P.S.—Don't let Madame Fechter, or Marie, or Paul forget me!
Miss Hogarth.
Syracuse, Sunday, March 8th, 1868.
As we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, I write this to-day, though it will not leave New York until Wednesday. This is a very grim place in a heavy thaw, and a most depressing one. The hotel also is surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. We stood out for an hour in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely. Then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. We were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each other any longer. We had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for breakfast, and we are going to have I don't know what for dinner at six. In the public rooms downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting in rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames, staring out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals. Scott is in tears, and George the gasman is suborning people to go and clean the hall, which is a marvel of dirt. And yet we have taken considerably over three hundred pounds for to-morrow night!
We were at Albany the night before last and yesterday morning; a very pretty town, where I am to read on the 18th and 19th. This day week we hope to wash out this establishment with the Falls of Niagara. And there is my news, except that your last letters to me in America must be posted by the Cunard steamer, which will sail from Liverpool on Saturday, the 4th of April. These I shall be safe to get before embarking.
I send a note to Katie (addressed to Mamie) by this mail. I wrote to Harry some weeks ago, stating to him on what principles he must act in remodelling the cricket club, if he would secure success.
Miss Hogarth.
Monday Morning, 9th.
Nothing new. Weather cloudy, and town more dismal than yesterday. It froze again last night, and thaws again this morning. Somebody sent me an Australian newspaper this morning—some citizen of Syracuse I mean—because of a paragraph in it describing the taking of two freebooters, at which taking Alfred was present. Though I do not make out that he had anything in the world to do with it, except having his name pressed into the service of the newspaper.
Buffalo, Thursday, March 12th, 1868.