[38] I have acted Ophelia three times with my father, and each time, in that beautiful scene where his madness and his love gush forth together like a torrent swollen with storms, that bears a thousand blossoms on its troubled waters, I have experienced such deep emotion as hardly to be able to speak. The exquisite tenderness of his voice, the wild compassion and forlorn pity of his looks bestowing that on others which, above all others, he most needed; the melancholy restlessness, the bitter self-scorning; every shadow of expression and intonation was so full of all the mingled anguish that the human heart is capable of enduring, that my eyes scarce fixed on his ere they filled with tears; and long before the scene was over, the letters and jewel-cases I was tendering to him were wet with them. The hardness of professed actors and actresses is something amazing: after acting this part, I could not but recall the various Ophelias I have seen, and commend them for the astonishing absence of every thing like feeling which they exhibited. Oh, it made my heart sore to act it. [39] I am speaking now only of the common saddle-horses that one sees about the streets and roads. The southern breed of race-horses is a subject of great interest and care to all sporting men here: they are very beautiful animals, of a remarkably slight and delicate make. But the perfection of horses in this country are those trained for trotting: their speed is almost incredible. I have been whirled along in a light-built carriage by a pair of famous professed trotters, who certainly got over the ground at the rate of a moderate-going steam-engine, and this without ever for a moment breaking into a gallop. The fondness of the Americans for this sort of horses, however, is one reason why one can so rarely obtain a well-mouthed riding-horse. These trotters are absolutely carried on the bit, and require only a snaffle, and an arm of iron to hold them up. A horse well set upon his haunches is not to be met with; and owing to this mode of breaking, their action is entirely from the head and shoulders; and they both look and feel as if they would tumble down on their noses.