the one, to a certain degree, affects one’s impressions of the other.  A great ball at Devonshire House, for instance, with its splendor, its brilliancy, its beauty, and magnificence of all sorts, remains in one’s mind with the enchantment of a live chapter of the “Arabian Nights;” and I think one’s imagination is still more impressed with the fine residences of “fine people” in the country, where historical and poetical associations combine with all the refinements of luxurious civilization and all the most exquisitely cultivated beauties of nature to produce an effect which, to a certain degree, frames their possessors to great advantage, and invests them with a charm which is really not theirs; and if they are only tolerably in harmony with the places where they live, they appear charming too.  I believe the pleasure and delight I take in the music, the lights, the wreaths, and mirrors of a splendid ball-room, and the love I have for the smooth lawns, bright waters, and lordly oaks of a fine domain, would disgracefully influence my impressions of the people I met amongst them.  Still, I humbly trust I do not like any of my friends, fine or coarse, only for their belongings, though my intercourse with the first gratifies my love of luxury and excites what my Edinburgh friends call my ideality.  I don’t think, however.  I ever could like anybody, of any kind whatever, that I could not heartily respect, let their intellectual gifts, elegance, or refinement of manners be what they might.  Good-by, dearest H——.

Ever your affectionate
F. A. K.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, October 3, 1831. 
MY DEAREST H——­,

I received your last letter on Thursday morning, and as I read it exclaimed, “We shall be able to go to her!” and passed it to Dall, who seemed to think there was no reason why we should not, when my father said he was afraid it could not be managed, as the theater, upon second arrangements, would require me before this month was over.  It seems to me that, instead of one disappointment, I have had twenty about coming to you, dear H——­, and the last has fairly broken the poor camel’s back.  My father promised to see what could be done for me, and to get me spared as long as possible; but the final arrangement is, that on the 24th I shall have to act Queen Katharine, for which, certainly, a week of daily rehearsals will be barely sufficient preparation.  This, you see, will leave me hardly time enough to stay at Ardgillan to warrant the fatigue and expense of the journey.  I am afraid it would be neither reasonable nor right to spend nearly a week in traveling and the money it must cost, to pass a fortnight with you....  Give my love to your sister, and tell her how willingly I would have accepted her hospitality had circumstances permitted it; but “circumstances,” of which we are so apt to complain, may, perhaps, at some future time, allow me to be once more her guest.  The course of events is, after all,