with dismay:  and on one occasion a table of magnificent hot-house flowers was sent to me, of such dimensions that both sides of the street door had to be opened to admit it.  When I have deplored the inordinate amount of money lavished upon that which could only impart pleasure for so brief a time, I have been answered, but not converted from my feeling of disapprobation and regret, that the gardeners profited by this wild extravagance.  In New York I have known a guinea paid for a gentleman’s button-hole rosebud, and three guineas for half a dozen sprays of lily of the valley.

Good-by, my dearest H——.  I pray for you morning and night.  Is not
that thinking of you, and loving you as best I can?

Your affectionate
F. A. K.

DEAREST H——­,

...  We are all pretty well, but all but devoured by multitudinous and multivarious beasts of prey—­birds, I suppose they are:  mosquitoes, ants, and flies, by day; and flies, fleas, and worse, by night.  The plagues of Egypt were a joke to it.  We spend our lives in murdering hecatombs of creeping and jumping things, and vehemently slapping our own faces with intent to kill the flying ones that incessantly buzz about one.  It is rather a deplorable existence, and reminds me of one of the most unpleasant circles in Dante’s “Hell,” which I don’t think could have been much worse.  My father began his work on Monday last with Hamlet.  Dall and I went into a private box to see him; he acted admirably, and looked wonderfully young and handsome.  The house was crammed, and the audience, we were assured, was enthusiastic beyond all precedent.

On Tuesday I came out in Bianca; I was rather glad they had appointed that part for my first, because it is one of my best; but had not the genius of theatrical management made such a mere monologue of the play as it has, I verily believe I should have been “swamped” by my helpmate.  My Fazio was an unhappy man who played Romeo once with me in London, and failed utterly:  moreover, he had studied this part in a hurry, it seems, and did not know three words of it, and was, besides, too frightened to profit by my prompting.  The only thing that seemed to occur to him was to go down on his knees, which he did every five minutes.  Once when I was on mine, he dropped down suddenly exactly opposite to me, and there we were, looking for all the world like one of those pious conjugal vis-a-vis that adorn antique tombs in our cathedrals.  It really was exceedingly absurd.  But I looked and acted well, and the play was very successful....  I was not nervous for my first night, till my unhappy partner made me so.  My dislike to the stage would really render me indifferent to my own success, but that I am working for my livelihood; my bread depends upon success, and that is a realistic, if not an artistic, view of the case, of which I acknowledge the importance....

Absolute and uncompromising vulgarity