idenote: M. Charles Fechter.]

WASHINGTON, _February 24th, 1868._

MY DEAR FECHTER,

Your letter reached me here yesterday. I have sent you a telegram
(addressed to the theatre) this morning, and I write this by the
earliest return mail.

My dear fellow, consider yourself my representative. Whatever you do, or
desire to do, about the play, I fully authorise beforehand. Tell
Webster, with my regard, that I think his proposal honest and fair; that
I think it, in a word, like himself; and that I have perfect confidence
in his good faith and liberality.

As to making money of the play in the United States here, Boucicault has
filled Wilkie's head with golden dreams that have _nothing_ in them. He
makes no account of the fact that, wherever I go, the theatres (with my
name in big letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and
that the moment the Christmas number came over here they pirated it and
played "No Thoroughfare." Now, I have enquired into the law, and am
extremely doubtful whether I _could_ have prevented this. Why should
they pay for the piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when
all they want is my name, and they can get that for nothing?

Wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically. In a letter I had
from him, dated the 10th of January, he described your conception and
execution of the part in the most glowing terms. "Here Fechter is
magnificent." "Here his superb playing brings the house down." "I should
call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest and finest things
he does in the piece." "You can hardly imagine what he gets out of the
part, or what he makes of his passionate love for Marguerite." These
expressions, and many others like them, crowded his letter.

I never did so want to see a character played on the stage as I want to
see you play Obenreizer. As the play was going when I last heard of it,
I have some hopes that I MAY see it yet. Please God, your Adelphi
dressing-room will be irradiated with the noble presence of "Never
Wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of Monday, the 4th of May!

I am doing enormous business. It is a wearying life, away from all I
love, but I hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. Among the
many changes that I find here is the comfortable change that the people
are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy.
Even in this place, I am really almost a