from the fact, firstly, that I didn't know where they were, and secondly,
because I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to
leave New York every day for the last two weeks. I have taken a liking
to the abominable place, and every time I get ready to leave, I put it
off a day or so, from some unaccountable cause. It is as hard on my
conscience to leave New York, as it was easy to leave Hannibal. I think
I shall get off Tuesday, though.

Edwin Forrest has been playing, for the last sixteen days, at the
Broadway Theatre, but I never went to see him till last night. The play
was the "Gladiator." I did not like parts of it much, but other portions
were really splendid. In the latter part of the last act, where the
"Gladiator" (Forrest) dies at his brother's feet, (in all the fierce
pleasure of gratified revenge,) the man's whole soul seems absorbed in
the part he is playing; and it is really startling to see him. I am
sorry I did not see him play "Damon and Pythias" the former character
being his greatest. He appears in Philadelphia on Monday night.

I have not received a letter from home lately, but got a "'Journal'" the
other day, in which I see the office has been sold. I suppose Ma, Orion
and Henry are in St. Louis now. If Orion has no other project in his
head, he ought to take the contract for getting out some weekly paper, if
he cannot get a foremanship. Now, for such a paper as the "Presbyterian"
(containing about 60,000,--[Sixty thousand ems, type measurement.])
he could get $20 or $25 per week, and he and Henry could easily do the
work; nothing to do but set the type and make up the forms....

If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about me;
for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years of age, who is not able
to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother is not