I saw in an American paper yesterday, that an opera, still unfinished,
had been written on the story of The Scarlet Letter, and that several
scenes of it had been performed successfully in New York. I should think
it might possibly succeed as an opera, though it would certainly fail as
a play.
LONDON.
September 24th.--On Saturday, at half past three o'clock, I left
Liverpool by the London and Northwest Railway for London. Mrs.
Blodgett's table had been thinned by several departures during the
week. . . . . My mind had been considerably enlivened, and my sense of
American superiority renewed, by intercourse with these people; and there
is no danger of one's intellect becoming a standing pool in such society.
I think better of American shipmasters, too, than I did from merely
meeting them in my office. They keep up a continual discussion of
professional matters, and of all things having any reference to their
profession; the laws of insurance, the rights of vessels in foreign
ports, the authority and customs of vessels of war with regard to
merchantmen, etc.,--with stories and casual anecdotes of their
sea-adventures, gales, shipwrecks, icebergs, and collisions of vessels,
and hair-breadth escapes. Their talk runs very much on the sea, and on
the land as connected with the sea; and their interest does not seem to
extend very far beyond the wide field of their professional concerns.
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