ering
time, and all last night the streets resounded with cheers and
shouts, and shone with bonfires. The present President, Jackson,
appears to be far from popular here, and though his own partisans
are determined, of course, to re-elect him if possible, a violent
struggle is likely to take place; and here already his opponent,
Henry Clay, who is the leader of the aristocratic party in the
United States, is said to have obtained the superiority over him.

I have got Graham's and Smith's "Histories," and though my time for
reading is anything but abundant, yet every night and morning I do
contrive, while brushing the outside of my head, to cram something
into the inside of it.

I cannot bear to give up any advantage which I once possessed, and
therefore struggle to keep up, in some degree, my music and
Italian. These, together with rehearsing every morning, and acting
four times a week, besides my journal, which I very seldom neglect,
make up a good deal of daily occupation. Then, one must sacrifice a
certain amount of time to the conventional waste of society,
receiving and returning visits, etc.... I like what I have read of
Graham very much; the matter is very interesting, and the spirit in
which it is treated; and I am deeply in love with Captain John
Smith, and wonder greatly at Pocahontas marrying anybody else. I
suppose, however, the savage was not without excuse; for Mary
Stuart, who knew something of these matters, says, with a rather
satirical glance at her cousin of England, "En ces sortes de
choses, la plus sage de nous toutes n'est qu'un peu moins sotte que
les autres."

I have been to my first rehearsal here to-day; the theater is
small, but pretty enough. The public has high pretensions to
considerable critical judgment and literary and dramatic taste, and
scouts the idea of being led by the opinion of New York.... It is
rather tiresome that fools are cut upon the same pattern all the
world over. What is the profit of traveling? Oh dear! I think my
Fazio has got St. Vitus's dance!...

Yesterday I tried some horses, which were rather terrible
quadrupeds. They were not ill-bred cattle to look at, and I should
think of a race that, with care and attention, might be brought to
considerable perfection; but they are never pro