Ever your affectionate
F. A. K.
Philadelphia, November 2, 1832.
Dearest H——,
I received your fifth letter to-day, and one from Dorothy, and one from Emily Fitzhugh.... My last letter to you was a sad one, and sad in a fashion that does not often occur to me. I was troubled and anxious about my professional labor and its results, and that may be called a small sadness compared with some other with which I have lately become familiar. Of course none of these anxieties have been removed, for some time must elapse before I can know on what plan my father determines with regard to Mr. Bartley's proposal about this new theater. It does not affect me personally, because I am thoroughly determined to take no part in any speculation of the kind; but the possibility of my father entering into any such scheme is care enough to "kill a cat," and make a kitten miserable besides.... In all matters, but especially in matters of business, I hold frankness, straightforwardness, and decision as conducive to success, as consonant with right feeling; but I think men are much more cowardly than women, and believe a great deal more in policy, temporizing, and expediency than we do. "Managing" is supposed to be a feminine tendency; it has no place in my composition; perhaps I might be the better for a little of it—but only perhaps, and only a little.... This letter, as you will perceive by its date, was begun on the banks of the Delaware; here we are, however, once more in New York. It is Monday evening, the 5th of November, and you are firing squibs and burning manikins en action de grâces that the Houses of Parliament were not blown up by the Roman Catholics, instead of living to be reformed by the Whigs, and (peradventure) blowing up the nation.
The Presidential Election is going on here, and creates immense excitement. General Jackson, they say, will certainly be re-elected.
Our last fortnight in Philadelphia has been one of incessant and very hard work, rehearsing every morning and acting every night. I rejoiced heartily when our engagement drew to a close, for I was fairly worn out, and money bought with health is bought too dear, I think.... I have taken some very pleasant rides during our stay in Philadelphia; the horses are none of them properly broken for riding, which makes it a pleasure of no small fatigue to ride them for three or four hours. Luckily, I do not object to severe exercise, and the weather and the country were both charming....
I am glad you have been re-reading the "Tempest." ... What exquisite pleasure that fine creation has given me! I like it better than any of the other plays; it is less "of the earth, earthy" than any of the others; for though the "Midsummer Night's Dream" is in some sort, as it were, its companion, the mortal element in the latter poem is far less noble and lovely than in the "Tempest." Prospero and Miranda, the dwellers on the enchanted island, are statelier and fairer than any of the human wanderers in the mazes of the Athenian wood. There is a deep and indescribable melancholy to me in the "Tempest" that mingles throughout with its beauty, and lends a special charm to it. I so often contemplate in fancy that island, lost in the unknown seas, just in the hour of its renewed solitude, after the departure of its "human mortal" dwellers and visitors, when Prospero and his companions had bade farewell to it, when Caliban was grunting and grubbing and groveling in his favorite cave again, when Ariel was hovering like a humming-bird over the flower draperies of the woods, where the footprints of men were still stamped on the wet sand of the shining shore, but their voices silent and their forms vanished, and utter solitude, and a strange dream of the past, filling the haunts where human life, its sin and sorrow, and joy and hope, and love and hate, had breathed and palpitated, and were now forever gone. The notion of that desert once, but now deserted, paradise, whose flowers had looked up at Miranda, whose skies had shed wisdom on Prospero, always seems to me full of melancholy. The girl's sweet voice singing no more in the sunny, still noon, the grave, tender converse of the father and child charming no more the solemn eventide, the forsaken island dwells in my imagination as at once desecrated and hallowed by its mortal sojourners; no longer savage quite, and never to be civilized; the supernatural element disturbed, the human element withdrawn; a sad, beautiful place, stranger than any other in the world. Perhaps the sea went over it; it has never been found since Shakespeare landed on it. I love that poem beyond words....
I shall ruin you in postage; if there is any chance of that, keep Mrs. Norton's five guineas to pay for my American epistles.
Ever your affectionate