render themselves
liable to such a disagreeable distinction. We expect him home every
day. Only conceive, dear H----, the ill-fortune that attends us: my
father, or rather the theater, is involved in six lawsuits I He and
my mother are neither of them quite well; anxiety naturally has
much share in their indisposition.

I learned Beatrice this morning and the whole of it, in an hour,
which I tell you because I consider it a feat. I am delighted at
the thoughts of acting it; it will be the second part which I shall
have acted with real pleasure; Portia is the other, but Beatrice is
not nearly so nice. I am to act it next Thursday, when pray think
of me.

I do not know whether you have seen anything in the papers about a
third theater; we have had much anxiety, vexation, and expense
about it, but I have no doubt that Mr. Arnold will carry the
question. The great people want a plaything for this season, and
have set their hearts upon that. I acted Belvidera to my father's
Jaffier at Brighton; you cannot imagine how great a difference it
produced in my acting. Mrs. Siddons and Miss O'Neill had a great
advantage over me in their tragic partners. Have you heard that Mr.
Hope, the author of "Anastasius," is just dead? That was a
wonderfully clever book, of rather questionable moral effects, I
think; the same sort of cynical gloom and discontent which pervade
Byron's writings prevail in that; and I thought it a pity, because
in other respects it seems a genuine book, true to life and human
nature. A few days before I heard of his death, Mr. Harness was
discussing with me a theory of Hope's respecting the destiny of the
human soul hereafter. His notion is that all spirit is after death
to form but one whole spiritual existence, a sort of _lumping_
which I object to. I should like always to be able to know myself
from somebody else.

I _do_ read the papers sometimes, dear H----, and, whenever I do, I
wonder at you and all sensible people who make a daily practice of
it; the proceedings of Parliament would make one angry if they did
not make one so sad, and some of the debates would seem to me
laughable but that I know they are lamentable.

I have just finished Channing's essay on Milton, which is
admirable.

My cousin Harry sails for In