said to me this
morning, "if you don't read in Chicago, the people will go into fits."
In reference to fatigue, I answered: "Well, I would rather they went
into fits than I did." But he didn't seem to see it at all. ---- alone
constantly writes me: "Don't go to the West; you can get what you want
so much more easily." How we shall finally decide, I don't yet know. My
Brooklyn church has been an immense success, and I found its minister
was a bachelor, a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man
with a good knowledge of art into the bargain.

We are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is beginning to be
stirred and shaken by the presidential election, and trade is
exceedingly depressed, and will be more so. Fanny Kemble lives near this
place, but had gone away a day before my first visit here. _She_ is
going to read in February or March. Du Chaillu has been lecturing out
West about the gorilla, and has been to see me; I saw the Cunard steamer
_Persia_ out in the stream, yesterday, beautifully smart, her flags
flying, all her steam up, and she only waiting for her mails to slip
away. She gave me a horrible touch of home-sickness.

When the 1st of March arrives, and I can say "next month," I shall begin
to grow brighter. A fortnight's reading in Boston, too (last week of
February and first week of March), will help me on gaily, I hope (the
work so far off tells). It is impossible for the people to be more
affectionately attached to a third, I really believe, than Fields and
his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in the prospect.

Dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known that he has not
been bullied lately. We do _not_ go West at all, but take the easier
plan.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._

As I have an hour to spare, before starting to Philadelphia, I begin my
letter this morning. It has been snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours,
though this place is as far south as Valentia in Spain; and Dolby, being
on his way to New York, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere.

They are a bright responsive people here, and very pleasant to read to.
I have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. I read here in a
charming little opera-house built by a society of Germans, quite a
delightful place for the purpose. I stand on the stage, with a drop
curtain down, and my screen before it. The whole scene i