s of the Delaware; here we are, however, once
more in New York. It is Monday evening, the 5th of November, and
you are firing squibs and burning manikins _en action de graces_
that the Houses of Parliament were not blown up by the Roman
Catholics, instead of living to be reformed by the Whigs, and
(peradventure) blowing up the nation.

The Presidential Election is going on here, and creates immense
excitement. General Jackson, they say, will certainly be
re-elected.

Our last fortnight in Philadelphia has been one of incessant and
very hard work, rehearsing every morning and acting every night. I
rejoiced heartily when our engagement drew to a close, for I was
fairly worn out, and money bought with health is bought too dear, I
think.... I have taken some very pleasant rides during our stay in
Philadelphia; the horses are none of them properly broken for
riding, which makes it a pleasure of no small fatigue to ride them
for three or four hours. Luckily, I do not object to severe
exercise, and the weather and the country were both charming....

I am glad you have been re-reading the "Tempest." ... What
exquisite pleasure that fine creation has given me! I like it
better than any of the other plays; it is less "of the earth,
earthy" than any of the others; for though the "Midsummer Night's
Dream" is in some sort, as it were, its companion, the mortal
element in the latter poem is far less noble and lovely than in the
"Tempest." Prospero and Miranda, the dwellers on the enchanted
island, are statelier and fairer than any of the human wanderers in
the mazes of the Athenian wood. There is a deep and indescribable
melancholy to me in the "Tempest" that mingles throughout with its
beauty, and lends a special charm to it. I so often contemplate in
fancy that island, lost in the unknown seas, just in the hour of
its renewed solitude, after the departure of its "human mortal"
dwellers and visitors, when Prospero and his companions had bade
farewell to it, when Caliban was grunting and grubbing and
groveling in his favorite cave again, when Ariel was hovering like
a humming-bird over the flower draperies of the woods, where the
footprints of men were still stamped on the wet sand of the shining
shore, but their voices silent and their forms vanished, an