"I have felt sometimes ready to dash my palette knife through it and to feel at the moment quite angry with him; but a little reflection restores me; I see that Mr. Allston is not a flatterer but a friend, and that really to improve I must see my faults. What he says after this always puts me in good humor again. He tells me to put a few flesh tints here, a few gray ones there, and to clear up such and such a part by such and such colors. And not only that, but takes the palette and brushes and shows me how, and in this way he assists me. I think it one of the greatest blessings that I am under his eye. I don't know how many errors I might have fallen into if it had not been for his attentions….
"I am painting portraits alone at present. Our sitters are among our acquaintances. We paint them if they defray the expense of canvas and colors…."
"Mama wished me to send some specimens of my painting home that you might see my improvement. The pictures that I now paint would be uninteresting to you; they consist merely of studies and drawings from plaster figures, hands and feet and such things. The portraits are taken by those for whom they are painted. I shall soon begin a portrait of myself and will try and send that to you."
"June 8, 1812. Mama asks in one of her letters if we make our own tea. We do. The tea-kettle is brought to us boiling in the morning and evening and we make our own coffee (which, by the way, is very cheap here) and tea. We live quite in the old bachelor style. I don't know but it will be best for me to live in this style through life; my profession seems to require all my time.
"Mr. Hurd will take a diploma to you, with others to different persons near Boston. I suppose it confers some title on you of consequence, as I saw at his house a great number to be sent to all parts of the world to distinguished men. I find papa is known here pretty extensively. Some one, hearing my name and that I am an American, immediately asks if I am related to you….
"The Administration is at length formed, and, to the great sorrow of everybody, the old Ministers are reelected. The Orders in Council are the subject of debate at the House of Commons this evening. It is an important crisis, though there is scarcely any hope of their repeal. If not, I sincerely hope that America will declare war.
"What Lord Castlereagh said at a public meeting a few days ago ought to be known in America. Respecting the Orders in Council, when some one said unless they were repealed war with America must be the consequence, he replied that, 'if the people would but support the Ministry in those measures for a short time, America would be compelled to submit, for she was not able to go to war.' But I say, and so does every American here who sees how things are going with this country, that, should America but declare war, before hostilities commenced Great Britain would sue for peace on any terms. Great Britain is jealous of us and would trample on us if she could, and I feel ashamed when I see her supported through everything by some of the Federal editors. I wish they could be here a few months and they would be ashamed of themselves. They are injuring their country, for it is their violence that induces this Government to persist in their measures by holding out hope that the parties will change, and that then they can compel America to do anything. If America loses in this contest and softens her measures towards this country, she never need expect to hold up her head again."
"June 15, 1812. The Queen held a drawing-room a short time since and I went to St. James's Palace to see those who attended. It was a singular sight to see the ladies and gentlemen in their court dresses. The gentlemen were dressed in buckram skirted coats without capes, long waistcoats, cocked hats, bag-wigs, swords, and large buckles on their shoes. The ladies in monstrous hoops, so that in getting into their carriages they were obliged to go edgewise. Their dresses were very rich; some ladies, I suppose, had about them to adorn them £20,000 or £30,000 worth of diamonds."
"I had a sight of the Prince Regent as he passed in his splendid state carriage drawn by six horses. He is very corpulent, his features are good, but he is very red and considerably bloated. I likewise saw the Princess Charlotte of Wales, who is handsome, the Dukes of Kent, Cambridge, Clarence, and Cumberland, Admiral Duckworth, and many others. The Prince held a levee a few days since at which Mr. Van Rensselaer was presented."
"I occasionally attend the theatres. At Covent Garden there is the best acting in the world; Mr. Kemble is the first tragic actor now in England; Cook was a rival and excelled him in some characters. Mrs. Siddons is the first tragic actress, perhaps, that ever lived. She is now advanced in life and is about to retire from the stage; on the 29th of this month she makes her last appearance. I must say I admire her acting very much; she is rather corpulent, but has a remarkably fine face; the Grecian character is finely portrayed in it; she excels to admiration in deep tragedy. In Mrs. Beverly, in the play of the 'Gamesters' a few nights ago, she so arrested the attention of the house that you might hear your watch tick in your fob, and, at the close of the play, when she utters an hysteric laugh for joy that her husband was not a murderer, there were different ladies in the boxes who actually went into hysterics and were obliged to be carried out of the theatre. This I think is proof of good acting. Mrs. Siddons is a woman of irreproachable character and moves in the first circles; the stage will never again see her equal.