to own neither part nor lot in any
such venture: I will lend or give anything that I may earn to it,
and I will act, at half the price I might get elsewhere, for it, if
my father wishes me to do so; but not a demonstrable cent per cent
profit should induce me to run such a risk of cursing the day that
I was born, as to become owner of a theater. I write you all this
(and I have written more than enough about it) because it has been
lately a subject of much anxious meditation to me. The matter is at
present without settled form or plan, but the proposal of such a
scheme has caused me deep regret and anxiety.... I am going to act
to-morrow in "The Hunchback;" Thursday, Mrs. Beverley; Friday, Lady
Townley; Saturday, Juliet; Monday, Julia again; and Tuesday,
Bizarre in "The Inconstant;" which ends our engagement here. This
is pretty hard work, is it not? besides always one, and sometimes
two rehearsals of a morning.

We begin our second engagement in New York on the 7th of November.
Don't forget that the 27th of that month is my birthday, and that
if you neglect to drink my health, I shall probably die, for want
of your good wishes to keep me alive.

We act in Boston on the 3d of December; "further than that the
deponent sayeth not."

I told you in my last letter that Philadelphia was the cleanest
place in the world. The country along the banks of the Schuylkill
(one of the rivers on which it stands; the other is the Delaware)
is wild and beautiful, and the glory of the autumn woods what an
eye that hath not seen can by no manner of means conceive. I have
for the last week had my room full of the most delicious flowers
that could only be seen with us at midsummer, and here, in these
last days of autumn, they are as abundant and fragrant, and the sun
is as intensely hot and brilliant, as it should be, but never is,
with us, in the month of July....

Dall went into a Quaker's shop here the other day, when, after
waiting upon her with the utmost attention and kindness, the master
of the shop said, "And how doth Fanny? I was in hopes she might
have wanted something; we should have great pleasure in attending
upon her." Was not that nice? So to-day I went thither, and bought
myself a lovely sober-colored gown. This place, as you know, is the