the unpleasant duty of coming hither was already amply repaid....  We have finished our first engagement at New York, which was for twelve nights, and have every reason to be satisfied with our financial, as well as professional, success.  Living here is not as cheap as we had been led to expect, but our earnings are very considerable, and as we labor for these, it is matter of rejoicing that we labor so satisfactorily.

Dall is very well, except the nuisance of a bad cold.  I am very well, without exception.  The only unpleasant effect I feel from this climate is a constant tendency to slight relaxation of the throat, but this is nothing more than a trifling inconvenience, very endurable, and which probably a little more seasoning will remove....  I tell you of our health first, for at our distance from each other that is the matter of greatest moment and anxiety....

I must tell you of our future arrangements; and, to begin like an Irishwoman, we arrived here on Monday.  My father acts to-night for the first time, Hamlet; and I make my first appearance to-morrow in “Fazio.”  We shall act here for three weeks, and then return to New York for a month; after which we shall proceed to Boston, whence look to receive volumes from me about Webster, and Channing, and our friends and fellow-passengers, the H——­s, who reside there.

I like this place better than New York; it has an air of greater age.  It has altogether a rather dull, sober, mellow hue, which is more agreeable than the glaring newness of New York.  There are one or two fine public buildings, and the quantity of clean, cool-looking white marble which they use both for their public edifices and for the doorsteps of the private houses has a simple and sumptuous appearance, which is pleasant.  It is electioneering time, and all last night the streets resounded with cheers and shouts, and shone with bonfires.  The present President, Jackson, appears to be far from popular here, and though his own partisans are determined, of course, to re-elect him if possible, a violent struggle is likely to take place; and here already his opponent, Henry Clay, who is the leader of the aristocratic party in the United States, is said to have obtained the superiority over him.

I have got Graham’s and Smith’s “Histories,” and though my time for reading is anything but abundant, yet every night and morning I do contrive, while brushing the outside of my head, to cram something into the inside of it.

I cannot bear to give up any advantage which I once possessed, and therefore struggle to keep up, in some degree, my music and Italian.  These, together with rehearsing every morning, and acting four times a week, besides my journal, which I very seldom neglect, make up a good deal of daily occupation.  Then, one must sacrifice a certain amount of time to the conventional waste of society, receiving and returning visits,