, D—— sleepy and cross, and I purely cross, and nothing else. With regard to my father’s lameness, he caught it—or, rather, it caught him—by the calf of the leg, in the act of springing off the stage after me, in Benedick. ‘Tis an accident of no great importance—a sprain or fracture of one or two of the smaller fibres in the leg, which makes him go a little haltingly just now, but is not likely to inconvenience him long. As for all the other ailments, that is the crossness, ‘tis owing to a bitter bleak east wind, which is the only air that blows in Boston, and keeps us all in a state of misanthropy and universal dissatisfaction. Perhaps, under these circumstances, I had better have deferred writing to you; but, had I waited till the wind changed its quarter, I must have waited till we returned to New York; for Boston is the abiding place of the east wind.
“Our houses, wherever we go, are very fine; our business most
successful. The people and places vie with each other in kindness and civility to us;
and as for me, I am so praised, so admired, so
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“Boston is a Yankee town, which I daresay is as much as you
know about it; but, Sir, ‘tis moreover the wealthiest town in the Union;
‘tis, Sir, the most belles-letterish and blue town in the Union; ‘tis, Sir,
the most aristocratic town in the Union, and decidedly bears the greatest resemblance to
an English town of any I have seen. The country round it, too, is more like a bit of the
old land than anything I have yet seen; and, though some of the wild romantic scenery
round Philadelphia enchanted me very much, the white clean cottages, the blossoming
apple-trees and flowering garden-plots of the villages round this place have recalled
England more vividly, and given me more pleasure
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“We act every night here but Saturday. I grumble dreadfully at
this hard work—not because it tires me, but because I am idle and like two
holidays in a week. However, when I consider that every night lost is a large sum of
money lost (for our profits are very great) I am willing to give up my laziness, so long
as the work is not too much either for my father or myself. I take an amazing quantity
of exercise on horseback; ‘tis meat and drink and sleep to me, and affords me,
moreover, the best opportunity of seeing the country, which one never does well in a
carriage; and ‘tis quite entertaining to see how, before I have been a fortnight
in a place, all the women are getting into riding-skirts and up upon horses. I have
received ever so many thanks for the improved health of the ladies here who, since my
arrival, are all horseback-
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“I have acted several new parts since I have been in this new world; Katherine, the Shrew, which I do pretty well, Bizarre, which I also do pretty well, but particularly the dancing—Violante in ‘The Wonder,’ which I do worse than anything that can be seen, and Mary Copp in ‘Charles the Second,’ which I do very fairly well, leaving out the singing. Bianca seems to be my favourite part with the public, in tragedy, and Julia in the ‘Hunchback,’ in comedy. I hear Knowles has written another play with a magnificent woman’s part. Of course we shall have it out here before long; I am curious to see it.
“I have seen Washington
Irving several times since I have been in this country. He is idolized
here, and talks of settling himself in some little sunny nook on the Hudson—that
broadest, brightest river in the world. He is very delightful, a most happy, cheerful,
benevolent, simple person. His absence of seventeen years from this country has produced
changes in it which seem to fill him with amazement and admiration. And, indeed,
‘tis a most marvellous country! It stands unparalleled under every aspect in which
it can be considered, and presents one of the most interesting and extraordinary
subjects of contemplation that the eye of
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“Bless my soul, I didn’t mean to be cross* to you, because that’s an infliction! Don’t you wish that you and I wrote better hands? Pray, dear Mr. Harness, if you have time to spare, write to me again; it pleases me to hear from England, and it pleases me to hear from you.
