Affectionately yours,
F. A. K.
The foreboding with which I left my own country was justified by the event. My dear aunt died, and I married, in America; and neither of us ever had a home again in England.
New York, September 16, 1832.
My dearest H——,
What shall I say to you? First of all, pray don't forget me, don't be altered when I see you again, don't die before I come back, don't die if I never come back.... You cannot imagine how strange the comparisons people here are perpetually making between this wonderful sapling of theirs and our old oak seem to me.... My father, thank God, is wonderfully improved in health, looks, and spirits; the fine, clear, warm (hot it should be called) atmosphere agrees with him, and the release from the cares and anxieties of that troublesome estate of his in St. Giles' will, I am sure, be of the greatest service to him. He begins his work to-morrow night with Hamlet, and on Tuesday I act Bianca. It is thought expedient that we should act singly the two first nights, and then make a "constellation." Dall is in despair because I am to be discovered instead of coming on (a thing actors deprecate, because they do not receive their salvo of entrance applause), and also because I am not seen at first in what she thinks a becoming dress. For my part, I am rather glad of this decision, for besides Bianca's being one of my best parts, the play, as the faculty have mangled it, is such a complete monologue that I am less at the mercy of my coadjutors than in any other piece I play in....
Dall is very well, very hot, and very mosquito-bitten. The heat seems to me almost intolerable, though it is here considered mild autumn weather: the mornings and evenings are, it is true, generally freshened with a cool delicious air, which is at this moment blowing all my pens and paper away, and compensating us for our midday's broiling. I do nothing but drink iced lemonade, and eat peaches and sliced melon, in spite of the cholera.
Baths are a much cheaper and commoner luxury (necessary) in the hotels here than with us; a great satisfaction to me, who hope in heaven, if I ever get there, to have plenty of water to wash in, and, of course, it will all be soft rainwater there. What a blessing! On board ship we were not stinted in that respect, but had as much water as we desired for external as well as internal purposes.
There are no water-pipes or cisterns in this city such as we have, but men go about as they do in Paris, with huge water-butts, supplying each house daily; for although a broad river (so called) runs on each side of this water-walled city, the one—the East River—is merely an arm of the sea; and the Hudson receives the salt tide-water, and is rendered brackish and unfit for washing or cooking purposes far beyond the city. There are fine springs, and a full fresh-water stream, at a distance of some miles; but the municipality is not very rich, and is economical and careful of the public money, and many improvements which might have been expected to have been effected here long ago are halting in their advance, leaving New York ill paved, ill lighted, and indifferently supplied with a good many necessaries and luxuries of modern civilization.
[This was fifty-six years ago. Times are altered since this letter was written. New York is neither ill paved nor ill lighted; the municipality is rich, but neither economical, careful, nor honest, in dealing with the public moneys. The rapid spread of superficial civilization and accumulation of easily-got wealth, together with incessant communication with Europe, have made of the great cities of the New World, centres of an imperfect but extreme luxury, vying with, and in some respects going beyond, all that London or Paris presents for the indulgence of tastes pampered by the oldest civilization of Europe.