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 minutiae 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