Thank you across the sea, dear Mrs. Jameson, for your letter of the 1st of November.  I had been wondering, but the day before it reached me, whether you had ever received one I wrote to you on my first arrival in New York, or whether you were accusing me of neglect, ingratitude, forgetfulness, and all the turpitudes that the delay of a letter sometimes causes folk to give other folk credit for.  My occupations are incessant, or rather, I should say, my occupation, for to my sorrow I have but one.  ’Tis not with me now as in the fortunate days when, after six rehearsals, a piece ran, as the saying is, twenty nights, leaving me all the mornings and three evenings in the week at my own disposal.  Here we rush from place to place, at each place have to drill a new set of actors, and every night to act a different play; so that my days are passed in dawdling about cold, dark stages, with blundering actors who have not even had the conscience to study the words of their parts, all the morning.  All the afternoon I pin up ribbons and feathers and flowers, and sort out theatrical adornments, and all the evening I enchant audiences, prompt my fellow-mimes, and wish it had pleased Heaven to make me a cabbage in a corner of a Christian kitchen-garden in—­well, say Hertfordshire, or any other county of England; I am not particular as to the precise spot....  Whenever I can I get on horseback; it is the only pleasure I have in this world; for my dancing days are drawing to a close.  But I mean to ride as long as I have a hand to hold a rein, or a leg to put over a pommel.  By the by, I ought to beg your pardon for the last sentence; I ought to have said a foot to put into a stirrup; for if you are not ashamed of having legs you ought to be—­at least, we are in this country, and never mention, or give the slightest token of having such things, except by wearing very short petticoats, which we don’t consider objectionable....  I am glad you have furbished up and completed your little room, because it is a sign you mean to stay where you are, and I like to know where to find you in my imagination....  I have just seen dear Washington Irving, and it required all my sense of decent decorum to prevent my throwing my arms round his neck, he looked so like a bit of home, England.

You will be glad to hear that we are thriving, in body and estate.  We are all well, and our work is very successful.  The people flock to see us, and nothing can exceed the kindness which we meet with everywhere and from everybody....  I read nothing whatever since I am in this blessed land.  The only books I have accomplished getting through have been Graham’s “History of North America,” Knickerbocker’s “History of New York,” which nearly killed me with laughing; “Contarini Fleming,” which is very affected and very clever; sundry cantos of Dante, sundry plays of Shakespeare, sundry American poems [which are very good], and old Captain John Smith’s quaint “History