s which has
everywhere met us ever since we first came to this country ought to
repay us even for the pain and sorrow of leaving England. We are to
remain here about ten days longer, and then proceed to
Philadelphia, where we shall stay a fortnight, and then we start
for cool and Canada, taking the Hudson, Trenton Falls, and Niagara
on our way; act in Montreal and Quebec for a short time, and then
adjourn, I hope, to Newport in Rhode Island, to rest and recruit
till we begin our autumnal work.... And now I have done grumbling
at "the state of life into which it has pleased God to call me." My
dear H----, I began this letter yesterday, and am this moment
returned from a long visit to Dr. Channing.... The outward man of
the eloquent preacher and teacher is rather insignificant, and
produces no impression at first sight of unusual intellectual
supremacy; and though his eyes and forehead are fine, they did not
seem to me to do justice to the mind expressed in his writings; for
though Shakespeare says,

"There is no art to read the mind's construction in the face,"

I think the mental qualities are more often detected there than the
moral ones. He is short and slight in figure, and looks, as indeed
he is, extremely delicate, an habitual invalid; his eyes, which are
gray, are well and deeply set, and the brow and forehead fine,
though not, perhaps, as striking as I had expected. The rest of the
face has no peculiar character, and is rather plain.

He talked to me a great deal about the stage, acting, the dramatic
art; and, professing to know nothing about it, maintained some
theories which proved he did not, indeed, know much. As far as
knowledge of the stage and acting goes, of course this was not
surprising, his studies, observation, and experience certainly not
having lain in that direction; indeed, if they had, he might not
have shown more comprehension of the subject. Sir Thomas Lawrence
is the only unprofessional person I ever heard speak upon it whose
critical opinion and judgment seemed to me worth anything; but it
appeared to me that, in the course of the discussion, some of Dr.
Channing's opinions (with all respect be it spoken) betrayed an
ignorance of human nature itself, upon which, after all, dramatic
literature and dramatic repre