letters, and if there be any indication
of character in handwriting--which I hope to goodness there is
not--it certainly exists in his, for a firmer, clearer, and fairer
hand I never saw--an excellent, honest handwriting. His likeness
confronts one at every corner here; not only at every street
corner, where he lends his countenance to the frequenters of
drinking-houses, but over every chimney-piece in every
sitting-room. He is like the frogs of the old Egyptian plague,
except that they were in the king's chamber, where he was too good
a Republican ever to have been.

I am amused at your summing up your account of the restless and
perturbed state of poor Ireland by saying, "After all, I believe
America is the land of peace and quiet." It seems to me, who am
here, that everything at this moment threatens change and
disintegration in this country. It is impossible to imagine more
menacing elements of discord and disunion than those which exist in
the opposite and antagonistic interests of its southern and
northern provinces, and the anomalous mixture of aristocratic
feeling and democratic institutions.... God bless you, my dear
H----. I will write to you soon again; if possible, before the
breathing-time this snow-storm is giving us is over.

Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. K.

NEW YORK, April 3, 1833.
MY DEAREST H----,

... I am working very hard, what with rehearsing, acting, studying
new parts, devising new dresses, and attending--which, of course, I
am obliged also to do--to the claims of the society in which we are
living, and my time is so full that I barely contrive to fulfill
all my duties and answer all the claims made upon me.... The spring
is in the sky, and in the air her soft smile and sweet breath are
gladdening the world; but the process of vegetation is much later
in beginning, and much more rapid in its operations when they do
begin here, than with us. Though the last three days have been as
hot as our midsummer weather, the trees are yet leafless and
budless--as dry and unpromising-looking as they were in mid-winter;
and, indeed, the transition from winter to summer is almost
instantaneous here. The spr