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+Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Letters of Charles Dickens
+       Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Mamie Dickens
+        Georgina Hogarth
+
+Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25852]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Susan Skinner, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+For the reader: Things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as
+HW:
+
+Asterisms in the text are denoted by [asterism]
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+[HW: Charles Dickens]
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+EDITED BY
+
+HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.
+
+In Two Volumes.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+1833 to 1856.
+
+London:
+
+CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
+
+1880.
+
+[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
+
+CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+                     TO
+
+               KATE PERUGINI,
+
+        THIS MEMORIAL OF HER FATHER
+
+           IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED
+
+          BY HER AUNT AND SISTER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+We intend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement to the "Life of
+Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That work, perfect and exhaustive as
+a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of
+the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters,
+or hardly any, besides those addressed to Mr. Forster. As no man ever
+expressed _himself_ more in his letters than Charles Dickens, we believe
+that in publishing this careful selection from his general
+correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally
+felt.
+
+Our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded
+to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for
+our work. By arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that
+they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the
+events of each year. Our collection dates from 1833, the commencement of
+Charles Dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the
+"Pickwick Papers," and is carried on up to the day before his death, in
+1870.
+
+We find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the arrangements of
+letters up to the end of 1839, for he had a careless habit in those days
+about dating his letters, very frequently putting only the day of the
+week on which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of his
+later life, when his dates were always of the very fullest.
+
+A blank is made in Charles Dickens's correspondence with his family by
+the absence of any letter addressed to his daughter Kate (Mrs.
+Perugini), to her great regret and to ours. In 1873, her furniture and
+other possessions were stored in the warehouse of the Pantechnicon at
+the time of the great fire there. All her property was destroyed, and,
+among other things, a box of papers which included her letters from her
+father.
+
+It was our intention as well as our desire to have thanked,
+individually, every one--both living friends and representatives of dead
+ones--for their readiness to give us every possible help to make our
+work complete. But the number of such friends, besides correspondents
+hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions of letters, make it
+impossible in our space to do otherwise than to express, collectively,
+our earnest and heartfelt thanks.
+
+A separate word of gratitude, however, must be given by us to Mr. Wilkie
+Collins for the invaluable help which we have received from his great
+knowledge and experience, in the technical part of our work, and for
+the deep interest which he has shown from the beginning, in our
+undertaking.
+
+It is a great pleasure to us to have the name of Henry Fielding Dickens
+associated with this book. To him, for the very important assistance he
+has given in making our Index, we return our loving thanks.
+
+In writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope, left nothing out
+which in any way requires explanation from us. But we have purposely
+made them as short as possible; our great desire being to give to the
+public another book from Charles Dickens's own hands--as it were, a
+portrait of himself by himself.
+
+Those letters which need no explanation--and of those we have many--we
+give without a word from us.
+
+In publishing the more private letters, we do so with the view of
+showing him in his homely, domestic life--of showing how in the midst of
+his own constant and arduous work, no household matter was considered
+too trivial to claim his care and attention. He would take as much pains
+about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of furniture, the
+superintending any little improvement in the house, as he would about
+the more serious business of his life; thus carrying out to the very
+letter his favourite motto of "What is worth doing at all is worth doing
+well."
+
+                                          MAMIE DICKENS.
+                                          GEORGINA HOGARTH.
+
+        LONDON: _October_, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+  Page 111, line 6. For "because if I hear of you," _read_ "because I hear
+            of you."
+
+    "  114, line 24. For "any old end," _read_ "or any old end."
+
+    "  137. First paragraph, second sentence, _should read_, "All the
+            ancient part of Rome is wonderful and impressive in the
+            extreme, far beyond the possibility of exaggeration. As to
+            the," etc.
+
+    "  456, line 11. For "Mr." _read_ "Mrs."
+
+
+
+
+Book I.
+
+1833 TO 1842.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+
+
+1833 OR 1834, AND 1835, 1836.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+We have been able to procure so few early letters of any general
+interest that we put these first years together. Charles Dickens was
+then living, as a bachelor, in Furnival's Inn, and was engaged as a
+parliamentary reporter on _The Morning Chronicle_. The "Sketches by Boz"
+were written during these years, published first in "The Monthly
+Magazine" and continued in _The Evening Chronicle_. He was engaged to be
+married to Catherine Hogarth in 1835--the marriage took place on the 2nd
+April, 1836; and he continued to live in Furnival's Inn with his wife
+for more than a year after their marriage. They passed the summer months
+of that year in a lodging at Chalk, near Gravesend, in the neighbourhood
+associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. The two
+letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as Miss Hogarth, have no
+date, but were written in 1835. The first of the two refers to the offer
+made to him by Chapman and Hall to edit a monthly periodical, the
+emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen
+pounds a month. The bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of
+"The Pickwick Papers." The first number was published in March, 1836.
+The second letter to Miss Hogarth was written after he had completed
+three numbers of "Pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided
+hit" is "Jingle."
+
+The first letter of this book is addressed to Henry Austin, a friend
+from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister Letitia. It
+bears no date, but must have been written in 1833 or 1834, during the
+early days of his reporting for _The Morning Chronicle_; the journey on
+which he was "ordered" being for that paper.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                           FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Night, past 12._
+
+DEAR HENRY,
+
+I have just been ordered on a journey, the length of which is at present
+uncertain. I may be back on Sunday very probably, and start again on the
+following day. Should this be the case, you shall hear from me before.
+
+Don't laugh. I am going (alone) in a gig; and, to quote the eloquent
+inducement which the proprietors of Hampstead _chays_ hold out to Sunday
+riders--"the gen'l'm'n drives himself." I am going into Essex and
+Suffolk. It strikes me I shall be spilt before I pay a turnpike. I have
+a presentiment I shall run over an only child before I reach Chelmsford,
+my first stage.
+
+Let the evident haste of this specimen of "The Polite Letter Writer" be
+its excuse, and
+
+Believe me, dear Henry, most sincerely yours,
+
+                                                 [HW: Charles Dickens]
+
+NOTE.--To avoid the monotony of a constant repetition, we propose to
+dispense with the signature at the close of each letter, excepting to
+the first and last letters of our collection. Charles Dickens's
+handwriting altered so much during these years of his life, that we have
+thought it advisable to give a facsimile of his autograph to this our
+first letter; and we reproduce in the same way his latest autograph.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                            FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Evening, 1835._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+The House is up; but I am very sorry to say that I must stay at home. I
+have had a visit from the publishers this morning, and the story cannot
+be any longer delayed; it must be done to-morrow, as there are more
+important considerations than the mere payment for the story involved
+too. I must exercise a little self-denial, and set to work.
+
+They (Chapman and Hall) have made me an offer of fourteen pounds a
+month, to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by
+myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four
+woodcuts. I am to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a
+decisive answer on Friday morning. The work will be no joke, but the
+emolument is too tempting to resist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                                                     _Sunday Evening._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have at this moment got Pickwick and his friends on the Rochester
+coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in company with a very
+different character from any I have yet described, who I flatter myself
+will make a decided hit. I want to get them from the ball to the inn
+before I go to bed; and I think that will take me until one or two
+o'clock at the earliest. The publishers will be here in the morning, so
+you will readily suppose I have no alternative but to stick at my desk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+1837.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+From the commencement of "The Pickwick Papers," and of Charles Dickens's
+married life, dates the commencement of his literary life and his sudden
+world-wide fame. And this year saw the beginning of many of those
+friendships which he most valued, and of which he had most reason to be
+proud, and which friendships were ended only by death.
+
+The first letters which we have been able to procure to Mr. Macready and
+Mr. Harley will be found under this date. In January, 1837, he was
+living in Furnival's Inn, where his first child, a son, was born. It was
+an eventful year to him in many ways. He removed from Furnival's Inn to
+Doughty Street in March, and here he sustained the first great grief of
+his life. His young sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, to whom he was
+devotedly attached, died very suddenly, at his house, on the 7th May. In
+the autumn of this year he took lodgings at Broadstairs. This was his
+first visit to that pleasant little watering-place, of which he became
+very fond, and whither he removed for the autumn months with all his
+household, for many years in succession.
+
+Besides the monthly numbers of "Pickwick," which were going on through
+this year until November, when the last number appeared, he had
+commenced "Oliver Twist," which was appearing also monthly, in the
+magazine called "Bentley's Miscellany," long before "Pickwick" was
+completed. And during this year he had edited, for Mr. Bentley, "The
+Life of Grimaldi," the celebrated clown. To this book he wrote himself
+only the preface, and altered and rearranged the autobiographical MS.
+which was in Mr. Bentley's possession.
+
+The letter to Mr. Harley, which bears no date, but must have been
+written either in 1836 or 1837, refers to a farce called "The Strange
+Gentleman" (founded on one of the "Sketches," called the "Great
+Winglebury Duel"), which he wrote expressly for Mr. Harley, and which
+was produced at the St. James's Theatre, under the management of Mr.
+Braham. The only other piece which he wrote for that theatre was the
+story of an operetta, called "The Village Coquettes," the music of which
+was composed by Mr. John Hullah.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. P. Harley.]
+
+                               48, DOUGHTY STREET, _Saturday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have considered the terms on which I could afford just now to sell Mr.
+Braham the acting copyright in London of an entirely new piece for the
+St. James's Theatre; and I could not sit down to write one in a single
+act of about one hour long, under a hundred pounds. For a new piece in
+two acts, a hundred and fifty pounds would be the sum I should require.
+
+I do not know whether, with reference to arrangements that were made
+with any other writers, this may or may not appear a large item. I state
+it merely with regard to the value of my own time and writings at this
+moment; and in so doing I assure you I place the remuneration below the
+mark rather than above it.
+
+As you begged me to give you my reply upon this point, perhaps you will
+lay it before Mr. Braham. If these terms exceed his inclination or the
+ability of the theatre, there is an end of the matter, and no harm done.
+
+                                     Believe me ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                              48, DOUGHTY STREET, _Wednesday Evening._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+There is a semi-business, semi-pleasure little dinner which I intend to
+give at The Prince of Wales, in Leicester Place, Leicester Square, on
+Saturday, at five for half-past precisely, at which only Talfourd,
+Forster, Ainsworth, Jerdan, and the publishers will be present. It is
+to celebrate (that is too great a word, but I can think of no better)
+the conclusion of my "Pickwick" labours; and so I intend, before you
+take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of
+one of the first complete copies of the work. I shall be much delighted
+if you would join us.
+
+I know too well the many anxieties that press upon you just now to seek
+to persuade you to come if you would prefer a night's repose and quiet.
+Let me assure you, notwithstanding, most honestly and heartily that
+there is no one I should be more happy or gratified to see, and that
+among your brilliant circle of well-wishers and admirers you number none
+more unaffectedly and faithfully yours than,
+
+                                        My dear Sir, yours most truly.
+
+
+
+
+1838.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In February of this year Charles Dickens made an expedition with his
+friend, and the illustrator of most of his books, Mr. Hablot K. Browne
+("Phiz"), to investigate for himself the real facts as to the condition
+of the Yorkshire schools, and it may be observed that portions of a
+letter to his wife, dated Greta Bridge, Yorkshire, which will be found
+among the following letters, were reproduced in "Nicholas Nickleby." In
+the early summer he had a cottage at Twickenham Park. In August and
+September he was again at Broadstairs; and in the late autumn he made
+another bachelor excursion--Mr. Browne being again his companion--in
+England, which included his first visit to Stratford-on-Avon and
+Kenilworth. In February appeared the first number of "Nicholas
+Nickleby," on which work he was engaged all through the year, writing
+each number ready for the following month, and never being in advance,
+as was his habit with all his other periodical works, until his very
+latest ones.
+
+The first letter which appears under this date, from Twickenham Park, is
+addressed to Mr. Thomas Mitton, a schoolfellow at one of his earliest
+schools, and afterwards for some years his solicitor. The letter
+contains instructions for his first will; the friend of almost his whole
+life, Mr. John Forster, being appointed executor to this will as he was
+to the last, to which he was "called upon to act" only three years
+before his own death.
+
+The letter which we give in this year to Mr. Justice Talfourd is,
+unfortunately, the only one we have been able to procure to that friend,
+who was, however, one with whom he was most intimately associated, and
+with whom he maintained a constant correspondence.
+
+The letter beginning "Respected Sir" was an answer to a little boy
+(Master Hastings Hughes), who had written to him as "Nicholas Nickleby"
+approached completion, stating his views and wishes as to the rewards
+and punishments to be bestowed on the various characters in the book.
+The letter was sent to him through the Rev. Thomas Barham, author of
+"The Ingoldsby Legends."
+
+The two letters to Mr. Macready, at the end of this year, refer to a
+farce which Charles Dickens wrote, with an idea that it might be
+suitable for Covent Garden Theatre, then under Mr. Macready's
+management.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                             GRETA BRIDGE, _Thursday, Feb. 1st, 1838._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I am afraid you will receive this later than I could wish, as the mail
+does not come through this place until two o'clock to-morrow morning.
+However, I have availed myself of the very first opportunity of writing,
+so the fault is that mail's, and not this.
+
+We reached Grantham between nine and ten on Thursday night, and found
+everything prepared for our reception in the very best inn I have ever
+put up at. It is odd enough that an old lady, who had been outside all
+day and came in towards dinner time, turned out to be the mistress of a
+Yorkshire school returning from the holiday stay in London. She was a
+very queer old lady, and showed us a long letter she was carrying to one
+of the boys from his father, containing a severe lecture (enforced and
+aided by many texts of Scripture) on his refusing to eat boiled meat.
+She was very communicative, drank a great deal of brandy and water, and
+towards evening became insensible, in which state we left her.
+
+Yesterday we were up again shortly after seven A.M., came on upon our
+journey by the Glasgow mail, which charged us the remarkably low sum of
+six pounds fare for two places inside. We had a very droll male
+companion until seven o'clock in the evening, and a most delicious
+lady's-maid for twenty miles, who implored us to keep a sharp look-out
+at the coach-windows, as she expected the carriage was coming to meet
+her and she was afraid of missing it. We had many delightful vauntings
+of the same kind; but in the end it is scarcely necessary to say that
+the coach did not come, but a very dirty girl did.
+
+As we came further north the mire grew deeper. About eight o'clock it
+began to fall heavily, and, as we crossed the wild heaths hereabout,
+there was no vestige of a track. The mail kept on well, however, and at
+eleven we reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst
+of a dreary moor, which the guard informed us was Greta Bridge. I was in
+a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully cold, and there
+were no outward signs of anybody being up in the house. But to our great
+joy we discovered a comfortable room, with drawn curtains and a most
+blazing fire. In half an hour they gave us a smoking supper and a bottle
+of mulled port (in which we drank your health), and then we retired to
+a couple of capital bedrooms, in each of which there was a rousing fire
+halfway up the chimney.
+
+We have had for breakfast, toast, cakes, a Yorkshire pie, a piece of
+beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee,
+ham, and eggs; and are now going to look about us. Having finished our
+discoveries, we start in a postchaise for Barnard Castle, which is only
+four miles off, and there I deliver the letter given me by Mitton's
+friend. All the schools are round about that place, and a dozen old
+abbeys besides, which we shall visit by some means or other to-morrow.
+We shall reach York on Saturday I hope, and (God willing) I trust I
+shall be at home on Wednesday morning.
+
+I wish you would call on Mrs. Bentley and thank her for the letter; you
+can tell her when I expect to be in York.
+
+A thousand loves and kisses to the darling boy, whom I see in my mind's
+eye crawling about the floor of this Yorkshire inn. Bless his heart, I
+would give two sovereigns for a kiss. Remember me too to Frederick, who
+I hope is attentive to you.
+
+Is it not extraordinary that the same dreams which have constantly
+visited me since poor Mary died follow me everywhere? After all the
+change of scene and fatigue, I have dreamt of her ever since I left
+home, and no doubt shall till I return. I should be sorry to lose such
+visions, for they are very happy ones, if it be only the seeing her in
+one's sleep. I would fain believe, too, sometimes, that her spirit may
+have some influence over them, but their perpetual repetition is
+extraordinary.
+
+Love to all friends.
+
+                                 Ever, my dear Kate,
+                                            Your affectionate Husband.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                                     TWICKENHAM PARK, _Tuesday Night._
+
+DEAR TOM,
+
+I sat down this morning and put on paper my testamentary meaning.
+Whether it is sufficiently legal or not is another question, but I hope
+it is. The rough draft of the clauses which I enclose will be preceded
+by as much of the fair copy as I send you, and followed by the usual
+clause about the receipts of the trustees being a sufficient discharge.
+I also wish to provide that if all our children should die before
+twenty-one, and Kate married again, half the surplus should go to her
+and half to my surviving brothers and sisters, share and share alike.
+
+This will be all, except a few lines I wish to add which there will be
+no occasion to consult you about, as they will merely bear reference to
+a few tokens of remembrance and one or two slight funeral directions.
+And so pray God that you may be gray, and Forster bald, long before you
+are called upon to act as my executors.
+
+I suppose I shall see you at the water-party on Thursday? We will then
+make an appointment for Saturday morning, and if you think my clauses
+will do, I will complete my copy, seal it up, and leave it in your
+hands. There are some other papers which you ought to have. We must get
+a box.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, M.P.]
+
+                           TWICKENHAM PARK, _Sunday, July 15th, 1838._
+
+MY DEAR TALFOURD,
+
+I cannot tell you how much pleasure I have derived from the receipt of
+your letter. I have heard little of you, and seen less, for so long a
+time, that your handwriting came like the renewal of some old
+friendship, and gladdened my eyes like the face of some old friend.
+
+If I hear from Lady Holland before you return, I shall, as in duty
+bound, present myself at her bidding; but between you and me and the
+general post, I hope she may not renew her invitation until I can visit
+her with you, as I would much rather avail myself of your personal
+introduction. However, whatever her ladyship may do I shall respond to,
+and anyway shall be only too happy to avail myself of what I am sure
+cannot fail to form a very pleasant and delightful introduction.
+
+Your kind invitation and reminder of the subject of a pleasant
+conversation in one of our pleasant rides, has thrown a gloom over the
+brightness of Twickenham, for here I am chained. It is indispensably
+necessary that "Oliver Twist" should be published in three volumes, in
+September next. I have only just begun the last one, and, having the
+constant drawback of my monthly work, shall be sadly harassed to get it
+finished in time, especially as I have several very important scenes
+(important to the story I mean) yet to write. Nothing would give me so
+much pleasure as to be with you for a week or so. I can only imperfectly
+console myself with the hope that when you see "Oliver" you will like
+the close of the book, and approve my self-denial in staying here to
+write it. I should like to know your address in Scotland when you leave
+town, so that I may send you the earliest copy if it be produced in the
+vacation, which I pray Heaven it may.
+
+Meanwhile, believe that though my body is on the banks of the Thames,
+half my heart is going the Oxford circuit.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and Charley desire their best remembrances (the latter
+expresses some anxiety, not unmixed with apprehension, relative to the
+Copyright Bill, in which he conceives himself interested), with hearty
+wishes that you may have a fine autumn, which is all you want, being
+sure of all other means of enjoyment that a man can have.
+
+                              I am, my dear Talfourd,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I hope you are able to spare a moment now and then to glance at
+"Nicholas Nickleby," and that you have as yet found no reason to alter
+the opinion you formed on the appearance of the first number.
+
+You know, I suppose, that they elected me at the Athenæum? Pray thank
+Mr. Serjeant Storks for me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                   LION HOTEL, SHREWSBURY, _Thursday, Nov. 1st, 1838._
+
+MY DEAREST LOVE,
+
+I received your welcome letter on arriving here last night, and am
+rejoiced to hear that the dear children are so much better. I hope that
+in your next, or your next but one, I shall learn that they are quite
+well. A thousand kisses to them. I wish I could convey them myself.
+
+We found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital
+beds all ready for us at Leamington, after a very agreeable (but very
+cold) ride. We started in a postchaise next morning for Kenilworth, with
+which we were both enraptured, and where I really think we MUST have
+lodgings next summer, please God that we are in good health and all goes
+well. You cannot conceive how delightful it is. To read among the ruins
+in fine weather would be perfect luxury. From here we went on to Warwick
+Castle, which is an ancient building, newly restored, and possessing no
+very great attraction beyond a fine view and some beautiful pictures;
+and thence to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we sat down in the room where
+Shakespeare was born, and left our autographs and read those of other
+people and so forth.
+
+We remained at Stratford all night, and found to our unspeakable dismay
+that father's plan of proceeding by Bridgenorth was impracticable, as
+there were no coaches. So we were compelled to come here by way of
+Birmingham and Wolverhampton, starting at eight o'clock through a cold
+wet fog, and travelling, when the day had cleared up, through miles of
+cinder-paths and blazing furnaces, and roaring steam-engines, and such a
+mass of dirt, gloom, and misery as I never before witnessed. We got
+pretty well accommodated here when we arrived at half-past four, and are
+now going off in a postchaise to Llangollen--thirty miles--where we
+shall remain to-night, and where the Bangor mail will take us up
+to-morrow. Such are our movements up to this point, and when I have
+received your letter at Chester I shall write to you again and tell you
+when I shall be back. I can say positively that I shall not exceed the
+fortnight, and I think it very possible that I may return a day or two
+before it expires.
+
+We were at the play last night. It was a bespeak--"The Love Chase," a
+ballet (with a phenomenon!), divers songs, and "A Roland for an Oliver."
+It is a good theatre, but the actors are very funny. Browne laughed with
+such indecent heartiness at one point of the entertainment, that an old
+gentleman in the next box suffered the most violent indignation. The
+bespeak party occupied two boxes, the ladies were full-dressed, and the
+gentlemen, to a man, in white gloves with flowers in their button-holes.
+It amused us mightily, and was really as like the Miss Snevellicci
+business as it could well be.
+
+My side has been very bad since I left home, although I have been very
+careful not to drink much, remaining to the full as abstemious as usual,
+and have not eaten any great quantity, having no appetite. I suffered
+such an ecstasy of pain all night at Stratford that I was half dead
+yesterday, and was obliged last night to take a dose of henbane. The
+effect was most delicious. I slept soundly, and without feeling the
+least uneasiness, and am a great deal better this morning; neither do I
+find that the henbane has affected my head, which, from the great effect
+it had upon me--exhilarating me to the most extraordinary degree, and
+yet keeping me sleepy--I feared it would. If I had not got better I
+should have turned back to Birmingham, and come straight home by the
+railroad. As it is, I hope I shall make out the trip.
+
+God bless you, my darling. I long to be back with you again and to see
+the sweet Babs.
+
+                          Your faithful and most affectionate Husband.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Master Hastings Hughes.]
+
+                            DOUGHTY STREET, LONDON, _Dec. 12th, 1838._
+
+RESPECTED SIR,
+
+I have given Squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which
+he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which, being a cowardly
+thing, is just what I should have expected from him--wouldn't you?
+
+I have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and
+the two "sheeps" for the little boys. They have also had some good ale
+and porter, and some wine. I am sorry you didn't say _what_ wine you
+would like them to have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked very
+much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. He
+was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and I believe it went the wrong
+way, which I say served him right, and I hope you will say so too.
+
+Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not
+eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to
+have the rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond
+of, and so am I. He said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he
+thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it cold. You should
+have seen him drink it. I thought he never would have left off. I also
+gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more,
+and he said directly that he should give more than half to his mamma and
+sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I say he is a good
+fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he isn't I am ready to fight
+him whenever they like--there!
+
+Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. Your drawing of her
+is very like, except that I don't think the hair is quite curly enough.
+The nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty
+disagreeable thing, and I know it will make her very cross when she sees
+it; and what I say is that I hope it may. You will say the same I
+know--at least I think you will.
+
+I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot write very fast
+when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think
+about them, and I like you, and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight
+o'clock at night, and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when
+it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So I will not say
+anything more besides this--and that is my love to you and Neptune; and
+if you will drink my health every Christmas Day I will drink
+yours--come.
+
+                               I am,
+                                   Respected Sir,
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--I don't write my name very plain, but you know what it is you
+know, so never mind.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                     DOUGHTY STREET, _Monday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I have not seen you for the past week, because I hoped when we next met
+to bring "The Lamplighter" in my hand. It would have been finished by
+this time, but I found myself compelled to set to work first at the
+"Nickleby" on which I am at present engaged, and which I regret to
+say--after my close and arduous application last month--I find I cannot
+write as quickly as usual. I must finish it, at latest, by the 24th (a
+doubtful comfort!), and the instant I have done so I will apply myself
+to the farce. I am afraid to name any particular day, but I pledge
+myself that you shall have it this month, and you may calculate on that
+promise. I send you with this a copy of a farce I wrote for Harley when
+he left Drury Lane, and in which he acted for some seventy nights. It is
+the best thing he does. It is barely possible you might like to try it.
+Any local or temporary allusions could be easily altered.
+
+Believe me that I only feel gratified and flattered by your inquiry
+after the farce, and that if I had as much time as I have inclination, I
+would write on and on and on, farce after farce and comedy after comedy,
+until I wrote you something that would run. You do me justice when you
+give me credit for good intentions; but the extent of my good-will and
+strong and warm interest in you personally and your great undertaking,
+you cannot fathom nor express.
+
+                            Believe me, my dear Macready,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--For Heaven's sake don't fancy that I hold "The Strange Gentleman"
+in any estimation, or have a wish upon the subject.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C Macready.]
+
+                            48, DOUGHTY STREET, _December 13th, 1838._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I can have but one opinion on the subject--withdraw the farce at once,
+by all means.
+
+I perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most heartily and
+cordially for your kind and manly conduct, which is only what I should
+have expected from you; though, under such circumstances, I sincerely
+believe there are few but you--if any--who would have adopted it.
+
+Believe me that I have no other feeling of disappointment connected with
+this matter but that arising from the not having been able to be of some
+use to you. And trust me that, if the opportunity should ever arrive, my
+ardour will only be increased--not damped--by the result of this
+experiment.
+
+                        Believe me always, my dear Macready,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+1839.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens was still living in Doughty Street, but he removed at
+the end of this year to 1, Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. He hired a
+cottage at Petersham for the summer months, and in the autumn took
+lodgings at Broadstairs.
+
+The cottage at Alphington, near Exeter, mentioned in the letter to Mr.
+Mitton, was hired by Charles Dickens for his parents.
+
+He was at work all through this year on "Nicholas Nickleby."
+
+We have now the commencement of his correspondence with Mr. George
+Cattermole. His first letter was written immediately after Mr.
+Cattermole's marriage with Miss Elderton, a distant connection of
+Charles Dickens; hence the allusions to "cousin," which will be found
+in many of his letters to Mr. Cattermole. The bride and bridegroom were
+passing their honeymoon in the neighbourhood of Petersham, and the
+letter refers to a request from them for the loan of some books, and
+also to his having lent them his pony carriage and groom, during their
+stay in this neighbourhood.
+
+The first letter in this year to Mr. Macready is in answer to one from
+him, announcing his retirement from the management of Covent Garden
+Theatre.
+
+The portrait by Mr. Maclise, mentioned to Mr. Harley, was the, now,
+well-known one, which appeared as a frontispiece to "Nicholas Nickleby."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                             DOUGHTY STREET, _Sunday._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I will have, if you please, three dozen of the extraordinary champagne;
+and I am much obliged to you for recollecting me.
+
+I ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication, but I am,
+notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely sorry, for my own sake and
+the sake of thousands, who may now go and whistle for a theatre--at
+least, such a theatre as you gave them; and I do now in my heart believe
+that for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has passed away.
+If I may jest with my misfortunes, and quote the Portsmouth critic of
+Mr. Crummles's company, I say that: "As an exquisite embodiment of the
+poet's visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with
+refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic
+world before the mental eye, the drama is gone--perfectly gone."
+
+With the same perverse and unaccountable feeling which causes a
+heart-broken man at a dear friend's funeral to see something
+irresistibly comical in a red-nosed or one-eyed undertaker, I receive
+your communication with ghostly facetiousness; though on a moment's
+reflection I find better cause for consolation in the hope that,
+relieved from your most trying and painful duties, you will now have
+leisure to return to pursuits more congenial to your mind, and to move
+more easily and pleasantly among your friends. In the long catalogue of
+the latter, I believe that there is not one prouder of the name, or more
+grateful for the store of delightful recollections you have enabled him
+to heap up from boyhood, than,
+
+                                 My dear Macready,
+                                              Yours always faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                        NEW LONDON INN, EXETER,
+                                 _Wednesday Morning, March 6th, 1839._
+
+DEAR TOM,
+
+Perhaps you have heard from Kate that I succeeded yesterday in the very
+first walk, and took a cottage at a place called Alphington, one mile
+from Exeter, which contains, on the ground-floor, a good parlour and
+kitchen, and above, a full-sized country drawing-room and three
+bedrooms; in the yard behind, coal-holes, fowl-houses, and meat-safes
+out of number; in the kitchen, a neat little range; in the other rooms,
+good stoves and cupboards; and all for twenty pounds a year, taxes
+included. There is a good garden at the side well stocked with cabbages,
+beans, onions, celery, and some flowers. The stock belonging to the
+landlady (who lives in the adjoining cottage), there was some question
+whether she was not entitled to half the produce, but I settled the
+point by paying five shillings, and becoming absolute master of the
+whole!
+
+I do assure you that I am charmed with the place and the beauty of the
+country round about, though I have not seen it under very favourable
+circumstances, for it snowed when I was there this morning, and blew
+bitterly from the east yesterday. It is really delightful, and when the
+house is to rights and the furniture all in, I shall be quite sorry to
+leave it. I have had some few things second-hand, but I take it seventy
+pounds will be the mark, even taking this into consideration. I include
+in that estimate glass and crockery, garden tools, and such like little
+things. There is a spare bedroom of course. That I have furnished too.
+
+I am on terms of the closest intimacy with Mrs. Samuell, the landlady,
+and her brother and sister-in-law, who have a little farm hard by. They
+are capital specimens of country folks, and I really think the old woman
+herself will be a great comfort to my mother. Coals are dear just
+now--twenty-six shillings a ton. They found me a boy to go two miles out
+and back again to order some this morning. I was debating in my mind
+whether I should give him eighteenpence or two shillings, when his fee
+was announced--twopence!
+
+The house is on the high road to Plymouth, and, though in the very heart
+of Devonshire, there is as much long-stage and posting life as you would
+find in Piccadilly. The situation is charming. Meadows in front, an
+orchard running parallel to the garden hedge, richly-wooded hills
+closing in the prospect behind, and, away to the left, before a splendid
+view of the hill on which Exeter is situated, the cathedral towers
+rising up into the sky in the most picturesque manner possible. I don't
+think I ever saw so cheerful or pleasant a spot. The drawing-room is
+nearly, if not quite, as large as the outer room of my old chambers in
+Furnival's Inn. The paint and paper are new, and the place clean as the
+utmost excess of snowy cleanliness can be.
+
+You would laugh if you could see me powdering away with the upholsterer,
+and endeavouring to bring about all sorts of impracticable reductions
+and wonderful arrangements. He has by him two second-hand carpets; the
+important ceremony of trying the same comes off at three this afternoon.
+I am perpetually going backwards and forwards. It is two miles from
+here, so I have plenty of exercise, which so occupies me and prevents my
+being lonely that I stopped at home to read last night, and shall
+to-night, although the theatre is open. Charles Kean has been the star
+for the last two evenings. He was stopping in this house, and went away
+this morning. I have got his sitting-room now, which is smaller and more
+comfortable than the one I had before.
+
+You will have heard perhaps that I wrote to my mother to come down
+to-morrow. There are so many things she can make comfortable at a much
+less expense than I could, that I thought it best. If I had not, I could
+not have returned on Monday, which I now hope to do, and to be in town
+at half-past eight.
+
+Will you tell my father that if he could devise any means of bringing
+him down, I think it would be a great thing for him to have Dash, if it
+be only to keep down the trampers and beggars. The cheque I send you
+below.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          ELM COTTAGE, PETERSHAM, _Wednesday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+Why is "Peveril" lingering on my dusty shelves in town, while my fair
+cousin and your fair bride remains in blissful ignorance of his merits?
+There he is, I grieve to say, but there he shall not be long, for I
+shall be visiting my other home on Saturday morning, and will bring him
+bodily down and forward him the moment he arrives.
+
+Not having many of my books here, I don't find any among them which I
+think more suitable to your purpose than a carpet-bagful sent herewith,
+containing the Italian and German novelists (convenient as being easily
+taken up and laid down again; and I suppose you won't read long at a
+sitting), Leigh Hunt's "Indicator" and "Companion" (which have the same
+merit), "Hood's Own" (complete), "A Legend of Montrose," and
+"Kenilworth," which I have just been reading with greater delight than
+ever, and so I suppose everybody else must be equally interested in. I
+have Goldsmith, Swift, Fielding, Smollett, and the British Essayists
+"handy;" and I need not say that you have them on hand too, if you like.
+
+You know all I would say from my heart and soul on the auspicious event
+of yesterday; but you don't know what I could say about the delightful
+recollections I have of your "good lady's" charming looks and bearing,
+upon which I discoursed most eloquently here last evening, and at
+considerable length. As I am crippled in this respect, however, by the
+suspicion that possibly she may be looking over your shoulder while you
+read this note (I would lay a moderate wager that you have looked round
+twice or thrice already), I shall content myself with saying that I am
+ever heartily, my dear Cattermole,
+
+                                                       Hers and yours.
+
+P.S.--My man (who with his charge is your man while you stay here) waits
+to know if you have any orders for him.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. P. Harley.]
+
+                        ELM COTTAGE, PETERSHAM, NEAR RICHMOND,
+                                                    _June 28th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR HARLEY,
+
+I have "left my home," and been here ever since the end of April, and
+shall remain here most probably until the end of September, which is the
+reason that we have been such strangers of late.
+
+I am very sorry that I cannot dine with you on Sunday, but some people
+are coming here, and I cannot get away. Better luck next time, I hope.
+
+I was on the point of writing to you when your note came, to ask you if
+you would come down here next Saturday--to-morrow week, I mean--and stop
+till Monday. I will either call for you at the theatre, at any time you
+name, or send for you, "punctual," and have you brought down. Can you
+come if it's fine? Say yes, like a good fellow as you are, and say it
+per post.
+
+I have countermanded that face. Maclise has made another face of me,
+which all people say is astonishing. The engraving will be ready soon,
+and I would rather you had that, as I am sure you would if you had seen
+it.
+
+In great haste to save the post, I am, my dear Harley,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Longman.]
+
+                                     DOUGHTY STREET, _Monday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+On Friday I have a family dinner at home--uncles, aunts, brothers,
+sisters, cousins--an annual gathering.
+
+By what fatality is it that you always ask me to dine on the wrong day?
+
+While you are tracing this non-consequence to its cause, I wish you
+would tell Mr. Sydney Smith that of all the men I ever heard of and
+never saw, I have the greatest curiosity to see and the greatest
+interest to know him.
+
+Begging my best compliments at home,
+
+                                          I am, my dear Sir,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                         PETERSHAM, _July 26th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+Fix your visit for whenever you please. It can never give us anything
+but delight to see you, and it is better to look forward to such a
+pleasure than to look back upon it, as the last gratification is
+enjoyable all our lives, and the first for a few short stages in the
+journey.
+
+I feel more true and cordial pleasure than I can express to you in the
+request you have made. Anything which can serve to commemorate our
+friendship and to keep the recollection of it alive among our children
+is, believe me, and ever will be, most deeply prized by me. I accept the
+office with hearty and fervent satisfaction; and, to render this
+pleasant bond between us the more complete, I must solicit you to become
+godfather to the last and final branch of a genteel small family of
+three which I am told may be looked for in that auspicious month when
+Lord Mayors are born and guys prevail. This I look upon as a bargain
+between us, and I have shaken hands with you in spirit upon it. Family
+topics remind me of Mr. Kenwigs. As the weather is wet, and he is about
+to make his last appearance on my little stage, I send Mrs. Macready an
+early proof of the next number, containing an account of his baby's
+progress.
+
+I am going to send you something else on Monday--a tragedy. Don't be
+alarmed. I didn't write it, nor do I want it acted. A young Scotch lady
+whom I don't know (but she is evidently very intelligent and
+accomplished) has sent me a translation of a German play, soliciting my
+aid and advice in the matter of its publication. Among a crowd of
+Germanisms, there are many things in it which are so very striking, that
+I am sure it will amuse you very much. At least I think it will; it has
+me. I am going to send it back to her--when I come to Elstree will be
+time enough; and meantime, if you bestow a couple of hours upon it, you
+will not think them thrown away.
+
+It's a large parcel, and I must keep it here till somebody goes up to
+town and can book it by the coach. I warrant it, large as it looks,
+readable in two hours; and I very much want to know what you think of
+the first act, and especially the opening, which seems to me quite
+famous. The metre is very odd and rough, but now and then there's a
+wildness in it which helps the thing very much; and altogether it has
+left a something on my mind which I can't get rid of.
+
+Mrs. Dickens joins with me in kindest regards to yourself, Mrs., and
+Miss Macready. And I am always,
+
+                                     My dear Macready,
+                                           Faithfully and truly yours.
+
+P.S.--A dreadful thought has just occurred to me--that this is a
+quadruple letter, and that Elstree may not be within the twopenny post.
+Pray Heaven my fears are unfounded.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+
+                        40, ALBION STREET, BROADSTAIRS,
+                                               _September 21st, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I am so anxious to prefer a request to you which does not admit of delay
+that I send you a double letter, with the one redeeming point though of
+having very little in it.
+
+Let me prefix to the last number of "Nickleby," and to the book, a
+duplicate of the leaf which I now send you. Believe me that there will
+be no leaf in the volume which will afford me in times to come more true
+pleasure and gratification, than that in which I have written your name
+as foremost among those of the friends whom I love and honour. Believe
+me, there will be no one line in it conveying a more honest truth or a
+more sincere feeling than that which describes its dedication to you as
+a slight token of my admiration and regard.
+
+So let me tell the world by this frail record that I was a friend of
+yours, and interested to no ordinary extent in your proceedings at that
+interesting time when you showed them such noble truths in such noble
+forms, and gave me a new interest in, and associations with, the labours
+of so many months.
+
+I write to you very hastily and crudely, for I have been very hard at
+work, having only finished to-day, and my head spins yet. But you know
+what I mean. I am then always,
+
+                        Believe me, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--(Proof of Dedication enclosed): "To W. C. Macready, Esq., the
+following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and
+regard, by his friend, the Author."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                      DOUGHTY STREET, _Friday Night, Oct. 25th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+The book, the whole book, and nothing but the book (except the binding,
+which is an important item), has arrived at last, and is forwarded
+herewith. The red represents my blushes at its gorgeous dress; the
+gilding, all those bright professions which I do not make to you; and
+the book itself, my whole heart for twenty months, which should be yours
+for so short a term, as you have it always.
+
+With best regards to Mrs. and Miss Macready, always believe me,
+
+                                     My dear Macready,
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                          DOUGHTY STREET, _Thursday, Nov. 14th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+Tom Landseer--that is, the deaf one, whom everybody quite loves for his
+sweet nature under a most deplorable infirmity--Tom Landseer asked me if
+I would present to you from him the accompanying engraving, which he has
+executed from a picture by his brother Edwin; submitting it to you as a
+little tribute from an unknown but ardent admirer of your genius, which
+speaks to his heart, although it does not find its way there through his
+ears. I readily undertook the task, and send it herewith.
+
+I urged him to call upon you with me and proffer it boldly; but he is a
+very modest and delicately-minded creature, and was shy of intruding. If
+you thank him through me, perhaps you will say something about my
+bringing him to call, and so gladden the gentle artist and make him
+happy.
+
+You must come and see my new house when we have it to rights. By
+Christmas Day we shall be, I hope, your neighbours.
+
+Kate progresses splendidly, and, with me, sends her best remembrances to
+Mrs. Macready and all your house.
+
+                                     Ever believe me,
+                                              Dear Macready,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+1840.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn
+months. During all this year he was busily engaged with the periodical
+entitled "Master Humphrey's Clock," in which the story of "The Old
+Curiosity Shop" subsequently appeared. Nearly all these letters to Mr.
+George Cattermole refer to the illustrations for this story.
+
+The one dated March 9th alludes to short papers written for "Master
+Humphrey's Clock" prior to the commencement of "The Old Curiosity Shop."
+
+We have in this year Charles Dickens's first letter to Mr. Daniel
+Maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately, the only letters we
+have been able to obtain addressed to this much-loved friend and most
+intimate companion.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                 1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
+                                         _Monday, January 13th, 1840._
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you. My now periodical
+work appears--or I should rather say the first number does--on Saturday,
+the 28th of March; and as it has to be sent to America and Germany, and
+must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand; I having
+in fact begun it on Saturday last. Instead of being published in monthly
+parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at
+threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle
+the imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new one--I
+mean the plan of the fiction--and it will comprehend a great variety of
+tales. The title is: "Master Humphrey's Clock."
+
+Now, among other improvements, I have turned my attention to the
+illustrations, meaning to have woodcuts dropped into the text and no
+separate plates. I want to know whether you would object to make me a
+little sketch for a woodcut--in indian-ink would be quite
+sufficient--about the size of the enclosed scrap; the subject, an old
+quaint room with antique Elizabethan furniture, and in the
+chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock--the clock belonging to Master
+Humphrey, in fact, and no figures. This I should drop into the text at
+the head of my opening page.
+
+I want to know besides--as Chapman and Hall are my partners in the
+matter, there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the
+question--what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if
+the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at
+regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms? I should tell you that I
+intend to ask Maclise to join me likewise, and that the copying the
+drawing on wood and the cutting will be done in first-rate style. We are
+justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be
+enormous, and the popularity very great; and when I explain to you the
+notes I have in my head, I think you will see that it opens a vast
+number of very good subjects.
+
+I want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your
+own time and place--either here or at your house or at the Athenæum,
+though this would be the best place, because I have my papers about me.
+If you would take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday,
+I could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit I
+have endeavoured to make this as businesslike and stupid as need be.
+
+Of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound
+secret, or there would be fifty Humphreys in the field. So write me a
+line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your
+worthy lady.
+
+                            Believe me always, my dear Cattermole,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Afternoon._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I think the drawing most famous, and so do the publishers, to whom I
+sent it to-day. If Browne should suggest anything for the future which
+may enable him to do you justice in copying (on which point he is very
+anxious), I will communicate it to you. It has occurred to me that
+perhaps you will like to see his copy on the block before it is cut, and
+I have therefore told Chapman and Hall to forward it to you.
+
+In future, I will take care that you have the number to choose your
+subject from. I ought to have done so, perhaps, in this case; but I was
+very anxious that you should do the room.
+
+Perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as enclosed,
+regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with the publishers, they
+will be happy to enter upon it when, where, and how you please.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                   1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
+                                            _Monday, March 9th, 1840._
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I have been induced, on looking over the works of the "Clock," to make a
+slight alteration in their disposal, by virtue of which the story about
+"John Podgers" will stand over for some little time, and that short tale
+will occupy its place which you have already by you, and which treats of
+the assassination of a young gentleman under circumstances of peculiar
+aggravation. I shall be greatly obliged to you if you will turn your
+attention to this last morsel as the feature of No. 3, and still more if
+you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last
+importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one
+in it. I would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you
+about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which I feel very strongly,
+and into the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no part.
+
+I should tell you perhaps, with reference to Chapman and Hall, that they
+will never trouble you (as they never trouble me) but when there is real
+and pressing occasion, and that their representations in this respect,
+unlike those of most men of business, are to be relied upon.
+
+I cannot tell you how admirably I think Master Humphrey's room comes
+out, or what glowing accounts I hear of the second design you have done.
+I had not the faintest anticipation of anything so good--taking into
+account the material and the despatch.
+
+              With best regards at home,
+                               Believe me, dear Cattermole,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+P.S.--The new (No. 3) tale begins: "I hold a lieutenant's commission in
+his Majesty's army, and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and
+1678." It has at present no title.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. S. A. Diezman.]
+
+            1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                           LONDON, _10th March, 1840._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I will not attempt to tell you how much gratified I have been by the
+receipt of your first English letter; nor can I describe to you with
+what delight and gratification I learn that I am held in such high
+esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is
+flattering indeed.
+
+To you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, I fear, very
+irksome) task of clothing me in the German garb, I owe a long arrear of
+thanks. I wish you would come to England, and afford me an opportunity
+of slightly reducing the account.
+
+It is with great regret that I have to inform you, in reply to the
+request contained in your pleasant communication, that my publishers
+have already made such arrangements and are in possession of such
+stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that I have
+no power to send them out of England. If I had, I need not tell you what
+pleasure it would afford me to promote your views.
+
+I am too sensible of the trouble you must have already had with my
+writings to impose upon you now a long letter. I will only add,
+therefore, that I am,
+
+                                    My dear Sir,
+                                          With great sincerity,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Daniel Maclise.]
+
+                                        BROADSTAIRS, _June 2nd, 1840._
+
+MY DEAR MACLISE,
+
+        My foot is in the house,
+          My bath is on the sea,
+        And, before I take a souse,
+          Here's a single note to thee.
+
+It merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary sublimity;
+that this place is, as the Guide Book most justly observes, "unsurpassed
+for the salubrity of the refreshing breezes, which are wafted on the
+ocean's pinions from far-distant shores." That we are all right after
+the perils and voyages of yesterday. That the sea is rolling away in
+front of the window at which I indite this epistle, and that everything
+is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a splendid coast can make
+it. Bear these recommendations in mind, and shunning Talfourdian
+pledges, come to the bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair
+front, where no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and
+where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs off, and then
+they keep open and won't shut again.
+
+                                 COME!
+
+I can no more.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                  DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 21st._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Kit, the single gentleman, and Mr. Garland go down to the place where
+the child is, and arrive there at night. There has been a fall of snow.
+Kit, leaving them behind, runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in
+one hand and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a
+little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to make his
+presence known. In a window--supposed to be that of the child's little
+room--a light is burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of
+course, to her visitors, who are full of hope) lies dead.
+
+If you have any difficulty about Kit, never mind about putting him in.
+
+The two others to-morrow.
+
+                                                    Faithfully always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I sent the MS. of the enclosed proof, marked 2, up to Chapman and Hall,
+from Devonshire, mentioning a subject of an old gateway, which I had put
+in expressly with a view to your illustrious pencil. By a mistake,
+however, it went to Browne instead. Chapman is out of town, and such
+things have gone wrong in consequence.
+
+The subject to which I wish to call your attention is in an unwritten
+number to follow this one, but it is a mere echo of what you will find
+at the conclusion of this proof marked 2. I want the cart, gaily
+decorated, going through the street of the old town with the wax brigand
+displayed to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also
+dispersing bills. As many flags and inscriptions about Jarley's Wax Work
+fluttering from the cart as you please. You know the wax brigands, and
+how they contemplate small oval miniatures? That's the figure I want. I
+send you the scrap of MS. which contains the subject.
+
+Will you, when you have done this, send it with all speed to Chapman and
+Hall, as we are mortally pressed for time, and I must go hard to work to
+make up for what I have lost by being dutiful and going to see my
+father.
+
+I want to see you about a frontispiece to our first "Clock" volume,
+which will come out (I think) at the end of September, and about other
+matters. When shall we meet and where?
+
+I say nothing about our cousin or the baby, for Kate bears this, and
+will make me a full report and convey all loves and congratulations.
+
+Could you dine with us on Sunday, at six o'clock sharp? I'd come and
+fetch you in the morning, and we could take a ride and walk. We shall be
+quite alone, unless Macready comes. What say you?
+
+Don't forget despatch, there's a dear fellow, and ever believe me,
+
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                                _December 22nd, 1840._
+
+DEAR GEORGE,
+
+The child lying dead in the little sleeping-room, which is behind the
+open screen. It is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her
+breast and pillow, and about her bed, there may be strips of holly and
+berries, and such free green things. Window overgrown with ivy. The
+little boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by the
+bedside, if you like it so; but I think it will be quieter and more
+peaceful if she is quite alone. I want it to express the most beautiful
+repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death
+can.
+
+
+2.
+
+The child has been buried inside the church, and the old man, who cannot
+be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave and sits
+there all day long, waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey.
+His staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie beside
+him. "She'll come to-morrow," he says when it gets dark, and goes
+sorrowfully home. I think an hourglass running out would help the
+notion; perhaps her little things upon his knee, or in his hand.
+
+I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.
+
+Love to Missis.
+
+                                             Ever and always heartily.
+
+
+
+
+1841.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the summer of this year Charles Dickens made, accompanied by Mrs.
+Dickens, his first visit to Scotland, and was received in Edinburgh with
+the greatest enthusiasm.
+
+He was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn, and at the close
+of the year he went to Windsor for change of air after a serious
+illness.
+
+On the 17th January "The Old Curiosity Shop" was finished. In the
+following week the first number of his story of "Barnaby Rudge"
+appeared, in "Master Humphrey's Clock," and the last number of this
+story was written at Windsor, in November of this year.
+
+We have the first letters to his dear and valued friends the Rev.
+William Harness and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. Also his first letter to Mr.
+Monckton Milnes (now Lord Houghton).
+
+Of the letter to Mr. John Tomlin we would only remark, that it was
+published in an American magazine, edited by Mr. E. A. Poe, in the year
+1842.
+
+"The New First Rate" (first letter to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth) must, we
+think, be an allusion to the outside cover of "Bentley's Miscellany,"
+which first appeared in this year, and of which Mr. Ainsworth was
+editor.
+
+The two letters to Mr. Lovejoy are in answer to a requisition from the
+people of Reading that he would represent them in Parliament.
+
+The letter to Mr. George Cattermole (26th June) refers to a dinner given
+to Charles Dickens by the people of Edinburgh, on his first visit to
+that city.
+
+The "poor Overs," mentioned in the letter to Mr. Macready of 24th
+August, was a carpenter dying of consumption, to whom Dr. Elliotson had
+shown extraordinary kindness. "When poor Overs was dying" (wrote Charles
+Dickens to Mr. Forster), "he suddenly asked for a pen and ink and some
+paper, and made up a little parcel for me, which it was his last
+conscious act to direct. She (his wife) told me this, and gave it me. I
+opened it last night. It was a copy of his little book, in which he had
+written my name, 'with his devotion.' I thought it simple and affecting
+of the poor fellow."
+
+"The Saloon," alluded to in our last letter of this year, was an
+institution at Drury Lane Theatre during Mr. Macready's management. The
+original purpose for which this saloon was established having become
+perverted and degraded, Charles Dickens had it much at heart to remodel
+and improve it. Hence this letter to Mr. Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. William Harness.]
+
+               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday Morning, Jan. 2nd, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR HARNESS,
+
+I should have been very glad to join your pleasant party, but all next
+week I shall be laid up with a broken heart, for I must occupy myself in
+finishing the "Curiosity Shop," and it is such a painful task to me that
+I must concentrate myself upon it tooth and nail, and go out nowhere
+until it is done.
+
+I have delayed answering your kind note in a vague hope of being
+heart-whole again by the seventh. The present state of my work, however
+(Christmas not being a very favourable season for making progress in
+such doings), assures me that this cannot be, and that I must heroically
+deny myself the pleasure you offer.
+
+                                      Always believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, Jan. 14th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you for altering the child,
+or how much I hope that my wish in that respect didn't go greatly
+against the grain.
+
+I saw the old inn this morning. Words cannot say how good it is. I can't
+bear the thought of its being cut, and should like to frame and glaze it
+in _statu quo_ for ever and ever.
+
+Will you do a little tail-piece for the "Curiosity" story?--only one
+figure if you like--giving some notion of the etherealised spirit of the
+child; something like those little figures in the frontispiece. If you
+will, and can despatch it at once, you will make me happy.
+
+I am, for the time being, nearly dead with work and grief for the loss
+of my child.
+
+                                    Always, my dear George,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday Night, Jan. 28th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+I sent to Chapman and Hall yesterday morning about the second subject
+for No. 2 of "Barnaby," but found they had sent it to Browne.
+
+The first subject of No. 3 I will either send to you on Saturday, or,
+at latest, on Sunday morning. I have also directed Chapman and Hall to
+send you proofs of what has gone before, for reference, if you need it.
+
+I want to know whether you feel ravens in general and would fancy
+Barnaby's raven in particular. Barnaby being an idiot, my notion is to
+have him always in company with a pet raven, who is immeasurably more
+knowing than himself. To this end I have been studying my bird, and
+think I could make a very queer character of him. Should you like the
+subject when this raven makes his first appearance?
+
+                                                     Faithfully always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday Evening, Jan. 30th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+I send you the first four slips of No. 48, containing the description of
+the locksmith's house, which I think will make a good subject, and one
+you will like. If you put the "'prentice" in it, show nothing more than
+his paper cap, because he will be an important character in the story,
+and you will need to know more about him as he is minutely described. I
+may as well say that he is very short. Should you wish to put the
+locksmith in, you will find him described in No. 2 of "Barnaby" (which I
+told Chapman and Hall to send you). Browne has done him in one little
+thing, but so very slightly that you will not require to see his sketch,
+I think.
+
+Now, I must know what you think about the raven, my buck; I otherwise am
+in this fix. I have given Browne no subject for this number, and time is
+flying. If you would like to have the raven's first appearance, and
+don't object to having both subjects, so be it. I shall be delighted.
+If otherwise, I must feed that hero forthwith.
+
+I cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, without saying that I
+have deeply felt your hearty and most invaluable co-operation in the
+beautiful illustrations you have made for the last story, that I look at
+them with a pleasure I cannot describe to you in words, and that it is
+impossible for me to say how sensible I am of your earnest and friendly
+aid. Believe me that this is the very first time any designs for what I
+have written have touched and moved me, and caused me to feel that they
+expressed the idea I had in my mind.
+
+I am most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you, and am full of
+pleasure and delight.
+
+                            Believe me, my dear Cattermole,
+                                                Always heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Tomlin.]
+
+             1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                   LONDON, _Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1841._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+You are quite right in feeling assured that I should answer the letter
+you have addressed to me. If you had entertained a presentiment that it
+would afford me sincere pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted
+and admiring reader of my books in the backwoods of America, you would
+not have been far wrong.
+
+I thank you cordially and heartily both for your letter and its kind and
+courteous terms. To think that I have awakened a fellow-feeling and
+sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours among the vast
+solitudes in which you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and
+pride to me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate
+remembrance and approval, sounding from the green forests on the banks
+of the Mississippi, sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than
+all the honorary distinctions that all the courts in Europe could
+confer.
+
+It is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in vain,
+and that are the highest reward of an author's life. To be numbered
+among the household gods of one's distant countrymen, and associated
+with their homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each nook and
+corner of the world's great mass there lives one well-wisher who holds
+communion with one in the spirit, is a worthy fame indeed, and one which
+I would not barter for a mine of wealth.
+
+That I may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours for a
+very long time to come, and to hold a place in your pleasant thoughts,
+is the earnest wish of "Boz."
+
+And, with all good wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation
+of all your kindly feeling,
+
+                                          I am, dear Sir,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. R. Monckton Milnes]
+
+                    DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday, March 10th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MILNES,
+
+I thank you very much for the "Nickleby" correspondence, which I will
+keep for a day or two, and return when I see you. Poor fellow! The long
+letter is quite admirable, and most affecting.
+
+I am not quite sure either of Friday or Saturday, for, independently of
+the "Clock" (which for ever wants winding), I am getting a young brother
+off to New Zealand just now, and have my mornings sadly cut up in
+consequence. But, knowing your ways, I know I may say that I will come
+if I can; and that if I can't I won't.
+
+That Nellicide was the act of Heaven, as you may see any of these fine
+mornings when you look about you. If you knew the pain it gave me--but
+what am I talking of? if you don't know, nobody does. I am glad to shake
+you by the hand again autographically,
+
+                                         And am always,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, February 9th._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+My notes tread upon each other's heels. In my last I quite forgot
+business.
+
+Will you, for No. 49, do the locksmith's house, which was described in
+No. 48? I mean the outside. If you can, without hurting the effect, shut
+up the shop as though it were night, so much the better. Should you want
+a figure, an ancient watchman in or out of his box, very sleepy, will be
+just the thing for me.
+
+I have written to Chapman and requested him to send you a block of a
+long shape, so that the house may come upright as it were.
+
+                                                     Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                          OLD SHIP HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Feb. 26th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR KITTENMOLES,
+
+I passed your house on Wednesday, being then atop of the Brighton Era;
+but there was nobody at the door, saving a solitary poulterer, and all
+my warm-hearted aspirations lodged in the goods he was delivering. No
+doubt you observed a peculiar relish in your dinner. That was the
+cause.
+
+I send you the MS. I fear you will have to read all the five slips; but
+the subject I think of is at the top of the last, when the guest, with
+his back towards the spectator, is looking out of window. I think, in
+your hands, it will be a very pretty one.
+
+Then, my boy, when you have done it, turn your thoughts (as soon as
+other engagements will allow) first to the outside of The Warren--see
+No. 1; secondly, to the outside of the locksmith's house, by night--see
+No. 3. Put a penny pistol to Chapman's head and demand the blocks of
+him.
+
+I have addled my head with writing all day, and have barely wit enough
+left to send my love to my cousin, and--there's a genealogical
+poser--what relation of mine may the dear little child be? At present, I
+desire to be commended to her clear blue eyes.
+
+                                  Always, my dear George,
+                                                Faithfully yours,
+                                                            [HW: Boz.]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _April 29th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR AINSWORTH,
+
+With all imaginable pleasure. I quite look forward to the day. It is an
+age since we met, and it ought not to be.
+
+The artist has just sent home your "Nickleby." He suggested variety,
+pleading his fancy and genius. As an artful binder must have his way, I
+put the best face on the matter, and gave him his. I will bring it
+together with the "Pickwick" to your house-warming with me.
+
+The old _Royal George_ went down in consequence of having too much
+weight on one side. I trust the new "First Rate" won't be heavy
+anywhere. There seems to me to be too much whisker for a shilling, but
+that's a matter of taste.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. G. Lovejoy.]
+
+               1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                     _Monday Evening, May 31st, 1841._
+
+SIR,
+
+I am much obliged and flattered by the receipt of your letter, which I
+should have answered immediately on its arrival but for my absence from
+home at the moment.
+
+My principles and inclinations would lead me to aspire to the
+distinction you invite me to seek, if there were any reasonable chance
+of success, and I hope I should do no discredit to such an honour if I
+won and wore it. But I am bound to add, and I have no hesitation in
+saying plainly, that I cannot afford the expense of a contested
+election. If I could, I would act on your suggestion instantly. I am not
+the less indebted to you and the friends to whom the thought occurred,
+for your good opinion and approval. I beg you to understand that I am
+restrained solely (and much against my will) by the consideration I have
+mentioned, and thank both you and them most warmly.
+
+                                                     Yours faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 10th, 1841._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I am favoured with your note of yesterday's date, and lose no time in
+replying to it.
+
+The sum you mention, though small I am aware in the abstract, is greater
+than I could afford for such a purpose; as the mere sitting in the House
+and attending to my duties, if I were a member, would oblige me to make
+many pecuniary sacrifices, consequent upon the very nature of my
+pursuits.
+
+The course you suggest did occur to me when I received your first
+letter, and I have very little doubt indeed that the Government would
+support me--perhaps to the whole extent. But I cannot satisfy myself
+that to enter Parliament under such circumstances would enable me to
+pursue that honourable independence without which I could neither
+preserve my own respect nor that of my constituents. I confess therefore
+(it may be from not having considered the points sufficiently, or in the
+right light) that I cannot bring myself to propound the subject to any
+member of the administration whom I know. I am truly obliged to you
+nevertheless, and am,
+
+                                               Dear Sir,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday Evening, July 28th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Can you do for me by Saturday evening--I know the time is short, but I
+think the subject will suit you, and I am greatly pressed--a party of
+rioters (with Hugh and Simon Tappertit conspicuous among them) in old
+John Willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage,
+smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on
+casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese,
+smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; John Willet, fallen backward in his
+chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them,
+with none of The Maypole customers at his back.
+
+It's in your way, and you'll do it a hundred times better than I can
+suggest it to you, I know.
+
+                                                     Faithfully always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                              BROADSTAIRS, _Friday, August 6th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Here is a subject for the next number; the next to that I hope to send
+you the MS. of very early in the week, as the best opportunities of
+illustration are all coming off now, and we are in the thick of the
+story.
+
+The rioters went, sir, from John Willet's bar (where you saw them to
+such good purpose) straight to The Warren, which house they plundered,
+sacked, burned, pulled down as much of as they could, and greatly
+damaged and destroyed. They are supposed to have left it about half an
+hour. It is night, and the ruins are here and there flaming and smoking.
+I want--if you understand--to show one of the turrets laid open--the
+turret where the alarm-bell is, mentioned in No. 1; and among the ruins
+(at some height if possible) Mr. Haredale just clutching our friend, the
+mysterious file, who is passing over them like a spirit; Solomon Daisy,
+if you can introduce him, looking on from the ground below.
+
+Please to observe that the M. F. wears a large cloak and a slouched hat.
+This is important, because Browne will have him in the same number, and
+he has not changed his dress meanwhile. Mr. Haredale is supposed to have
+come down here on horseback, pell-mell; to be excited to the last
+degree. I think it will make a queer picturesque thing in your hands. I
+have told Chapman and Hall that you may like to have a block of a
+peculiar shape for it. One of them will be with you almost as soon as
+you receive this.
+
+We are very anxious to know that our cousin is out of her trouble, and
+you free from your anxiety. Mind you write when it comes off. And when
+she is quite comfortable come down here for a day or two, like a
+bachelor, as you will be. It will do you a world of good. Think of that.
+
+                                      Always, dear Cattermole,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+P.S.--When you have done the subject, I wish you'd write me one line and
+tell me how, that I may be sure we agree. Loves from Kate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, August 13th._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+Will you turn your attention to a frontispiece for our first volume, to
+come upon the left-hand side of the book as you open it, and to face a
+plain printed title? My idea is, some scene from the "Curiosity Shop,"
+in a pretty border, or scroll-work, or architectural device; it matters
+not what, so that it be pretty. The scene even might be a fanciful
+thing, partaking of the character of the story, but not reproducing any
+particular passage in it, if you thought that better for the effect.
+
+I ask you to think of this, because, although the volume is not
+published until the end of September, there is no time to lose. We wish
+to have it engraved with great care, and worked very skilfully; and this
+cannot be done unless we get it on the stocks soon.
+
+They will give you every opportunity of correction, alteration,
+revision, and all other ations and isions connected with the fine arts.
+
+                                         Always believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                     BROADSTAIRS, _August 19th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+When Hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from The Warren
+beckoned to their pals, they forced into a very remarkable postchaise
+Dolly Varden and Emma Haredale, and bore them away with all possible
+rapidity; one of their company driving, and the rest running beside the
+chaise, climbing up behind, sitting on the top, lighting the way with
+their torches, etc. etc. If you can express the women inside without
+showing them--as by a fluttering veil, a delicate arm, or so forth
+appearing at the half-closed window--so much the better. Mr. Tappertit
+stands on the steps, which are partly down, and, hanging on to the
+window with one hand and extending the other with great majesty,
+addresses a few words of encouragement to the driver and attendants.
+Hugh sits upon the bar in front; the driver sitting postilion-wise, and
+turns round to look through the window behind him at the little doves
+within. The gentlemen behind are also anxious to catch a glimpse of the
+ladies. One of those who are running at the side may be gently rebuked
+for his curiosity by the cudgel of Hugh. So they cut away, sir, as fast
+as they can.
+
+                                                    Always faithfully.
+
+P.S.--John Willet's bar is noble.
+
+We take it for granted that cousin and baby are hearty. Our loves to
+them.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                            BROADSTAIRS, _Tuesday, August 24th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I must thank you, most heartily and cordially, for your kind note
+relative to poor Overs. I can't tell you how glad I am to know that he
+thoroughly deserves such kindness.
+
+What a good fellow Elliotson is. He kept him in his room a whole hour,
+and has gone into his case as if he were Prince Albert; laying down all
+manner of elaborate projects and determining to leave his friend Wood in
+town when he himself goes away, on purpose to attend to him. Then he
+writes me four sides of paper about the man, and says he can't go back
+to his old work, for that requires muscular exertion (and muscular
+exertion he mustn't make), what are we to do with him? He says: "Here's
+five pounds for the present."
+
+I declare before God that I could almost bear the Jones's for five years
+out of the pleasure I feel in knowing such things, and when I think that
+every dirty speck upon the fair face of the Almighty's creation, who
+writes in a filthy, beastly newspaper; every rotten-hearted pander who
+has been beaten, kicked, and rolled in the kennel, yet struts it in the
+editorial "We," once a week; every vagabond that an honest man's gorge
+must rise at; every live emetic in that noxious drug-shop the press, can
+have his fling at such men and call them knaves and fools and thieves, I
+grow so vicious that, with bearing hard upon my pen, I break the nib
+down, and, with keeping my teeth set, make my jaws ache.
+
+I have put myself out of sorts for the day, and shall go and walk,
+unless the direction of this sets me up again. On second thoughts I
+think it will.
+
+                               Always, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 12th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Here is a business letter, written in a scramble just before post time,
+whereby I dispose of loves to cousin in a line.
+
+Firstly. Will you design, upon a block of wood, Lord George Gordon,
+alone and very solitary, in his prison in the Tower? The chamber as
+ancient as you please, and after your own fancy; the time, evening; the
+season, summer.
+
+Secondly. Will you ditto upon a ditto, a sword duel between Mr. Haredale
+and Mr. Chester, in a grove of trees? No one close by. Mr. Haredale has
+just pierced his adversary, who has fallen, dying, on the grass. He
+(that is, Chester) tries to staunch the wound in his breast with his
+handkerchief; has his snuffbox on the earth beside him, and looks at Mr.
+Haredale (who stands with his sword in his hand, looking down on him)
+with most supercilious hatred, but polite to the last. Mr. Haredale is
+more sorry than triumphant.
+
+Thirdly. Will you conceive and execute, after your own fashion, a
+frontispiece for "Barnaby"?
+
+Fourthly. Will you also devise a subject representing "Master Humphrey's
+Clock" as stopped; his chair by the fireside, empty; his crutch against
+the wall; his slippers on the cold hearth; his hat upon the chair-back;
+the MSS. of "Barnaby" and "The Curiosity Shop" heaped upon the table;
+and the flowers you introduced in the first subject of all withered and
+dead? Master Humphrey being supposed to be no more.
+
+I have a fifthly, sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly; for I sorely want
+you, as I approach the close of the tale, but I won't frighten you, so
+we'll take breath.
+
+                                 Always, my dear Cattermole,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+P.S.--I have been waiting until I got to subjects of this nature,
+thinking you would like them best.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                  BROADSTAIRS, _September 21st, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Will you, before you go on with the other subjects I gave you, do one of
+Hugh, bareheaded, bound, tied on a horse, and escorted by horse-soldiers
+to jail? If you can add an indication of old Fleet Market, and bodies of
+foot soldiers firing at people who have taken refuge on the tops of
+stalls, bulk-heads, etc., it will be all the better.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Talfourd.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 16th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I should be delighted to come and dine with you on your birthday, and to
+be as merry as I wish you to be always; but as I am going, within a very
+few days afterwards, a very long distance from home, and shall not see
+any of my children for six long months, I have made up my mind to pass
+all that week at home for their sakes; just as you would like your papa
+and mamma to spend all the time they possibly could spare with you if
+they were about to make a dreary voyage to America; which is what I am
+going to do myself.
+
+But although I cannot come to see you on that day, you may be sure I
+shall not forget that it is your birthday, and that I shall drink your
+health and many happy returns, in a glass of wine, filled as full as it
+will hold. And I shall dine at half-past five myself, so that we may
+both be drinking our wine at the same time; and I shall tell my Mary
+(for I have got a daughter of that name but she is a very small one as
+yet) to drink your health too; and we shall try and make believe that
+you are here, or that we are in Russell Square, which is the best thing
+we can do, I think, under the circumstances.
+
+You are growing up so fast that by the time I come home again I expect
+you will be almost a woman; and in a very few years we shall be saying
+to each other: "Don't you remember what the birthdays used to be in
+Russell Square?" and "How strange it seems!" and "How quickly time
+passes!" and all that sort of thing, you know. But I shall always be
+very glad to be asked on your birthday, and to come if you will let me,
+and to send my love to you, and to wish that you may live to be very old
+and very happy, which I do now with all my heart.
+
+                              Believe me always,
+                                          My dear Mary,
+                                                 Yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, Dec. 28th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+This note is about the saloon. I make it as brief as possible. Read it
+when you have time. As we were the first experimentalists last night you
+will be glad to know what it wants.
+
+First, the refreshments are preposterously dear. A glass of wine is a
+shilling, and it ought to be sixpence.
+
+Secondly, they were served out by the wrong sort of people--two most
+uncomfortable drabs of women, and a dirty man with his hat on.
+
+Thirdly, there ought to be a box-keeper to ring a bell or give some
+other notice of the commencement of the overture to the after-piece. The
+promenaders were in a perpetual fret and worry to get back again.
+
+And fourthly, and most important of all--if the plan is ever to
+succeed--you must have some notice up to the effect that as it is now a
+place of resort for ladies, gentlemen are requested not to lounge there
+in their hats and greatcoats. No ladies will go there, though the
+conveniences should be ten thousand times greater, while the sort of
+swells who have been used to kick their heels there do so in the old
+sort of way. I saw this expressed last night more strongly than I can
+tell you.
+
+Hearty congratulations on the brilliant triumph. I have always expected
+one, as you know, but nobody could have imagined the reality.
+
+                                Always, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+
+
+1842.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In January of this year Charles Dickens went, with his wife, to America,
+the house in Devonshire Terrace being let for the term of their absence
+(six months), and the four children left in a furnished house in
+Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, under the care of Mr. and Mrs.
+Macready. They returned from America in July, and in August went to
+Broadstairs for the autumn months as usual, and in October Charles
+Dickens made an expedition to Cornwall, with Mr. Forster, Mr. Maclise,
+and Mr. Stanfield for his companions.
+
+During his stay at Broadstairs he was engaged in writing his "American
+Notes," which book was published in October. At the end of the year he
+had written the first number of "Martin Chuzzlewit," which appeared in
+January, 1843.
+
+An extract from a letter, addressed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall before
+his departure for America, is given as a testimony of the estimation in
+which Charles Dickens held the firm with whom he was connected for so
+many years.
+
+His letters to Mr. H. P. Smith, for many years actuary of the Eagle
+Insurance Office, are a combination of business and friendship. Mr.
+Smith gives us, as an explanation of a note to him, dated 14th July,
+that he alluded to the stamp of the office upon the cheque, which was,
+as he described it, "almost a work of art"--a truculent-looking eagle
+seated on a rock and scattering rays over the whole sheet.
+
+Of letters written by Charles Dickens in America we have been able to
+obtain very few. One, to Dr. F. H. Deane, Cincinnati, complying with his
+request to write him an epitaph for the tombstone of his little child,
+has been kindly copied for us from an album, by Mrs. Fields, of Boston.
+Therefore, it is not directly received, but as we have no doubt of its
+authenticity, we give it here; and there is one to Mr. Halleck, the
+American poet.
+
+At the close of the voyage to America (a very bad and dangerous one), a
+meeting of the passengers, with Lord Mulgrave in the chair, took place,
+and a piece of plate and thanks were voted to the captain of the
+_Britannia_, Captain Hewett. The vote of thanks, being drawn up by
+Charles Dickens, is given here. We have letters in this year to Mr.
+Thomas Hood, Miss Pardoe, Mrs. Trollope, and Mr. W. P. Frith. The
+last-named artist--then a very young man--had made great success with
+several charming pictures of Dolly Varden. One of these was bought by
+Charles Dickens, who ordered a companion picture of Kate Nickleby, from
+the young painter, whose acquaintance he made at the same time; and the
+two letters to Mr. Frith have reference to the purchase of the one
+picture and the commission for the other.
+
+The letter to Mr. Cattermole is an acknowledgment also of a completed
+commission of two water-colour drawings, from the subjects of two of Mr.
+Cattermole's illustrations to "The Old Curiosity Shop."
+
+A note to Mr. Macready, at the close of this year, refers to the first
+representation of Mr. Westland Marston's play, "The Patrician's
+Daughter." Charles Dickens took great interest in the production of this
+work at Drury Lane. It was, to a certain extent, an experiment of the
+effect of a tragedy of modern times and in modern dress; and the
+prologue, which Charles Dickens wrote and which we give, was intended to
+show that there need be no incongruity between plain clothes of this
+century and high tragedy. The play was quite successful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Messrs. Chapman and Hall.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having disposed of the business part of this letter, I should not feel
+at ease on leaving England if I did not tell you once more with my whole
+heart that your conduct to me on this and all other occasions has been
+honourable, manly, and generous, and that I have felt it a solemn duty,
+in the event of any accident happening to me while I am away, to place
+this testimony upon record. It forms part of a will I have made for the
+security of my children; for I wish them to know it when they are
+capable of understanding your worth and my appreciation of it.
+
+                                 Always believe me,
+                                           Faithfully and truly yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                   ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Jan. 3rd, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+This is a short note, but I will fulfil the adage and make it a merry
+one.
+
+We came down in great comfort. Our luggage is now aboard. Anything so
+utterly and monstrously absurd as the size of our cabin, no "gentleman
+of England who lives at home at ease" can for a moment imagine. Neither
+of the portmanteaus would go into it. There!
+
+These Cunard packets are not very big you know actually, but the
+quantity of sleeping-berths makes them much smaller, so that the saloon
+is not nearly as large as in one of the Ramsgate boats. The ladies'
+cabin is so close to ours that I could knock the door open without
+getting off something they call my bed, but which I believe to be a
+muffin beaten flat. This is a great comfort, for it is an excellent room
+(the only good one in the ship); and if there be only one other lady
+besides Kate, as the stewardess thinks, I hope I shall be able to sit
+there very often.
+
+They talk of seventy passengers, but I can't think there will be so
+many; they talk besides (which is even more to the purpose) of a very
+fine passage, having had a noble one this time last year. God send it
+so! We are in the best spirits, and full of hope. I was dashed for a
+moment when I saw our "cabin," but I got over that directly, and laughed
+so much at its ludicrous proportions, that you might have heard me all
+over the ship.
+
+God bless you! Write to me by the first opportunity. I will do the like
+to you. And always believe me,
+
+                                         Your old and faithful Friend.
+
+
+
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At a meeting of the passengers on board the _Britannia_ steam-ship,
+travelling from Liverpool to Boston, held in the saloon of that vessel,
+on Friday, the 21st January, 1842, it was moved and seconded:
+
+        "That the Earl of Mulgrave do take the chair."
+
+The motion having been carried unanimously, the Earl of Mulgrave took
+the chair accordingly.
+
+It was also moved and seconded, and carried unanimously:
+
+        "That Charles Dickens, Esq., be appointed
+        secretary and treasurer to the meeting."
+
+The three following resolutions were then proposed and carried _nem.
+con._:
+
+        "First. That, gratefully recognising the
+        blessing of Divine Providence by which we are
+        brought nearly to the termination of our
+        voyage, we have great pleasure in expressing
+        our high appreciation of Captain Hewett's
+        nautical skill and of his indefatigable
+        attention to the management and safe conduct of
+        the ship, during a more than ordinarily
+        tempestuous passage.
+
+        "Secondly. That a subscription be opened for
+        the purchase of a piece of silver plate, and
+        that Captain Hewett be respectfully requested
+        to accept it, as a sincere expression of the
+        sentiments embodied in the foregoing
+        resolution.
+
+        "Thirdly. That a committee be appointed to
+        carry these resolutions into effect; and that
+        the committee be composed of the following
+        gentlemen: Charles Dickens, Esq., E. Dunbar,
+        Esq., and Solomon Hopkins, Esq."
+
+The committee having withdrawn and conferred with Captain Hewett,
+returned, and informed the meeting that Captain Hewett desired to attend
+and express his thanks, which he did.
+
+The amount of the subscription was reported at fifty pounds, and the
+list was closed. It was then agreed that the following inscription
+should be placed upon the testimonial to Captain Hewett:
+
+                               THIS PIECE OF PLATE
+                                 was presented to
+                               CAPTAIN JOHN HEWETT,
+                            of the BRITANNIA Steam-ship,
+
+        By the Passengers on board that vessel in a voyage from Liverpool
+        to Boston, in the month of January, 1842,
+
+        As a slight acknowledgment of his great ability and skill
+        under circumstances of much difficulty and danger,
+        And as a feeble token of their lasting gratitude.
+
+Thanks were then voted to the chairman and to the secretary, and the
+meeting separated.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                          TREMONT HOUSE, BOSTON, _January 31st, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+I am so exhausted with the life I am obliged to lead here, that I have
+had time to write but one letter which is at all deserving of the name,
+as giving any account of our movements. Forster has it, in trust, to
+tell you all its news; and he has also some newspapers which I had an
+opportunity of sending him, in which you will find further particulars
+of our progress.
+
+We had a dreadful passage, the worst, the officers all concur in saying,
+that they have ever known. We were eighteen days coming; experienced a
+dreadful storm which swept away our paddle-boxes and stove our
+lifeboats; and ran aground besides, near Halifax, among rocks and
+breakers, where we lay at anchor all night. After we left the English
+Channel we had only one fine day. And we had the additional discomfort
+of being eighty-six passengers. I was ill five days, Kate six; though,
+indeed, she had a swelled face and suffered the utmost terror all the
+way.
+
+I can give you no conception of my welcome here. There never was a king
+or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds, and
+entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by
+public bodies and deputations of all kinds. I have had one from the Far
+West--a journey of two thousand miles! If I go out in a carriage, the
+crowd surround it and escort me home; if I go to the theatre, the whole
+house (crowded to the roof) rises as one man, and the timbers ring
+again. You cannot imagine what it is. I have five great public dinners
+on hand at this moment, and invitations from every town and village and
+city in the States.
+
+There is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for
+description. I keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to have done so
+to some purpose by the time I come home.
+
+When you write to me again--I say again, hoping that your first letter
+will be soon upon its way here--direct to me to the care of David
+Colden, Esq., New York. He will forward all communications by the
+quickest conveyance and will be perfectly acquainted with all my
+movements.
+
+                                          Always your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Fitz-Greene Halleck.]
+
+                                 CARLTON HOUSE, _February 14th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Will you come and breakfast with me on Tuesday, the 22nd, at half-past
+ten? Say yes. I should have been truly delighted to have a talk with you
+to-night (being quite alone), but the doctor says that if I talk to man,
+woman, or child this evening I shall be dumb to-morrow.
+
+                          Believe me, with true regard,
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                        BALTIMORE, _March 22nd, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+I beg your pardon, but you were speaking of rash leaps at hasty
+conclusions. Are you quite sure you designed that remark for me? Have
+you not, in the hurry of correspondence, slipped a paragraph into my
+letter which belongs of right to somebody else? When did you ever find
+me leap at wrong conclusions? I pause for a reply.
+
+Pray, sir, did you ever find me admiring Mr. ----? On the contrary, did
+you never hear of my protesting through good, better, and best report
+that he was not an open or a candid man, and would one day, beyond all
+doubt, displease you by not being so? I pause again for a reply.
+
+Are you quite sure, Mr. Macready--and I address myself to you with the
+sternness of a man in the pit--are you quite sure, sir, that you do not
+view America through the pleasant mirage which often surrounds a thing
+that has been, but not a thing that is? Are you quite sure that when you
+were here you relished it as well as you do now when you look back upon
+it. The early spring birds, Mr. Macready, _do_ sing in the groves that
+you were, very often, not over well pleased with many of the new
+country's social aspects. Are the birds to be trusted? Again I pause for
+a reply.
+
+My dear Macready, I desire to be so honest and just to those who have so
+enthusiastically and earnestly welcomed me, that I burned the last
+letter I wrote to you--even to you to whom I would speak as to
+myself--rather than let it come with anything that might seem like an
+ill-considered word of disappointment. I preferred that you should think
+me neglectful (if you could imagine anything so wild) rather than I
+should do wrong in this respect. Still it is of no use. I _am_
+disappointed. This is not the republic I came to see; this is not the
+republic of my imagination. I infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy--even
+with its sickening accompaniments of court circulars--to such a
+government as this. The more I think of its youth and strength, the
+poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it appears in my eyes. In
+everything of which it has made a boast--excepting its education of the
+people and its care for poor children--it sinks immeasurably below the
+level I had placed it upon; and England, even England, bad and faulty as
+the old land is, and miserable as millions of her people are, rises in
+the comparison.
+
+_You_ live here, Macready, as I have sometimes heard you imagining!
+_You!_ Loving you with all my heart and soul, and knowing what your
+disposition really is, I would not condemn you to a year's residence on
+this side of the Atlantic for any money. Freedom of opinion! Where is
+it? I see a press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than
+any country I ever knew. If that is its standard, here it is. But I
+speak of Bancroft, and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he
+is "a black sheep--a Democrat." I speak of Bryant, and am entreated to
+be more careful, for the same reason. I speak of international
+copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright. I speak of Miss
+Martineau, and all parties--Slave Upholders and Abolitionists, Whigs,
+Tyler Whigs, and Democrats, shower down upon me a perfect cataract of
+abuse. "But what has she done? Surely she praised America enough!" "Yes,
+but she told us of some of our faults, and Americans can't bear to be
+told of their faults. Don't split on that rock, Mr. Dickens, don't write
+about America; we are so very suspicious."
+
+Freedom of opinion! Macready, if I had been born here and had written my
+books in this country, producing them with no stamp of approval from any
+other land, it is my solemn belief that I should have lived and died
+poor, unnoticed, and a "black sheep" to boot. I never was more convinced
+of anything than I am of that.
+
+The people are affectionate, generous, open-hearted, hospitable,
+enthusiastic, good-humoured, polite to women, frank and candid to all
+strangers, anxious to oblige, far less prejudiced than they have been
+described to be, frequently polished and refined, very seldom rude or
+disagreeable. I have made a great many friends here, even in public
+conveyances, whom I have been truly sorry to part from. In the towns I
+have formed perfect attachments. I have seen none of that greediness and
+indecorousness on which travellers have laid so much emphasis. I have
+returned frankness with frankness; met questions not intended to be
+rude, with answers meant to be satisfactory; and have not spoken to one
+man, woman, or child of any degree who has not grown positively
+affectionate before we parted. In the respects of not being left alone,
+and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle,
+I have suffered considerably. The sight of slavery in Virginia, the
+hatred of British feeling upon the subject, and the miserable hints of
+the impotent indignation of the South, have pained me very much; on the
+last head, of course, I have felt nothing but a mingled pity and
+amusement; on the other, sheer distress. But however much I like the
+ingredients of this great dish, I cannot but come back to the point upon
+which I started, and say that the dish itself goes against the grain
+with me, and that I don't like it.
+
+You know that I am truly a Liberal. I believe I have as little pride as
+most men, and I am conscious of not the smallest annoyance from being
+"hail fellow well met" with everybody. I have not had greater pleasure
+in the company of any set of men among the thousands I have received (I
+hold a regular levée every day, you know, which is duly heralded and
+proclaimed in the newspapers) than in that of the carmen of Hertford,
+who presented themselves in a body in their blue frocks, among a crowd
+of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and bade me welcome through their
+spokesman. They had all read my books, and all perfectly understood
+them. It is not these things I have in my mind when I say that the man
+who comes to this country a Radical and goes home again with his
+opinions unchanged, must be a Radical on reason, sympathy, and
+reflection, and one who has so well considered the subject that he has
+no chance of wavering.
+
+We have been to Boston, Worcester, Hertford, New Haven, New York,
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Fredericksburgh, Richmond, and back
+to Washington again. The premature heat of the weather (it was eighty
+yesterday in the shade) and Clay's advice--how you would like
+Clay!--have made us determine not to go to Charleston; but having got to
+Richmond, I think I should have turned back under any circumstances. We
+remain at Baltimore for two days, of which this is one; then we go to
+Harrisburgh. Then by the canal boat and the railroad over the Alleghany
+Mountains to Pittsburgh, then down the Ohio to Cincinnati, then to
+Louisville, and then to St. Louis. I have been invited to a public
+entertainment in every town I have entered, and have refused them; but I
+have excepted St. Louis as the farthest point of my travels. My friends
+there have passed some resolutions which Forster has, and will show
+you. From St. Louis we cross to Chicago, traversing immense prairies.
+Thence by the lakes and Detroit to Buffalo, and so to Niagara. A run
+into Canada follows of course, and then--let me write the blessed word
+in capitals--we turn towards HOME.
+
+Kate has written to Mrs. Macready, and it is useless for me to thank
+you, my dearest friend, or her, for your care of our dear children,
+which is our constant theme of discourse. Forster has gladdened our
+hearts with his account of the triumph of "Acis and Galatea," and I am
+anxiously looking for news of the tragedy. Forrest breakfasted with us
+at Richmond last Saturday--he was acting there, and I invited him--and
+he spoke very gratefully, and very like a man, of your kindness to him
+when he was in London.
+
+David Colden is as good a fellow as ever lived; and I am deeply in love
+with his wife. Indeed we have received the greatest and most earnest and
+zealous kindness from the whole family, and quite love them all. Do you
+remember one Greenhow, whom you invited to pass some days with you at
+the hotel on the Kaatskill Mountains? He is translator to the State
+Office at Washington, has a very pretty wife, and a little girl of five
+years old. We dined with them, and had a very pleasant day. The
+President invited me to dinner, but I couldn't stay for it. I had a
+private audience, however, and we attended the public drawing-room
+besides.
+
+Now, don't you rush at the quick conclusion that I have rushed at a
+quick conclusion. Pray, be upon your guard. If you can by any process
+estimate the extent of my affectionate regard for you, and the rush I
+shall make when I reach London to take you by your true right hand, I
+don't object. But let me entreat you to be very careful how you come
+down upon the sharpsighted individual who pens these words, which you
+seem to me to have done in what Willmott would call "one of Mr.
+Macready's rushes." As my pen is getting past its work, I have taken a
+new one to say that
+
+                               I am ever, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                         BALTIMORE, UNITED STATES, _March 22nd, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+We have been as far south as Richmond in Virginia (where they grow and
+manufacture tobacco, and where the labour is all performed by slaves),
+but the season in those latitudes is so intensely and prematurely hot,
+that it was considered a matter of doubtful expediency to go on to
+Charleston. For this unexpected reason, and because the country between
+Richmond and Charleston is but a desolate swamp the whole way, and
+because slavery is anything but a cheerful thing to live amidst, I have
+altered my route by the advice of Mr. Clay (the great political leader
+in this country), and have returned here previous to diving into the far
+West. We start for that part of the country--which includes mountain
+travelling, and lake travelling, and prairie travelling--the day after
+to-morrow, at eight o'clock in the morning; and shall be in the West,
+and from there going northward again, until the 30th of April or 1st of
+May, when we shall halt for a week at Niagara, before going further into
+Canada. We have taken our passage home (God bless the word) in the
+_George Washington_ packet-ship from New York. She sails on the 7th of
+June.
+
+I have departed from my resolution not to accept any more public
+entertainments; they have been proposed in every town I have visited--in
+favour of the people of St. Louis, my utmost western point. That town is
+on the borders of the Indian territory, a trifling distance from this
+place--only two thousand miles! At my second halting-place I shall be
+able to write to fix the day; I suppose it will be somewhere about the
+12th of April. Think of my going so far towards the setting sun to
+dinner!
+
+In every town where we stay, though it be only for a day, we hold a
+regular levée or drawing-room, where I shake hands on an average with
+five or six hundred people, who pass on from me to Kate, and are shaken
+again by her. Maclise's picture of our darlings stands upon a table or
+sideboard the while; and my travelling secretary, assisted very often by
+a committee belonging to the place, presents the people in due form.
+Think of two hours of this every day, and the people coming in by
+hundreds, all fresh, and piping hot, and full of questions, when we are
+literally exhausted and can hardly stand. I really do believe that if I
+had not a lady with me, I should have been obliged to leave the country
+and go back to England. But for her they never would leave me alone by
+day or night, and as it is, a slave comes to me now and then in the
+middle of the night with a letter, and waits at the bedroom door for an
+answer.
+
+It was so hot at Richmond that we could scarcely breathe, and the peach
+and other fruit trees were in full blossom; it was so cold at Washington
+next day that we were shivering; but even in the same town you might
+often wear nothing but a shirt and trousers in the morning, and two
+greatcoats at night, the thermometer very frequently taking a little
+trip of thirty degrees between sunrise and sunset.
+
+They do lay it on at the hotels in such style! They charge by the day,
+so that whether one dines out or dines at home makes no manner of
+difference. T'other day I wrote to order our rooms at Philadelphia to be
+ready on a certain day, and was detained a week longer than I expected
+in New York. The Philadelphia landlord not only charged me half rent
+for the rooms during the whole of that time, but board for myself and
+Kate and Anne during the whole time too, though we were actually
+boarding at the same expense during the same time in New York! What do
+you say to that? If I remonstrated, the whole virtue of the newspapers
+would be aroused directly.
+
+We were at the President's drawing-room while we were in Washington. I
+had a private audience besides, and was asked to dinner, but couldn't
+stay.
+
+Parties--parties--parties--of course, every day and night. But it's not
+all parties. I go into the prisons, the police-offices, the
+watch-houses, the hospitals, the workhouses. I was out half the night in
+New York with two of their most famous constables; started at midnight,
+and went into every brothel, thieves' house, murdering hovel, sailors'
+dancing-place, and abode of villany, both black and white, in the town.
+I went _incog._ behind the scenes to the little theatre where Mitchell
+is making a fortune. He has been rearing a little dog for me, and has
+called him "Boz."[1] I am going to bring him home. In a word I go
+everywhere, and a hard life it is. But I am careful to drink hardly
+anything, and not to smoke at all. I have recourse to my medicine-chest
+whenever I feel at all bilious, and am, thank God, thoroughly well.
+
+When I next write to you, I shall have begun, I hope, to turn my face
+homeward. I have a great store of oddity and whimsicality, and am going
+now into the oddest and most characteristic part of this most queer
+country.
+
+Always direct to the care of David Colden, Esq., 28, Laight Street,
+Hudson Square, New York. I received your Caledonia letter with the
+greatest joy.
+
+Kate sends her best remembrances.
+
+                                                      And I am always.
+
+P.S.--Richmond was my extreme southern point, and I turn from the South
+altogether the day after to-morrow. Will you let the Britannia[2] know
+of this change--if needful?
+
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. F. H. Deane.]
+
+                                  CINCINNATI, OHIO, _April 4th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have not been unmindful of your request for a moment, but have not
+been able to think of it until now. I hope my good friends (for whose
+christian-names I have left blanks in the epitaph) may like what I have
+written, and that they will take comfort and be happy again. I sail on
+the 7th of June, and purpose being at the Carlton House, New York, about
+the 1st. It will make me easy to know that this letter has reached you.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+                This is the Grave of a Little Child,
+
+        WHOM GOD IN HIS GOODNESS CALLED TO A BRIGHT ETERNITY
+                      WHEN HE WAS VERY YOUNG.
+
+        HARD AS IT IS FOR HUMAN AFFECTION TO RECONCILE ITSELF
+                        TO DEATH IN ANY
+         SHAPE (AND MOST OF ALL, PERHAPS, AT FIRST IN THIS),
+
+        HIS PARENTS CAN EVEN NOW BELIEVE THAT IT WILL BE A CONSOLATION
+                 TO THEM THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES,
+
+            AND WHEN THEY SHALL HAVE GROWN OLD AND GRAY,
+
+               Always to think of him as a Child in Heaven.
+
+        "_And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him
+                   in the midst of them._"
+
+        HE WAS THE SON OF Q---- AND M---- THORNTON, CHRISTENED
+
+                           CHARLES JERKING.
+
+            HE WAS BORN ON THE 20TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1841,
+               AND HE DIED ON THE 12TH DAY OF MARCH, 1842,
+           HAVING LIVED ONLY THIRTEEN MONTHS AND TWENTY DAYS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                        NIAGARA FALLS (English Side),
+                                              _Sunday, May 1st, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+Although I date this letter as above, it will not be so old a one as at
+first sight it would appear to be when it reaches you. I shall carry it
+on with me to Montreal, and despatch it from there by the steamer which
+goes to Halifax, to meet the Cunard boat at that place, with Canadian
+letters and passengers. Before I finally close it, I will add a short
+postscript, so that it will contain the latest intelligence.
+
+We have had a blessed interval of quiet in this beautiful place, of
+which, as you may suppose, we stood greatly in need, not only by reason
+of our hard travelling for a long time, but on account of the incessant
+persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage coach, railway
+car, and steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to yourself by
+the utmost stretch of your imagination. So far we have had this hotel
+nearly to ourselves. It is a large square house, standing on a bold
+height, with overhanging eaves like a Swiss cottage, and a wide handsome
+gallery outside every story. These colonnades make it look so very
+light, that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with a pack
+of cards; and I live in bodily terror lest any man should venture to
+step out of a little observatory on the roof, and crush the whole
+structure with one stamp of his foot.
+
+Our sitting-room (which is large and low like a nursery) is on the
+second floor, and is so close to the Falls that the windows are always
+wet and dim with spray. Two bedrooms open out of it--one our own; one
+Anne's. The secretary slumbers near at hand, but without these sacred
+precincts. From the three chambers, or any part of them, you can see the
+Falls rolling and tumbling, and roaring and leaping, all day long, with
+bright rainbows making fiery arches down a hundred feet below us. When
+the sun is on them, they shine and glow like molten gold. When the day
+is gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it seems to crumble
+away like the face of a great chalk cliff, or sometimes again to roll
+along the front of the rock like white smoke. But it all seems gay or
+gloomy, dark or light, by sun or moon. From the bottom of both Falls,
+there is always rising up a solemn ghostly cloud, which hides the
+boiling cauldron from human sight, and makes it in its mystery a hundred
+times more grand than if you could see all the secrets that lie hidden
+in its tremendous depth. One Fall is as close to us as York Gate is to
+No. 1, Devonshire Terrace. The other (the great Horse-shoe Fall) may be,
+perhaps, about half as far off as "Creedy's."[3] One circumstance in
+connection with them is, in all the accounts, greatly exaggerated--I
+mean the noise. Last night was perfectly still. Kate and I could just
+hear them, at the quiet time of sunset, a mile off. Whereas, believing
+the statements I had heard I began putting my ear to the ground, like a
+savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty miles off, when we were coming
+here from Buffalo.
+
+I was delighted to receive your famous letter, and to read your account
+of our darlings, whom we long to see with an intensity it is impossible
+to shadow forth, ever so faintly. I do believe, though I say it as
+shouldn't, that they are good 'uns--both to look at and to go. I roared
+out this morning, as soon as I was awake, "Next month," which we have
+been longing to be able to say ever since we have been here. I really do
+not know how we shall ever knock at the door, when that slowest of all
+impossibly slow hackney-coaches shall pull up--at home.
+
+I am glad you exult in the fight I have had about the copyright. If you
+knew how they tried to stop me, you would have a still greater interest
+in it. The greatest men in England have sent me out, through Forster, a
+very manly, and becoming, and spirited memorial and address, backing me
+in all I have done. I have despatched it to Boston for publication, and
+am coolly prepared for the storm it will raise. But my best rod is in
+pickle.
+
+Is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers should grow rich
+here from publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one
+farthing from their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile,
+blackguard, and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no
+honest man would admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat,
+should be able to publish those same writings side by side, cheek by
+jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene companions with which they must
+become connected, in course of time, in people's minds? Is it tolerable
+that besides being robbed and rifled an author should be forced to
+appear in any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious company; that
+he should have no choice of his audience, no control over his own
+distorted text, and that he should be compelled to jostle out of the
+course the best men in this country who only ask to live by writing? I
+vow before high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that
+when I speak about them I seem to grow twenty feet high, and to swell
+out in proportion. "Robbers that ye are," I think to myself when I get
+upon my legs, "here goes!"
+
+The places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone over, the company
+we have been among, the tobacco-spittle we have wallowed in, the strange
+customs we have complied with, the packing-cases in which we have
+travelled, the woods, swamps, rivers, prairies, lakes, and mountains we
+have crossed, are all subjects for legends and tales at home; quires,
+reams, wouldn't hold them. I don't think Anne has so much as seen an
+American tree. She never looks at a prospect by any chance, or displays
+the smallest emotion at any sight whatever. She objects to Niagara that
+"it's nothing but water," and considers that "there is too much of
+that."
+
+I suppose you have heard that I am going to act at the Montreal theatre
+with the officers? Farce-books being scarce, and the choice consequently
+limited, I have selected Keeley's part in "Two o'Clock in the Morning."
+I wrote yesterday to Mitchell, the actor and manager at New York, to get
+and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small whisker halfway down
+the cheek; over this I mean to wear two night-caps, one with a tassel
+and one of flannel; a flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will
+complete the costume.
+
+I am very sorry to hear that business is so flat, but the proverb says
+it never rains but it pours, and it may be remarked with equal truth
+upon the other side, that it never _don't_ rain but it holds up very
+much indeed. You will be busy again long before I come home, I have no
+doubt.
+
+We purpose leaving this on Wednesday morning. Give my love to Letitia
+and to mother, and always believe me, my dear Henry,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                                   MONTREAL, CANADA, _May 12th, 1842._
+
+All well, though (with the exception of one from Fred) we have received
+no letters whatever by the _Caledonia_. We have experienced
+impossible-to-be-described attentions in Canada. Everybody's carriage
+and horses are at our disposal, and everybody's servants; and all the
+Government boats and boats' crews. We shall play, between the 20th and
+the 25th, "A Roland for an Oliver," "Two o'Clock in the Morning," and
+"Deaf as a Post."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Longman.]
+
+                                         ATHENÆUM, _Friday Afternoon._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+If I could possibly have attended the meeting yesterday I would most
+gladly have done so. But I have been up the whole night, and was too
+much exhausted even to write and say so before the proceedings came on.
+
+I have fought the fight across the Atlantic with the utmost energy I
+could command; have never been turned aside by any consideration for an
+instant; am fresher for the fray than ever; will battle it to the death,
+and die game to the last.
+
+I am happy to say that my boy is quite well again. From being in perfect
+health he fell into alarming convulsions with the surprise and joy of
+our return.
+
+I beg my regards to Mrs. Longman,
+
+                                            And am always,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Pardoe.]
+
+             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                    _July 19th, 1842._
+
+DEAR MADAM,
+
+I beg to set you right on one point in reference to the American
+robbers, which perhaps you do not quite understand.
+
+The existing law allows them to reprint any English book, without any
+communication whatever with the author or anybody else. My books have
+all been reprinted on these agreeable terms.
+
+But sometimes, when expectation is awakened there about a book before
+its publication, one firm of pirates will pay a trifle to procure early
+proofs of it, and get so much the start of the rest as they can obtain
+by the time necessarily consumed in printing it. Directly it is printed
+it is common property, and may be reprinted a thousand times. My
+circular only referred to such bargains as these.
+
+I should add that I have no hope of the States doing justice in this
+dishonest respect, and therefore do not expect to overtake these
+fellows, but we may cry "Stop thief!" nevertheless, especially as they
+wince and smart under it.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, July 14th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SMITH,
+
+The cheque safely received. As you say, it would be cheap at any money.
+My devotion to the fine arts renders it impossible for me to cash it. I
+have therefore ordered it to be framed and glazed.
+
+I am really grateful to you for the interest you take in my proceedings.
+Next time I come into the City I will show you my introductory chapter
+to the American book. It may seem to prepare the reader for a much
+greater amount of slaughter than he will meet with; but it is honest and
+true. Therefore my hand does not shake.
+
+Best love and regards. "Certainly" to the Richmondian intentions.
+
+                                        Always faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Harrison Ainsworth.]
+
+                            BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _September 14th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR AINSWORTH,
+
+The enclosed has been sent to me by a young gentleman in Devonshire (of
+whom I know no more than that I have occasionally, at his request, read
+and suggested amendments in some of his writings), with a special
+petition that I would recommend it to you for insertion in your
+magazine.
+
+I think it very pretty, and I have no doubt you will also. But it is
+poetry, and may be too long.
+
+He is a very modest young fellow, and has decided ability.
+
+I hope when I come home at the end of the month, we shall foregather
+more frequently. Of course you are working, tooth and nail; and of
+course I am.
+
+Kate joins me in best regards to yourself and all your house (not
+forgetting, but especially remembering, my old friend, Mrs. Touchet),
+and I am always,
+
+                                            My dear Ainsworth,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                          BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 25th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+I enclose you the Niagara letter, with many thanks for the loan of it.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Chadwick that I am greatly obliged to him for his
+remembrance of me, and I heartily concur with him in the great
+importance and interest of the subject, though I do differ from him, to
+the death, on his crack topic--the New Poor-Law.
+
+I have been turning my thoughts to this very item in the condition of
+American towns, and had put their present aspects strongly before the
+American people; therefore I shall read his report with the greater
+interest and attention.
+
+We return next Saturday night.
+
+If you will dine with us next day or any day in the week, we shall be
+truly glad and delighted to see you. Let me know, then, what day you
+will come.
+
+I need scarcely say that I shall joyfully talk with you about the
+Metropolitan Improvement Society, then or at any time; and with love to
+Letitia, in which Kate and the babies join, I am always, my dear Henry,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--The children's present names are as follows:
+
+Katey (from a lurking propensity to fieryness), Lucifer Box.
+
+Mamey (as generally descriptive of her bearing), Mild Glo'ster.
+
+Charley (as a corruption of Master Toby), Flaster Floby.
+
+Walter (suggested by his high cheek-bones), Young Skull.
+
+Each is pronounced with a peculiar howl, which I shall have great
+pleasure in illustrating.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. William Harness.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 8th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HARNESS,
+
+Some time ago, you sent me a note from a friend of yours, a barrister, I
+think, begging me to forward to him any letters I might receive from a
+deranged nephew of his, at Newcastle. In the midst of a most bewildering
+correspondence with unknown people, on every possible and impossible
+subject, I have forgotten this gentleman's name, though I have a kind of
+hazy remembrance that he lived near Russell Square. As the Post Office
+would be rather puzzled, perhaps, to identify him by such an address,
+may I ask the favour of you to hand him the enclosed, and to say that it
+is the second I have received since I returned from America? The last, I
+think, was a defiance to mortal combat. With best remembrances to your
+sister, in which Mrs. Dickens joins, believe me, my dear Harness,
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Nov. 12th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+You pass this house every day on your way to or from the theatre. I wish
+you would call once as you go by, and soon, that you may have plenty of
+time to deliberate on what I wish to suggest to you. The more I think of
+Marston's play, the more sure I feel that a prologue to the purpose
+would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of any ticklish
+point on the first night. Now I have an idea (not easily explainable in
+writing but told in five words), that would take the prologue out of the
+conventional dress of prologues, quite. Get the curtain up with a dash,
+and begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. If on consideration, you
+should think with me, I will write the prologue heartily.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+TO MR. MARSTON'S PLAY OF "THE PATRICIAN'S DAUGHTER."
+
+        No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright
+        Dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night;
+        No trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire
+        Breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre;
+
+        Enough for him, if in his lowly strain
+        He wakes one household echo not in vain;
+        Enough for him, if in his boldest word
+        The beating heart of MAN be dimly heard.
+
+        Its solemn music which, like strains that sigh
+        Through charmèd gardens, all who hearing die;
+        Its solemn music he does not pursue
+        To distant ages out of human view;
+        Nor listen to its wild and mournful chime
+        In the dead caverns on the shore of Time;
+        But musing with a calm and steady gaze
+        Before the crackling flames of living days,
+        He hears it whisper through the busy roar
+        Of what shall be and what has been before.
+        Awake the Present! shall no scene display
+        The tragic passion of the passing day?
+        Is it with Man, as with some meaner things,
+        That out of death his single purpose springs?
+        Can his eventful life no moral teach
+        Until he be, for aye, beyond its reach?
+        Obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade,
+        Dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade?
+        Awake the Present! Though the steel-clad age
+        Find life alone within the storied page,
+        Iron is worn, at heart, by many still--
+        The tyrant Custom binds the serf-like will;
+        If the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone,
+        These later days have tortures of their own;
+        The guiltless writhe, while Guilt is stretched in sleep,
+        And Virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep.
+        Awake the Present! what the Past has sown
+        Be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown!
+        How pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong,
+        Read in the volume Truth has held so long,
+        Assured that where life's flowers freshest blow,
+        The sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow,
+        How social usage has the pow'r to change
+        Good thoughts to evil; in its highest range
+        To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth
+        The kindling impulse of our glorious youth,
+        Crushing the spirit in its house of clay,
+        Learn from the lessons of the present day.
+        Not light its import and not poor its mien;
+        Yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                                   _Saturday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+One suggestion, though it be a late one. Do have upon the table, in the
+opening scene of the second act, something in a velvet case, or frame,
+that may look like a large miniature of Mabel, such as one of Ross's,
+and eschew that picture. It haunts me with a sense of danger. Even a
+titter at that critical time, with the whole of that act before you,
+would be a fatal thing. The picture is bad in itself, bad in its effect
+upon the beautiful room, bad in all its associations with the house. In
+case of your having nothing at hand, I send you by bearer what would be
+a million times better. Always, my dear Macready,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I need not remind you how common it is to have such pictures in
+cases lying about elegant rooms.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. P. Frith.]
+
+            1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                _November 15th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I shall be very glad if you will do me the favour to paint me two little
+companion pictures; one, a Dolly Varden (whom you have so exquisitely
+done already), the other, a Kate Nickleby.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+P.S.--I take it for granted that the original picture of Dolly with the
+bracelet is sold?
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 17th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Pray consult your own convenience in the matter of my little commission;
+whatever suits your engagements and prospects will best suit me.
+
+I saw an unfinished proof of Dolly at Mitchell's some two or three
+months ago; I thought it was proceeding excellently well then. It will
+give me great pleasure to see her when completed.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Hood.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 30th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HOOD,
+
+In asking your and Mrs. Hood's leave to bring Mrs. D.'s sister (who
+stays with us) on Tuesday, let me add that I should very much like to
+bring at the same time a very unaffected and ardent admirer of your
+genius, who has no small portion of that commodity in his own right, and
+is a very dear friend of mine and a very famous fellow; to wit, Maclise,
+the painter, who would be glad (as he has often told me) to know you
+better, and would be much pleased, I know, if I could say to him, "Hood
+wants me to bring you."
+
+I use so little ceremony with you, in the conviction that you will use
+as little with me, and say, "My dear D.--Convenient;" or, "My dear
+D.--Ill-convenient," (as the popular phrase is), just as the case may
+be. Of course, I have said nothing to him.
+
+                                              Always heartily yours,
+                                                                  BOZ.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Trollope.]
+
+          1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                _December 16th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,
+
+Let me thank you most cordially for your kind note, in reference to my
+Notes, which has given me true pleasure and gratification.
+
+As I never scrupled to say in America, so I can have no delicacy in
+saying to you, that, allowing for the change you worked in many social
+features of American society, and for the time that has passed since you
+wrote of the country, I am convinced that there is no writer who has so
+well and accurately (I need not add so entertainingly) described it, in
+many of its aspects, as you have done; and this renders your praise the
+more valuable to me. I do not recollect ever to have heard or seen the
+charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its
+feebleness, it may have been most untrue. It seems to me essentially
+natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should accuse an
+uncommon one of this fault, and I have no doubt that you were long ago
+of this opinion; very much to your own comfort.
+
+Mrs. Dickens begs me to thank you for your kind remembrance of her, and
+to convey to you her best regards. Always believe me,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 20th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+It is impossible for me to tell you how greatly I am charmed with those
+beautiful pictures, in which the whole feeling, and thought, and
+expression of the little story is rendered to the gratification of my
+inmost heart; and on which you have lavished those amazing resources of
+yours with a power at which I fairly wondered when I sat down yesterday
+before them.
+
+I took them to Mac, straightway, in a cab, and it would have done you
+good if you could have seen and heard him. You can't think how moved he
+was by the old man in the church, or how pleased I was to have chosen it
+before he saw the drawings.
+
+You are such a queer fellow and hold yourself so much aloof, that I am
+afraid to say half I would say touching my grateful admiration; so you
+shall imagine the rest. I enclose a note from Kate, to which I hope you
+will bring the only one acceptable reply. Always, my dear Cattermole,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The little dog--a white Havana spaniel--_was_ brought home and
+renamed, after an incidental character in "Nicholas Nickleby," "Mr.
+Snittle Timbery." This was shortened to "Timber," and under that name
+the little dog lived to be very old, and accompanied the family in all
+its migrations, including the visits to Italy and Switzerland.
+
+[2] Life Insurance Office.
+
+[3] Mr. Macready's--so pronounced by one of Charles Dickens's little
+children.
+
+
+
+
+Book II.
+
+1843 TO 1857.
+
+
+
+
+1843.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+We have, unfortunately, very few letters of interest in this year. But
+we are able to give the commencement of Charles Dickens's correspondence
+with his beloved friends, Mr. Douglas Jerrold and Mr. Clarkson
+Stanfield; with Lord Morpeth (afterwards Lord Carlisle), for whom he
+always entertained the highest regard; and with Mr. Charles Babbage.
+
+He was at work upon "Martin Chuzzlewit" until the end of the year, when
+he also wrote and published the first of his Christmas stories--"The
+Christmas Carol."
+
+He was much distressed by the sad fate of Mr. Elton (a respected actor),
+who was lost in the wreck of the _Pegasus_, and was very eager and
+earnest in his endeavours to raise a fund on behalf of Mr. Elton's
+children.
+
+We are sorry to be unable to give any explanation as to the nature of
+the Cockspur Street Society, mentioned in this first letter to Mr.
+Charles Babbage. But we publish it notwithstanding, considering it to be
+one of general interest.
+
+The "Little History of England" was never finished--not, that is to say,
+the one alluded to in the letter to Mr. Jerrold.
+
+Mr. David Dickson kindly furnishes us with an explanation of the letter
+dated 10th May. "It was," he says, "in answer to a letter from me,
+pointing out that the 'Shepherd' in 'Pickwick' was apparently reflecting
+on the scriptural doctrine of the new birth."
+
+The beginning of the letter to Mr. Jerrold (15th June) is, as will be
+readily understood, an imaginary cast of a purely imaginary play. A
+portion of this letter has already been published, in Mr. Blanchard
+Jerrold's life of his father. It originated in a proposal of Mr.
+Webster's--the manager of the Haymarket Theatre--to give five hundred
+pounds for a prize comedy by an English author.
+
+The opera referred to in the letter to Mr. R. H. Horne was called "The
+Village Coquettes," and the farce was "The Strange Gentleman," already
+alluded to by us, in connection with a letter to Mr. Harley.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Babbage.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _April 27th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I write to you, _confidentially_, in answer to your note of last night,
+and the tenor of mine will tell you why.
+
+You may suppose, from seeing my name in the printed letter you have
+received, that I am favourable to the proposed society. I am decidedly
+opposed to it. I went there on the day I was in the chair, after much
+solicitation; and being put into it, opened the proceedings by telling
+the meeting that I approved of the design in theory, but in practice
+considered it hopeless. I may tell you--I did not tell them--that the
+nature of the meeting, and the character and position of many of the men
+attending it, cried "Failure" trumpet-tongued in my ears. To quote an
+expression from Tennyson, I may say that if it were the best society in
+the world, the grossness of some natures in it would have weight to drag
+it down.
+
+In the wisdom of all you urge in the notes you have sent me, taking them
+as statements of theory, I entirely concur. But in practice, I feel sure
+that the present publishing system cannot be overset until authors are
+different men. The first step to be taken is to move as a body in the
+question of copyright, enforce the existing laws, and try to obtain
+better. For that purpose I hold that the authors and publishers must
+unite, as the wealth, business habits, and interest of that latter class
+are of great importance to such an end. The Longmans and Murray have
+been with me proposing such an association. That I shall support. But
+having seen the Cockspur Street Society, I am as well convinced of its
+invincible hopelessness as if I saw it written by a celestial penman in
+the Book of Fate.
+
+                                      My dear Sir,
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                                  DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _May 3rd, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+Let me thank you most cordially for your books, not only for their own
+sakes (and I have read them with perfect delight), but also for this
+hearty and most welcome mark of your recollection of the friendship we
+have established; in which light I know I may regard and prize them.
+
+I am greatly pleased with your opening paper in the Illuminated. It is
+very wise, and capital; written with the finest end of that iron pen of
+yours; witty, much needed, and full of truth. I vow to God that I think
+the parrots of society are more intolerable and mischievous than its
+birds of prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of
+hearing those infernal and damnably good old times extolled. Once, in a
+fit of madness, after having been to a public dinner which took place
+just as this Ministry came in, I wrote the parody I send you enclosed,
+for Fonblanque. There is nothing in it but wrath; but that's wholesome,
+so I send it you.
+
+I am writing a little history of England for my boy, which I will send
+you when it is printed for him, though your boys are too old to profit
+by it. It is curious that I have tried to impress upon him (writing, I
+daresay, at the same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper,
+for I don't know what I should do if he were to get hold of any
+Conservative or High Church notions; and the best way of guarding
+against any such horrible result is, I take it, to wring the parrots'
+necks in his very cradle.
+
+Oh Heaven, if you could have been with me at a hospital dinner last
+Monday! There were men there who made such speeches and expressed such
+sentiments as any moderately intelligent dustman would have blushed
+through his cindery bloom to have thought of. Sleek, slobbering,
+bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle, and the auditory
+leaping up in their delight! I never saw such an illustration of the
+power of purse, or felt so degraded and debased by its contemplation,
+since I have had eyes and ears. The absurdity of the thing was too
+horrible to laugh at. It was perfectly overwhelming. But if I could have
+partaken it with anybody who would have felt it as you would have done,
+it would have had quite another aspect; or would at least, like a
+"classic mask" (oh d---- that word!) have had one funny side to relieve
+its dismal features.
+
+Supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds of North
+America--yours, mine, and forty-eight others--picked for their
+concurrence of opinion on all important subjects and for their
+resolution to found a colony of common-sense, how soon would that devil,
+Cant, present itself among them in one shape or other? The day they
+landed, do you say, or the day after?
+
+That is a great mistake (almost the only one I know) in the "Arabian
+Nights," when the princess restores people to their original beauty by
+sprinkling them with the golden water. It is quite clear that she must
+have made monsters of them by such a christening as that.
+
+                                  My dear Jerrold,
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Dickson.]
+
+            1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                     _May 10th, 1843._
+
+SIR,
+
+Permit me to say, in reply to your letter, that you do not understand
+the intention (I daresay the fault is mine) of that passage in the
+"Pickwick Papers" which has given you offence. The design of "the
+Shepherd" and of this and every other allusion to him is, to show how
+sacred things are degraded, vulgarised, and rendered absurd when persons
+who are utterly incompetent to teach the commonest things take upon
+themselves to expound such mysteries, and how, in making mere cant
+phrases of divine words, these persons miss the spirit in which they had
+their origin. I have seen a great deal of this sort of thing in many
+parts of England, and I never knew it lead to charity or good deeds.
+
+Whether the great Creator of the world and the creature of his hands,
+moulded in his own image, be quite so opposite in character as you
+believe, is a question which it would profit us little to discuss. I
+like the frankness and candour of your letter, and thank you for it.
+That every man who seeks heaven must be born again, in good thoughts of
+his Maker, I sincerely believe. That it is expedient for every hound to
+say so in a certain snuffling form of words, to which he attaches no
+good meaning, I do not believe. I take it there is no difference between
+us.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 13th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+Yes, you have anticipated my occupation. Chuzzlewit be d----d. High
+comedy and five hundred pounds are the only matters I can think of. I
+call it "The One Thing Needful; or, A Part is Better than the Whole."
+Here are the characters:
+
+        Old Febrile                      Mr. FARREN.
+        Young Febrile (his Son)          Mr. HOWE.
+        Jack Hessians (his Friend)       Mr. W. LACY.
+        Chalks (a Landlord)              Mr. GOUGH.
+        Hon. Harry Staggers              Mr. MELLON.
+        Sir Thomas Tip                   Mr. BUCKSTONE.
+        Swig                             Mr. WEBSTER.
+        The Duke of Leeds                Mr. COUTTS.
+        Sir Smivin Growler               Mr. MACREADY.
+
+Servants, Gamblers, Visitors, etc.
+
+        Mrs. Febrile                     Mrs. GALLOT.
+        Lady Tip                         Mrs. HUMBY.
+        Mrs. Sour                        Mrs. W. CLIFFORD.
+        Fanny                            Miss A. SMITH.
+
+One scene, where Old Febrile tickles Lady Tip in the ribs, and
+afterwards dances out with his hat behind him, his stick before, and his
+eye on the pit, I expect will bring the house down. There is also
+another point, where Old Febrile, at the conclusion of his disclosure to
+Swig, rises and says: "And now, Swig, tell me, have I acted well?" And
+Swig says: "Well, Mr. Febrile, have you ever acted ill?" which will
+carry off the piece.
+
+Herne Bay. Hum. I suppose it's no worse than any other place in this
+weather, but it is watery rather--isn't it? In my mind's eye, I have the
+sea in a perpetual state of smallpox; and the chalk running downhill
+like town milk. But I know the comfort of getting to work in a fresh
+place, and proposing pious projects to one's self, and having the more
+substantial advantage of going to bed early and getting up ditto, and
+walking about alone. I should like to deprive you of the last-named
+happiness, and to take a good long stroll, terminating in a
+public-house, and whatever they chanced to have in it. But fine days are
+over, I think. The horrible misery of London in this weather, with not
+even a fire to make it cheerful, is hideous.
+
+But I have my comedy to fly to. My only comfort! I walk up and down
+the street at the back of the theatre every night, and peep in at
+the green-room window, thinking of the time when "Dick--ins" will be
+called for by excited hundreds, and won't come till Mr. Webster
+(half Swig and half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room,
+and quelling the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard, if he be
+in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept the congratulations
+of the audience, and indulge them with a sight of the man who has got
+five hundred pounds in money, and it's impossible to say how much in
+laurel. Then I shall come forward, and bow once--twice--thrice--roars of
+approbation--Brayvo--brarvo--hooray--hoorar--hooroar--one cheer more;
+and asking Webster home to supper, shall declare eternal friendship for
+that public-spirited individual.
+
+They have not sent me the "Illustrated Magazine." What do they mean by
+that? You don't say your daughter is better, so I hope you mean that she
+is quite well. My wife desires her best regards.
+
+        I am always, my dear Jerrold,
+                     Faithfully your Friend,
+        THE CONGREVE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+        (which I mean to be called in the Sunday papers).
+
+P.S.--I shall dedicate it to Webster, beginning: "My dear Sir,--When you
+first proposed to stimulate the slumbering dramatic talent of England, I
+assure you I had not the least idea"--etc. etc. etc.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                             1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _July 26th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD,
+
+I am chairman of a committee, whose object is to open a subscription,
+and arrange a benefit for the relief of the seven destitute children of
+poor Elton the actor, who was drowned in the _Pegasus_. They are
+exceedingly anxious to have the great assistance of your name; and if
+you will allow yourself to be announced as one of the body, I do assure
+you you will help a very melancholy and distressful cause.
+
+                                                     Faithfully always.
+
+P.S.--The committee meet to-night at the Freemasons', at eight o'clock.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Morpeth.]
+
+           1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                   _August 3rd, 1843._
+
+DEAR LORD MORPETH,
+
+In acknowledging the safe receipt of your kind donation in behalf of
+poor Mr. Elton's orphan children, I hope you will suffer me to address
+you with little ceremony, as the best proof I can give you of my cordial
+reciprocation of all you say in your most welcome note. I have long
+esteemed you and been your distant but very truthful admirer; and trust
+me that it is a real pleasure and happiness to me to anticipate the time
+when we shall have a nearer intercourse.
+
+                     Believe me, with sincere regard,
+                                              Faithfully your Servant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _October 13th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR AINSWORTH,
+
+I want very much to see you, not having had that old pleasure for a long
+time. I am at this moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in
+the nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints,
+and fractious in the temper from a most intolerable and oppressive cold,
+caught the other day, I suspect, at Liverpool, where I got exceedingly
+wet; but I will make prodigious efforts to get the better of it to-night
+by resorting to all conceivable remedies, and if I succeed so as to be
+only negatively disgusting to-morrow, I will joyfully present myself at
+six, and bring my womankind along with me.
+
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. R. H. Horne.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 13th, 1843._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pray tell that besotted ---- to let the opera sink into its native
+obscurity. I did it in a fit of d----ble good nature long ago, for
+Hullah, who wrote some very pretty music to it. I just put down for
+everybody what everybody at the St. James's Theatre wanted to say and
+do, and that they could say and do best, and I have been most sincerely
+repentant ever since. The farce I also did as a sort of practical joke,
+for Harley, whom I have known a long time. It was funny--adapted from
+one of the published sketches called the "Great Winglebury Duel," and
+was published by Chapman and Hall. But I have no copy of it now, nor
+should I think they have. But both these things were done without the
+least consideration or regard to reputation.
+
+I wouldn't repeat them for a thousand pounds apiece, and devoutly wish
+them to be forgotten. If you will impress this on the waxy mind of ----
+I shall be truly and unaffectedly obliged to you.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+
+1844.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the summer of this year the house in Devonshire Terrace was let, and
+Charles Dickens started with his family for Italy, going first to a
+villa at Albaro, near Genoa, for a few months, and afterwards to the
+Palazzo Pescheire, Genoa. Towards the end of this year he made
+excursions to the many places of interest in this country, and was
+joined at Milan by his wife and sister-in-law, previous to his own
+departure alone on a business visit to England. He had written his
+Christmas story, "The Chimes," and was anxious to take it himself to
+England, and to read it to some of his most intimate friends there.
+
+Mr. Macready went to America and returned in the autumn, and towards the
+end of the year he paid a professional visit to Paris.
+
+Charles Dickens's letter to his wife (26th February) treats of a visit
+to Liverpool, where he went to take the chair on the opening of the
+Mechanics' Institution and to make a speech on education. The "Fanny"
+alluded to was his sister, Mrs. Burnett; the _Britannia_, the ship in
+which he and Mrs. Dickens made their outward trip to America; the "Mrs.
+Bean," the stewardess, and "Hewett," the captain, of that same vessel.
+
+The letter to Mr. Charles Knight was in acknowledgment of the receipt of
+a prospectus entitled "Book Clubs for all readers." The attempt, which
+fortunately proved completely successful, was to establish a cheap book
+club. The scheme was, that a number of families should combine together,
+each contributing about three halfpennies a week; which contribution
+would enable them, by exchanging the volumes among them, to have
+sufficient reading to last the year. The publications, which were to be
+made as cheap as possible, could be purchased by families at the end of
+the year, on consideration of their putting by an extra penny a week
+for that purpose. Charles Dickens, who always had the comfort and
+happiness of the working-classes greatly at heart, was much interested
+in this scheme of Mr. Charles Knight's, and highly approved of it.
+Charles Dickens and this new correspondent became subsequently true and
+fast friends.
+
+"Martin Chuzzlewit" was dramatised in the early autumn of this year, at
+the Lyceum Theatre, which was then under the management of Mr. and Mrs.
+Robert Keeley. Charles Dickens superintended some rehearsals, but had
+left England before the play was acted in public.
+
+The man "Roche," alluded to in his letter to Mr. Maclise, was the French
+courier engaged to go with the family to Italy. He remained as servant
+there, and was with Charles Dickens through all his foreign travels. His
+many excellent qualities endeared him to the whole family, and his
+master never lost sight of this faithful servant until poor Roche's
+untimely death in 1849.
+
+The Rev. Edward Tagart was a celebrated Unitarian minister, and a very
+highly esteemed and valued friend.
+
+The "Chickenstalker" (letter to Mrs. Dickens, November 8th), is an
+instance of the eccentric names he was constantly giving to his
+children, and these names he frequently made use of in his books.
+
+In this year we have our first letter to Mr. (afterwards Sir Edwin)
+Landseer, for whom Charles Dickens had the highest admiration and
+personal regard.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 3rd, 1844._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+You know all the news, and you know I love you; so I no more know why I
+write than I do why I "come round" after the play to shake hands with
+you in your dressing-room. I say come, as if you were at this present
+moment the lessee of Drury Lane, and had ---- with a long face on one
+hand, ---- elaborately explaining that everything in creation is a
+joint-stock company on the other, the inimitable B. by the fire, in
+conversation with ----. Well-a-day! I see it all, and smell that
+extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre, which bursts
+upon me when I swing open the little door in the hall, accompanies me as
+I meet perspiring supers in the narrow passage, goes with me up the two
+steps, crosses the stage, winds round the third entrance P.S. as I wind,
+and escorts me safely into your presence, where I find you unwinding
+something slowly round and round your chest, which is so long that no
+man can see the end of it.
+
+Oh that you had been at Clarence Terrace on Nina's birthday! Good God,
+how we missed you, talked of you, drank your health, and wondered what
+you were doing! Perhaps you are Falkland enough (I swear I suspect you
+of it) to feel rather sore--just a little bit, you know, the merest
+trifle in the world--on hearing that Mrs. Macready looked brilliant,
+blooming, young, and handsome, and that she danced a country dance with
+the writer hereof (Acres to your Falkland) in a thorough spirit of
+becoming good humour and enjoyment. Now you don't like to be told that?
+Nor do you quite like to hear that Forster and I conjured bravely; that
+a plum-pudding was produced from an empty saucepan, held over a blazing
+fire kindled in Stanfield's hat without damage to the lining; that a box
+of bran was changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between my
+godchild's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill uproar and clapping
+of hands that you might have heard it (and I daresay did) in America;
+that three half-crowns being taken from Major Burns and put into a
+tumbler-glass before his eyes, did then and there give jingling answers
+to the questions asked of them by me, and knew where you were and what
+you were doing, to the unspeakable admiration of the whole assembly.
+Neither do you quite like to be told that we are going to do it again
+next Saturday, with the addition of demoniacal dresses from the
+masquerade shop; nor that Mrs. Macready, for her gallant bearing always,
+and her best sort of best affection, is the best creature I know. Never
+mind; no man shall gag me, and those are my opinions.
+
+My dear Macready, the lecturing proposition is not to be thought of. I
+have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in giving you my most
+strenuous and decided advice against it. Looking only to its effect at
+home, I am immovable in my conviction that the impression it would
+produce would be one of failure, and a reduction of yourself to the
+level of those who do the like here. To us who know the Boston names and
+honour them, and who know Boston and like it (Boston is what I would
+have the whole United States to be), the Boston requisition would be a
+valuable document, of which you and your friends might be proud. But
+those names are perfectly unknown to the public here, and would produce
+not the least effect. The only thing known to the public here is, that
+they ask (when I say "they" I mean the people) everybody to lecture. It
+is one of the things I have ridiculed in "Chuzzlewit." Lecture you, and
+you fall into the roll of Lardners, Vandenhoffs, Eltons, Knowleses,
+Buckinghams. You are off your pedestal, have flung away your glass
+slipper, and changed your triumphal coach into a seedy old pumpkin. I am
+quite sure of it, and cannot express my strong conviction in language of
+sufficient force.
+
+"Puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. The nation is a miserable
+Sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul old man upon his
+back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim to the four winds for
+repetition here, that they don't need their ignorant and brutal papers,
+as if the papers could exist if they didn't need them! Let any two of
+these vagabonds, in any town you go to, take it into their heads to make
+you an object of attack, or to direct the general attention elsewhere,
+and what avail those wonderful images of passion which you have been all
+your life perfecting!
+
+I have sent you, to the charge of our trusty and well-beloved Colden, a
+little book I published on the 17th of December, and which has been a
+most prodigious success--the greatest, I think, I have ever achieved. It
+pleases me to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two, and
+I long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning. Do they allow you
+to be quiet, by-the-way? "Some of our most fashionable people, sir,"
+denounced me awfully for liking to be alone sometimes.
+
+Now that we have turned Christmas, I feel as if your face were directed
+homewards, Macready. The downhill part of the road is before us now, and
+we shall travel on to midsummer at a dashing pace; and, please Heaven, I
+will be at Liverpool when you come steaming up the Mersey, with that red
+funnel smoking out unutterable things, and your heart much fuller than
+your trunks, though something lighter! If I be not the first Englishman
+to shake hands with you on English ground, the man who gets before me
+will be a brisk and active fellow, and even then need put his best leg
+foremost. So I warn Forster to keep in the rear, or he'll be blown.
+
+If you shall have any leisure to project and put on paper the outline of
+a scheme for opening any theatre on your return, upon a certain list
+subscribed, and on certain understandings with the actors, it strikes me
+that it would be wise to break ground while you are still away. Of
+course I need not say that I will see anybody or do anything--even to
+the calling together of the actors--if you should ever deem it
+desirable. My opinion is that our respected and valued friend Mr. ----
+will stagger through another season, if he don't rot first. I understand
+he is in a partial state of decomposition at this minute. He was very
+ill, but got better. How is it that ---- always do get better, and
+strong hearts are so easy to die?
+
+Kate sends her tender love; so does Georgy, so does Charlie, so does
+Mamey, so does Katey, so does Walter, so does the other one who is to be
+born next week. Look homeward always, as we look abroad to you. God
+bless you, my dear Macready.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Laman Blanchard.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 4th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR BLANCHARD,
+
+I cannot thank you enough for the beautiful manner and the true spirit
+of friendship in which you have noticed my "Carol." But I _must_ thank
+you because you have filled my heart up to the brim, and it is running
+over.
+
+You meant to give me great pleasure, my dear fellow, and you have done
+it. The tone of your elegant and fervent praise has touched me in the
+tenderest place. I cannot write about it, and as to talking of it, I
+could no more do that than a dumb man. I have derived inexpressible
+gratification from what I know was a labour of love on your part. And I
+can never forget it.
+
+When I think it likely that I may meet you (perhaps at Ainsworth's on
+Friday?) I shall slip a "Carol" into my pocket and ask you to put it
+among your books for my sake. You will never like it the less for having
+made it the means of so much happiness to me.
+
+                           Always, my dear Blanchard,
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                 LIVERPOOL, RADLEY'S HOTEL, _Monday, Feb. 26th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR KATE,
+
+I got down here last night (after a most intolerably wet journey) before
+seven, and found Thompson sitting by my fire. He had ordered dinner, and
+we ate it pleasantly enough, and went to bed in good time. This morning,
+Mr. Yates, the great man connected with the Institution (and a brother
+of Ashton Yates's), called. I went to look at it with him. It is an
+enormous place, and the tickets have been selling at two and even three
+guineas apiece. The lecture-room, in which the celebration is held, will
+accommodate over thirteen hundred people. It was being fitted with gas
+after the manner of the ring at Astley's. I should think it an easy
+place to speak in, being a semicircle with seats rising one above
+another to the ceiling, and will have eight hundred ladies to-night, in
+full dress. I am rayther shaky just now, but shall pull up, I have no
+doubt. At dinner-time to-morrow you will receive, I hope, a facetious
+document hastily penned after I return to-night, telling you how it all
+went off.
+
+When I came back here, I found Fanny and Hewett had picked me up just
+before. We all went off straight to the _Britannia_, which lay where she
+did when we went on board. We went into the old little cabin and the
+ladies' cabin, but Mrs. Bean had gone to Scotland, as the ship does not
+sail again before May. In the saloon we had some champagne and biscuits,
+and Hewett had set out upon the table a block of Boston ice, weighing
+fifty pounds. Scott, of the _Caledonia_, lunched with us--a very nice
+fellow. He saw Macready play Macbeth in Boston, and gave me a tremendous
+account of the effect. Poor Burroughs, of the _George Washington_, died
+on board, on his last passage home. His little wife was with him.
+
+Hewett dines with us to-day, and I have procured him admission to-night.
+I am very sorry indeed (and so was he), that you didn't see the old
+ship. It was the strangest thing in the world to go on board again.
+
+I had Bacon with me as far as Watford yesterday, and very pleasant.
+Sheil was also in the train, on his way to Ireland.
+
+Give my best love to Georgy, and kisses to the darlings. Also
+affectionate regards to Mac and Forster.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE COMMON--PLEASE.
+
+DICKENS _against_ THE WORLD.
+
+
+Charles Dickens, of No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park,
+in the county of Middlesex, gentleman, the successful plaintiff in the
+above cause, maketh oath and saith: That on the day and date hereof, to
+wit at seven o'clock in the evening, he, this deponent, took the chair
+at a large assembly of the Mechanics' Institution at Liverpool, and that
+having been received with tremendous and enthusiastic plaudits, he, this
+deponent, did immediately dash into a vigorous, brilliant, humorous,
+pathetic, eloquent, fervid, and impassioned speech. That the said speech
+was enlivened by thirteen hundred persons, with frequent, vehement,
+uproarious, and deafening cheers, and to the best of this deponent's
+knowledge and belief, he, this deponent, did speak up like a man, and
+did, to the best of his knowledge and belief, considerably distinguish
+himself. That after the proceedings of the opening were over, and a vote
+of thanks was proposed to this deponent, he, this deponent, did again
+distinguish himself, and that the cheering at that time, accompanied
+with clapping of hands and stamping of feet, was in this deponent's case
+thundering and awful. And this deponent further saith, that his
+white-and-black or magpie waistcoat, did create a strong sensation, and
+that during the hours of promenading, this deponent heard from persons
+surrounding him such exclamations as, "What is it! _Is_ it a waistcoat?
+No, it's a shirt"--and the like--all of which this deponent believes to
+have been complimentary and gratifying; but this deponent further saith
+that he is now going to supper, and wishes he may have an appetite to
+eat it.
+
+                                                      CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+        Sworn before me, at the Adelphi }
+          Hotel, Liverpool, on the 26th }
+          of February, 1844.            }
+
+        S. RADLEY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _April 30th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD,
+
+The Sanatorium, or sick house for students, governesses, clerks, young
+artists, and so forth, who are above hospitals, and not rich enough to
+be well attended in illness in their own lodgings (you know its
+objects), is going to have a dinner at the London Tavern, on Tuesday,
+the 5th of June.
+
+The Committee are very anxious to have you for a steward, as one of the
+heads of a large class; and I have told them that I have no doubt you
+will act. There is no steward's fee or collection whatever.
+
+They are particularly anxious also to have Mr. Etty and Edwin Landseer.
+As you see them daily at the Academy, will you ask them or show them
+this note? Sir Martin became one of the Committee some few years ago,
+at my solicitation, as recommending young artists, struggling alone in
+London, to the better knowledge of this establishment.
+
+The dinner is to comprise the new feature of ladies dining at the tables
+with the gentlemen--not looking down upon them from the gallery. I hope
+in your reply you will not only book yourself, but Mrs. Stanfield and
+Mary. It will be very brilliant and cheerful I hope. Dick in the chair.
+Gentlemen's dinner-tickets a guinea, as usual; ladies', twelve
+shillings. I think this is all I have to say, except (which is
+nonsensical and needless) that I am always,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edwin Landseer.]
+
+                           ATHENÆUM, _Monday Morning, May 27th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR LANDSEER,
+
+I have let my house with such delicious promptitude, or, as the
+Americans would say, "with sich everlass'in slickness and al-mity
+sprydom," that we turn out to-night! in favour of a widow lady, who
+keeps it all the time we are away!
+
+Wherefore if you, looking up into the sky this evening between five and
+six (as possibly you may be, in search of the spring), should see a
+speck in the air--a mere dot--which, growing larger and larger by
+degrees, appears in course of time to be an eagle (chain and all) in a
+light cart, accompanied by a raven of uncommon sagacity, curse that
+good-nature which prompted you to say it--that you would give them
+house-room. And do it for the love of
+
+                                                                  BOZ.
+
+P.S.--The writer hereof may be heerd on by personal enquiry at No. 9,
+Osnaburgh Terrace, New Road.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 4th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Many thanks for your proof, and for your truly gratifying mention of my
+name. I think the subject excellently chosen, the introduction exactly
+what it should be, the allusion to the International Copyright question
+most honourable and manly, and the whole scheme full of the highest
+interest. I had already seen your prospectus, and if I can be of the
+feeblest use in advancing a project so intimately connected with an end
+on which my heart is set--the liberal education of the people--I shall
+be sincerely glad. All good wishes and success attend you!
+
+                                        Believe me always,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Dudley Costello.]
+
+                                                     _June 7th, 1844._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Mrs. Harris, being in that delicate state (just confined, and "made
+comfortable," in fact), hears some sounds below, which she fancies may
+be the owls (or howls) of the husband to whom she is devoted. They ease
+her mind by informing her that these sounds are only organs. By "they" I
+mean the gossips and attendants. By "organs" I mean instrumental boxes
+with barrels in them, which are commonly played by foreigners under the
+windows of people of sedentary pursuits, on a speculation of being
+bribed to leave the street. Mrs. Harris, being of a confiding nature,
+believed in this pious fraud, and was fully satisfied "that his owls was
+organs."
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Robert Keeley.]
+
+               9, OSNABURGH TERRACE, _Monday Evening, June 24th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have been out yachting for two or three days; and consequently could
+not answer your letter in due course.
+
+I cannot, consistently with the opinion I hold and have always held, in
+reference to the principle of adapting novels for the stage, give you a
+prologue to "Chuzzlewit." But believe me to be quite sincere in saying
+that if I felt I could reasonably do such a thing for anyone, I would do
+it for you.
+
+I start for Italy on Monday next, but if you have the piece on the
+stage, and rehearse on Friday, I will gladly come down at any time you
+may appoint on that morning, and go through it with you all. If you be
+not in a sufficiently forward state to render this proposal convenient
+to you, or likely to assist your preparations, do not take the trouble
+to answer this note.
+
+I presume Mrs. Keeley will do Ruth Pinch. If so, I feel secure about
+her, and of Mrs. Gamp I am certain. But a queer sensation begins in my
+legs, and comes upward to my forehead, when I think of Tom.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Daniel Maclise.]
+
+               VILLA DI BAGNARELLO, ALBARO, _Monday, July 22nd, 1844._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MAC,
+
+I address you with something of the lofty spirit of an exile--a banished
+commoner--a sort of Anglo-Pole. I don't exactly know what I have done
+for my country in coming away from it; but I feel it is
+something--something great--something virtuous and heroic. Lofty
+emotions rise within me, when I see the sun set on the blue
+Mediterranean. I am the limpet on the rock. My father's name is Turner
+and my boots are green.
+
+Apropos of blue. In a certain picture, called "The Serenade," you
+painted a sky. If you ever have occasion to paint the Mediterranean, let
+it be exactly of that colour. It lies before me now, as deeply and
+intensely blue. But no such colour is above me. Nothing like it. In the
+South of France--at Avignon, at Aix, at Marseilles--I saw deep blue
+skies (not _so_ deep though--oh Lord, no!), and also in America; but the
+sky above me is familiar to my sight. Is it heresy to say that I have
+seen its twin-brother shining through the window of Jack Straw's--that
+down in Devonshire I have seen a better sky? I daresay it is; but like a
+great many other heresies, it is true.
+
+But such green--green--green--as flutters in the vineyard down below the
+windows, _that_ I never saw; nor yet such lilac, and such purple as
+float between me and the distant hills; nor yet--in anything--picture,
+book, or verbal boredom--such awful, solemn, impenetrable blue, as is
+that same sea. It has such an absorbing, silent, deep, profound effect,
+that I can't help thinking it suggested the idea of Styx. It looks as if
+a draught of it--only so much as you could scoop up on the beach, in the
+hollow of your hand--would wash out everything else, and make a great
+blue blank of your intellect.
+
+When the sun sets clearly, then, by Heaven, it is majestic! From any one
+of eleven windows here, or from a terrace overgrown with grapes, you may
+behold the broad sea; villas, houses, mountains, forts, strewn with rose
+leaves--strewn with thorns--stifled in thorns! Dyed through and through
+and through. For a moment. No more. The sun is impatient and fierce,
+like everything else in these parts, and goes down headlong. Run to
+fetch your hat--and it's night. Wink at the right time of black
+night--and it's morning. Everything is in extremes. There is an insect
+here (I forget its name, and Fletcher and Roche are both out) that
+chirps all day. There is one outside the window now. The chirp is very
+loud, something like a Brobdingnagian grasshopper. The creature is born
+to chirp--to progress in chirping--to chirp louder, louder, louder--till
+it gives one tremendous chirp, and bursts itself. That is its life and
+death. Everything "is in a concatenation accordingly." The day gets
+brighter, brighter, brighter, till it's night. The summer gets hotter,
+hotter, hotter, till it bursts. The fruit gets riper, riper, riper, till
+it tumbles down and rots.
+
+Ask me a question or two about fresco--will you be so good? All the
+houses are painted in fresco hereabout--the outside walls I mean; the
+fronts, and backs, and sides--and all the colour has run into damp and
+green seediness, and the very design has struggled away into the
+component atoms of the plaster. Sometimes (but not often) I can make out
+a Virgin with a mildewed glory round her head; holding nothing, in an
+indiscernible lap, with invisible arms; and occasionally the leg or arms
+of a cherub, but it is very melancholy and dim. There are two old
+fresco-painted vases outside my own gate--one on either hand--which are
+so faint, that I never saw them till last night; and only then because I
+was looking over the wall after a lizard, who had come upon me while I
+was smoking a cigar above, and crawled over one of these embellishments
+to his retreat. There is a church here--the Church of the
+Annunciation--which they are now (by "they" I mean certain noble
+families) restoring at a vast expense, as a work of piety. It is a large
+church, with a great many little chapels in it, and a very high dome.
+Every inch of this edifice is painted, and every design is set in a
+great gold frame or border elaborately wrought. You can imagine nothing
+so splendid. It is worth coming the whole distance to see. But every
+sort of splendour is in perpetual enactment through the means of these
+churches. Gorgeous processions in the streets, illuminations of windows
+on festa nights; lighting up of lamps and clustering of flowers before
+the shrines of saints; all manner of show and display. The doors of the
+churches stand wide open; and in this hot weather great red curtains
+flutter and wave in their palaces; and if you go and sit in one of these
+to get out of the sun, you see the queerest figures kneeling against
+pillars, and the strangest people passing in and out, and vast streams
+of women in veils (they don't wear bonnets), with great fans in their
+hands, coming and going, that you are never tired of looking on. Except
+in the churches, you would suppose the city (at this time of year) to be
+deserted, the people keep so close within doors. Indeed it is next to
+impossible to go out into the heat. I have only been into Genoa twice
+myself. We are deliciously cool here, by comparison; being high, and
+having the sea breeze. There is always some shade in the vineyard, too;
+and underneath the rocks on the sea-shore, so if I choose to saunter I
+can do it easily, even in the hot time of the day. I am as lazy,
+however, as--as you are, and do little but eat and drink and read.
+
+As I am going to transmit regular accounts of all sight-seeings and
+journeyings to Forster, who will show them to you, I will not bore you
+with descriptions, however. I hardly think you allow enough for the
+great brightness and brilliancy of colour which is commonly achieved on
+the Continent, in that same fresco painting. I saw some--by a French
+artist and his pupil--in progress at the cathedral at Avignon, which
+was as bright and airy as anything can be,--nothing dull or dead about
+it; and I have observed quite fierce and glaring colours elsewhere.
+
+We have a piano now (there was none in the house), and have fallen into
+a pretty settled easy track. We breakfast about half-past nine or ten,
+dine about four, and go to bed about eleven. We are much courted by the
+visiting people, of course, and I very much resort to my old habit of
+bolting from callers, and leaving their reception to Kate. Green figs I
+have already learnt to like. Green almonds (we have them at dessert
+every day) are the most delicious fruit in the world. And green lemons,
+combined with some rare hollands that is to be got here, make prodigious
+punch, I assure you. You ought to come over, Mac; but I don't expect
+you, though I am sure it would be a very good move for you. I have not
+the smallest doubt of that. Fletcher has made a sketch of the house, and
+will copy it in pen-and-ink for transmission to you in my next letter. I
+shall look out for a place in Genoa, between this and the winter time.
+In the meantime, the people who come out here breathe delightedly, as if
+they had got into another climate. Landing in the city, you would hardly
+suppose it possible that there could be such an air within two miles.
+
+Write to me as often as you can, like a dear good fellow, and rely upon
+the punctuality of my correspondence. Losing you and Forster is like
+losing my arms and legs, and dull and lame I am without you. But at
+Broadstairs next year, please God, when it is all over, I shall be very
+glad to have laid up such a store of recollections and improvement.
+
+I don't know what to do with Timber. He is as ill-adapted to the climate
+at this time of year as a suit of fur. I have had him made a lion dog;
+but the fleas flock in such crowds into the hair he has left, that they
+drive him nearly frantic, and renders it absolutely necessary that he
+should be kept by himself. Of all the miserable hideous little frights
+you ever saw, you never beheld such a devil. Apropos, as we were
+crossing the Seine within two stages of Paris, Roche suddenly said to
+me, sitting by me on the box: "The littel dog 'ave got a great lip!" I
+was thinking of things remote and very different, and couldn't
+comprehend why any peculiarity in this feature on the part of the dog
+should excite a man so much. As I was musing upon it, my ears were
+attracted by shouts of "Helo! hola! Hi, hi, hi! Le voilà! Regardez!" and
+the like. And looking down among the oxen--we were in the centre of a
+numerous drove--I saw him, Timber, lying in the road, curled up--you
+know his way--like a lobster, only not so stiff, yelping dismally in the
+pain of his "lip" from the roof of the carriage; and between the aching
+of his bones, his horror of the oxen, and his dread of me (who he
+evidently took to be the immediate agent in and cause of the damage),
+singing out to an extent which I believe to be perfectly unprecedented;
+while every Frenchman and French boy within sight roared for company. He
+wasn't hurt.
+
+Kate and Georgina send their best loves; and the children add "theirs."
+Katey, in particular, desires to be commended to "Mr. Teese." She has a
+sore throat; from sitting in constant draughts, I suppose; but with that
+exception, we are all quite well. Ever believe me, my dear Mac,
+
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. Edward Tagart.]
+
+                       ALBARO, NEAR GENOA, _Friday, August 9th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I find that if I wait to write you a long letter (which has been the
+cause of my procrastination in fulfilling my part of our agreement), I
+am likely to wait some time longer. And as I am very anxious to hear
+from you; not the less so, because if I hear of you through my brother,
+who usually sees you once a week in my absence; I take pen in hand and
+stop a messenger who is going to Genoa. For my main object being to
+qualify myself for the receipt of a letter from you, I don't see why a
+ten-line qualification is not as good as one of a hundred lines.
+
+You told me it was possible that you and Mrs. Tagart might wander into
+these latitudes in the autumn. I wish you would carry out that infant
+intention to the utmost. It would afford us the truest delight and
+pleasure to receive you. If you come in October, you will find us in the
+Palazzo Peschiere, in Genoa, which is surrounded by a delicious garden,
+and is a most charming habitation in all respects. If you come in
+September, you will find us less splendidly lodged, but on the margin of
+the sea, and in the midst of vineyards. The climate is delightful even
+now; the heat being not at all oppressive, except in the actual city,
+which is what the Americans would call considerable fiery, in the middle
+of the day. But the sea-breezes out here are refreshing and cool every
+day, and the bathing in the early morning is something more agreeable
+than you can easily imagine. The orange trees of the Peschiere shall
+give you their most fragrant salutations if you come to us at that
+time, and we have a dozen spare beds in that house that I know of; to
+say nothing of some vast chambers here and there with ancient iron
+chests in them, where Mrs. Tagart might enact Ginevra to perfection, and
+never be found out. To prevent which, I will engage to watch her
+closely, if she will only come and see us.
+
+The flies are incredibly numerous just now. The unsightly blot a little
+higher up was occasioned by a very fine one who fell into the inkstand,
+and came out, unexpectedly, on the nib of my pen. We are all quite well,
+thank Heaven, and had a very interesting journey here, of which, as well
+as of this place, I will not write a word, lest I should take the edge
+off those agreeable conversations with which we will beguile our walks.
+
+Pray tell me about the presentation of the plate, and whether ---- was
+very slow, or trotted at all, and if so, when. He is an excellent
+creature, and I respect him very much, so I don't mind smiling when I
+think of him as he appeared when addressing you and pointing to the
+plate, with his head a little on one side, and one of his eyes turned up
+languidly.
+
+Also let me know exactly how you are travelling, and when, and all about
+it; that I may meet you with open arms on the threshold of the city, if
+happily you bend your steps this way. You had better address me, "Poste
+Restante, Genoa," as the Albaro postman gets drunk, and when he has lost
+letters, and is sober, sheds tears--which is affecting, but hardly
+satisfactory.
+
+Kate and her sister send their best regards to yourself, and Mrs. and
+Miss Tagart, and all your family. I heartily join them in all kind
+remembrances and good wishes. As the messenger has just looked in at the
+door, and shedding on me a balmy gale of onions, has protested against
+being detained any longer, I will only say (which is not at all
+necessary) that I am ever,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--There is a little to see here, in the church way, I assure you.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                          ALBARO, _Saturday Night, August 24th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD,
+
+I love you so truly, and have such pride and joy of heart in your
+friendship, that I don't know how to begin writing to you. When I think
+how you are walking up and down London in that portly surtout, and can't
+receive proposals from Dick to go to the theatre, I fall into a state
+between laughing and crying, and want some friendly back to smite.
+"Je-im!" "Aye, aye, your honour," is in my ears every time I walk upon
+the sea-shore here; and the number of expeditions I make into Cornwall
+in my sleep, the springs of Flys I break, the songs I sing, and the
+bowls of punch I drink, would soften a heart of stone.
+
+We have had weather here, since five o'clock this morning, after your
+own heart. Suppose yourself the Admiral in "Black-eyed Susan" after the
+acquittal of William, and when it was possible to be on friendly terms
+with him. I am T. P.[4] My trousers are very full at the ankles, my
+black neckerchief is tied in the regular style, the name of my ship is
+painted round my glazed hat, I have a red waistcoat on, and the seams of
+my blue jacket are "paid"--permit me to dig you in the ribs when I make
+use of this nautical expression--with white. In my hand I hold the very
+box connected with the story of Sandomingerbilly. I lift up my eyebrows
+as far as I can (on the T. P. model), take a quid from the box, screw
+the lid on again (chewing at the same time, and looking pleasantly at
+the pit), brush it with my right elbow, take up my right leg, scrape my
+right foot on the ground, hitch up my trousers, and in reply to a
+question of yours, namely, "Indeed, what weather, William?" I deliver
+myself as follows:
+
+        Lord love your honour! Weather! Such weather as
+        would set all hands to the pumps aboard one of
+        your fresh-water cockboats, and set the purser
+        to his wits' ends to stow away, for the use of
+        the ship's company, the casks and casks full of
+        blue water as would come powering in over the
+        gunnel! The dirtiest night, your honour, as
+        ever you see 'atween Spithead at gun-fire and
+        the Bay of Biscay! The wind sou'-west, and your
+        house dead in the wind's eye; the breakers
+        running up high upon the rocky beads, the
+        light'us no more looking through the fog than
+        Davy Jones's sarser eye through the blue sky of
+        heaven in a calm, or the blue toplights of your
+        honour's lady cast down in a modest overhauling
+        of her catheads: avast! (_whistling_) my dear
+        eyes; here am I a-goin' head on to the breakers
+        (_bowing_).
+
+        _Admiral_ (_smiling_). No, William! I admire
+        plain speaking, as you know, and so does old
+        England, William, and old England's Queen. But
+        you were saying----
+
+        _William._ Aye, aye, your honour (_scratching
+        his head_). I've lost my reckoning. Damme!--I
+        ast pardon--but won't your honour throw a
+        hencoop or any old end of towline to a man as
+        is overboard?
+
+        _Admiral_ (_smiling still_). You were saying,
+        William, that the wind----
+
+        _William_ (_again cocking his leg, and slapping
+        the thighs very hard_). Avast heaving, your
+        honour! I see your honour's signal fluttering
+        in the breeze, without a glass. As I was
+        a-saying, your honour, the wind was blowin'
+        from the sou'-west, due sou'-west, your honour,
+        not a pint to larboard nor a pint to starboard;
+        the clouds a-gatherin' in the distance for all
+        the world like Beachy Head in a fog, the sea
+        a-rowling in, in heaps of foam, and making
+        higher than the mainyard arm, the craft
+        a-scuddin' by all taught and under storms'ils
+        for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin'
+        out aloft--aloft, your honour, in the little
+        cherubs' native country--and the spray is
+        flying like the white foam from the Jolly's
+        lips when Poll of Portsea took him for a
+        tailor! (_laughs._)
+
+        _Admiral_ (_laughing also_). You have described
+        it well, William, and I thank you. But who are
+        these?
+
+        _Enter Supers in calico jackets to look like
+        cloth, some in brown holland petticoat-trousers
+        and big boots, all with very large buckles.
+        Last Super rolls on a cask, and pretends to
+        keep it. Other Supers apply their mugs to the
+        bunghole and drink, previously holding them
+        upside down._
+
+        _William_ (_after shaking hands with
+        everybody_). Who are these, your honour!
+        Messmates as staunch and true as ever broke
+        biscuit. Ain't you, my lads?
+
+        _All._ Aye, aye, William. That we are! that we
+        are!
+
+        _Admiral_ (_much affected_). Oh, England, what
+        wonder that----! But I will no longer detain
+        you from your sports, my humble friends
+        (ADMIRAL _speaks very low, and looks hard at
+        the orchestra, this being the cue for the
+        dance_)--from your sports, my humble friends.
+        Farewell!
+
+        _All._ Hurrah! hurrah! [_Exit_ ADMIRAL.
+
+        _Voice behind._ Suppose the dance, Mr.
+        Stanfield. Are you all ready? Go then!
+
+My dear Stanfield, I wish you would come this way and see me in that
+Palazzo Peschiere! Was ever man so welcome as I would make you! What a
+truly gentlemanly action it would be to bring Mrs. Stanfield and the
+baby. And how Kate and her sister would wave pocket-handkerchiefs from
+the wharf in joyful welcome! Ah, what a glorious proceeding!
+
+Do you know this place? Of course you do. I won't bore you with anything
+about it, for I know Forster reads my letters to you; but what a place
+it is. The views from the hills here, and the immense variety of
+prospects of the sea, are as striking, I think, as such scenery can be.
+Above all, the approach to Genoa, by sea from Marseilles, constitutes a
+picture which you ought to paint, for nobody else can ever do it!
+William, you made that bridge at Avignon better than it is. Beautiful as
+it undoubtedly is, you made it fifty times better. And if I were
+Morrison, or one of that school (bless the dear fellows one and all!), I
+wouldn't stand it, but would insist on having another picture gratis, to
+atone for the imposition.
+
+The night is like a seaside night in England towards the end of
+September. They say it is the prelude to clear weather. But the wind is
+roaring now, and the sea is raving, and the rain is driving down, as if
+they had all set in for a real hearty picnic, and each had brought its
+own relations to the general festivity. I don't know whether you are
+acquainted with the coastguard and men in these parts? They are
+extremely civil fellows, of a very amiable manner and appearance, but
+the most innocent men in matters you would suppose them to be well
+acquainted with, in virtue of their office, that I ever encountered. One
+of them asked me only yesterday, if it would take a year to get to
+England in a ship? Which I thought for a coastguardman was rather a tidy
+question. It would take a long time to catch a ship going there if he
+were on board a pursuing cutter though. I think he would scarcely do it
+in twelve months, indeed.
+
+So you were at Astley's t'other night. "Now, Mr. Stickney, sir, what can
+I come for to go for to do for to bring for to fetch for to carry for
+you, sir?" "He, he, he! Oh, I say, sir!" "Well, sir?" "Miss Woolford
+knows me, sir. She laughed at me!" I see him run away after this; not on
+his feet, but on his knees and the calves of his legs alternately; and
+that smell of sawdusty horses, which was never in any other place in the
+world, salutes my nose with painful distinctness. What do you think of
+my suddenly finding myself a swimmer? But I have really made the
+discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below the town here,
+like a fish in high spirits. I hope to preserve my bathing-dress for
+your inspection and approval, or possibly to enrich your collection of
+Italian costumes on my return. Do you recollect Yarnold in "Masaniello"?
+I fear that I, unintentionally, "dress at him," before plunging into the
+sea. I enhanced the likeness very much, last Friday morning, by singing
+a barcarole on the rocks. I was a trifle too flesh-coloured (the stage
+knowing no medium between bright salmon and dirty yellow), but apart
+from that defect, not badly made up by any means. When you write to me,
+my dear Stanny, as I hope you will soon, address Poste Restante, Genoa.
+I remain out here until the end of September, and send in for my letters
+daily. There is a postman for this place, but he gets drunk and loses
+the letters; after which he calls to say so, and to fall upon his knees.
+About three weeks ago I caught him at a wine-shop near here, playing
+bowls in the garden. It was then about five o'clock in the afternoon,
+and he had been airing a newspaper addressed to me, since nine o'clock
+in the morning.
+
+Kate and Georgina unite with me in most cordial remembrances to Mrs. and
+Miss Stanfield, and to all the children. They particularise all sorts of
+messages, but I tell them that they had better write themselves if they
+want to send any. Though I don't know that this writing would end in the
+safe deliverance of the commodities after all; for when I began this
+letter, I meant to give utterance to all kinds of heartiness, my dear
+Stanfield; and I come to the end of it without having said anything more
+than that I am--which is new to you--under every circumstance and
+everywhere,
+
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                       PALAZZO PESCHIERE, GENOA, _October 14th, 1844._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+My whole heart is with you _at home_. I have not yet felt so far off as
+I do now, when I think of you there, and cannot fold you in my arms.
+This is only a shake of the hand. I couldn't _say_ much to you, if I
+were home to greet you. Nor can I write much, when I think of you, safe
+and sound and happy, after all your wanderings.
+
+My dear fellow, God bless you twenty thousand times. Happiness and joy
+be with you! I hope to see you soon. If I should be so unfortunate as to
+miss you in London, I will fall upon you, with a swoop of love, in
+Paris. Kate says all kind things in the language; and means more than
+are in the dictionary capacity of all the descendants of all the
+stonemasons that worked at Babel. Again and again and again, my own true
+friend, God bless you!
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                        CREMONA, _Saturday Night, October 16th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+As half a loaf is better than no bread, so I hope that half a sheet of
+paper may be better than none at all, coming from one who is anxious to
+live in your memory and friendship. I should have redeemed the pledge I
+gave you in this regard long since, but occupation at one time, and
+absence from pen and ink at another, have prevented me.
+
+Forster has told you, or will tell you, that I very much wish you to
+hear my little Christmas book; and I hope you will meet me, at his
+bidding, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I have tried to strike a blow upon
+that part of the brass countenance of wicked Cant, when such a
+compliment is sorely needed at this time, and I trust that the result of
+my training is at least the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a
+staggerer. If _you_ should think at the end of the four rounds (there
+are no more) that the said Cant, in the language of _Bell's Life_,
+"comes up piping," I shall be very much the better for it.
+
+I am now on my way to Milan; and from thence (after a day or two's rest)
+I mean to come to England by the grandest Alpine pass that the snow may
+leave open. You know this place as famous of yore for fiddles. I don't
+see any here now. But there is a whole street of coppersmiths not far
+from this inn; and they throb so d----ably and fitfully, that I thought
+I had a palpitation of the heart after dinner just now, and seldom was
+more relieved than when I found the noise to be none of mine.
+
+I was rather shocked yesterday (I am not strong in geographical details)
+to find that Romeo was only banished twenty-five miles. That is the
+distance between Mantua and Verona. The latter is a quaint old place,
+with great houses in it that are now solitary and shut up--exactly the
+place it ought to be. The former has a great many apothecaries in it at
+this moment, who could play that part to the life. For of all the
+stagnant ponds I ever beheld, it is the greenest and weediest. I went to
+see the old palace of the Capulets, which is still distinguished by
+their cognizance (a hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). It is a
+miserable inn. The court was full of crazy coaches, carts, geese, and
+pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and dung. The garden is walled off and
+built out. There was nothing to connect it with its old inhabitants, and
+a very unsentimental lady at the kitchen door. The Montagues used to
+live some two or three miles off in the country. It does not appear
+quite clear whether they ever inhabited Verona itself. But there is a
+village bearing their name to this day, and traditions of the quarrels
+between the two families are still as nearly alive as anything can be,
+in such a drowsy neighbourhood.
+
+It was very hearty and good of you, Jerrold, to make that affectionate
+mention of the "Carol" in _Punch_, and I assure you it was not lost on
+the distant object of your manly regard, but touched him as you wished
+and meant it should. I wish we had not lost so much time in improving
+our personal knowledge of each other. But I have so steadily read you,
+and so selfishly gratified myself in always expressing the admiration
+with which your gallant truths inspired me, that I must not call it time
+lost, either.
+
+You rather entertained a notion, once, of coming to see me at Genoa. I
+shall return straight, on the 9th of December, limiting my stay in town
+to one week. Now couldn't you come back with me? The journey, that way,
+is very cheap, costing little more than twelve pounds; and I am sure the
+gratification to you would be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful
+place, and would put you in a painted room, as big as a church and much
+more comfortable. There are pens and ink upon the premises; orange
+trees, gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires for
+evenings, and a welcome worth having.
+
+Come! Letter from a gentleman in Italy to Bradbury and Evans in London.
+Letter from a gentleman in a country gone to sleep to a gentleman in a
+country that would go to sleep too, and never wake again, if some people
+had their way. You can work in Genoa. The house is used to it. It is
+exactly a week's post. Have that portmanteau looked to, and when we
+meet, say, "I am coming."
+
+I have never in my life been so struck by any place as by Venice. It is
+_the_ wonder of the world. Dreamy, beautiful, inconsistent, impossible,
+wicked, shadowy, d----able old place. I entered it by night, and the
+sensation of that night and the bright morning that followed is a part
+of me for the rest of my existence. And, oh God! the cells below the
+water, underneath the Bridge of Sighs; the nook where the monk came at
+midnight to confess the political offender; the bench where he was
+strangled; the deadly little vault in which they tied him in a sack, and
+the stealthy crouching little door through which they hurried him into a
+boat, and bore him away to sink him where no fisherman dare cast his
+net--all shown by torches that blink and wink, as if they were ashamed
+to look upon the gloomy theatre of sad horrors; past and gone as they
+are, these things stir a man's blood, like a great wrong or passion of
+the instant. And with these in their minds, and with a museum there,
+having a chamber full of such frightful instruments of torture as the
+devil in a brain fever could scarcely invent, there are hundreds of
+parrots, who will declaim to you in speech and print, by the hour
+together, on the degeneracy of the times in which a railroad is building
+across the water at Venice; instead of going down on their knees, the
+drivellers, and thanking Heaven that they live in a time when iron makes
+roads, instead of prison bars and engines for driving screws into the
+skulls of innocent men. Before God, I could almost turn bloody-minded,
+and shoot the parrots of our island with as little compunction as
+Robinson Crusoe shot the parrots in his.
+
+I have not been in bed, these ten days, after five in the morning, and
+have been, travelling many hours every day. If this be the cause of my
+inflicting a very stupid and sleepy letter on you, my dear Jerrold, I
+hope it will be a kind of signal at the same time, of my wish to hail
+you lovingly even from this sleepy and unpromising state. And believe me
+as I am,
+
+                                       Always your Friend and Admirer.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                          PESCHIERE, GENOA, _Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+The cause of my not having written to you is too obvious to need any
+explanation. I have worn myself to death in the month I have been at
+work. None of my usual reliefs have been at hand; I have not been able
+to divest myself of the story--have suffered very much in my sleep in
+consequence--and am so shaken by such work in this trying climate, that
+I am as nervous as a man who is dying of drink, and as haggard as a
+murderer.
+
+I believe I have written a tremendous book, and knocked the "Carol" out
+of the field. It will make a great uproar, I have no doubt.
+
+I leave here to-morrow for Venice and many other places; and I shall
+certainly come to London to see my proofs, coming by new ground all the
+way, cutting through the snow in the valleys of Switzerland, and
+plunging through the mountains in the dead of winter. I would accept
+your hearty offer with right goodwill, but my visit being one of
+business and consultation, I see impediments in the way, and
+insurmountable reasons for not doing so. Therefore, I shall go to an
+hotel in Covent Garden, where they know me very well, and with the
+landlord of which I have already communicated. My orders are not upon a
+mighty scale, extending no further than a good bedroom and a cold
+shower-bath.
+
+Bradbury and Evans are going at it, ding-dong, and are wild with
+excitement. All news on that subject (and on every other) I must defer
+till I see you. That will be immediately after I arrive, of course. Most
+likely on Monday, 2nd December.
+
+Kate and her sister (who send their best regards) and all the children
+are as well as possible. The house is _perfect_; the servants are as
+quiet and well-behaved as at home, which very rarely happens here, and
+Roche is my right hand. There never was such a fellow.
+
+We have now got carpets down--burn fires at night--draw the curtains,
+and are quite wintry. We have a box at the opera, which, is close by
+(for nothing), and sit there when we please, as in our own drawing-room.
+There have been three fine days in four weeks. On every other the water
+has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it has been thundering
+and lightening every day and night.
+
+My hand shakes in that feverish and horrible manner that I can hardly
+hold a pen. And I have so bad a cold that I can't see.
+
+                                  In haste to save the post,
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Charley has a writing-master every day, and a French master. He
+and his sisters are to be waited on by a professor of the noble art of
+dancing, next week.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                 PARMA, ALBERGO DELLA POSTA, _Friday, Nov. 8th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+"If missis could see us to-night, what would she say?" That was the
+brave C.'s remark last night at midnight, and he had reason. We left
+Genoa, as you know, soon after five on the evening of my departure; and
+in company with the lady whom you saw, and the dog whom I don't think
+you did see, travelled all night at the rate of four miles an hour over
+bad roads, without the least refreshment until daybreak, when the brave
+and myself escaped into a miserable caffé while they were changing
+horses, and got a cup of that drink hot. That same day, a few hours
+afterwards, between ten and eleven, we came to (I hope) the d----dest
+inn in the world, where, in a vast chamber, rendered still more desolate
+by the presence of a most offensive specimen of what D'Israeli calls the
+Mosaic Arab (who had a beautiful girl with him), I regaled upon a
+breakfast, almost as cold, and damp, and cheerless, as myself. Then, in
+another coach, much smaller than a small Fly, I was packed up with an
+old padre, a young Jesuit, a provincial avvocato, a private gentleman
+with a very red nose and a very wet brown umbrella, and the brave C. and
+I went on again at the same pace through the mud and rain until four in
+the afternoon, when there was a place in the coupé (two indeed), which I
+took, holding that select compartment in company with a very ugly but
+very agreeable Tuscan "gent," who said "_gia_" instead of "_si_," and
+rung some other changes in this changing language, but with whom I got
+on very well, being extremely conversational. We were bound, as you know
+perhaps, for Piacenza, but it was discovered that we couldn't get to
+Piacenza, and about ten o'clock at night we halted at a place called
+Stradella, where the inn was a series of queer galleries open to the
+night, with a great courtyard full of waggons and horses, and
+"_velociferi_," and what not in the centre. It was bitter cold and very
+wet, and we all walked into a bare room (mine!) with two immensely broad
+beds on two deal dining-tables, a third great empty table, the usual
+washing-stand tripod, with a slop-basin on it, and two chairs. And then
+we walked up and down for three-quarters of an hour or so, while dinner,
+or supper, or whatever it was, was getting ready. This was set forth (by
+way of variety) in the old priest's bedroom, which had two more
+immensely broad beds on two more deal dining-tables in it. The first
+dish was a cabbage boiled in a great quantity of rice and hot water, the
+whole flavoured with cheese. I was so cold that I thought it
+comfortable, and so hungry that a bit of cabbage, when I found such a
+thing floating my way, charmed me. After that we had a dish of very
+little pieces of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys; after that a fowl;
+after that something very red and stringy, which I think was veal; and
+after that two tiny little new-born-baby-looking turkeys, very red and
+very swollen. Fruit, of course, to wind up, and garlic in one shape or
+another in every course. I made three jokes at supper (to the immense
+delight of the company), and retired early. The brave brought in a bush
+or two and made a fire, and after that a glass of screeching hot brandy
+and water; that bottle of his being full of brandy. I drank it at my
+leisure, undressed before the fire, and went into one of the beds. The
+brave reappeared about an hour afterwards and went into the other;
+previously tying a pocket-handkerchief round and round his head in a
+strange fashion, and giving utterance to the sentiment with which this
+letter begins. At five this morning we resumed our journey, still
+through mud and rain, and at about eleven arrived at Piacenza; where we
+fellow-passengers took leave of one another in the most affectionate
+manner. As there was no coach on till six at night, and as it was a very
+grim, despondent sort of place, and as I had had enough of diligences
+for one while, I posted forward here in the strangest carriages ever
+beheld, which we changed when we changed horses. We arrived here before
+six. The hotel is quite French. I have dined very well in my own room on
+the second floor; and it has two beds in it, screened off from the room
+by drapery. I only use one to-night, and that is already made.
+
+I purpose posting on to Bologna, if I can arrange it, at twelve
+to-morrow; seeing the sights here first.
+
+It is dull work this travelling alone. My only comfort is in motion. I
+look forward with a sort of shudder to Sunday, when I shall have a day
+to myself in Bologna; and I think I must deliver my letters in Venice in
+sheer desperation. Never did anybody want a companion after dinner so
+much as I do.
+
+There has been music on the landing outside my door to-night. Two
+violins and a violoncello. One of the violins played a solo, and the
+others struck in as an orchestra does now and then, very well. Then he
+came in with a small tin platter. "Bella musica," said I. "Bellissima
+musica, signore. Mi piace moltissimo. Sono felice, signoro," said he. I
+gave him a franc. "O moltissimo generoso. Tanto generoso signore!"
+
+It was a joke to laugh at when I was learning, but I swear unless I
+could stagger on, Zoppa-wise, with the people, I verily believe I should
+have turned back this morning.
+
+In all other respects I think the entire change has done me undoubted
+service already. I am free of the book, and am red-faced; and feel
+marvellously disposed to sleep.
+
+So for all the straggling qualities of this straggling letter, want of
+sleep must be responsible. Give my best love to Georgy, and my paternal
+blessing to
+
+        Mamey,
+        Katey,
+        Charley,
+        Wally,
+        and
+        Chickenstalker.
+
+P.S.--Get things in their places. I can't bear to picture them
+otherwise.
+
+P.P.S.--I think I saw Roche sleeping with his head on the lady's
+shoulder, in the coach. I couldn't swear it, and the light was
+deceptive. But I think I did.
+
+        Alia sign^{a}
+               Sign^{a} Dickens.
+        Palazzo Peschiere, Genova.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                      FRIBOURG, _Saturday Night, November 23rd, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+For the first time since I left you I am sitting in a room of my own
+hiring, with a fire and a bed in it. And I am happy to say that I have
+the best and fullest intentions of sleeping in the bed, having arrived
+here at half-past four this afternoon, without any cessation of
+travelling, night or day, since I parted from Mr. Bairr's cheap
+firewood.
+
+The Alps appeared in sight very soon after we left Milan--by eight or
+nine o'clock in the morning; and the brave C. was so far wrong in his
+calculations that we began the ascent of the Simplon that same night,
+while you were travelling (as I would I were) towards the Peschiere.
+Most favourable state of circumstances for journeying up that tremendous
+pass! The brightest moon I ever saw, all night, and daybreak on the
+summit. The glory of which, making great wastes of snow a rosy red,
+exceeds all telling. We _sledged_ through the snow on the summit for two
+hours or so. The weather was perfectly fair and bright, and there was
+neither difficulty nor danger--except the danger that there always must
+be, in such a place, of a horse stumbling on the brink of an
+immeasurable precipice. In which case no piece of the unfortunate
+traveller would be left large enough to tell his story in dumb show. You
+may imagine something of the rugged grandeur of such a scene as this
+great passage of these great mountains, and indeed Glencoe, well
+sprinkled with snow, would be very like the ascent. But the top itself,
+so wild, and bleak, and lonely, is a thing by itself, and not to be
+likened to any other sight. The cold was piercing; the north wind high
+and boisterous; and when it came driving in our faces, bringing a sharp
+shower of little points of snow and piercing it into our very blood, it
+really was, what it is often said to be, "cutting"--with a very sharp
+edge too. There are houses of refuge here--bleak, solitary places--for
+travellers overtaken by the snow to hurry to, as an escape from death;
+and one great house, called the Hospital, kept by monks, where wayfarers
+get supper and bed for nothing. We saw some coming out and pursuing
+their journey. If all monks devoted themselves to such uses, I should
+have little fault to find with them.
+
+The cold in Switzerland, since, has been something quite indescribable.
+My eyes are tingling to-night as one may suppose cymbals to tingle when
+they have been lustily played. It is positive pain to me to write. The
+great organ which I was to have had "pleasure in hearing" don't play on
+a Sunday, at which the brave is inconsolable. But the town is
+picturesque and quaint, and worth seeing. And this inn (with a German
+bedstead in it about the size and shape of a baby's linen-basket) is
+perfectly clean and comfortable. Butter is so cheap hereabouts that they
+bring you a great mass like the squab of a sofa for tea. And of honey,
+which is most delicious, they set before you a proportionate allowance.
+We start to-morrow morning at six for Strasburg, and from that town, or
+the next halting-place on the Rhine, I will report progress, if it be
+only in half-a-dozen words.
+
+I am anxious to hear that you reached Genoa quite comfortably, and shall
+look forward with impatience to that letter which you are to indite with
+so much care and pains next Monday. My best love to Georgy, and to
+Charley, and Mamey, and Katey, and Wally, and Chickenstalker. I have
+treated myself to a new travelling-cap to-night (my old one being too
+thin), and it is rather a prodigious affair I flatter myself.
+
+Swiss towns, and mountains, and the Lake of Geneva, and the famous
+suspension bridge at this place, and a great many other objects (with a
+very low thermometer conspicuous among them), are dancing up and down
+me, strangely. But I am quite collected enough, notwithstanding, to have
+still a very distinct idea that this hornpipe travelling is
+uncomfortable, and that I would gladly start for my palazzo out of hand
+without any previous rest, stupid as I am and much as I want it.
+
+                                   Ever, my dear love,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I hope the dancing lessons will be a success. Don't fail to let me
+know.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+           HÔTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night,
+                                      Nov. 28th, 1844, Half-past Ten._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Since I wrote to you what would be called in law proceedings the exhibit
+marked A, I have been round to the Hôtel Brighton, and personally
+examined and cross-examined the attendants. It is painfully clear to me
+that I shall not see you to-night, nor until Tuesday, the 10th of
+December, when, please God, I shall re-arrive here, on my way to my
+Italian bowers. I mean to stay all the Wednesday and all the Thursday in
+Paris. One night to see you act (my old delight when you little thought
+of such a being in existence), and one night to read to you and Mrs.
+Macready (if that scamp of Lincoln's Inn Fields has not anticipated me)
+my little Christmas book, in which I have endeavoured to plant an
+indignant right-hander on the eye of certain wicked Cant that makes my
+blood boil, which I hope will not only cloud that eye with black and
+blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort. God forgive
+me, but I think there are good things in the little story!
+
+I took it for granted you were, as your American friends say, "in full
+blast" here, and meant to have sent a card into your dressing-room, with
+"Mr. G. S. Hancock Muggridge, United States," upon it. But Paris looks
+coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being able to shake
+your hand I shake my own head dolefully, which is but poor satisfaction.
+
+My love to Mrs. Macready. I will swear to the death that it is truly
+hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for nothing else, and to you,
+my dear Macready, I am ever a devoted friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+              HÔTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night, Nov. 28th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+With an intolerable pen and no ink, I am going to write a few lines to
+you to report progress.
+
+I got to Strasburg on Monday night, intending to go down the Rhine. But
+the weather being foggy, and the season quite over, they could not
+insure me getting on for certain beyond Mayence, or our not being
+detained by unpropitious weather. Therefore I resolved (the malle poste
+being full) to take the diligence hither next day in the afternoon. I
+arrived here at half-past five to-night, after fifty hours of it in a
+French coach. I was so beastly dirty when I got to this house, that I
+had quite lost all sense of my identity, and if anybody had said, "Are
+you Charles Dickens?" I should have unblushingly answered, "No; I never
+heard of him." A good wash, and a good dress, and a good dinner have
+revived me, however; and I can report of this house, concerning which
+the brave was so anxious when we were here before, that it is the best I
+ever was in. My little apartment, consisting of three rooms and other
+conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness. You never saw such
+a charming little baby-house. It is infinitely smaller than those first
+rooms we had at Meurice's, but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and
+quietude, exceeds anything I ever met with at an inn.
+
+The moment I arrived here, I enquired, of course, after Macready. They
+said the English theatre had not begun yet, that they thought he was at
+Meurice's, where they knew some members of the company to be. I
+instantly despatched the porter with a note to say that if he were
+there, I would come round and hug him, as soon as I was clean. They
+referred the porter to the Hôtel Brighton. He came back and told me that
+the answer there was: "M. Macready's rooms were engaged, but he had not
+arrived. He was expected to-night!" If we meet to-night, I will add a
+postscript. Wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road between this and
+Boulogne to-morrow?
+
+I mean, as a recompense for my late sufferings, to get a
+hackney-carriage if I can and post that journey, starting from here at
+eight to-morrow morning, getting to Boulogne sufficiently early next
+morning to cross at once, and dining with Forster that same day--to wit,
+Saturday. I have notions of taking you with me on my next journey (if
+you would like to go), and arranging for Georgy to come to us by
+steamer--under the protection of the English captain, for instance--to
+Naples; there I would top and cap all our walks by taking her up to the
+crater of Vesuvius with me. But this is dependent on her ability to be
+perfectly happy for a fortnight or so in our stately palace with the
+children, and such foreign aid as the Simpsons. For I love her too
+dearly to think of any project which would involve her being
+uncomfortable for that space of time.
+
+You can think this over, and talk it over; and I will join you in doing
+so, please God, when I return to our Italian bowers, which I shall be
+heartily glad to do.
+
+They tell us that the landlord of this house, going to London some week
+or so ago, was detained at Boulogne two days by a high sea, in which the
+packet could not put out. So I hope there is the greater chance of no
+such bedevilment happening to me.
+
+Paris is better than ever. Oh dear, how grand it was when I came through
+it in that caravan to-night! I hope we shall be very hearty here, and
+able to say with Wally, "Han't it plassant!"
+
+Love to Charley, Mamey, Katey, Wally, and Chickenstalker. The
+last-named, I take it for granted, is indeed prodigious.
+
+Best love to Georgy.
+
+                                Ever, my dearest Kate,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I have been round to Macready's hotel; it is now past ten, and he
+has not arrived, nor does it seem at all certain that he seriously
+intended to arrive to-night. So I shall not see him, I take it for
+granted, until my return.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                  PIAZZA COFFEE HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN,
+                                             _Monday, Dec. 2nd, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I received, with great delight, your _excellent_ letter of this morning.
+Do not regard this as my answer to it. It is merely to say that I have
+been at Bradbury and Evans's all day, and have barely time to write more
+than that I _will_ write to-morrow. I arrived about seven on Saturday
+evening, and rushed into the arms of Mac and Forster. Both of them send
+their best love to you and Georgy, with a heartiness not to be
+described.
+
+The little book is now, as far as I am concerned, all ready. One cut of
+Doyle's and one of Leech's I found so unlike my ideas, that I had them
+both to breakfast with me this morning, and with that winning manner
+which you know of, got them with the highest good humour to do both
+afresh. They are now hard at it. Stanfield's readiness, delight, wonder
+at my being pleased with what he has done is delicious. Mac's
+frontispiece is charming. The book is quite splendid; the expenses will
+be very great, I have no doubt.
+
+Anybody who has heard it has been moved in the most extraordinary
+manner. Forster read it (for dramatic purposes) to A'Beckett. He cried
+so much and so painfully, that Forster didn't know whether to go on or
+stop; and he called next day to say that any expression of his feeling
+was beyond his power. But that he believed it, and felt it to be--I
+won't say what.
+
+As the reading comes off to-morrow night, I had better not despatch my
+letters to you until _Wednesday's_ post. I must close to save this
+(heartily tired I am, and I dine at Gore House to-day), so with love to
+Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Wally, and Chickenstalker, ever, believe
+me,
+
+                                           Yours, with true affection.
+
+P.S.--If you had seen Macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and
+crying on the sofa as I read, you would have felt, as I did, what a
+thing it is to have power.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] T. P. Cooke, the celebrated actor of "William" in Douglas Jerrold's
+play of "Black-eyed Susan."
+
+
+
+
+1845.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was still living at the
+Palazzo Peschiere, Genoa, with his family. In February, he went with his
+wife to Rome for the Carnival, leaving his sister-in-law and children at
+Genoa; Miss Hogarth joining them later on at Naples. They all returned
+to Rome for the Holy Week, and then went to Florence, and so back to
+Genoa. He continued his residence at Genoa until June of this year, when
+he returned to England by Switzerland and Belgium, the party being met
+at Brussels by Mr. Forster, Mr. Maclise, and Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and
+arriving at home at the end of June. The autumn months, until the 1st
+October, were again spent at Broadstairs. And in this September was the
+first amateur play at Miss Kelly's theatre in Dean Street, under the
+management of Charles Dickens, with Messrs. Jerrold, Mark Lemon, John
+Leech, Gilbert A'Beckett, Leigh, Frank Stone, Forster, and others as his
+fellow-actors. The play selected was Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his
+Humour," in which Charles Dickens acted Captain Bobadil. The first
+performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors
+and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repetition of the
+same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public
+and charitable objects. "Every Man in his Humour" was shortly after
+repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed
+help; and later in the year Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Elder
+Brother" was given by the same company, at the same place, for the
+benefit of Miss Kelly. There was a farce played after the comedy on each
+occasion--not always the same one--in which Charles Dickens and Mark
+Lemon were the principal actors.
+
+The letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few
+exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation.
+
+He was at work at the end of this year on another Christmas book, "The
+Cricket on the Hearth," and was also much occupied with the project of
+_The Daily News_ paper, of which he undertook the editorship at its
+starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, 1846.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  ROME, _Tuesday, February 4th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+This is a very short note, but time is still shorter. Come by the first
+boat by all means. If there be a good one a day or two before it, come
+by that. Don't delay on any account. I am very sorry you are not here.
+The Carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. I have been
+regretting the having left you at home all the way here.
+
+Kate says, will you take counsel with Charlotte about colour (I put in
+my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made
+at once, by the same artist as before? Kate would have written, but is
+gone with Black to a day performance at the opera, to see Cerito dance.
+At two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large
+sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt
+people with. I should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the
+latter. We had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I
+wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a
+handful of very large confetti every time we met him. It was the best
+thing I have ever done. "The Chimes" are nothing to it.
+
+Anxiously expecting you, I am ever,
+
+                                   Dear Georgy,
+                                            Yours most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                                NAPLES, _Monday, February 17th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+This will be a hasty letter, for I am as badly off in this place as in
+America--beset by visitors at all times and seasons, and forced to dine
+out every day. I have found, however, an excellent man for me--an
+Englishman, who has lived here many years, and is well acquainted with
+_the people_, whom he doctored in the bad time of the cholera, when the
+priests and everybody else fled in terror.
+
+Under his auspices, I have got to understand the low life of Naples
+(among the fishermen and idlers) almost as well as I understand the do.
+do. of my own country; always excepting the language, which is very
+peculiar and extremely difficult, and would require a year's constant
+practice at least. It is no more like Italian than English is to Welsh.
+And as they don't say half of what they mean, but make a wink or a kick
+stand for a whole sentence, it's a marvel to me how they comprehend each
+other. At Rome they speak beautiful Italian (I am pretty strong at that,
+I believe); but they are worse here than in Genoa, which I had
+previously thought impossible.
+
+It is a fine place, but nothing like so beautiful as people make it out
+to be. The famous bay is, to my thinking, as a piece of scenery,
+immeasurably inferior to the Bay of Genoa, which is the most lovely
+thing I have ever seen. The city, in like manner, will bear no
+comparison with Genoa. But there is none in Italy that will, except
+Venice. As to houses, there is no palace like the Peschiere for
+architecture, situation, gardens, or rooms. It is a great triumph to me,
+too, to find how cheap it is. At Rome, the English people live in dirty
+little fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, with not one room as large as
+your own drawing-room, and pay, commonly, seven or eight pounds a week.
+
+I was a week in Rome on my way here, and saw the Carnival, which is
+perfectly delirious, and a great scene for a description. All the
+ancient part of Rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme. Far
+beyond the possibility of exaggeration as to the modern part, it might
+be anywhere or anything--Paris, Nice, Boulogne, Calais, or one of a
+thousand other places.
+
+The weather is so atrocious (rain, snow, wind, darkness, hail, and cold)
+that I can't get over into Sicily. But I don't care very much about it,
+as I have planned out ten days of excursion into the neighbouring
+country. One thing of course--the ascent of Vesuvius, Herculaneum and
+Pompeii, the two cities which were covered by its melted ashes, and dug
+out in the first instance accidentally, are more full of interest and
+wonder than it is possible to imagine. I have heard of some ancient
+tombs (quite unknown to travellers) dug in the bowels of the earth, and
+extending for some miles underground. They are near a place called
+Viterbo, on the way from Rome to Florence. I shall lay in a small stock
+of torches, etc., and explore them when I leave Rome. I return there on
+the 1st of March, and shall stay there nearly a month.
+
+Saturday, February 22nd.--Since I left off as above, I have been away on
+an excursion of three days. Yesterday evening, at four o'clock, we began
+(a small party of six) the ascent of Mount Vesuvius, with six
+saddle-horses, an armed soldier for a guard, and twenty-two guides. The
+latter rendered necessary by the severity of the weather, which is
+greater than has been known for twenty years, and has covered the
+precipitous part of the mountain with deep snow, the surface of which is
+glazed with one smooth sheet of ice from the top of the cone to the
+bottom. By starting at that hour I intended to get the sunset about
+halfway up, and night at the top, where the fire is raging. It was an
+inexpressibly lovely night without a cloud; and when the day was quite
+gone, the moon (within a few hours of the full) came proudly up, showing
+the sea, and the Bay of Naples, and the whole country, in such majesty
+as no words can express. We rode to the beginning of the snow and then
+dismounted. Catherine and Georgina were put into two litters, just
+chairs with poles, like those in use in England on the 5th of November;
+and a fat Englishman, who was of the party, was hoisted into a third,
+borne by eight men. I was accommodated with a tough stick, and we began
+to plough our way up. The ascent was as steep as this line /--very
+nearly perpendicular. We were all tumbling at every stop; and looking up
+and seeing the people in advance tumbling over one's very head, and
+looking down and seeing hundreds of feet of smooth ice below, was, I
+must confess, anything but agreeable. However, I knew there was little
+chance of another clear night before I leave this, and gave the word to
+get up, somehow or other. So on we went, winding a little now and then,
+or we should not have got on at all. By prodigious exertions we passed
+the region of snow, and came into that of fire--desolate and awful, you
+may well suppose. It was like working one's way through a dry waterfall,
+with every mass of stone burnt and charred into enormous cinders, and
+smoke and sulphur bursting out of every chink and crevice, so that it
+was difficult to breathe. High before us, bursting out of a hill at the
+top of the mountain, shaped like this [HW: A], the fire was pouring out,
+reddening the night with flames, blackening it with smoke, and spotting
+it with red-hot stones and cinders that fell down again in showers. At
+every step everybody fell, now into a hot chink, now into a bed of
+ashes, now over a mass of cindered iron; and the confusion in the
+darkness (for the smoke obscured the moon in this part), and the
+quarrelling and shouting and roaring of the guides, and the waiting
+every now and then for somebody who was not to be found, and was
+supposed to have stumbled into some pit or other, made such a scene of
+it as I can give you no idea of. My ladies were now on foot, of course;
+but we dragged them on as well as we could (they were thorough game, and
+didn't make the least complaint), until we got to the foot of that
+topmost hill I have drawn so beautifully. Here we all stopped; but the
+head guide, an English gentleman of the name of Le Gros--who has been
+here many years, and has been up the mountain a hundred times--and your
+humble servant, resolved (like jackasses) to climb that hill to the
+brink, and look down into the crater itself. You may form some notion of
+what is going on inside it, when I tell you that it is a hundred feet
+higher than it was six weeks ago. The sensation of struggling up it,
+choked with the fire and smoke, and feeling at every step as if the
+crust of ground between one's feet and the gulf of fire would crumble in
+and swallow one up (which is the real danger), I shall remember for some
+little time, I think. But we did it. We looked down into the flaming
+bowels of the mountain and came back again, alight in half-a-dozen
+places, and burnt from head to foot. You never saw such devils. And _I_
+never saw anything so awful and terrible.
+
+Roche had been tearing his hair like a madman, and crying that we should
+all three be killed, which made the rest of the company very
+comfortable, as you may suppose. But we had some wine in a basket, and
+all swallowed a little of that and a great deal of sulphur before we
+began to descend. The usual way, after the fiery part is past--you will
+understand that to be all the flat top of the mountain, in the centre
+of which, again, rises the little hill I have drawn--is to slide down
+the ashes, which, slipping from under you, make a gradually increasing
+ledge under your feet, and prevent your going too fast. But when we came
+to this steep place last night, we found nothing there but one smooth
+solid sheet of ice. The only way to get down was for the guides to make
+a chain, holding by each other's hands, and beat a narrow track in it
+into the snow below with their sticks. My two unfortunate ladies were
+taken out of their litters again, with half-a-dozen men hanging on to
+each, to prevent their falling forward; and we began to descend this
+way. It was like a tremendous dream. It was impossible to stand, and the
+only way to prevent oneself from going sheer down the precipice, every
+time one fell, was to drive one's stick into one of the holes the guides
+had made, and hold on by that. Nobody could pick one up, or stop one, or
+render one the least assistance. Now, conceive my horror, when this Mr.
+Le Gros I have mentioned, being on one side of Georgina and I on the
+other, suddenly staggers away from the narrow path on to the smooth ice,
+gives us a jerk, lets go, and plunges headforemost down the smooth ice
+into the black night, five hundred feet below! Almost at the same
+instant, a man far behind, carrying a light basket on his head with some
+of our spare cloaks in it, misses his footing and rolls down in another
+place; and after him, rolling over and over like a black bundle, goes a
+boy, shrieking as nobody but an Italian can shriek, until the breath is
+tumbled out of him.
+
+The Englishman is in bed to-day, terribly bruised but without any broken
+bones. He was insensible at first and a mere heap of rags; but we got
+him before the fire, in a little hermitage there is halfway down, and he
+so far recovered as to be able to take some supper, which was waiting
+for us there. The boy was brought in with his head tied up in a bloody
+cloth, about half an hour after the rest of us were assembled. And the
+man who had had the basket was not found when we left the mountain at
+midnight. What became of the cloaks (mine was among them) I know as
+little. My ladies' clothes were so torn off their backs that they would
+not have been decent, if there could have been any thought of such
+things at such a time. And when we got down to the guides' house, we
+found a French surgeon (one of another party who had been up before us)
+lying on a bed in a stable, with God knows what horrible breakage about
+him, but suffering acutely and looking like death. A pretty unusual trip
+for a pleasure expedition, I think!
+
+I am rather stiff to-day but am quite unhurt, except a slight scrape on
+my right hand. My clothes are burnt to pieces. My ladies are the wonder
+of Naples, and everybody is open-mouthed.
+
+Address me as usual. All letters are forwarded. The children well and
+happy. Best regards.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                 ALBION HOTEL, BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, Aug. 17th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I have been obliged to communicate with the _Punch_ men in reference to
+Saturday, the 20th, as that day of the week is usually their business
+dinner day, and I was not quite sure that it could be conveniently
+altered.
+
+Jerrold now assures me that it can for such a purpose, and that it
+shall, and therefore consider the play as being arranged to come off on
+Saturday, the 20th of next month.
+
+I don't know whether I told you that we have changed the farce; and now
+we are to act "Two o'clock in the Morning," as performed by the
+inimitable B. at Montreal.
+
+In reference to Bruce Castle school, I think the question set at rest
+most probably by the fact of there being no vacancy (it is always full)
+until Christmas, when Howitt's two boys and Jerrold's one go in and fill
+it up again. But after going carefully through the school, a question
+would arise in my mind whether the system--a perfectly admirable one;
+the only recognition of education as a broad system of moral and
+intellectual philosophy, that I have ever seen in practice--do not
+require so much preparation and progress in the mind of the boy, as that
+he shall have come there younger and less advanced than Willy; or at all
+events without that very different sort of school experience which he
+must have acquired at Brighton. I have no warrant for this doubt, beyond
+a vague uneasiness suggesting a suspicion of its great probability. On
+such slight ground I would not hint it to anyone but you, who I know
+will give it its due weight, and no more and no less.
+
+I have the paper setting forth the nature of the higher classical
+studies, and the books they read. It is the usual course, and includes
+the great books in Greek and Latin. They have a miscellaneous library,
+under the management of the boys themselves, of some five or six
+thousand volumes, and every means of study and recreation, and every
+inducement to self-reliance and self-exertion that can easily be
+imagined. As there is no room just now, you can turn it over in your
+mind again. And if you would like to see the place yourself, when you
+return to town, I shall be delighted to go there with you. I come home
+on Wednesday. It is our rehearsal night; and of course the active and
+enterprising stage-manager must be at his post.
+
+                               Ever, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                                  _August 27th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+I write a line to tell you a project we have in view. A little party of
+us have taken Miss Kelly's theatre for the night of the 20th of next
+month, and we are going to act a play there, with correct and pretty
+costume, good orchestra, etc. etc. The affair is strictly private. The
+admission will be by cards of invitation; every man will have from
+thirty to thirty-five. Nobody can ask any person without the knowledge
+and sanction of the rest, my objection being final; and the expense to
+each (exclusive of the dress, which every man finds for himself) will
+not exceed two guineas. Forster plays, and Stone plays, and I play, and
+some of the _Punch_ people play. Stanfield, having the scenery and
+carpenters to attend to, cannot manage his part also. It is Downright,
+in "Every Man in his Humour," not at all long, but very good; he wants
+you to take it. And so help me. We shall have a brilliant audience. The
+uphill part of the thing is already done, our next rehearsal is next
+Tuesday, and if you will come in you will find everything to your hand,
+and all very merry and pleasant.
+
+Let me know what you decide, like a Kittenmolian Trojan. And with love
+from all here to all there,
+
+                                         Believe me, ever,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, Sept. 18th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We have a little supper, sir, after the farce, at No. 9, Powis Place,
+Great Ormond Street, in an empty house belonging to one of the company.
+There I am requested by my fellows to beg the favour of thy company and
+that of Mrs. Macready. The guests are limited to the actors and their
+ladies--with the exception of yourselves, and D'Orsay, and George
+Cattermole, "or so"--that sounds like Bobadil a little.
+
+I am going to adopt your reading of the fifth act with the worst grace
+in the world. It seems to me that you don't allow enough for Bobadil
+having been frequently beaten before, as I have no doubt he had been.
+The part goes down hideously on this construction, and the end is mere
+lees. But never mind, sir, I intend bringing you up with the farce in
+the most brilliant manner.
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+N.B.--Observe. I think of changing my present mode of life, and am open
+to an engagement.
+
+N.B. No. 2.--I will undertake not to play tragedy, though passion is my
+strength.
+
+N.B. No. 3.--I consider myself a chained lion.[5]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _October 2nd, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I send you the claret jug. But for a mistake, you would have received
+the little remembrance almost immediately after my return from abroad.
+
+I need not say how much I should value another little sketch from your
+extraordinary hand in this year's small volume, to which Mac again does
+the frontispiece. But I cannot hear of it, and will not have it (though
+the gratification of such aid, to me, is really beyond all expression),
+unless you will so far consent to make it a matter of business as to
+receive, without asking any questions, a cheque in return from the
+publishers. Do not misunderstand me--though I am not afraid there is
+much danger of your doing so, for between us misunderstanding is, I
+hope, not easy. I know perfectly well that nothing can pay you for the
+devotion of any portion of your time to such a use of your art. I know
+perfectly well that no terms would induce you to go out of your way, in
+such a regard, for perhaps anybody else. I cannot, nor do I desire to,
+vanquish the friendly obligation which help from you imposes on me. But
+I am not the sole proprietor of those little books; and it would be
+monstrous in you if you were to dream of putting a scratch into a second
+one without some shadowy reference to the other partners, ten thousand
+times more monstrous in me if any consideration on earth could induce me
+to permit it, which nothing will or shall.
+
+So, see what it comes to. If you will do me a favour on my terms it will
+be more acceptable to me, my dear Stanfield, than I can possibly tell
+you. If you will not be so generous, you deprive me of the satisfaction
+of receiving it at your hands, and shut me out from that possibility
+altogether. What a stony-hearted ruffian you must be in such a case!
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Evening, Oct. 17th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+You once--only once--gave the world assurance of a waistcoat. You wore
+it, sir, I think, in "Money." It was a remarkable and precious
+waistcoat, wherein certain broad stripes of blue or purple disported
+themselves as by a combination of extraordinary circumstances, too happy
+to occur again. I have seen it on your manly chest in private life. I
+saw it, sir, I think, the other day in the cold light of morning--with
+feelings easier to be imagined than described. Mr. Macready, sir, are
+you a father? If so, lend me that waistcoat for five minutes. I am
+bidden to a wedding (where fathers are made), and my artist cannot, I
+find (how should he?), imagine such a waistcoat. Let me show it to him
+as a sample of my tastes and wishes; and--ha, ha, ha, ha!--eclipse the
+bridegroom!
+
+I will send a trusty messenger at half-past nine precisely, in the
+morning. He is sworn to secrecy. He durst not for his life betray us, or
+swells in ambuscade would have the waistcoat at the cost of his heart's
+blood.
+
+                                            Thine,
+                                                THE UNWAISTCOATED ONE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Viscount Morpeth.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Nov. 28th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR LORD MORPETH,
+
+I have delayed writing to you until now, hoping I might have been able
+to tell you of our dramatic plans, and of the day on which we purpose
+playing. But as these matters are still in abeyance, I will give you
+that precious information when I come into the receipt of it myself. And
+let me heartily assure you, that I had at least as much pleasure in
+seeing you the other day as you can possibly have had in seeing me; and
+that I shall consider all opportunities of becoming better known to you
+among the most fortunate and desirable occasions of my life. And that I
+am with your conviction about the probability of our liking each other,
+and, as Lord Lyndhurst might say, with "something more."
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] This alludes to a theatrical story of a second-rate actor, who
+described himself as a "chained lion," in a theatre where he had to play
+inferior parts to Mr. Macready.
+
+
+
+
+1846.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the spring of this year Charles Dickens gave up the editorship of,
+and finally, all connection with _The Daily News_, and went again abroad
+with his family; the house in Devonshire Terrace being let for twelve
+months. He made his summer residence at Lausanne, taking a villa
+(Rosemont) there, from May till November. Here he wrote "The Battle of
+Life," and the first number of "Dombey and Son." In November he removed
+to Paris, where he took a house in the Rue de Courcelles for the winter,
+and where he lived and was at work upon "Dombey" until March, 1847.
+Among the English residents that summer at Lausanne he made many
+friendships, in proof of which he dedicated the Christmas book written
+there to his "English friends in Lausanne." The especially intimate
+friendships which he formed were with M. de Cerjat, who was always a
+resident of Lausanne with his family; Mr. Haldimand, whose name is
+identified with the place, and with the Hon. Richard and Mrs. Watson, of
+Rockingham Castle. He maintained a constant correspondence with them,
+and to Mr. and Mrs. Watson he afterwards dedicated his own favourite of
+all his books, "David Copperfield." M. de Cerjat, from the time of
+Charles Dickens leaving Lausanne, began a custom, which he kept up
+almost without an interval to the time of his own death, of writing him
+a long letter every Christmas, to which he returned answers, which will
+be given in this and the following years.
+
+In this year we have the commencement of his association and
+correspondence with Mr. W. H. Wills. Their connection began in the short
+term of his editorship of _The Daily News_, when he at once fully
+appreciated Mr. Wills's invaluable business qualities. And when, some
+time later, he started his own periodical, "Household Words," he thought
+himself very fortunate in being able to secure Mr. Wills's co-operation
+as editor of that journal, and afterwards of "All the Year Round," with
+which "Household Words" was incorporated. They worked together on terms
+of the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence, and affectionate
+regard, until Mr. Wills's health made it necessary for him to retire
+from the work in 1868. Besides his first notes to Mr. Wills in this
+year, we have our first letters to his dear friends, the Rev. James
+White, Walter Savage Landor, and Miss Marion Ely, the niece of Lady
+Talfourd.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 18th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MR. WILLS,
+
+Do look at the enclosed from Mrs. What's-her-name. For a surprising
+audacity it is remarkable even to me, who am positively bullied, and all
+but beaten, by these people. I wish you would do me the favour to write
+to her (in your own name and from your own address), stating that you
+answered her letter as you did, because if I were the wealthiest
+nobleman in England I could not keep pace with one-twentieth part of the
+demands upon me, and because you saw no internal evidence in her
+application to induce you to single it out for any especial notice.
+That the tone of this letter renders you exceedingly glad you did so;
+and that you decline, from me, holding any correspondence with her.
+Something to that effect, after what flourish your nature will.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+           1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                _February 24th, 1846._
+
+I cannot help telling you, my dear White, for I can think of no formal
+use of Mister to such a writer as you, that I have just now read your
+tragedy, "The Earl of Gowrie," with a delight which I should in vain
+endeavour to express to you. Considered with reference to its story, or
+its characters, or its noble poetry, I honestly regard it as a work of
+most remarkable genius. It has impressed me powerfully and enduringly. I
+am proud to have received it from your hand. And if I have to tell you
+what complete possession it has taken of me--that is, if I _could_ tell
+you--I do believe you would be glad to know it.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday Morning, March 2nd, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MR. WILLS,
+
+I really don't know what to say about the New Brunswicker. The idea will
+obtrude itself on my mind, that he had no business to come here on such
+an expedition; and that it is a piece of the wild conceit for which his
+countrymen are so remarkable, and that I can hardly afford to be steward
+to such adventurers. On the other hand, your description of him pleases
+me. Then that purse which I could never keep shut in my life makes
+mouths at me, saying, "See how empty I am." Then I fill it, and it looks
+very rich indeed.
+
+I think the best way is to say, that if you think you can do him any
+_permanent_ good with five pounds (that is, get him home again) I will
+give you the money. But I should be very much indisposed to give it him,
+merely to linger on here about town for a little time and then be hard
+up again.
+
+As to employment, I do in my soul believe that if I were Lord Chancellor
+of England, I should have been aground long ago, for the patronage of a
+messenger's place.
+
+Say all that is civil for me to the proprietor of _The Illustrated
+London News_, who really seems to be very liberal. "Other engagements,"
+etc. etc., "prevent me from entertaining," etc. etc.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _March 4th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MR. WILLS,
+
+I assure you I am very truly and unaffectedly sensible of your earnest
+friendliness, and in proof of my feeling its worth I shall
+unhesitatingly trouble you sometimes, in the fullest reliance on your
+meaning what you say. The letter from Nelson Square is a very manly and
+touching one. But I am more helpless in such a case as that than in any
+other, having really fewer means of helping such a gentleman to
+employment than I have of firing off the guns in the Tower. Such,
+appeals come to me here in scores upon scores.
+
+The letter from Little White Lion Street does not impress me favourably.
+It is not written in a simple or truthful manner, I am afraid, and is
+_not_ a good reference. Moreover, I think it probable that the writer
+may have deserted some pursuit for which he is qualified, for vague and
+laborious strivings which he has no pretensions to make. However, I will
+certainly act on your impression of him, whatever it may be. And if you
+could explain to the gentleman in Nelson Square, that I am not evading
+his request, but that I do not know of anything to which I can recommend
+him, it would be a great relief to me.
+
+I trust this new printer _is_ a Tartar; and I hope to God he will so
+proclaim and assert his Tartar breeding, as to excommunicate ---- from
+the "chapel" over which he presides.
+
+Tell Powell (with my regards) that he needn't "deal with" the American
+notices of the "Cricket." I never read one word of their abuse, and I
+should think it base to read their praises. It is something to know that
+one is righted so soon; and knowing that, I can afford to know no more.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _March 6th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+In reference to the damage of the candlesticks, I beg to quote (from
+"The Cricket on the Hearth," by the highly popular and deservedly so
+Dick) this reply:
+
+"I'll damage you if you enquire."
+
+                         Ever yours,
+                             My block-reeving,
+                             Main-brace splicing,
+                             Lead-heaving,
+                             Ship-conning,
+                             Stun'sail-bending,
+                             Deck-swabbing
+                             Son of a sea-cook,
+                                            HENRY BLUFF,
+                                                      H.M.S. _Timber._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                     DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, April 13th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Do you recollect sending me your biography of Shakespeare last autumn,
+and my not acknowledging its receipt? I do, with remorse.
+
+The truth is, that I took it out of town with me, read it with great
+pleasure as a charming piece of honest enthusiasm and perseverance, kept
+it by me, came home, meant to say all manner of things to you, suffered
+the time to go by, got ashamed, thought of speaking to you, never saw
+you, felt it heavy on my mind, and now fling off the load by thanking
+you heartily, and hoping you will not think it too late.
+
+                                        Always believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Ely.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Sunday, April 19th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MISS ELY,
+
+A mysterious emissary brought me a note in your always welcome
+handwriting at the Athenæum last night. I enquired of the servant in
+attendance whether the bearer of this letter was of my vast
+establishment. To which he replied "Yezzir." "Then," said I, "tell him
+not to wait."
+
+Maclise was with me. It was then half-past seven. We had been walking,
+and were splashed to the eyes. We debated upon the possibility of
+getting to Russell Square in reasonable time--decided that it would be
+in the worst taste to appear when the performance would be half
+over--and very reluctantly decided not to come. You may suppose how
+dirty and dismal we were when we went to the Thames Tunnel, of all
+places in the world, instead!
+
+When I came home here at midnight I found another letter from you (I
+left off in this place to press it dutifully to my lips). Then my mind
+misgave me that _you_ must have sent to the Athenæum. At the apparent
+rudeness of my reply, my face, as Hadji Baba says, was turned upside
+down, and fifty donkeys sat upon my father's grave--or would have done
+so, but for his not being dead yet.
+
+Therefore I send this humble explanation--protesting, however, which I
+do most solemnly, against being invited under such untoward
+circumstances; and claiming as your old friend and no less old admirer
+to be instantly invited to the next performance, if such a thing is ever
+contemplated.
+
+                                   Ever, my dear Miss Ely,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, May 26th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+I send you herewith some books belonging to you. A thousand thanks for
+the "Hermit." He took my fancy mightily when I first saw him in the
+"Illuminated;" and I have stowed him away in the left-hand breast pocket
+of my travelling coat, that we may hold pleasant converse together on
+the Rhine. You see what confidence I have in him!
+
+I wish you would seriously consider the expediency and feasibility of
+coming to Lausanne in the summer or early autumn. I must be at work
+myself during a certain part of every day almost, and you could do twice
+as much there as here. It is a wonderful place to see--and what sort of
+welcome you would find I will say nothing about, for I have vanity
+enough to believe that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at
+home in my household as in any man's.
+
+Do think it over. I could send you the minutest particular of the
+journey. It is really all railroad and steamboat, and the easiest in the
+world.
+
+At Macready's on Thursday, we shall meet, please God!
+
+                                   Always, my dear Jerrold,
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                               GENEVA, _Saturday, October 24th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+The welcome sight of your handwriting moves me (though I have nothing to
+say) to show you mine, and if I could recollect the passage in Virginius
+I would paraphrase it, and say, "Does it seem to tremble, boy? Is it a
+loving autograph? Does it beam with friendship and affection?" all of
+which I say, as I write, with--oh Heaven!--such a splendid imitation of
+you, and finally give you one of those grasps and shakes with which I
+have seen you make the young Icilius stagger again.
+
+Here I am, running away from a bad headache as Tristram Shandy ran away
+from death, and lodging for a week in the Hôtel de l'Écu de Genève,
+wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late
+revolution. A revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits,
+nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory,
+elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all
+tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden. The newspapers may
+tell you what they please. I believe there is no country on earth but
+Switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected in the
+Christian spirit shown in this place, or in the same proud, independent,
+gallant style. Not one halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or
+strayed. Not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of the last
+gun. Nothing is expressed in the Government addresses to the citizens
+but a regard for the general happiness, and injunctions to forget all
+animosities; which they are practically obeying at every turn, though
+the late Government (of whose spirit I had some previous knowledge) did
+load the guns with such material as should occasion gangrene in the
+wounds, and though the wounded _do_ die, consequently, every day, in the
+hospital, of sores that in themselves were nothing.
+
+_You_ a mountaineer! _You_ examine (I have seen you do it) the point of
+your young son's bâton de montagne before he went up into the snow! And
+_you_ talk of coming to Lausanne in March! Why, Lord love your heart,
+William Tell, times are changed since you lived at Altorf. There is not
+a mountain pass open until June. The snow is closing in on all the
+panorama already. I was at the Great St. Bernard two months ago, and it
+was bitter cold and frosty then. Do you think I could let you hazard
+your life by going up any pass worth seeing in bleak March? Never shall
+it be said that Dickens sacrificed his friend upon the altar of his
+hospitality! Onward! To Paris! (Cue for band. Dickens points off with
+truncheon, first entrance P.S. Page delivers gauntlets on one knee.
+Dickens puts 'em on and gradually falls into a fit of musing. Mrs.
+Dickens lays her hand upon his shoulder. Business. Procession. Curtain.)
+
+It is a great pleasure to me, my dear Macready, to hear from yourself,
+as I had previously heard from Forster, that you are so well pleased
+with "Dombey," which is evidently a great success and a great hit, thank
+God! I felt that Mrs. Brown was strong, but I was not at all afraid of
+giving as heavy a blow as I could to a piece of hot iron that lay ready
+at my hand. For that is my principle always, and I hope to come down
+with some heavier sledge-hammers than that.
+
+I know the lady of whom you write. ---- left there only yesterday. The
+story may arise only in her manner, which is extraordinarily free and
+careless. He was visiting her here, when I was here last, three weeks
+ago. I knew her in Italy. It is not her fault if scandal ever leaves her
+alone, for such a braver of all conventionalities never wore petticoats.
+But I should be sorry to hear there was anything guilty in her conduct.
+She is very clever, really learned, very pretty, much neglected by her
+husband, and only four-and-twenty years of age.
+
+Kate and Georgy send their best loves to Mrs. and Miss Macready and all
+your house.
+
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Haldimand.]
+
+                                              PARIS, _November, 1846._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Talking of which[6] reminds me to say, that I have written to my
+printers, and told them to prefix to "The Battle of Life" a dedication
+that is printed in illuminated capitals on my heart. It is only this:
+
+        "This Christmas book is cordially inscribed to
+        my English friends in Switzerland."
+
+I shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or four copies to
+distribute to those whose names will be found written in them, as soon
+as they can be made ready, and believe me, that there is no success or
+approval in the great world beyond the Jura that will be more precious
+and delightful to me, than the hope that I shall be remembered of an
+evening in the coming winter time, at one or two friends' I could
+mention near the Lake of Geneva. It runs with a spring tide, that will
+always flow and never ebb, through my memory; and nothing less than the
+waters of Lethe shall confuse the music of its running, until it loses
+itself in that great sea, for which all the currents of our life are
+desperately bent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                                 PARIS, _Sunday, November 22nd, 1846._
+
+YOUNG MAN,
+
+I will not go there if I can help it. I have not the least confidence in
+the value of your introduction to the Devil. I can't help thinking that
+it would be of better use "the other way, the other way," but I won't
+try it there, either, at present, if I can help it. Your godson says is
+that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly blushed for you.
+
+As to writing, I have written to you twenty times and twenty more to that,
+if you only knew it. I have been writing a little Christmas book, besides,
+expressly for you. And if you don't like it, I shall go to the font of
+Marylebone Church as soon as I conveniently can and renounce you: I am not
+to be trifled with. I write from Paris. I am getting up some French steam.
+I intend to proceed upon the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle,
+and if you _do_ offend me, look to it.
+
+We are all well and happy, and they send loves to you by the bushel. We
+are in the agonies of house-hunting. The people are frightfully civil,
+and grotesquely extortionate. One man (with a house to let) told me
+yesterday that he loved the Duke of Wellington like a brother. The same
+gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand, and pick my
+pocket with the other.
+
+Don't be hard upon the Swiss. They are a thorn in the sides of European
+despots, and a good wholesome people to live near Jesuit-ridden kings on
+the brighter side of the mountains. My hat shall ever be ready to be
+thrown up, and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for Switzerland. If
+you were the man I took you for, when I took you (as a godfather) for
+better and for worse, you would come to Paris and amaze the weak walls
+of the house I haven't found yet with that steady snore of yours, which
+I once heard piercing the door of your bedroom in Devonshire Terrace,
+reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into
+the street, playing Eolian harps among the area railings, and going down
+the New Road like the blast of a trumpet.
+
+I forgive you your reviling of me: there's a shovelful of live coals for
+your head--does it burn? And am, with true affection--does it burn
+now?--
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Richard Watson.]
+
+                 PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORÉ,
+                                            _Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR WATSON,
+
+We were housed only yesterday. I lose no time in despatching this
+memorandum of our whereabouts, in order that you may not fail to write
+me a line before you come to Paris on your way towards England, letting
+me know on what day we are to expect you to dinner.
+
+We arrived here quite happily and well. I don't mean here, but at the
+Hôtel Brighton, in Paris, on Friday evening, between six and seven
+o'clock. The agonies of house-hunting were frightfully severe. It was
+one paroxysm for four mortal days. I am proud to express my belief, that
+we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in the world. The
+like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes does not, exist in
+any other part of the globe. The bedrooms are like opera-boxes. The
+dining-rooms, staircases, and passages, quite inexplicable. The
+dining-room is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent
+a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking in among the
+branches of the trees. There is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room.
+But it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints
+in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery. The maddest
+man in Bedlam, having the materials given him, would be likely to devise
+such a suite, supposing his case to be hopeless and quite incurable.
+
+Pray tell Mrs. Watson, with my best regards, that the dance of the two
+sisters in the little Christmas book is being done as an illustration by
+Maclise; and that Stanfield is doing the battle-ground and the outside
+of the Nutmeg Grater Inn. Maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects
+for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will be very
+pretty, and they think that I shall like it. I shall have been in London
+before I see you, probably, and I hope the book itself will then be on
+its road to Lausanne to speak for itself, and to speak a word for me
+too. I have never left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in
+any place; and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be very
+eloquent and affectionate indeed.
+
+Well, if I don't turn up again next summer it shall not be my fault. In
+the meanwhile, I shall often and often look that way with my mind's eye,
+and hear the sweet, clear, bell-like voice of ---- with the ear of my
+imagination. In the event of there being any change--but it is not
+likely--in the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up into
+his head, I mean, and frets against his wig--I hope some one of my
+English friends will apprise me of it, for the love of the great Saint
+Bernard.
+
+I have not seen Lord Normanby yet. I have not seen anything up to this
+time but houses and lodgings. There seems to be immense excitement here
+on the subject of ---- however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation
+getting up. I saw the king the other day coming into Paris. His carriage
+was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he sat very far back in it, I
+thought, and drove at a great pace. It was strange to see the préfet of
+police on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the
+right and left as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every
+tree in the long avenue.
+
+The English relations look anything but promising, though I understand
+that the Count St. Aulaire is to remain in London, notwithstanding the
+newspaper alarms to the contrary. If there be anything like the
+sensation in England about ---- that there is here, there will be a
+bitter resentment indeed. The democratic society of Paris have
+announced, this morning, their intention of printing and circulating
+fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every European language. It is a
+base business beyond question, and comes at an ill time.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister desire their best regards to be sent to you
+and their best loves to Mrs. Watson, in which I join, as nearly as I
+may. Believe me, with great truth,
+
+                                                 Very sincerely yours.
+
+P.S.--Mrs. Dickens is going to write to Mrs. Watson next week, she says.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Cerjat.]
+
+               PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORÉ,
+                                            _Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+When we turned out of your view on that disconsolate Monday, when you so
+kindly took horse and rode forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very
+dull and drowsy manner, I can assure you. I could have borne a world of
+punch in the rumble and been none the worse for it. There was an
+uncommonly cool inn that night, and quite a monstrous establishment at
+Auxonne the next night, full of flatulent passages and banging doors.
+The next night we passed at Montbard, where there is one of the very
+best little inns in all France. The next at Sens, and so we got here.
+The roads were bad, but not very for French roads. There was no
+deficiency of horses anywhere; and after Pontarlier the weather was
+really not too cold for comfort. They weighed our plate at the frontier
+custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we lingered about
+there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for three long hours and a half,
+during which the officials committed all manner of absurdities, and got
+into all sorts of disputes with my brave courier. This was the only
+misery we encountered--except leaving Lausanne, and that was enough to
+last us and _did_ last us all the way here. We are living on it now. I
+felt, myself, much as I should think the murderer felt on that fair
+morning when, with his gray-haired victim (those unconscious gray hairs,
+soon to be bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as the
+top of that mountain of St. Bernard without one touch of remorse. A
+weight is on my breast. The only difference between me and the murderer
+is, that his weight was guilt and mine is regret.
+
+I haven't a word of news to tell you. I shouldn't write at all if I were
+not the vainest man in the world, impelled by a belief that you will be
+glad to hear from me, even though you hear no more than that I have
+nothing to say. "Dombey" is doing wonders. It went up, after the
+publication of the second number, over the thirty thousand. This is such
+a very large sale, so early in the story, that I begin to think it will
+beat all the rest. Keeley and his wife are making great preparations
+for producing the Christmas story, and I have made them (as an old stage
+manager) carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about scenery
+and so forth--in particular a sudden change from the inside of the
+doctor's house in the midst of the ball to the orchard in the
+snow--which ought to tell very well. But actors are so bad, in general,
+and the best are spread over so many theatres, that the "cast" is black
+despair and moody madness. There is no one to be got for Marion but a
+certain Miss ----, I am afraid--a pupil of Miss Kelly's, who acted in
+the private theatricals I got up a year ago. Macready took her
+afterwards to play Virginia to his Virginius, but she made nothing of
+it, great as the chance was. I have promised to show her what I mean, as
+near as I can, and if you will look into the English Opera House on the
+morning of the 17th, 18th, or 19th of next month, between the hours of
+eleven and four, you will find me in a very hot and dusty condition,
+playing all the parts of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the
+actors, actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus people,
+tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general ragamuffins of the
+theatre.
+
+Moore, the poet, is very ill--I fear dying. The last time I saw him was
+immediately before I left London, and I thought him sadly changed and
+tamed, but not much more so than such a man might be under the heavy
+hand of time. I believe he suffered severe grief in the death of a son
+some time ago. The first man I met in Paris was ----, who took hold of
+me as I was getting into a coach at the door of the hotel. He hadn't a
+button on his shirt (but I don't think he ever has), and you might have
+sown what boys call "mustard and cress" in the dust on his coat. I have
+not seen Lord Normanby yet, as we have only just got a house (the
+queerest house in Europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason
+to fear that the growing dissensions between England and France, and the
+irritation of the French king, may lead to the withdrawal of the
+minister on each side of the Channel.
+
+Have you cut down any more trees, played any more rubbers, propounded
+any more teasers to the players at the game of Yes and No? How is the
+old horse? How is the gray mare? How is Crab (to whom my respectful
+compliments)? Have you tried the punch yet; if yes, did it succeed; if
+no, why not? Is Mrs. Cerjat as happy and as well as I would have her,
+and all your house ditto ditto? Does Haldimand play whist with any
+science yet? Ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying _I_ hadn't any! And are
+those damask-cheeked virgins, the Miss ----, still sleeping on dewy rose
+leaves near the English church?
+
+Remember me to all your house, and most of all to its other head, with
+all the regard and earnestness that a "numble individual" (as they
+always call it in the House of Commons) who once travelled with her in a
+car over a smooth country may charge you with. I have added two lines to
+the little Christmas book, that I hope both you and she may not dislike.
+Haldimand will tell you what they are. Kate and Georgy send their
+kindest loves, and Kate is "going" to write "next week." Believe me
+always, my dear Cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this
+past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of them,
+
+                                          Very faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                58, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, _Saturday, Dec. 19th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I really am bothered to death by this confounded _dramatization_ of the
+Christmas book. They were in a state so horrible at Keeley's yesterday
+(as perhaps Forster told you when he wrote), that I was obliged to
+engage to read the book to them this morning. It struck me that Mrs.
+Leigh Murray, Miss Daly, and Vining seemed to understand it best.
+Certainly Miss Daly knew best what she was about yesterday. At eight
+to-night we have a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but
+dresses. I see no possibility of escaping from it before one or two
+o'clock in the morning. And I was at the theatre all day yesterday.
+Unless I had come to London, I do not think there would have been much
+hope of the version being more than just tolerated, even that doubtful.
+All the actors bad, all the business frightfully behindhand. The very
+words of the book confused in the copying into the densest and most
+insufferable nonsense. I must exempt, however, from the general
+slackness both the Keeleys. I hope they will be very good. I have never
+seen anything of its kind better than the manner in which they played
+the little supper scene between Clemency and Britain, yesterday. It was
+quite perfect, even to me.
+
+The small manager, Forster, Talfourd, Stanny, and Mac dine with me at
+the Piazza to-day, before the rehearsal. I have already one or two
+uncommonly good stories of Mac. I reserve them for narration. I have
+also a dreadful cold, which I would not reserve if I could help it. I
+can hardly hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but had
+serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed.
+
+Christmas book published to-day--twenty-three thousand copies already
+gone!!! Browne's plates for next "Dombey" much better than usual.
+
+I have seen nobody yet, of course. But I sent Roche up to your mother
+this morning, to say I am in town and will come shortly. There is a
+great thaw here to-day, and it is raining hard. I hope you have the
+advantage (if it be one, which I am not sure of) of a similar change in
+Paris. Of course I start again on Thursday. We are expecting (Roche and
+I) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom we have applied for
+places. The journey here was long and cold--twenty-four hours from Paris
+to Boulogne. Passage not very bad, and made in two hours.
+
+I find I can't write at all, so I had best leave off. I am looking
+impatiently for your letter on Monday morning. Give my best love to
+Georgy, and kisses to all the dear children. And believe me, my love,
+
+                                                  Most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                         PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 21st, 1846._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+In a quiet interval of half an hour before going to dine at Macready's,
+I sit down to write you a few words. But I shall reserve my letter for
+to-morrow's post, in order that you may hear what _I_ hear of the
+"going" of the play to-night. Think of my being there on Saturday, with
+a really frightful cold, and working harder than ever I did at the
+amateur plays, until two in the morning. There was no supper to be got,
+either here or anywhere else, after coming out; and I was as hungry and
+thirsty as need be. The scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and
+they have spent money on it _liberally_. The great change from the
+ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both the departure
+and the return will tell, I think, strongly on an audience. I have made
+them very quick and excited in the passionate scenes, and so have
+infused some appearance of life into those parts of the play. But I
+can't make a Marion, and Miss ---- is awfully bad. She is a mere nothing
+all through. I put Mr. Leigh Murray into such a state, by making him
+tear about, that the perspiration ran streaming down his face. They have
+a great let. I believe every place in the house is taken. Roche is
+going.
+
+_Tuesday Morning._--The play went, as well as I can make out--I hoped to
+have had Stanny's report of it, but he is ill--with great effect. There
+was immense enthusiasm at its close, and great uproar and shouting for
+me. Forster will go on Wednesday, and write you his account of it. I saw
+the Keeleys on the stage at eleven o'clock or so, and they were in
+prodigious spirits and delight.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, PARIS,
+                                      _Sunday Night, Dec. 27th, 1846._
+
+MY VERY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+Amen, amen. Many merry Christmases, many happy new years, unbroken
+friendship, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on
+earth, and heaven at last, for all of us.
+
+I enclose you a letter from Jeffrey, which you may like to read. _Bring
+it to me back when you come over._ I have told him all he wants to
+know. Is it not a strange example of the hazards of writing in numbers
+that a man like him should form his notion of Dombey and Miss Tox on
+three months' knowledge? I have asked him the same question, and advised
+him to keep his eye on both of them as time rolls on.
+
+We had a cold journey here from Boulogne, but the roads were not very
+bad. The malle poste, however, now takes the trains at Amiens. We missed
+it by ten minutes, and had to wait three hours--from twelve o'clock
+until three, in which interval I drank brandy and water, and slept like
+a top. It is delightful travelling for its speed, that malle poste, and
+really for its comfort too. But on this occasion it was not remarkable
+for the last-named quality. The director of the post at Boulogne told me
+a lamentable story of his son at Paris being ill, and implored me to
+bring him on. The brave doubted the representations altogether, but I
+couldn't find it in my heart to say no; so we brought the director,
+bodkinwise, and being a large man, in a great number of greatcoats, he
+crushed us dismally until we got to the railroad. For two passengers
+(and it never carries more) it is capital. For three, excruciating.
+
+Write to ---- what you have said to me. You need write no more. He is
+full of vicious fancies and wrong suspicions, even of Hardwick, and I
+would rather he heard it from you than from me, whom he is not likely to
+love much in his heart. I doubt it may be but a rusty instrument for
+want of use, the ----ish heart.
+
+My most important present news is that I am going to take a jorum of hot
+rum and egg in bed immediately, and to cover myself up with all the
+blankets in the house. Love from all. I have a sensation in my head, as
+if it were "on edge." It is still very cold here, but the snow had
+disappeared on my return, both here and on the road, except within ten
+miles or so of Boulogne.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] "The Battle of Life."
+
+
+
+
+1847.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of the year Charles Dickens was still living in
+Paris--Rue de Courcelles. His stay was cut shorter than he intended it
+to have been, by the illness from scarlet fever of his eldest son, who
+was at school in London. Consequent upon this, he and his wife went to
+London at the end of February, taking up their abode at the Victoria
+Hotel, Euston Square, the Devonshire Terrace house being still occupied
+by its tenant, Sir James Duke, and the sick boy under the care of his
+grandmother, Mrs. Hogarth, in Albany Street. The children, with their
+aunt, remained in Paris, until a temporary house had been taken for the
+family in Chester Place, Regent's Park; and Roche was then sent back to
+take _all_ home. In Chester Place another son was born--Sydney Smith
+Haldimand--his godfathers being Mr. Haldimand, of Lausanne, and Mr. H.
+P. Smith, of the Eagle Life Assurance office. He was christened at the
+same time as a daughter of Mr. Macready's, and the letters to Mr. Smith
+have reference to the postponement of the christening on Mr. Smith's
+account. In May, Charles Dickens had lodgings in Brighton for some
+weeks, for the recovery of Mrs. Dickens's health; going there first with
+his wife and sister-in-law and the eldest boy--now recovered from his
+fever--and being joined at the latter part of the time by his two little
+daughters, to whom there are some letters among those which follow
+here. He removed earlier than usual this summer to Broadstairs, which
+remained his head-quarters until October, with intervals of absence for
+amateur theatrical tours (which Mr. Forster calls "splendid strolling"),
+in which he was usually accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law.
+Several new recruits had been added to the theatrical company, from
+among distinguished literary men and artists, and it now included,
+besides those previously named, Mr. George Cruikshank, Mr. George Henry
+Lewes, and Mr. Augustus Egg; the supreme management and arrangement of
+everything being always left to Charles Dickens. "Every Man in his
+Humour" and farces were again played at Manchester and Liverpool, for
+the benefit of Mr. Leigh Hunt, and the dramatic author, Mr. John Poole.
+
+By the end of the Broadstairs holiday, the house in Devonshire Terrace
+was vacant, and the family returned to it in October. All this year
+Charles Dickens had been at work upon the monthly numbers of "Dombey and
+Son," in spite of these many interruptions. He began at Broadstairs a
+Christmas book. But he found that the engrossing interest of his novel
+approaching completion made it impossible for him to finish the other
+work in time. So he decided to let this Christmas pass without a story,
+and postponed the publication of "The Haunted Man" until the following
+year.
+
+At the close of the year he went to Leeds, to take the chair at a
+meeting of the Mechanics' Institute, and on the 28th December he
+presided at the opening of the Glasgow Athenæum; he and his wife being
+the guests of the historian--_then_ Mr. Sheriff, afterwards Sir
+Archibald Alison. From a letter to his sister-in-law, written from
+Edinburgh, it will be seen that Mrs. Dickens was prevented by sudden
+illness from being present at the "demonstration." At the end of that
+letter there is another illustration of the odd names he was in the
+habit of giving to his children, the last of the three, the "Hoshen
+Peck," being a corruption of "Ocean Spectre"--a name which had,
+afterwards, a sad significance, as the boy (Sydney Smith) became a
+sailor, and died and was buried at sea two years after his father's
+death.
+
+The letters in this year need very little explanation. In the first
+letter to Mrs. Watson, he alludes to a sketch which she had made from
+"The Battle of Life," and had sent to Charles Dickens, as a remembrance,
+when her husband paid a short visit to Paris in this winter.
+
+And there are two letters to Miss Marguerite Power, the niece of the
+Countess of Blessington--a lady for whom he had then, and until her
+death, a most affectionate friendship and respect, for the sake of her
+own admirable qualities, and in remembrance of her delightful
+association with Gore House, where he was a frequent visitor. For Lady
+Blessington he had a high admiration and great regard, and she was one
+of his earliest appreciators; and Alfred, Comte D'Orsay, was also a
+much-loved friend. His "own marchioness," alluded to in the second
+letter to Miss Power, was the younger and very charming sister of his
+correspondent.
+
+We much regret having been unable to procure any letters addressed to
+Mr. Egg. His intimacy with him began first in the plays of this year;
+but he became, almost immediately, one of the friends for whom he had an
+especial affection; and Mr. Egg was a regular visitor at his house and
+at his seaside places of resort for many years after this date.
+
+The letter to Mr. William Sandys has reference to an intention which
+Charles Dickens _had_ entertained, of laying the scene of a story in
+Cornwall; Mr. Sandys, himself a Cornishman, having proposed to send him
+some books to help him as to the dialect.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                      PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, _Jan. 25th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I cannot allow your wandering lord to return to your--I suppose "arms"
+is not improper--arms, then, without thanking you in half-a-dozen words
+for your letter, and assuring you that I had great interest and pleasure
+in its receipt, and that I say Amen to all _you_ say of our happy past
+and hopeful future. There is a picture of Lausanne--St. Bernard--the
+tavern by the little lake between Lausanne and Vevay, which is kept by
+that drunken dog whom Haldimand believes to be so sober--and of many
+other such scenes, within doors and without--that rises up to my mind
+very often, and in the quiet pleasure of its aspect rather daunts me, as
+compared with the reality of a stirring life; but, please God, we will
+have some more pleasant days, and go up some more mountains, somewhere,
+and laugh together, at somebody, and form the same delightful little
+circle again, somehow.
+
+I quite agree with you about the illustrations to the little Christmas
+book. I was delighted with yours. Your good lord before-mentioned will
+inform you that it hangs up over my chair in the drawing-room here; and
+when you come to England (after I have seen you again in Lausanne) I
+will show it you in my little study at home, quietly thanking you on the
+bookcase. Then we will go and see some of Turner's recent pictures, and
+decide that question to Haldimand's utmost confusion.
+
+You will find Watson looking wonderfully well, I think. When he was
+first here, on his way to England, he took an extraordinary bath, in
+which he was rubbed all over with chemical compounds, and had everything
+done to him that could be invented for seven francs. It _may_ be the
+influence of this treatment that I see in his face, but I think it's the
+prospect of coming back to Elysée. All I can say is, that when _I_ come
+that way, and find myself among those friends again, I expect to be
+perfectly lovely--a kind of Glorious Apollo, radiant and shining with
+joy.
+
+Kate and her sister send all kinds of love in this hasty packet, and I
+am always, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. Edward Tagart.]
+
+            PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORÉ,
+                                          _Thursday, Jan. 28th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Before you read any more, I wish you would take those tablets out of
+your drawer, in which you have put a black mark against my name, and
+erase it neatly. I don't deserve it, on my word I don't, though
+appearances are against me, I unwillingly confess.
+
+I had gone to Geneva, to recover from an uncommon depression of spirits
+consequent on too much sitting over "Dombey" and the little Christmas
+book, when I received your letter as I was going out walking, one
+sunshiny, windy day. I read it on the banks of the Rhone, where it runs,
+very blue and swift, between two high green hills, with ranges of snowy
+mountains filling up the distance. Its cordial and unaffected tone gave
+me the greatest pleasure--did me a world of good--set me up for the
+afternoon, and gave me an evening's subject of discourse. For I talked
+to "them" (that is, Kate and Georgy) about those bright mornings at the
+Peschiere, until bedtime, and threatened to write you such a letter next
+day as would--I don't exactly know what it was to do, but it was to be a
+great letter, expressive of all kinds of pleasant things, and, perhaps
+the most genial letter that ever was written.
+
+From that hour to this, I have again and again and again said, "I'll
+write to-morrow," and here I am to-day full of penitence--really sorry
+and ashamed, and with no excuse but my writing-life, which makes me get
+up and go out, when my morning work is done, and look at pen and ink no
+more until I begin again.
+
+Besides which, I have been seeing Paris--wandering into hospitals,
+prisons, dead-houses, operas, theatres, concert-rooms, burial-grounds,
+palaces, and wine-shops. In my unoccupied fortnight of each month, every
+description of gaudy and ghastly sight has been passing before me in a
+rapid panorama. Before that, I had to come here from Switzerland, over
+frosty mountains in dense fogs, and through towns with walls and
+drawbridges, and without population, or anything else in particular but
+soldiers and mud. I took a flight to London for four days, and went and
+came back over one sheet of snow, sea excepted; and I wish that had been
+snow too. Then Forster (who is here now, and begs me to send his kindest
+regards) came to see Paris for himself, and in showing it to him, away I
+was borne again, like an enchanted rider. In short, I have had no rest
+in my play; and on Monday I am going to work again. A fortnight hence
+the play will begin once more; a fortnight after that the work will
+follow round, and so the letters that I care for go unwritten.
+
+Do you care for French news? I hope not, because I don't know any. There
+is a melodrama, called "The French Revolution," now playing at the
+Cirque, in the first act of which there is the most tremendous
+representation of _a people_ that can well be imagined. There are
+wonderful battles and so forth in the piece, but there is a power and
+massiveness in the mob which is positively awful. At another theatre,
+"Clarissa Harlowe" is still the rage. There are some things in it rather
+calculated to astonish the ghost of Richardson, but Clarissa is very
+admirably played, and dies better than the original to my thinking; but
+Richardson is no great favourite of mine, and never seems to me to take
+his top-boots off, whatever he does. Several pieces are in course of
+representation, involving rare portraits of the English. In one, a
+servant, called "Tom Bob," who wears a particularly English waistcoat,
+trimmed with gold lace and concealing his ankles, does very good things
+indeed. In another, a Prime Minister of England, who has ruined himself
+by railway speculations, hits off some of our national characteristics
+very happily, frequently making incidental mention of "Vishmingster,"
+"Regeenstreet," and other places with which you are well acquainted.
+"Sir Fakson" is one of the characters in another play--"English to the
+Core;" and I saw a Lord Mayor of London at one of the small theatres the
+other night, looking uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's waistcoat,
+the order of the Garter, and a very low-crowned broad-brimmed hat, not
+unlike a dustman.
+
+I was at Geneva at the time of the revolution. The moderation and
+mildness of the successful party were beyond all praise. Their appeals
+to the people of all parties--printed and pasted on the walls--have no
+parallel that I know of, in history, for their real good sterling
+Christianity and tendency to promote the happiness of mankind. My
+sympathy is strongly with the Swiss radicals. They know what Catholicity
+is; they see, in some of their own valleys, the poverty, ignorance,
+misery, and bigotry it always brings in its train wherever it is
+triumphant; and they would root it out of their children's way at any
+price. I fear the end of the struggle will be, that some Catholic power
+will step in to crush the dangerously well-educated republics (very
+dangerous to such neighbours); but there is a spirit in the people, or I
+very much mistake them, that will trouble the Jesuits there many years,
+and shake their altar steps for them.
+
+This is a poor return (I look down and see the end of the paper) for
+your letter, but in its cordial spirit of reciprocal friendship, it is
+not so bad a one if you could read it as I do, and it eases my mind and
+discharges my conscience. We are coming home, please God, at the end of
+March. Kate and Georgy send their best regards to you, and their loves
+to Mrs. and Miss Tagart and the children. _Our_ children wish to live
+too in _your_ children's remembrance. You will be glad, I know, to hear
+that "Dombey" is doing wonders, and that the Christmas book shot far
+ahead of its predecessors. I hope you will like _the last chapter of No.
+5_. If you can spare me a scrap of your handwriting in token of
+forgiveness, do; if not, I'll come and beg your pardon on the 31st of
+March.
+
+                                 Ever believe me,
+                                            Cordially and truly yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                     VICTORIA HOTEL, EUSTON SQUARE,
+                                          _Thursday, March 4th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+I have not got much to say, and that's the truth; but I cannot let this
+letter go into the post without wishing you many many happy returns of
+your birthday, and sending my love to Auntey and to Katey, and to all of
+them. We were at Mrs. Macready's last night, where there was a little
+party in honour of Mr. Macready's birthday. We had some dancing, and
+they wished very much that you and Katey had been there; so did I and
+your mamma. We have not got back to Devonshire Terrace yet, but are
+living at an hotel until Sir James Duke returns from Scotland, which
+will be on Saturday or Monday. I hope when he comes home and finds us
+here he will go out of Devonshire Terrace, and let us get it ready for
+you. Roche is coming back to you very soon. He will leave here on
+Saturday morning. He says he hopes you will have a very happy birthday,
+and he means to drink your health on the road to Paris.
+
+                                             Always your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                       CHESTER PLACE, _Tuesday Night._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So far from having "got through my agonies," as you benevolently hope, I
+have not yet begun them. No, on this _ninth of the month_ I have not yet
+written a single slip. What could I do; house-hunting at first, and
+beleaguered all day to-day and yesterday by furniture that must be
+altered, and things that must be put away? My wretchedness, just now, is
+inconceivable. Tell Anne, by-the-bye (not with reference to my
+wretchedness, but in connection with the arrangements generally), that I
+can't get on at all without her.
+
+If Kate has not mentioned it, get Katey and Mamey to write and send a
+letter to Charley; of course not hinting at our being here. He wants to
+hear from them.
+
+Poor little Hall is dead, as you will have seen, I dare say, in the
+paper. This house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and above,
+looking into the park on one side and Albany Street on the other.
+Forster is mild. Maclise, exceedingly bald on the crown of his head.
+Roche has just come in to know if he may "blow datter light." Love to
+all the darlings. Regards to everybody else. Love to yourself.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens and Miss Katey Dickens.]
+
+                   148, KING'S ROAD, BRIGHTON, _Monday, May 24, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MAMEY AND KATEY,
+
+I was very glad to receive your nice letter. I am going to tell you
+something that I hope will please you. It is this: I am coming to London
+Thursday, and I mean to bring you both back here with me, to stay until
+we all come home together on the Saturday. I hope you like this.
+
+Tell John to come with the carriage to the London Bridge Station, on
+Thursday morning at ten o'clock, and to wait there for me. I will then
+come home and fetch you.
+
+Mamma and Auntey and Charley send their loves. I send mine too, to
+Walley, Spim, and Alfred, and Sydney.
+
+                                   Always, my dears,
+                                               Your affectionate Papa.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Sandys.]
+
+                             1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 13th, 1847._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Many thanks for your kind note. I shall hope to see you when we return
+to town, from which we shall now be absent (with a short interval in
+next month) until October. Your account of the Cornishmen gave me great
+pleasure; and if I were not sunk in engagements so far, that the crown
+of my head is invisible to my nearest friends, I should have asked you
+to make me known to them. The new dialogue I will ask you by-and-by to
+let me see. I have, for the present, abandoned the idea of sinking a
+shaft in Cornwall.
+
+I have sent your Shakesperian extracts to Collier. It is a great
+comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning the poet. It
+is a fine mystery; and I tremble every day lest something should come
+out. If he had had a Boswell, society wouldn't have respected his
+grave, but would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological
+shop-windows.
+
+                                            Believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]
+
+                                     CHESTER PLACE, _June 14th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR SMITH,
+
+Haldimand stayed at No. 7, Connaught Place, Hyde Park, when I saw him
+yesterday. But he was going to cross to Boulogne to-day.
+
+The young Pariah seems pretty comfortable. He is of a cosmopolitan
+spirit I hope, and stares with a kind of leaden satisfaction at his
+spoons, without afflicting himself much about the established church.
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I think of bringing an action against you for a new sort of breach
+of promise, and calling all the bishops to estimate the damage of having
+our christening postponed for a fortnight. It appears to me that I shall
+get a good deal of money in this way. If you have any compromise to
+offer, my solicitors are Dodson and Fogg.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                                  BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _July 2nd, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MISS POWER,
+
+Let me thank you, very sincerely, for your kind note and for the little
+book. I read the latter on my way down here with the greatest pleasure.
+It is a charming story gracefully told, and very gracefully and worthily
+translated. I have not been better pleased with a book for a long time.
+
+I cannot say I take very kindly to the illustrations. They are a long
+way behind the tale to my thinking. The artist understands it very well,
+I dare say, but does not express his understanding of it, in the least
+degree, to any sense of mine.
+
+Ah Rosherville! That fated Rosherville, when shall we see it! Perhaps in
+one of those intervals when I am up to town from here, and suddenly
+appear at Gore House, somebody will propose an excursion there, next
+day. If anybody does, somebody else will be ready to go. So this
+deponent maketh oath and saith.
+
+I am looking out upon a dark gray sea, with a keen north-east wind
+blowing it in shore. It is more like late autumn than midsummer, and
+there is a howling in the air as if the latter were in a very hopeless
+state indeed. The very Banshee of Midsummer is rattling the windows
+drearily while I write. There are no visitors in the place but children,
+and they (my own included) have all got the hooping-cough, and go about
+the beach choking incessantly. A miserable wanderer lectured in a
+library last night about astronomy; but being in utter solitude he
+snuffed out the transparent planets he had brought with him in a box and
+fled in disgust. A white mouse and a little tinkling box of music that
+stops at "come," in the melody of the Buffalo Gals, and can't play "out
+to-night," are the only amusements left.
+
+I beg from my solitude to send my love to Lady Blessington, and your
+sister, and Count D'Orsay. I think of taming spiders, as Baron Trenck
+did. There is one in my cell (with a speckled body and twenty-two very
+decided knees) who seems to know me.
+
+                                  Dear Miss Power,
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]
+
+                                        BROADSTAIRS, _July 9th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR SMITH,
+
+I am really more obliged to you for your kindness about "The Eagle" (as
+I always call your house) than I can say. But when I come to town
+to-morrow week, for the Liverpool and Manchester plays, I shall have
+Kate and Georgy with me. Moreover I shall be continually going out and
+coming in at unholy hours. Item, the timid will come at impossible
+seasons to "go over" their parts with the manager. Item, two Jews with
+musty sacks of dresses will be constantly coming backwards and forwards.
+Item, sounds as of "groans" will be heard while the inimitable Boz is
+"getting" his words--which happens all day. Item, Forster will
+incessantly deliver an address by Bulwer. Item, one hundred letters per
+diem will arrive from Manchester and Liverpool; and five actresses, in
+very limp bonnets, with extraordinary veils attached to them, will be
+always calling, protected by five mothers.
+
+No, no, my actuary. Some congenial tavern is the fitting scene for these
+things, if I don't get into Devonshire Terrace, whereof I have some
+spark of hope. Eagles couldn't look the sun in the face and have such
+enormities going on in their nests.
+
+I am, for the time, that obscene thing, in short, now chronicled in the
+Marylebone Register of Births--
+
+                                              A PLAYER,
+                                                   Though still yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                        BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Tuesday, July 14th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MISS POWER,
+
+Though I am hopeless of Rosherville until after the 28th--for am I not
+beckoned, by angels of charity and by local committees, to Manchester
+and Liverpool, and to all sorts of bedevilments (if I may be allowed the
+expression) in the way of managerial miseries in the meantime--here I
+find myself falling into parenthesis within parenthesis, like Lord
+Brougham--yet will I joyfully come up to London on Friday, to dine at
+your house and meet the Dane, whose Books I honour, and whose--to make
+the sentiment complete, I want something that would sound like "Bones, I
+love!" but I can't get anything that unites reason with beauty. You, who
+have genius and beauty in your own person, will supply the gap in your
+kindness.
+
+An advertisement in the newspapers mentioning the dinner-time, will be
+esteemed a favour.
+
+Some wild beasts (in cages) have come down here, and involved us in a
+whirl of dissipation. A young lady in complete armour--at least, in
+something that shines very much, and is exceedingly scaley--goes into
+the den of ferocious lions, tigers, leopards, etc., and pretends to go
+to sleep upon the principal lion, upon which a rustic keeper, who speaks
+through his nose, exclaims, "Behold the abazid power of woobad!" and we
+all applaud tumultuously.
+
+Seriously, she beats Van Amburgh. And I think the Duke of Wellington
+must have her painted by Landseer.
+
+My penitent regards to Lady Blessington, Count D'Orsay, and my own
+Marchioness.
+
+                               Ever, dear Miss Power,
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                           BROADSTAIRS, _Wednesday, August 4th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+I am delighted to hear that you are going to improve in your spelling,
+because nobody can write properly without spelling well. But I know you
+will learn whatever you are taught, because you are always good,
+industrious, and attentive. That is what I always say of my Mamey.
+
+The note you sent me this morning is a very nice one, and the spelling
+is beautiful.
+
+                                  Always, my dear Mamey,
+                                               Your affectionate Papa.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Morning, Nov. 23rd, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I am in the whirlwind of finishing a number with a crisis in it; but I
+can't fall to work without saying, in so many words, that I feel all
+words insufficient to tell you what I think of you after a night like
+last night. The multitudes of new tokens by which I know you for a great
+man, the swelling within me of my love for you, the pride I have in you,
+the majestic reflection I see in you of all the passions and affections
+that make up our mystery, throw me into a strange kind of transport that
+has no expression but in a mute sense of an attachment, which, in truth
+and fervency, is worthy of its subject.
+
+What is this to say! Nothing, God knows, and yet I cannot leave it
+unsaid.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I never saw you more gallant and free than in the gallant and free
+scenes last night. It was perfectly captivating to behold you. However,
+it shall not interfere with my determination to address you as Old Parr
+in all future time.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                           EDINBURGH, _Thursday, December 13th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I "take up my pen," as the young ladies write, to let you know how we
+are getting on; and as I shall be obliged to put it down again very
+soon, here goes. We lived with very hospitable people in a very splendid
+house near Glasgow, and were perfectly comfortable. The meeting was the
+most stupendous thing as to numbers, and the most beautiful as to
+colours and decorations I ever saw. The inimitable did wonders. His
+grace, elegance, and eloquence, enchanted all beholders. _Kate didn't
+go!_ having been taken ill on the railroad between here and Glasgow.
+
+It has been snowing, sleeting, thawing, and freezing, sometimes by turns
+and sometimes all together, since the night before last. Lord Jeffrey's
+household are in town here, not at Craigcrook, and jogging on in a cosy,
+old-fashioned, comfortable sort of way. We have some idea of going to
+York on Sunday, passing that night at Alfred's, and coming home on
+Monday; but of this, Kate will advise you when she writes, which she
+will do to-morrow, after I shall have seen the list of railway trains.
+
+She sends her best love. She is a little poorly still, but nothing to
+speak of. She is frightfully anxious that her not having been to the
+great demonstration should be kept a secret. But I say that, like
+murder, it will out, and that to hope to veil such a tremendous disgrace
+from the general intelligence is out of the question. In one of the
+Glasgow papers she is elaborately described. I rather think Miss Alison,
+who is seventeen, was taken for her, and sat for the portrait.
+
+Best love from both of us, to Charley, Mamey, Katey, Wally,
+Chickenstalker, Skittles, and the Hoshen Peck; last, and not least, to
+you. We talked of you at the Macreadys' party on Monday night. I hope
+---- came out lively, also that ---- was truly amiable. Finally, that
+---- took everybody to their carriages, and that ---- wept a good deal
+during the festivities? God bless you. Take care of yourself, for the
+sake of mankind in general.
+
+                                     Ever affectionately, dear Georgy.
+
+
+
+
+1848.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In March of this year Charles Dickens went with his wife for two or
+three weeks to Brighton, accompanied by Mrs. Macready, who was in
+delicate health, and we give a letter to Mr. Macready from Brighton.
+Early in the year, "Dombey and Son" was finished, and he was again busy
+with an amateur play, with the same associates and some new adherents;
+the proceeds being, at first, intended to go towards the curatorship of
+Shakespeare's house, which post was to be given to Mr. Sheridan Knowles.
+The endowment was abandoned, upon the town and council of
+Stratford-on-Avon taking charge of the house; the large sum realised by
+the performances being handed over to Mr. Sheridan Knowles. The play
+selected was "The Merry Wives of Windsor;" the farce, "Love, Law, and
+Physic." There were two performances at the Haymarket in April, at one
+of which her Majesty and the Prince Consort were present; and in July
+there were performances at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh,
+and Glasgow. Some ladies accompanied the "strollers" on this theatrical
+provincial tour, and Mrs. Dickens and her sister were of the party. Many
+of the following letters bear reference to these plays.
+
+In this summer, his eldest sister Fanny (Mrs. Burnett) died, and there
+are sorrowful allusions to her illness in several of the letters.
+
+The autumn months were again spent at Broadstairs, where he wrote "The
+Haunted Man," which was illustrated by Mr. Frank Stone, Mr. Leech, and
+others. At the end of the year and at the end of his work, he took
+another short holiday at Brighton with his wife and sister-in-law; and
+the letters to Mr. Stone on the subject of his illustrations to "The
+Haunted Man" are written from Brighton. The first letters which we have
+to Mr. Mark Lemon come here. We regret to have been unable to procure
+any letters addressed to Mr. Leech, with whom, as with Mr. Lemon,
+Charles Dickens was very intimately associated for many years.
+
+Also, we have the beginning of his correspondence with Mr. Charles Kent.
+He wrote (an unusual thing for him to do) to the editor of _The Sun_
+newspaper, begging him to thank the writer of a particularly sympathetic
+and earnest review of "Dombey and Son," which appeared in _The Sun_ at
+the close of the book. Mr. Charles Kent replied in his proper person,
+and from that time dates a close friendship and constant correspondence.
+
+With the letter to Mr. Forster we give, as a note, a letter which Baron
+Taüchnitz published in his edition of Mr. Forster's "Life of Oliver
+Goldsmith."
+
+Mr. Peter Cunningham, as an important member of the "Shakespeare's
+House" committee, managed the _un_-theatrical part of this Amateur
+Provincial Tour, and was always pleasantly connected with the plays.
+
+The book alluded to in the last letter for this year, to be dedicated to
+Charles Dickens's daughters by Mr. Mark Lemon, was called "The Enchanted
+Doll."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Babbage.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 26th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Pray let me thank you for your pamphlet.
+
+I confess that I am one of the unconvinced grumblers, and that I doubt
+the present or future existence of any government in England, strong
+enough to convert the people to your income-tax principles. But I do not
+the less appreciate the ability with which you advocate them, nor am I
+the less gratified by any mark of your remembrance.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                          JUNCTION HOUSE, BRIGHTON, _March 2nd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We have migrated from the Bedford and come here, where we are very
+comfortably (not to say gorgeously) accommodated. Mrs. Macready is
+certainly better already, and I really have very great hopes that she
+will come back in a condition so blooming, as to necessitate the
+presentation of a piece of plate to the undersigned trainer.
+
+You mean to come down on Sunday and on Sunday week. If you don't, I
+shall immediately take the Victoria, and start Mr. ----, of the Theatre
+Royal, Haymarket, as a smashing tragedian. Pray don't impose upon me
+this cruel necessity.
+
+I think Lamartine, so far, one of the best fellows in the world; and I
+have lively hopes of that great people establishing a noble republic.
+Our court had best be careful not to overdo it in respect of sympathy
+with ex-royalty and ex-nobility. Those are not times for such displays,
+as, it strikes me, the people in some of our great towns would be apt to
+express pretty plainly.
+
+However, we'll talk of all this on these Sundays, and Mr. ---- shall
+_not_ be raised to the pinnacle of fame.
+
+                                Ever affectionately yours,
+                                                     My dear Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Editor of _The Sun_.]
+
+           DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                           _Friday, April 14th, 1848._
+
+                            _Private._
+
+Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to the Editor of _The Sun_,
+and begs that gentleman will have the goodness to convey to the writer
+of the notice of "Dombey and Son," in last evening's paper, Mr.
+Dickens's warmest acknowledgments and thanks. The sympathy expressed in
+it is so very earnestly and unaffectedly stated, that it is particularly
+welcome and gratifying to Mr. Dickens, and he feels very desirous indeed
+to convey that assurance to the writer of that frank and genial
+farewell.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Charles M. Kent.]
+
+          1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                   _April 18th, 1848._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Pray let me repeat to you personally what I expressed in my former note,
+and allow me to assure you, as an illustration of my sincerity, that I
+have never addressed a similar communication to anybody except on one
+occasion.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                     DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, April 22nd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,[7]
+
+I finished Goldsmith yesterday, after dinner, having read it from the
+first page to the last with the greatest care and attention.
+
+As a picture of the time, I really think it impossible to give it too
+much praise. It seems to me to be the very essence of all about the time
+that I have ever seen in biography or fiction, presented in most wise
+and humane lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. I have never
+liked Johnson half so well. Nobody's contempt for Boswell ought to be
+capable of increase, but I have never seen him in my mind's eye half so
+plainly. The introduction of him is quite a masterpiece. I should point
+to that, if I didn't know the author, as being done by somebody with a
+remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated, and a most admirable
+and fanciful power of communicating it to another. All about Reynolds is
+charming; and the first account of the Literary Club and of Beauclerc as
+excellent a piece of description as ever I read in my life. But to read
+the book is to be in the time. It lives again in as fresh and lively a
+manner as if it were presented on an impossibly good stage by the very
+best actors that ever lived, or by the real actors come out of their
+graves on purpose.
+
+And as to Goldsmith himself, and _his_ life, and the tracing of it out
+in his own writings, and the manful and dignified assertion of him
+without any sobs, whines, or convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a
+noble achievement, of which, apart from any private and personal
+affection for you, I think (and really believe) I should feel proud, as
+one who had no indifferent perception of these books of his--to the best
+of my remembrance--when little more than a child. I was a little afraid
+in the beginning, when he committed those very discouraging imprudences,
+that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately; but I
+very soon got over that fear, and found reason in every page to admire
+the sense, calmness, and moderation with which you make the love and
+admiration of the reader cluster about him from his youth, and
+strengthen with his strength--and weakness too, which is better still.
+
+I don't quite agree with you in two small respects. First, I question
+very much whether it would have been a good thing for every great man to
+have had his Boswell, inasmuch as I think that two Boswells, or three at
+most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have
+set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished
+people about them for ever restless and distrustful. I can imagine a
+succession of Boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in
+society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship.
+Secondly, I cannot help objecting to that practice (begun, I think, or
+greatly enlarged by Hunt) of italicising lines and words and whole
+passages in extracts, without some very special reason indeed. It does
+appear to be a kind of assertion of the editor over the reader--almost
+over the author himself--which grates upon me. The author might almost
+as well do it himself to my thinking, as a disagreeable thing; and it is
+such a strong contrast to the modest, quiet, tranquil beauty of "The
+Deserted Village," for instance, that I would almost as soon hear "the
+town crier" speak the lines. The practice always reminds me of a man
+seeing a beautiful view, and not thinking how beautiful it is half so
+much as what he shall say about it.
+
+In that picture at the close of the third book (a most beautiful one) of
+Goldsmith sitting looking out of window at the Temple trees, you speak
+of the "gray-eyed" rooks. Are you sure they are "gray-eyed"? The raven's
+eye is a deep lustrous black, and so, I suspect, is the rook's, except
+when the light shines full into it.
+
+I have reserved for a closing word--though I _don't_ mean to be
+eloquent about it, being far too much in earnest--the admirable manner
+in which the case of the literary man is stated throughout this book. It
+is splendid. I don't believe that any book was ever written, or anything
+ever done or said, half so conducive to the dignity and honour of
+literature as "The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith," by J. F.,
+of the Inner Temple. The gratitude of every man who is content to rest
+his station and claims quietly on literature, and to make no feint of
+living by anything else, is your due for evermore. I have often said,
+here and there, when you have been at work upon the book, that I was
+sure it would be; and I shall insist on that debt being due to you
+(though there will be no need for insisting about it) as long as I have
+any tediousness and obstinacy to bestow on anybody. Lastly, I never will
+hear the biography compared with Boswell's except under vigorous
+protest. For I do say that it is mere folly to put into opposite scales
+a book, however amusing and curious, written by an unconscious coxcomb
+like that, and one which surveys and grandly understands the characters
+of all the illustrious company that move in it.
+
+My dear Forster, I cannot sufficiently say how proud I am of what you
+have done, or how sensible I am of being so tenderly connected with it.
+When I look over this note, I feel as if I had said no part of what I
+think; and yet if I were to write another I should say no more, for I
+can't get it out. I desire no better for my fame, when my personal
+dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a
+biographer and such a critic. And again I say, most solemnly, that
+literature in England has never had, and probably never will have, such
+a champion as you are, in right of this book.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                           _Wednesday, May 3rd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR LEMON,
+
+Do you think you could manage, before we meet to-morrow, to get from the
+musical director of the Haymarket (whom I don't know) a note of the
+overtures he purposes playing on our two nights? I am obliged to correct
+and send back the bill proofs to-morrow (they are to be brought to Miss
+Kelly's)--and should like, for completeness' sake, to put the music in.
+Before "The Merry Wives," it must be something Shakespearian. Before
+"Animal Magnetism," something very telling and light--like "Fra
+Diavolo."
+
+Wednesday night's music in a concatenation accordingly, and jolly little
+polkas and quadrilles between the pieces, always beginning the moment
+the act-drop is down. If any little additional strength should be really
+required in the orchestra, so be it.
+
+Can you come to Miss Kelly's by _three_? I should like to show you
+bills, tickets, and so forth, before they are worked. In order that they
+may not interfere with or confuse the rehearsal, I have appointed Peter
+Cunningham to meet me there at three, instead of half-past.
+
+                                                     Faithfully ever.
+
+P.S.--If you should be disposed to chop together early, send me a line
+to the Athenæum. I have engaged to be with Barry at ten, to go over the
+Houses of Parliament. When I have done so, I will go to the club on the
+chance of a note from you, and would meet you where you chose.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                                  ATHENÆUM, _Thursday, May 4th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I have not been able to write to you until now. I have lived in hope
+that Kate and I might be able to run down to see you and yours for a
+day, before our design for enforcing the Government to make Knowles the
+first custodian of the Shakespeare house should come off. But I am so
+perpetually engaged in drilling the forces, that I see no hope of making
+a pleasant expedition to the Isle of Wight until about the twentieth.
+Then I shall hope to do so for one day. But of this I will advise you
+further, in due course.
+
+My doubts about the house you speak of are twofold, First, I could not
+leave town so soon as May, having affairs to arrange for a sick sister.
+And secondly, I fear Bonchurch is not sufficiently bracing for my
+chickens, who thrive best in breezy and cool places. This has set me
+thinking, sometimes of the Yorkshire coast, sometimes of Dover. I would
+not have the house at Bonchurch reserved for me, therefore. But if it
+should be empty, we will go and look at it in a body. I reserve the more
+serious part of my letter until the last, my dear White, because it
+comes from the bottom of my heart. None of your friends have thought and
+spoken oftener of you and Mrs. White than we have these many weeks past.
+I should have written to you, but was timid of intruding on your sorrow.
+What you say, and the manner in which you tell me I am connected with it
+in your recollection of your dear child, now among the angels of God,
+gives me courage to approach your grief--to say what sympathy we have
+felt with it, and how we have not been unimaginative of these deep
+sources of consolation to which you have had recourse. The traveller
+who journeyed in fancy from this world to the next was struck to the
+heart to find the child he had lost, many years before, building him a
+tower in heaven. Our blessed Christian hopes do not shut out the belief
+of love and remembrance still enduring there, but irradiate it and make
+it sacred. Who should know that better than you, or who more deeply feel
+the touching truths and comfort of that story in the older book, where,
+when the bereaved mother is asked, "Is it well with the child?" she
+answers, "It _is_ well."
+
+God be with you. Kate and her sister desire their kindest love to
+yourself and Mrs. White, in which I heartily join.
+
+                            Being ever, my dear White,
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday, May 10th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We are rehearsing at the Haymarket now, and Lemon mentioned to me
+yesterday that Webster had asked him if he would sound Forster or me as
+to your intention of having a farewell benefit before going to America,
+and whether you would like to have it at the Haymarket, and also as to
+its being preceded by a short engagement there. I don't know what your
+feelings may be on this latter head, but thinking it well that you may
+know how the land lies in these seas, send you this; the rather (excuse
+Elizabethan phrase, but you know how indispensable it is to me under
+existing circumstances)--the rather that I am thereto encouraged by thy
+consort, who has just come a-visiting here, with thy fair daughters,
+Mistress Nina and the little Kate. Wherefore, most selected friend,
+perpend at thy leisure, and so God speed thee!
+
+                                      And no more at present from,
+                                                           Thine ever.
+
+        From my tent in my garden.
+
+
+ANOTHER "BOBADIL" NOTE.
+
+I must tell you this, sir, I am no general man; but for William
+Shakespeare's sake (you may embrace it at what height of favour you
+please) I will communicate with you on the twenty-first, and do esteem
+you to be a gentleman of some parts--of a good many parts in truth. I
+love few words.
+
+[Illustration: HW: Signature: Bobadil]
+
+        At Cobb's, a water-bearer,
+              _October 11th._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday Morning, June 22nd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+I will be at Miss Kelly's to-morrow evening, from seven to eight, and
+shall hope to see you there, for a little conversation, touching the
+railroad arrangements.
+
+All preparations completed in Edinburgh and Glasgow. There will be a
+great deal of money taken, especially at the latter place.
+
+I wish I could persuade you, seriously, to come into training for Nym,
+in "The Merry Wives." He is never on by himself, and all he has to do is
+good, without being difficult. If you could screw yourself up to the
+doing of that part in Scotland, it would prevent our taking some new
+man, and would cover you (all over) with glory.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+P.S.--I am fully persuaded that an amateur manager has more
+correspondence than the Home Secretary.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                    _July 27th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I thought to have been at Rockingham long ago! It seems a century since
+I, standing in big boots on the Haymarket stage, saw you come into a box
+upstairs and look down on the humbled Bobadil, since then I have had the
+kindest of notes from you, since then the finest of venison, and yet I
+have not seen the Rockingham flowers, and they are withering I daresay.
+
+But we have acted at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and
+Glasgow; and the business of all this--and graver and heavier daily
+occupation in going to see a dying sister at Hornsey--has so worried me
+that I have hardly had an hour, far less a week. I shall never be quite
+happy, in a theatrical point of view, until you have seen me play in an
+English version of the French piece, "L'Homme Blasé," which fairly
+turned the head of Glasgow last Thursday night as ever was; neither
+shall I be quite happy, in a social point of view, until I have been to
+Rockingham again. When the first event will come about Heaven knows. The
+latter will happen about the end of the November fogs and wet weather.
+For am I not going to Broadstairs now, to walk about on the sea-shore
+(why don't you bring your rosy children there?) and think what is to be
+done for Christmas! An idea occurs to me all at once. I must come down
+and read you that book before it's published. Shall it be a bargain?
+Were you all in Switzerland? I don't believe _I_ ever was. It is such a
+dream now. I wonder sometimes whether I ever disputed with a Haldimand;
+whether I ever drank mulled wine on the top of the Great St. Bernard, or
+was jovial at the bottom with company that have stolen into my
+affection; whether I ever was merry and happy in that valley on the Lake
+of Geneva, or saw you one evening (when I didn't know you) walking down
+among the green trees outside Elysée, arm-in-arm with a gentleman in a
+white hat. I am quite clear that there is no foundation for these
+visions. But I should like to go somewhere, too, and try it all over
+again. I don't know how it is, but the ideal world in which my lot is
+cast has an odd effect on the real one, and makes it chiefly precious
+for such remembrances. I get quite melancholy over them sometimes,
+especially when, as now, those great piled-up semicircles of bright
+faces, at which I have lately been looking--all laughing, earnest and
+intent--have faded away like dead people. They seem a ghostly moral of
+everything in life to me.
+
+Kate sends her best love, in which Georgy would as heartily unite, I
+know, but that she is already gone to Broadstairs with the children. We
+think of following on Saturday morning, but that depends on my poor
+sister. Pray give my most cordial remembrances to Watson, and tell him
+they include a great deal. I meant to have written you a letter. I don't
+know what this is. There is no word for it. So, if you will still let me
+owe you one, I will pay my debt, on the smallest encouragement, from the
+seaside. Here, there, and elsewhere, I am, with perfect truth, believe
+me,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Saturday, August 26th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I was about to write to you when I received your welcome letter. You
+knew I should come from a somewhat longer distance than this to give you
+a hearty God-speed and farewell on the eve of your journey. What do you
+say to Monday, the fourth, or Saturday, the second? Fix either day, let
+me know which suits you best--at what hour you expect the Inimitable,
+and the Inimitable will come up to the scratch like a man and a brother.
+
+Permit me, in conclusion, to nail my colours to the mast. Stars and
+stripes are so-so--showy, perhaps; but my colours is THE UNION JACK,
+which I am told has the remarkable property of having braved a thousand
+years the battle AND the breeze. Likewise, it is the flag of Albion--the
+standard of Britain; and Britons, as I am informed, never, never,
+never--will--be--slaves!
+
+My sentiment is: Success to the United States as a golden campaigning
+ground, but blow the United States to 'tarnal smash as an Englishman's
+place of residence. Gentlemen, are you all charged?
+
+                                                  Affectionately ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday, Sept. 8th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+We shall be very glad to see you all again, and we hope you will be very
+glad to see us. Give my best love to dear Katey, also to Frankey, Alley,
+and the Peck.
+
+I have had a nice note from Charley just now. He says it is expected at
+school that when Walter puts on his jacket, all the Miss Kings will fall
+in love with him to desperation and faint away.
+
+                             Ever, my dear Mamey,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Effingham William Wilson.]
+
+               1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                     _Nov. 7th, 1848._
+
+                       "A NATIONAL THEATRE."
+
+SIR,
+
+I beg you to accept my best thanks for your pamphlet and your obliging
+note. That such a theatre as you describe would be but worthy of this
+nation, and would not stand low upon the list of its instructors, I have
+no kind of doubt. I wish I could cherish a stronger faith than I have in
+the probability of its establishment on a rational footing within fifty
+years.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, Nov. 21st, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I send you herewith the second part of the book, which I hope may
+interest you. If you should prefer to have it read to you by the
+Inimitable rather than to read it, I shall be at home this evening (loin
+of mutton at half-past five), and happy to do it. The proofs are full
+of printers' errors, but with the few corrections I have scrawled upon
+it, you will be able to make out what they mean.
+
+I send you, on the opposite side, a list of the subjects already in hand
+from this second part. If you should see no other in it that you like (I
+think it important that you should keep Milly, as you have begun with
+her), I will, in a day or two, describe you an unwritten subject for the
+third part of the book.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+SUBJECTS IN HAND FOR THE SECOND PART.
+
+1. Illuminated page. Tenniel. Representing Redlaw going upstairs, and
+the Tetterby family below.
+
+2. The Tetterby supper. Leech.
+
+3. The boy in Redlaw's room, munching his food and staring at the fire.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                          BRIGHTON, _Thursday Night, Nov. 23rd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+We are unanimous.
+
+The drawing of Milly on the chair is CHARMING. I cannot tell you how
+much the little composition and expression please me. Do that, by all
+means.
+
+I fear she must have a little cap on. There is something coming in the
+last part, about her having had a dead child, which makes it yet more
+desirable than the existing text does that she should have that little
+matronly sign about her. Unless the artist is obdurate indeed, and then
+he'll do as he likes.
+
+I am delighted to hear that you have your eye on her in the students'
+room. You will really, pictorially, make the little woman whom I love.
+
+Kate and Georgy send their kindest remembrances. I write hastily to save
+the post.
+
+                                    Ever, my dear Stone,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+             BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Monday Night, Nov. 27th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+You are a TRUMP, emphatically a TRUMP, and such are my feelings towards
+you at this moment that I think (but I am not sure) that if I saw you
+about to place a card on a wrong pack at Bibeck (?), I wouldn't breathe
+a word of objection.
+
+Sir, there is a subject I have written to-day for the third part, that I
+think and hope will just suit you. Scene, Tetterby's. Time, morning. The
+power of bringing back people's memories of sorrow, wrong and trouble,
+has been given by the ghost to Milly, though she don't know it herself.
+As she comes along the street, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby recover themselves,
+and are mutually affectionate again, and embrace, closing _rather_ a
+good scene of quarrel and discontent. The moment they do so, Johnny (who
+has seen her in the distance and announced her before, from which moment
+they begin to recover) cries "Here she is!" and she comes in, surrounded
+by the little Tetterbys, the very spirit of morning, gladness,
+innocence, hope, love, domesticity, etc. etc. etc. etc.
+
+I would limit the illustration to her and the children, which will make
+a fitness between it and your other illustrations, and give them all a
+character of their own. The exact words of the passage I endorsed on
+another slip of paper. Note. There are six boy Tetterbys present (young
+'Dolphus is not there), including Johnny; and in Johnny's arms is
+Moloch, the baby, who is a girl. I hope to be back in town next Monday,
+and will lose no time in reporting myself to you. Don't wait to send me
+the drawing of this. I know how pretty she will be with the children in
+your hands, and should be a stupendous jackass if I had any distrust of
+it.
+
+The Duke of Cambridge is staying in this house, and they are driving me
+mad by having Life Guards bands under our windows, playing _our_
+overtures! I have been at work all day, and am going to wander into the
+theatre, where (for the comic man's benefit) "two gentlemen of Brighton"
+are performing two counts in a melodrama. I was quite addle-headed for
+the time being, and think an amateur or so would revive me. No 'Tone! I
+don't in the abstract approve of Brighton. I couldn't pass an autumn
+here; but it is a gay place for a week or so; and when one laughs and
+cries, and suffers the agitation that some men experience over their
+books, it's a bright change to look out of window, and see the gilt
+little toys on horseback going up and down before the mighty sea, and
+thinking nothing of it.
+
+Kate's love and Georgy's. They say you'll contradict every word of this
+letter.
+
+                                                      Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[SLIP OF PAPER ENCLOSED.]
+
+"Hurrah! here's Mrs. Williams!" cried Johnny.
+
+So she was, and all the Tetterby children with her; and as she came in,
+they kissed her and kissed one another, and kissed the baby and kissed
+their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about
+her, trooping on with her in triumph.
+
+(After which, she is going to say: "What, are _you_ all glad to see me
+too! Oh, how happy it makes me to find everyone so glad to see me this
+bright morning!")
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                           BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Nov. 28th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I assure you, most unaffectedly and cordially, that the dedication of
+that book to Mary and _Kate_ (not Catherine) will be a real delight to
+me, and to all of us. I know well that you propose it in "affectionate
+regard," and value and esteem it, therefore, in a way not easy of
+expression.
+
+You were talking of "coming" down, and now, in a mean and dodging way,
+you write about "sending" the second act! I have a propogician to make.
+Come down on Friday. There is a train leaves London Bridge at two--gets
+here at four. By that time I shall be ready to strike work. We can take
+a little walk, dine, discuss, and you can go back in good time next
+morning. I really think this ought to be done, and indeed MUST be done.
+Write and say it shall be done.
+
+A little management will be required in dramatising the third part,
+where there are some things I _describe_ (for effect's sake, and as a
+matter of art) which must be _said_ on the stage. Redlaw is in a new
+condition of mind, which fact must be shot point-blank at the audience,
+I suppose, "as from the deadly level of a gun." By anybody who knew how
+to play Milly, I think it might be made very good. Its effect is very
+pleasant upon me. I have also given Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby another
+innings.
+
+I went to the play last night--fifth act of Richard the Third. Richmond
+by a stout _lady_, with a particularly well-developed bust, who finished
+all the speeches with the soubrette simper. Also, at the end of the
+tragedy she came forward (still being Richmond) and said, "Ladies and
+gentlemen, on Wednesday next the entertainments will be for _My_
+benefit, when I hope to meet your approbation and support." Then, having
+bowed herself into the stage-door, she looked out of it, and said,
+winningly, "Won't you come?" which was enormously applauded.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[7] LETTER OF BARON TAÜCHNITZ.
+
+Having had the privilege to see a letter which the late Mr. Charles
+Dickens wrote to the author of this work upon its first appearance, and
+which there was no intention to publish in England, it became my lively
+wish to make it known to the readers of my edition.
+
+I therefore addressed an earnest request to Mr. Forster, that he would
+permit the letter to be prefixed to a reprint not designed for
+circulation in England, where I could understand his reluctance to
+sanction its publication. Its varied illustration of the subject of the
+book, and its striking passages of personal feeling and character, led
+me also to request that I might be allowed to present it in facsimile.
+
+Mr. Forster complied; and I am most happy to be thus enabled to give to
+my public, on the following pages, so attractive and so interesting a
+letter, reproduced in the exact form in which it was written, by the
+most popular and admired-of writers--too early gone.
+
+TAÜCHNITZ.
+
+Leipsic, _May 23, 1873._
+
+
+
+
+1849.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+This, as far as correspondence is concerned, was an uneventful year. In
+the spring Charles Dickens took one of his holidays at Brighton,
+accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law and two daughters, and they
+were joined in their lodgings by Mr. and Mrs. Leech. From Brighton he
+writes the letter--as a song--which we give, to Mr. Mark Lemon, who had
+been ill, asking him to pay them a visit.
+
+In the summer, Charles Dickens went with his family, for the first time,
+to Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, having hired for six months the charming
+villa, Winterbourne, belonging to the Rev. James White. And now began
+that close and loving intimacy which for the future was to exist between
+these two families. Mr. Leech also took a house at Bonchurch. All
+through this year Charles Dickens was at work upon "David Copperfield."
+
+As well as giving eccentric names to his children and friends, he was
+also in the habit of giving such names to himself--that of "Sparkler"
+being one frequently used by him.
+
+Miss Joll herself gives us the explanation of the letter to her on
+capital punishment: "Soon after the appearance of his 'Household Words,'
+some friends were discussing an article in it on 'Private Executions.'
+They contended that it went to prove Mr. Dickens was an advocate of
+capital punishment. I, however, took a different view of the matter, and
+ventured to write and inquire his views on the subject, and to my letter
+he sent me a courteous reply."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Dudley Costello.]
+
+                  DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Night, Jan. 26th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR COSTELLO,
+
+I am desperate! Engaged in links of adamant to a "monster in human
+form"--a remarkable expression I think I remember to have once met with
+in a newspaper--whom I encountered at Franconi's, whence I have just
+returned, otherwise I would have done all three things right heartily
+and with my accustomed sweetness. Think of me another time when chops
+are on the carpet (figuratively speaking), and see if I won't come and
+eat 'em!
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I find myself too despondent for the flourish.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Night, Feb. 27th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+I am not engaged on the evening of your birthday. But even if I had an
+engagement of the most particular kind, I should excuse myself from
+keeping it, so that I might have the pleasure of celebrating at home,
+and among my children, the day that gave me such a dear and good
+daughter as you.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _May 25th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD.
+
+No--no--no! Murder, murder! Madness and misconception! Any _one_ of the
+subjects--not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you
+think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a
+pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request!
+
+Says my friend to me, "Will you ask _your_ friend, Mr. Stanfield, what
+the damage of a little picture of that size would be, that I may treat
+myself with the same, if I can afford it?" Says I, "I will." Says he,
+"Will you suggest that I should like it to be _one_ of those subjects?"
+Says I, "I will."
+
+I am beating my head against the door with grief and frenzy, and I shall
+continue to do so, until I receive your answer.
+
+                                   Ever heartily yours,
+                                                 THE MISCONCEIVED ONE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                         DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, June 4th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Leech and Sparkler having promised their ladies to take them to Ascot,
+and having failed in their truths, propoge to take them to Greenwich
+instead, next Wednesday. Will that alteration in the usual arrangements
+be agreeable to Gaffin, S.? If so, the place of meeting is the
+Sparkler's Bower, and the hour, one exactly.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+             SHANKLIN, ISLE OF WIGHT, _Monday Night, June 16th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR KATE,
+
+I have but a moment. Just got back and post going out. I have taken a
+most delightful and beautiful house, belonging to White, at Bonchurch;
+cool, airy, private bathing, everything delicious. I think it is the
+prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad. Anne may
+begin to dismantle Devonshire Terrace. I have arranged for carriages,
+luggage, and everything.
+
+The man with the post-bag is swearing in the passage.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--A waterfall on the grounds, which I have arranged with a carpenter
+to convert into a perpetual shower-bath.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, June 25th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR LEMON,
+
+I am very unwilling to deny Charley the pleasure you so kindly offer
+him. But as it is just the close of the half-year when they are getting
+together all the half-year's work--and as that day's pleasure would
+weaken the next day's duty, I think I must be "more like an ancient
+Roman than a ----" Sparkler, and that it will be wisest in me to say
+nothing about it.
+
+Get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of "Copperfield" No.
+3; "simple and quiet, but very natural and touching."--_Evening Bore._
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+NEW SONG.
+
+TUNE--"Lesbia hath a beaming eye."
+
+1.
+
+        Lemon is a little hipped,
+          And this is Lemon's true position;
+        He is not pale, he's not white-lipped,
+          Yet wants a little fresh condition.
+        Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
+          Old ocean's rising, falling billows,
+        Than on the houses every one,
+          That form the street called Saint Anne's Willers.
+                Oh, my Lemon, round and fat,
+                  Oh, my bright, my right, my tight 'un,
+                Think a little what you're at--
+                  Don't stay at home, but come to Brighton!
+
+2.
+
+        Lemon has a coat of frieze,
+          But all so seldom Lemon wears it,
+        That it is a prey to fleas,
+          And ev'ry moth that's hungry tears it.
+        Oh, that coat's the coat for me,
+          That braves the railway sparks and breezes,
+        Leaving every engine free
+          To smoke it, till its owner sneezes!
+                Then my Lemon, round and fat,
+                  L., my bright, my right, my tight 'un,
+                Think a little what you're at--
+                  On Tuesday first, come down to Brighton!
+
+                                                          T. SPARKLER.
+
+Also signed,
+
+        CATHERINE DICKENS,
+        ANNIE LEECH,
+        GEORGINA HOGARTH,
+        MARY DICKENS,
+        KATIE DICKENS,
+        JOHN LEECH.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                     WINTERBOURNE, _Sunday Evening, Sept. 23rd, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I have a hundred times at least wanted to say to you how good I thought
+those papers in "Blackwood"--how excellent their purpose, and how
+delicately and charmingly worked out. Their subtle and delightful
+humour, and their grasp of the whole question, were something more
+pleasant to me than I can possibly express.
+
+"How comes this lumbering Inimitable to say this, on this Sunday night
+of all nights in the year?" you naturally ask. Now hear the Inimitable's
+honest avowal! I make so bold because I heard that Morning Service
+better read this morning than ever I have heard it read in my life. And
+because--for the soul of me--I cannot separate the two things, or help
+identifying the wise and genial man out of church with the earnest and
+unaffected man in it. Midsummer madness, perhaps, but a madness I hope
+that will hold us true friends for many and many a year to come. The
+madness is over as soon as you have burned this letter (see the history
+of the Gunpowder Plot), but let us be friends much longer for these
+reasons and many included in them not herein expressed.
+
+                                                Affectionately always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Joll.]
+
+                      ROCKINGHAM CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
+                                                    _Nov. 27th, 1849._
+
+Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to Miss Joll. He is, on
+principle, opposed to capital punishment, but believing that many
+earnest and sincere people who are favourable to its retention in
+extreme cases would unite in any temperate effort to abolish the evils
+of public executions, and that the consequences of public executions are
+disgraceful and horrible, he has taken the course with which Miss Joll
+is acquainted as the most hopeful, and as one undoubtedly calculated to
+benefit society at large.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Night, Nov. 30th, 1849._
+                                                 _A Quarter-past Ten._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Plunged in the deepest gloom, I write these few words to let you know
+that, just now, when the bell was striking ten, I drank to
+
+[Illustration: H. E. R.!]
+
+and to all the rest of Rockingham; as the wine went down my throat, I
+felt distinctly that it was "changing those thoughts to madness."
+
+On the way here I was a terror to my companions, and I am at present a
+blight and mildew on my home.
+
+Think of me sometimes, as I shall long think of our glorious dance last
+night. Give my most affectionate regards to Watson, and my kind
+remembrances to all who remember me, and believe me,
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I am in such an incapable state, that after executing the
+foregoing usual flourish I swooned, and remained for some time
+insensible. Ha, ha, ha! Why was I ever restored to consciousness!!!
+
+P.P.S.--"Changing" those thoughts ought to be "driving." But my
+recollection is incoherent and my mind wanders.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Cerjat.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Dec. 29th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I received your letter at breakfast-time this morning with a pleasure my
+eloquence is unable to express and your modesty unable to conceive. It
+is so delightful to be remembered at this time of the year in your house
+where we have been so happy, and in dear old Lausanne, that we always
+hope to see again, that I can't help pushing away the first page of
+"Copperfield" No. 10, now staring at me with what I may literally call a
+blank aspect, and plunging energetically into this reply.
+
+What a strange coincidence that is about Blunderstone House! Of all the
+odd things I have ever heard (and their name is Legion), I think it is
+the oddest. I went down into that part of the country on the 7th of
+January last year, when I was meditating the story, and chose
+Blunderstone for the sound of its name. I had previously observed much
+of what you say about the poor girls. In all you suggest with so much
+feeling about their return to virtue being cruelly cut off, I concur
+with a sore heart. I have been turning it over in my mind for some time,
+and hope, in the history of Little Em'ly (who _must_ fall--there is no
+hope for her), to put it before the thoughts of people in a new and
+pathetic way, and perhaps to do some good. You will be glad to hear, I
+know, that "Copperfield" is a great success. I think it is better liked
+than any of my other books.
+
+We had a most delightful time at Watsons' (for both of them we have
+preserved and strengthened a real affection), and were the gayest of the
+gay. There was a Miss Boyle staying in the house, who is an excellent
+amateur actress, and she and I got up some scenes from "The School for
+Scandal" and from "Nickleby," with immense success. We played in the old
+hall, with the audience filled up and running over with servants. The
+entertainments concluded with feats of legerdemain (for the performance
+of which I have a pretty good apparatus, collected at divers times and
+in divers places), and we then fell to country dances of a most frantic
+description, and danced all night. We often spoke of you and Mrs. Cerjat
+and of Haldimand, and wished you were all there. Watson and I have some
+fifty times "registered a vow" (like O'Connell) to come to Lausanne
+together, and have even settled in what month and week. Something or
+other has always interposed to prevent us; but I hope, please God, most
+certainly to see it again, when my labours-Copperfieldian shall have
+terminated.
+
+You have no idea what that hanging of the Mannings really was. The
+conduct of the people was so indescribably frightful, that I felt for
+some time afterwards almost as if I were living in a city of devils. I
+feel, at this hour, as if I never could go near the place again. My
+letters have made a great to-do, and led to a great agitation of the
+subject; but I have not a confident belief in any change being made,
+mainly because the total abolitionists are utterly reckless and
+dishonest (generally speaking), and would play the deuce with any such
+proposition in Parliament, unless it were strongly supported by the
+Government, which it would certainly not be, the Whig motto (in office)
+being "_laissez aller_." I think Peel might do it if he came in. Two
+points have occurred to me as being a good commentary to the objections
+to my idea. The first is that a most terrific uproar was made when the
+hanging processions were abolished, and the ceremony shrunk from Tyburn
+to the prison door. The second is that, at this very time, under the
+British Government in New South Wales, executions take place _within the
+prison walls_, with decidedly improved results. (I am waiting to explode
+this fact on the first man of mark who gives me the opportunity.)
+
+Unlike you, we have had no marriages or giving in marriage here. We
+might have had, but a certain young lady, whom you know, is hard to
+please. The children are all well, thank God! Charley is going to Eton
+the week after next, and has passed a first-rate examination. Kate is
+quite well, and unites with me and Georgina in love to you and Mrs.
+Cerjat and Haldimand, whom I would give a good deal (tell him) to have
+several hours' contradiction of at his own table. Good heavens, how
+obstinate we would both be! I see him leaning back in his chair, with
+his right forefinger out, and saying, "Good God!" in reply to some
+proposition of mine, and then laughing.
+
+All in a moment a feeling comes over me, as if you and I have been still
+talking, smoking cigars outside the inn at Martigny, the piano sounding
+inside, and Lady Mary Taylour singing. I look into my garden (which is
+covered with snow) rather dolefully, but take heart again, and look
+brightly forward to another expedition to the Great St. Bernard, when
+Mrs. Cerjat and I shall laugh as I fancy I have never laughed since, in
+one of those one-sided cars; and when we shall again learn from
+Haldimand, in a little dingy cabaret, at lunch-time, how to secure a
+door in travelling (do you remember?) by balancing a chair against it on
+its two hind-legs.
+
+I do hope that we may all come together again once more, while there is
+a head of hair left among us; and in this hope remain, my dear Cerjat,
+
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+
+
+1850.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the spring Charles Dickens took a short holiday again, with his wife
+and sister-in-law, at Brighton, from whence he wrote to Mr. Wills, on
+"Household Words" business. The first number of this journal appeared on
+the 30th March.
+
+This autumn he succeeded, for the first time, in getting possession of
+the "Fort House," Broadstairs, on which he had always set his
+affections. He was hard at work on the closing numbers of "David
+Copperfield" during all the summer and autumn. The family moved to
+Broadstairs in July, but as a third daughter was born in August, they
+were not joined by Mrs. Dickens until the end of September. "David
+Copperfield" was finished in October.
+
+The beginning of his correspondence with Mrs. Gaskell is in his asking
+her to contribute to "Household Words," which she did from the first
+number, and very frequently afterwards both to "Household Words" and
+"All the Year Round."
+
+The letter to Mr. David Roberts, R.A., is one thanking him for a
+remembrance of his (Mr. Roberts's) travels in the East--a picture of a
+"Simoom in the Desert," which was one of Charles Dickens's most highly
+prized possessions.
+
+A letter to Mr. Sheridan Knowles contains allusions which we have no
+means of explaining, but we publish it, as it is characteristic, and
+addressed to a literary celebrity. Its being inscribed to "Daddy"
+Knowles illustrates a habit of Charles Dickens--as does a letter later
+in this year to Mr. Stone, beginning, "My dear P."--of giving nicknames
+to the friends with whom he was on the most affectionate and intimate
+terms. Mr. Stone--especially included in this category--was the subject
+of many such names; "Pump," or "Pumpion," being one by which he was
+frequently addressed--a joke as good-humouredly and gladly received as
+it was kindly and pleasantly intended.
+
+There were no public amateur theatricals this year; but in November, the
+greater part of the amateur company played for three nights at Knebworth
+Park, as the guests of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (afterwards Lord
+Lytton), who entertained all his county neighbours to witness the
+performances. The play was "Every Man in his Humour," and farces, varied
+each night.
+
+This year we have our first letter to Miss Mary Boyle, a cousin of Mrs.
+Watson, well known as an amateur actress and an accomplished lady. Miss
+Boyle was to have acted with the amateur company at Knebworth, but was
+prevented by domestic affliction. Early in the following year there was
+a private play at Rockingham Castle, when Miss Boyle acted with Charles
+Dickens, the play being "Used Up," in which Mrs. Dickens also acted; and
+the farce, "Animal Magnetism," in which Miss Boyle and Miss Hogarth
+played. The letters to Mrs. Watson in this year refer chiefly to the
+preparations for the play in her house.
+
+The accident mentioned in the letter addressed to Mr. Henry Bicknell
+(son-in-law of Mr. David Roberts, R.A., and a much-esteemed friend of
+Charles Dickens) was an accident which happened to Mrs. Dickens, while
+rehearsing at a theatre. She fell through a trap-door, spraining her
+ankle so badly as to be incapacitated from taking her part in the
+theatricals at Knebworth.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 3rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR ROBERTS,
+
+I am more obliged to you than I can tell you for the beautiful mark of
+your friendly remembrance which you have sent me this morning. I shall
+set it up among my household gods with pride. It gives me the highest
+gratification, and I beg you to accept my most cordial and sincere
+thanks. A little bit of the tissue paper was sticking to the surface of
+the picture, and has slightly marked it. It requires but a touch, as one
+would dot an "i" or cross a "t," to remove the blemish; but as I cannot
+think of a recollection so full of poetry being touched by any hand but
+yours, I have told Green the framer, whenever he shall be on his way
+with it, to call on you by the road. I enclose a note from Mrs. Dickens,
+which I hope will impress you into a country dance, with which we hope
+to dismiss Christmas merrily.
+
+                                  Ever, my dear Roberts,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. James Sheridan Knowles.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 3rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR GOOD KNOWLES,
+
+Many happy New Years to you, and to all who are near and dear to you.
+Your generous heart unconsciously exaggerates, I am sure, my merit in
+respect of that most honourable gentleman who has been the occasion of
+our recent correspondence. I cannot sufficiently admire the dignity of
+his conduct, and I really feel indebted to you for giving me the
+gratification of observing it.
+
+As to that "cross note," which, rightly considered, was nothing of the
+sort, if ever you refer to it again, I'll do--I don't exactly know what,
+but something perfectly desperate and ferocious. If I have ever thought
+of it, it has only been to remember with delight how soon we came to a
+better understanding, and how heartily we confirmed it with a most
+expressive shake of the hand, one evening down in that mouldy little den
+of Miss Kelly's.
+
+                                        Heartily and faithfully yours.
+     "Daddy" Knowles.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 31st, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+You may perhaps have seen an announcement in the papers of my intention
+to start a new cheap weekly journal of general literature.
+
+I do not know what your literary vows of temperance or abstinence may
+be, but as I do honestly know that there is no living English writer
+whose aid I would desire to enlist in preference to the authoress of
+"Mary Barton" (a book that most profoundly affected and impressed me), I
+venture to ask you whether you can give me any hope that you will write
+a short tale, or any number of tales, for the projected pages.
+
+No writer's name will be used, neither my own nor any other; every paper
+will be published without any signature, and all will seem to express
+the general mind and purpose of the journal, which is the raising up of
+those that are down, and the general improvement of our social
+condition. I should set a value on your help which your modesty can
+hardly imagine; and I am perfectly sure that the least result of your
+reflection or observation in respect of the life around you, would
+attract attention and do good.
+
+Of course I regard your time as valuable, and consider it so when I ask
+you if you could devote any of it to this purpose.
+
+If you could and would prefer to speak to me on the subject, I should be
+very glad indeed to come to Manchester for a few hours and explain
+anything you might wish to know. My unaffected and great admiration of
+your book makes me very earnest in all relating to you. Forgive my
+troubling you for this reason, and believe me ever,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Mrs. Dickens and her sister send their love.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I have been going to write to you for a long time, but have always had
+in my mind that you might come here with Lotty any day. As Lotty has
+come without you, however (witness a tremendous rampaging and ravaging
+now going on upstairs!), I despatch this note to say that I suppose you
+have seen the announcement of "the" new weekly thing, and that if you
+would ever write anything for it, you would please me better than I can
+tell you. We hope to do some solid good, and we mean to be as cheery and
+pleasant as we can. (And, putting our hands in our breeches pockets, we
+say complacently, that our money is as good as Blackwood's any day in
+the week.)
+
+Now the murder's out!
+
+Are you never coming to town any more? Must I come to Bonchurch? Am I
+born (for the eight-and-thirtieth time) next Thursday, at half-past
+five, and do you mean to say you are _not_ coming to dinner? Well, well,
+I can always go over to Puseyism to spite my friends, and that's some
+comfort.
+
+Poor dear Jeffrey! I had heard from him but a few days, and the unopened
+proof of No. 10 was lying on his table when he died. I believe I have
+lost as affectionate a friend as I ever had, or ever shall have, in this
+world.
+
+                                   Ever heartily yours, my dear White.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 8th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+Let me thank you in the heartiest manner for your most kind and
+gratifying mention of me in your able pamphlet. It gives me great
+pleasure, and I sincerely feel it.
+
+I quite agree with you in all you say so well of the injustice and
+impolicy of this excessive taxation. But when I think of the condition
+of the great mass of the people, I fear that I could hardly find the
+heart to press for justice in this respect, before the window-duty is
+removed. They cannot read without light. They cannot have an average
+chance of life and health without it. Much as we feel our wrong, I fear
+that they feel their wrong more, and that the things just done in this
+wise must bear a new physical existence.
+
+I never see you, and begin to think we must have another play--say in
+Cornwall--expressly to bring us together.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+SUGGESTIONS FOR TITLES OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS."
+
+THE FORGE:
+
+A Weekly Journal,
+
+Conducted by Charles Dickens.
+
+
+        "Thus at the glowing Forge of Life our actions must be wrought,
+         Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
+         Each burning deed and thought."--_Longfellow._
+
+        THE HEARTH.
+        THE FORGE.
+        THE CRUCIBLE.
+        THE ANVIL OF THE TIME.
+        CHARLES DICKENS'S OWN.
+        SEASONABLE LEAVES.
+        EVERGREEN LEAVES.
+        HOME.
+        HOME-MUSIC.
+        CHANGE.
+        TIME AND TIDE.
+        TWOPENCE.
+        ENGLISH BELLS.
+        WEEKLY BELLS.
+        THE ROCKET.
+        GOOD HUMOUR.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                   148, KING'S ROAD, BRIGHTON,
+                                    _Tuesday Night, March 12th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have made a correction or two in my part of the post-office article. I
+still observe the top-heavy "Household Words" in the title. The title of
+"The Amusements of the People" has to be altered as I have marked it. I
+would as soon have my hair cut off as an intolerable Scotch shortness
+put into my titles by the elision of little words. "The Seasons" wants a
+little punctuation. Will the "Incident in the Life of Mademoiselle
+Clairon" go into those two pages? I fear not, but one article would be
+infinitely better, I am quite certain, than two or three short ones. If
+it will go in, in with it.
+
+I shall be back, please God, by dinner-time to-morrow week. I will be
+ready for Smithfield either on the following Monday morning at four, or
+any other morning you may arrange for.
+
+Would it do to make up No. 2 on Wednesday, the 20th, instead of
+Saturday? If so, it would be an immense convenience to me. But if it be
+distinctly necessary to make it up on Saturday, say by return, and I am
+to be relied upon. Don't fail in this.
+
+I really _can't_ promise to be comic. Indeed, your note put me out a
+little, for I had just sat down to begin, "It will last my time." I will
+shake my head a little, and see if I can shake a more comic substitute
+out of it.
+
+As to _two_ comic articles, or two any sort of articles, out of me,
+that's the intensest extreme of no-goism.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _July 13th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+Being obliged (sorely against my will) to leave my work this morning and
+go out, and having a few spare minutes before I go, I write a hasty
+note, to hint how glad I am to have received yours, and how happy and
+tranquil we feel it to be for you all, that the end of that long illness
+has come.[8] Kate and Georgy send best loves to Mrs. White, and we hope
+she will take all needful rest and relief after those arduous, sad, and
+weary weeks. I have taken a house at Broadstairs, from early in August
+until the end of October, as I don't want to come back to London until I
+shall have finished "Copperfield." I am rejoiced at the idea of your
+going there. You will find it the healthiest and freshest of places; and
+there are Canterbury, and all varieties of what Leigh Hunt calls
+"greenery," within a few minutes' railroad ride. It is not very
+picturesque ashore, but extremely so seaward; all manner of ships
+continually passing close inshore. So come, and we'll have no end of
+sports, please God.
+
+I am glad to say, as I know you will be to hear, that there seems a
+bright unanimity about "Copperfield." I am very much interested in it
+and pleased with it myself. I have carefully planned out the story, for
+some time past, to the end, and am making out my purposes with great
+care. I should like to know what you see from that tower of yours. I
+have little doubt you see the real objects in the prospect.
+
+"Household Words" goes on _thoroughly well_. It is expensive, of course,
+and demands a large circulation; but it is taking a great and steady
+stand, and I have no doubt already yields a good round profit.
+
+To-morrow week I shall expect you. You shall have a bottle of the
+"Twenty." I have kept a few last lingering caskets with the gem
+enshrined therein, expressly for you.
+
+                                       Ever, my dear White,
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+         HÔTEL WINDSOR, PARIS, _Thursday, July 27th, 1850._
+                                                    _After post-time._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have had much ado to get to work; the heat here being so intense that
+I can do nothing but lie on the bare floor all day. I never felt it
+anything like so hot in Italy.
+
+There is nothing doing in the theatres, and the atmosphere is so
+horribly oppressive there that one can hardly endure it. I came out of
+the Français last night half dead. I am writing at this moment with
+nothing on but a shirt and pair of white trousers, and have been
+sitting four hours at this paper, but am as faint with the heat as if I
+had been at some tremendous gymnastics; and yet we had a thunderstorm
+last night.
+
+I hope we are doing pretty well in Wellington Street. My anxiety makes
+me feel as if I had been away a year. I hope to be home on Tuesday
+evening, or night at latest. I have picked up a very curious book of
+French statistics that will suit us, and an odd proposal for a company
+connected with the gambling in California, of which you will also be
+able to make something.
+
+I saw a certain "Lord Spleen" mentioned in a playbill yesterday, and
+will look after that distinguished English nobleman to-night, if
+possible. Rachel played last night for the last time before going to
+London, and has not so much in her as some of our friends suppose.
+
+The English people are perpetually squeezing themselves into courtyards,
+blind alleys, closed edifices, and other places where they have no sort
+of business. The French people, as usual, are making as much noise as
+possible about everything that is of no importance, but seem (as far as
+one can judge) pretty quiet and good-humoured. They made a mighty
+hullabaloo at the theatre last night, when Brutus (the play was
+"Lucretia") declaimed about liberty.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _August 9th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I shall be obliged to you if you will write to this man, and tell him
+that what he asks I never do--firstly, because I have no kind of
+connection with any manager or theatre; secondly, because I am asked to
+read so many manuscripts, that compliance is impossible, or I should
+have no other occupation or relaxation in the world.
+
+[Symbol: right hand] A foreign gentleman, with a beard, name unknown,
+but signing himself "A Fellow Man," and dating from nowhere, declined,
+twice yesterday, to leave this house for any less consideration than the
+insignificant one of "twenty pounds." I have had a policeman waiting for
+him all day.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                              BROADSTAIRS, _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I enclose a few lines from Georgy, and write these to say that I purpose
+going home at some time on Thursday, but I cannot say precisely when, as
+it depends on what work I do to-morrow. Yesterday Charles Knight, White,
+Forster, Charley, and I walked to Richborough Castle and back. Knight
+dined with us afterwards; and the Whites, the Bicknells, and Mrs. Gibson
+came in in the evening and played vingt-et-un.
+
+Having no news I must tell you a story of Sydney. The children, Georgy,
+and I were out in the garden on Sunday evening (by-the-bye, I made a
+beautiful passage down, and got to Margate a few minutes after one),
+when I asked Sydney if he would go to the railroad and see if Forster
+was coming. As he answered very boldly "Yes," I opened the garden-gate,
+upon which he set off alone as fast as his legs would carry him; and
+being pursued, was not overtaken until he was through the Lawn House
+Archway, when he was still going on at full speed--I can't conceive
+where. Being brought back in triumph, he made a number of fictitious
+starts, for the sake of being overtaken again, and we made a regular
+game of it. At last, when he and Ally had run away, instead of running
+after them, we came into the garden, shut the gate, and crouched down on
+the ground. Presently we heard them come back and say to each other with
+some alarm, "Why, the gate's shut, and they're all gone!" Ally began in
+a dismayed way to cry out, but the Phenomenon shouting, "Open the gate!"
+sent an enormous stone flying into the garden (among our heads) by way
+of alarming the establishment. I thought it a wonderful piece of
+character, showing great readiness of resource. He would have fired a
+perfect battery of stones, or very likely have broken the pantry window,
+I think, if we hadn't let him in.
+
+They are all in great force, and send their loves. They are all much
+excited with the expectation of receiving you on Friday, and would start
+me off to fetch you now if I would go.
+
+Our train on Friday will be half-past twelve. I have spoken to Georgy
+about the partridges, and hope we may find some.
+
+                                  Ever, my dearest Kate,
+                                                  Most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                  BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Monday Night, Sept. 16th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+Your letter having arrived in time for me to write a line by the evening
+post, I came out of a paroxysm of "Copperfield," to say that I am
+_perfectly delighted_ to read it, and to know that we are going to act
+together in that merry party. We dress "Every Man" in Queen Elizabeth's
+time. The acting copy is much altered from the old play, but we still
+smooth down phrases when needful. I don't remember anyone that is
+changed. Georgina says she can't describe the dress Mrs. Kitely used to
+wear. I shall be in town on Saturday, and will then get Maclise to make
+me a little sketch, of it, carefully explained, which I will post to
+you. At the same time I will send you the book. After consideration of
+forces, it has occurred to me (old Ben being, I daresay, rare; but I
+_do_ know rather heavy here and there) that Mrs. Inchbald's "Animal
+Magnetism," which we have often played, will "go" with a greater laugh
+than anything else. That book I will send you on Saturday too. You will
+find your part (Lisette, I think it is called, but it is a waiting-maid)
+a most admirable one; and I have seen people laugh at the piece until
+they have hung over the front of the boxes like ripe fruit. You may
+dress the part to please yourself after reading it. We wear powder. I
+will take care (bringing a theatrical hairdresser for the company) of
+your wig! We will rehearse the two pieces when we go down, or at least
+anything with which you have to do, over and over again. You will find
+my company so well used to it, and so accustomed to consider it a grave
+matter of business, as to make it easy. I am now awaiting the French
+books with a view to "Rockingham," and I hope to report of that too,
+when I write to you on Saturday.
+
+                            My dear Miss Boyle, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday, Sept. 20th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+I enclose you the book of "Animal Magnetism," and the book of "Every Man
+in his Humour;" also a sketch by Mr. Maclise of a correct and
+picturesque Mrs. Kitely. Mr. Forster is Kitely; Mr. Lemon, Brainworm;
+Mr. Leech, Master Matthew; Mr. Jerrold, Master Stephen; Mr. Stone,
+Downright. Kitely's dress is a very plain purple gown, like a
+Bluecoat-boy's. Downright's dress is also very sober, chiefly brown and
+gray. All the rest of us are very bright. I am flaming red. Georgina
+will write you about your colour and hers in "Animal Magnetism;" the
+gayer the better. I am the Doctor, in black, with red stockings. Mr.
+Lemon (an excellent actor), the valet, as far as I can remember, in blue
+and yellow, and a chintz waistcoat. Mr. Leech is the Marquis, and Mr.
+Egg the one-eyed servant.
+
+What do you think of doing "Animal Magnetism" as the last piece (we may
+play three in all, I think) at Rockingham? If so, we might make Quin the
+one-eyed servant, and beat up with Mrs. Watson for a Marquis. Will you
+tell me what you think of this, addressed to Broadstairs? I have not
+heard from Bulwer again. I daresay I have crossed a letter from him by
+coming up to-day; but I have every reason to believe that the last week
+in October is the time.
+
+                                           Ever very faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--This is quite a managerial letter, which I write with all manner
+of appointments and business discussions going on about me, having my
+pen on the paper and my eye on "Household Words," my head on
+"Copperfield" and my ear nowhere particularly.
+
+I will let you know about "A Day after the Wedding." I have sent for the
+book on Monday.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                            BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _September 24th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Coming out of "Copperfield" into a condition of temporary and partial
+consciousness, I plunge into histrionic duties, and hold enormous
+correspondence with Miss Boyle, between whom and myself the most
+portentous packets are continually passing. I send you a piece we
+purpose playing last at Rockingham, which "my company" played in London,
+Scotland, Manchester, Liverpool, and I don't know where else. It is one
+of the most ridiculous things ever done. We purpose, as I have said,
+playing it last. Why do I send it to you? Because there is an excellent
+part (played in my troupe by George Cruikshank) for your brother in
+it--Jeffrey; with a black patch on his eye, and a lame leg, he would be
+charming--noble! If he is come home, give him my love and tell him so.
+If he is not come home, do me that favour when he does come. And add
+that I have a wig for him belonging to the part, which I have an idea of
+sending to the Exposition of '51, as a triumph of human ingenuity.
+
+I am the Doctor; Miss Boyle, Lisette; Georgy, the other little woman. We
+have nearly arranged our "bill" for Rockingham. We shall want one more
+reasonably good actor, besides your brother and Miss Boyle's, to play
+the Marquis in this piece. Do you know a being endowed by nature with
+the requisite qualities?
+
+There are some things in the next "Copperfield" that I think better than
+any that have gone before. After I have been believing such things with
+all my heart and soul, two results always ensue: first, I can't write
+plainly to the eye; secondly, I can't write sensibly to the mind. So
+"Copperfield" is to blame, and I am not, for this wandering note; and if
+you like it, you'll forgive me. With my affectionate remembrances to
+Watson,
+
+                                 Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I find I am not equal to the flourish.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday, Oct 30th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+We are all extremely concerned and distressed to lose you. But we feel
+that it cannot be otherwise, and we do not, in our own expectation of
+amusement, forget the sad cause of your absence.
+
+Bulwer was here yesterday; and if I were to tell you how earnestly he
+and all the other friends whom you don't know have looked forward to the
+projected association with you, and in what a friendly spirit they all
+express their disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, I think.
+Pray don't give yourself the least uneasiness on account of the blank in
+our arrangements. I did not write to you yesterday, in the hope that I
+might be able to tell you to-day that I had replaced you, in however
+poor a way. I cannot do that yet, but I am busily making out some means
+of filling the parts before we rehearse to-morrow night, and I trust to
+be able to do so in some out-of-the-way manner.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and Bridget send you their kindest remembrances. They are
+bitterly disappointed at not seeing you to-day, but we all hope for a
+better time.
+
+                                      Dear Miss Boyle,
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday Evening, Nov. 23rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Being well home from Knebworth, where everything has gone off in a whirl
+of triumph and fired the whole length and breadth of the county of
+Hertfordshire, I write a short note to say that we are yours any time
+after Twelfth-night, and that we look forward to seeing you with the
+greatest pleasure. I should have made this reply to your last note
+sooner, but that I have been waiting to send you "Copperfield" in a new
+waistcoat. His tailor is so slow that it has not yet appeared; but when
+the resplendent garment comes home it shall be forwarded.
+
+I have not your note at hand, but I think you said "any time after
+Christmas." At all events, and whatever you said, we will conclude a
+treaty on any terms you may propose. And if it should include any of
+Charley's holidays, perhaps you would allow us to put a brass collar
+round his neck, and chain him up in the stable.
+
+Kate and Georgina (who has covered herself with glory) join me in best
+remembrances and regards to Watson and you and all the house. I have
+stupendous proposals to make concerning Switzerland in the spring.
+
+I promised Bulwer to make enquiry of you about "Miss Watson," whom he
+once knew and greatly wished to hear of. He associated her (but was not
+clear how) with Lady Palmer.
+
+                                     My dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Bicknell.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 28th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MR. BICKNELL,
+
+If I ever did such a thing, believe me I would do it at your request.
+But I don't, and if you could see the ramparts of letters from similar
+institutions with which my desk bristles every now and then, you would
+feel that nothing lies between total abstinence (in this regard) and
+utter bewilderment and lecturation.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister unite with me in kind regards to you and
+Mrs. Bicknell. The consequences of the accident are fast fading, I am
+happy to say. We all hope to hear shortly that Mrs. Bicknell has
+recovered that other little accident, which (as you and I know) will
+occasionally happen in well-regulated families.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                         OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I have been (a strange thing for me) so very unwell since Sunday, that I
+have hardly been able to hold up my head--a bilious attack, I believe,
+and a very miserable sort of business. This, my dear friend, is the
+reason why I have not sooner written to you in reference to your noble
+letter, which I read in _The Examiner_, and for which--as it exalts
+me--I cannot, cannot thank you in words.
+
+We had been following up the blow in Kinkel's[9] favour, and I was
+growing sanguine, in the hope of getting him out (having enlisted strong
+and active sympathy in his behalf), when the news came of his escape.
+Since then we have heard nothing of him. I rather incline to the opinion
+that the damnable powers that be connived at his escape, but know
+nothing. Whether he be retaken or whether he appear (as I am not without
+hope he may) in the streets of London, I shall be a party to no step
+whatever without consulting you; and if any scrap of intelligence
+concerning him shall reach me, it shall be yours immediately.
+
+Horne wrote the article. I shall see him here to-night, and know how he
+will feel your sympathy and support. But I do not wait to see him before
+writing, lest you should think me slow to feel your generosity. We said
+at home when we read your letter, that it was like the opening of your
+whole munificent and bare heart.
+
+                                 Ever most affectionately yours,
+                                                       My dear Landor.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+        [Symbol: right hand]        THIS IS NO. 2.
+
+                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday Morning, Dec. 9th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Your note to me of Saturday has crossed mine to you, I find. If you open
+both of mine together, please to observe _this is No. 2_.
+
+You may rely on Mr. Tucker's doing his work thoroughly well and charging
+a fair price. It is not possible for him to say aforehand, in such a
+case, what it will cost, I imagine, as he will have to adapt his work to
+the place. Nathan's stage knowledge may be stated in the following
+figures: 00000000000. Therefore, I think you had best refer Mr. Tucker
+to _me_, and I will apply all needful screws and tortures to him.
+
+I have thought of one or two very ingenious (hem!) little contrivances
+for adapting the difficulties of "Used Up" to the small stage. They will
+require to be so exactly explained to your carpenter (though very easy
+little things in themselves), that I think I had better, before
+Christmas, send my servant down for an hour--he is quite an old stager
+now--to show him precisely what I mean. It is not a day's work, but it
+would be extremely difficult to explain in writing. I developed these
+wonderful ideas to the master carpenter at one of the theatres, and he
+shook his head with an intensely mournful air, and said, "Ah, sir, it's
+a universal observation in the profession, sir, that it was a great loss
+to the public when you took to writing books!" which I thought
+complimentary to "Copperfield."
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Dec. 14th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I shall be delighted to come on the seventh instead of the eighth. We
+consider it an engagement. Over and above the pleasure of a quiet day
+with you, I think I can greatly facilitate the preparations (that's the
+way, you see, in which we cheat ourselves into making duties of
+pleasures) by being at Rockingham a day earlier. So that's settled.
+
+I was quite certain when that Child of Israel mentioned those
+dimensions, that he must be wrong. For which wooden-headedness the Child
+shall be taken to task on Monday morning, when I am going to look at his
+preparations, by appointment, about the door. Don't you observe, that
+the scenery not being made expressly for the room, it may be impossible
+to use it as you propose? There is a scene before that wall, and unless
+the door in the scene (supposing there to be one, which I am not sure
+of) should come exactly into the place of the door of the room, the door
+of the room might as well be in Africa. If it could be used it would
+still require to be backed (excuse professional technicality) by another
+scene in the passage. And if it be rather in the side of the bottom of
+the room (as I seem to remember it), it would be shut out of sight, or
+partially, by the side scenes. Do you comprehend these stage managerial
+sagacities? That piece of additional room in so small a stage would be
+of immense service, if we could avail ourselves of it. If we can't, I
+have another means (I think) of discovering Leech, Saville, and
+Coldstream at table. I am constantly turning over in my mind the
+capacities of the place, and hope by one means or other to make
+something more than the best of it. As to the fireplace, you will never
+be able to use that. The heat of the lamp will be very great, and
+ventilation will be the thing wanted. Thirteen feet and a half of depth,
+diminished by stage fittings and furniture, is a small space. I think
+the doorway could be used in the last scene, with the castle steps and
+platform for the staircase running straight through it toward the hall.
+_Nous verrons._ I will write again about my visit of inspection,
+probably on Monday.
+
+Will you let them know that Messrs. Nathan, of Titchborne Street,
+Haymarket, will dress them, please, and that I will engage for their
+doing it thoroughly well; also that Mr. Wilson, theatrical hairdresser,
+Strand, near St. Clement's Churchyard, will come down with wigs, etc.,
+to "make up" everybody; that he has a list of the pieces from me, and
+that he will be glad to measure the heads and consult the tastes of all
+concerned, if they will give him the opportunity beforehand? I should
+like to see Sir Adonis Leech and the Hon. T. Saville if I can. For they
+ought to be wonderfully made up, and to be as unlike themselves as
+possible, and to contrast well with each other and with me. I rather
+grudge _caro sposo_ coming into the company. I should like him so much
+to see the play. If we do it all well together it ought to be so very
+pleasant. I never saw a great mass of people so charmed with a little
+story as when we acted it at the Glasgow Theatre. But I have no other
+reason for faltering when I take him to my arms. I feel that he is the
+man for the part.[10] I see him with a blue bag, a flaxen wig, and green
+spectacles. I know what it will be. I foresee how all that sessional
+experience will come out. I reconcile myself to it, in spite of the
+selfish consideration of wanting him elsewhere; and while I have a heavy
+sense of a light being snuffed out in the audience, perceive a new
+luminary shining on the stage!
+
+Your brother[11] would make a capital tiger, too! Very short tight
+surtout, doeskins, bright top-boots, white cravat, bouquet in
+button-hole, close wig--very good, ve--ry good. It clearly must be so.
+The thing is done. I told you we were opening a tremendous
+correspondence when we first began to write on such a long subject. But
+do let me tell you, once and for all, that I am in the business heart
+and soul, and that you cannot trouble me respecting it, and that I
+wouldn't willingly or knowingly leave the minutest detail unprovided
+for. It cannot possibly be a success if the smallest peppercorn of
+arrangement be omitted. And a success it must be! I couldn't go into
+such a thing, or help to bring you poorly out of it, for any earthly
+consideration. Talking of forgetting, isn't it odd? I doubt if I could
+forget words I had learned, so long as I wanted them. But the moment the
+necessity goes, they go. I know my place and everybody's place in this
+identical piece of "Used Up" perfectly, and could put every little
+object on its own square inches of room exactly where it ought to be.
+But I have no more recollection of my words now (I took the book up
+yesterday) than if I had only seen the play as one of the audience at a
+theatre. Perhaps not so much. With cordial remembrances,
+
+                                    Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 19th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I am sorry to say that business ("Household Words" business) will keep
+me in town to-morrow. But on Monday I propose coming down and returning
+the same day. The train for my money appears to be the half-past six
+A.M. (horrible initials!), and to that invention for promoting early
+rising I design to commit myself.
+
+I am shocked if I also made the mistake of confounding those two (and
+too) similar names.[12] But I think Mr. S-T-A-F-F-O-R-D had better do
+the Marquis. I am glad to find that we agree, but we always do.
+
+I have closely overhauled the little theatre, and the carpenter and
+painter. The whole has been entirely repainted (I mean the proscenium
+and scenery) for this especial purpose, and is extremely pretty. I don't
+think, the scale considered, that anything better _could_ be done. It is
+very elegant. I have brought "the Child" to this. For the hire of the
+theatre, fifteen pounds. The carriage to be extra. The Child's fares and
+expenses (which will be very moderate) to be extra. The stage
+carpenter's wages to be extra--seven shillings a day. I don't think,
+when you see the things, that you will consider this too much. It is as
+good as the Queen's little theatre at Windsor, raised stage excepted. I
+have had an extraction made, which will enable us to use the door. I am
+at present breaking my man's heart, by teaching him how to imitate the
+sounds of the smashing of the windows and the breaking of the balcony in
+"Used Up." In the event of his death from grief, I have promised to do
+something for his mother. Thinking it possible that you might not see
+the enclosed until next month, and hoping that it is seasonable for
+Christmas, I send it. Being, with cordial regards and all seasonable
+good wishes,
+
+                                  Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--This [blot] is a tear over the devotion of Captain Boyle, who (as
+I learned from the Child of Israel this morning) would not decide upon
+Farmer Wurzel's coat, without referring the question of buttons to
+managerial approval.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Poole.]
+
+             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Night, Christmas Eve, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR POOLE,
+
+On the Sunday when I last saw you, I went straight to Lord John's with
+the letter you read. He was out of town, and I left it with my card.
+
+On the following Wednesday I received a note from him, saying that he
+did not bear in mind exactly what I had told him of you before, and
+asking me to tell it again. I immediately replied, of course, and gave
+him an exact description of you and your condition, and your way of life
+in Paris and everything else; a perfect diorama in little, with you
+pervading it. To-day I got a letter from him, announcing that you have a
+pension of _a hundred a year_! of which I heartily wish you joy.
+
+He says: "I am happy to say that the Queen has approved of a pension of
+one hundred pounds a year to Mr. Poole.
+
+"The Queen, in her gracious answer, informs me that she meant to have
+mentioned Mr. Poole to me, and that she had wished to place him in the
+Charter House, but found the society there was not such as he could
+associate with.
+
+"Be so good as to inform Mr. Poole that directions are given for his
+pension, which will date from the end of June last."
+
+I have lost no time in answering this, but you must brace up your
+energies to write him a short note too, and another for the Queen.
+
+If you are in Paris, shall I ascertain what authority I shall need from
+you to receive the half-year, which I suppose will be shortly due? I can
+receive it as usual.
+
+With all good wishes and congratulations, seasonable and unseasonable,
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday Morning, Dec. 30th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+As your letter is _decided_, the scaffolding shall be re-erected round
+Charley's boots (it has been taken down, and the workmen had retired to
+their respective homes in various parts of England and Wales) and his
+dressing proceeded with. I have been very much pleased with him in the
+matter, as he has never made the least demonstration of disappointment
+or mortification, and was perfectly contented to give in. (_Here I break
+off to go to Boxall._) (_Here I return much exhausted._)
+
+Your time shall be stated in the bills for both nights. I propose to
+rehearse on the day, on Thursday and Friday, and in the evening on
+Saturday, that we may try our lights. Therefore:
+
+                  {will come on Tuesday, 7th January, as there must be a
+                  {responsible person to anathematise, and as the company
+     NATHAN       {seem so slow about their dresses, that I foresee the
+      AND         {strong probability of Nathan having a good deal to do
+ STAGE CARPENTER  {at Rockingham without respect.
+
+        WILSON     will come on Saturday, 11th January.
+        TUCKER     will come on Saturday, 11th January.
+
+I shall be delighted to see your brother, and so no more at present from
+
+                            Yours ever,
+                                   COLDSTREAM FREELOVE DOCTOR DICKENS.
+
+P.S.--As Boxall (with his head very much on one side and his spectacles
+on) danced backward from the canvas incessantly with great nimbleness,
+and returned, and made little digs at it with his pencil, with a
+horrible grin on his countenance, I augur that he pleased himself this
+morning.
+
+"Tag" added by Mr. Dickens to "Animal Magnetism," played at Rockingham
+Castle.
+
+                      ANIMAL MAGNETISM.--TAG.
+
+   [After LA FLEUR says to the Marquis: "Sir, return him the wand; and
+      the ladies, I daresay, will fall in love with him again."]
+
+        DOCTOR. I'm cheated, robbed! I don't believe! I hate
+        Wand, Marquis, Doctor, Ward, Lisette, and Fate!
+
+        LA FLEUR. Not me?
+
+        DOCTOR. _You_ worse, you rascal, than the rest.
+
+        LA FLEUR. (_bowing_). To merit it, good sir, I've done my best.
+
+        LISETTE. (_sharply_). And I.
+
+        CONSTANCE. I fear that I too have a claim
+        Upon your anger.
+
+        LISETTE.        Anger, madam? Shame!
+        He's justly treated, as he might have known.
+        And if the wand were a divining one
+        It would have turn'd, within his very hands,
+        Point-blank to where your handsome husband stands.
+
+        CONSTANCE (_glancing at_ DOCTOR). I would it were the wand of
+                   Harlequin,
+        To change his temper and his favour win.
+
+        JEFFREY (_peeping in_). In that case, mistress, you might be
+                  so kind
+        As wave me back the eye of which I'm blind.
+
+        MARQUIS (_laughing and examining it_). 'Tis nothing but a piece
+                  of senseless wood,
+        And has no influence for harm or good.
+        Yet stay! It surely draws me towards those
+        Indulgent, pleasant, smiling, beaming rows!
+        It surely charms me.
+
+        ALL.        And us too.
+
+        MARQUIS.          To bend
+        Before their gen'rous efforts to commend;
+        To cheer us on, through these few happy hours,
+        And strew our mimic way with real flowers.
+
+[_All make obeisance._
+
+        Stay yet again. Among us all, I feel
+        One subtle, all-pervading influence steal,
+        Stirring one wish within one heart and head,
+        Bright be the path our host and hostess tread!
+        Blest be their children, happy be their race,
+        Long may they live, this ancient hall to grace
+        Long bear of English virtues noble fruit--
+        Green-hearted ROCKINGHAM! strike deep thy root
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] The last illness of Mrs. White's mother.
+
+[9] Dr. Gottfried Kinkel, a distinguished scholar and Professor in the
+University of Bonn, who was at that time undergoing very rigorous State
+imprisonment in Prussia, for political reasons. Dr. Kinkel was
+afterwards well known as a teacher and lecturer on Art in London, where
+he resided for many years.
+
+[10] The part of the lawyer in "Used Up." It was _not_ played after all
+by Mr. Watson, but by Mr. (now Sir William) Boxall, R.A., a very old and
+intimate friend of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, and of Charles Dickens.
+
+[11] This part, finally, was played by Charles Dickens, junior.
+
+[12] Mr. Stafford and Mr. Stopford, who both acted in the plays at
+Rockingham.
+
+
+
+
+1851.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In February this year, Charles Dickens made a short bachelor excursion
+with Mr. Leech and the Hon. Spencer Lyttelton to Paris, from whence we
+give a letter to his wife. She was at this time in very bad health, and
+the little infant Dora had a serious illness during the winter. The
+child rallied for the time, but Mrs. Dickens continued so ill that she
+was advised to try the air--and water--of Malvern. And early in March,
+she and her sister were established in lodgings there, the children
+being left in London, and Charles Dickens dividing his time between
+Devonshire Terrace and Malvern. He was busily occupied before this time
+in superintending the arrangements for Mr. Macready's last appearance on
+the stage at Drury Lane, and for a great dinner which was given to Mr.
+Macready after it on the 1st March, at which the chair was taken by Sir
+Edward Bulwer Lytton. With him Charles Dickens was then engaged in
+maturing a scheme, which had been projected at the time of the amateur
+play at Knebworth, of a Guild of Literature and Art, which was to found
+a provident fund for literary men and artists; and to start which, a
+series of dramatic performances by the amateur company was proposed. Sir
+E. B. Lytton wrote a comedy, "Not so Bad as We Seem," for the purpose,
+to be played in London and the provinces; and the Duke of Devonshire
+turned one of the splendid rooms in Devonshire House into a theatre, for
+the first occasion of its performance. It was played early in May before
+her Majesty and the Prince Consort, and a large audience. Later in the
+season, there were several representations of the comedy (with a farce,
+"Mr. Nightingale's Diary," written by Charles Dickens for himself and
+Mr. Mark Lemon) in the Hanover Square Rooms.
+
+But in the interval between the Macready banquet and the play at
+Devonshire House, Charles Dickens underwent great family trouble and
+sorrow. His father, whose health had been declining for some time,
+became seriously ill, and Charles Dickens was summoned from Malvern to
+attend upon him. Mr. John Dickens died on the 31st March. On the 14th
+April, Charles Dickens had gone from Malvern to preside at the annual
+dinner of the General Theatrical Fund, and found his children all well
+at Devonshire Terrace. He was playing with his baby, Dora, before he
+went to the dinner; soon after he left the house the child died suddenly
+in her nurse's arms. The sad news was communicated to the father after
+his duties at the dinner were over. The next day, Mr. Forster went to
+Malvern to break the news to Mrs. Dickens, and she and her sister
+returned with him to London, and the Malvern lodgings were given up. But
+Mrs. Dickens being still out of health, and London being more than
+usually full (this being the year of the Great Exhibition), Charles
+Dickens decided to let the town house again for a few months, and
+engaged the Fort House, Broadstairs, from the beginning of May until
+November. This, which was his longest sojourn at Broadstairs, was also
+the last, as the following summer he changed his seaside resort, and
+never returned to that pretty little watering-place, although he always
+retained an affectionate interest in it.
+
+The lease of the Devonshire Terrace house was to expire this year. It was
+now too small for his family, so he could not renew it, although he left
+it with regret. From the beginning of the year, he had been in negotiation
+for a house in Tavistock Square, in which his friend Mr. Frank Stone had
+lived for some years. Many letters which follow are on the subject of this
+house and the improvements Charles Dickens made in it. His brother-in-law,
+Henry Austin--himself an architect--superintended the "works" at Tavistock
+House, as he did afterwards those at Gad's Hill--and there are many
+characteristic letters to Mr. Austin while these works were in progress.
+In the autumn, as a letter written in August to Mr. Stone will show, an
+exchange of houses was made--Mr. Stone removing with his family to
+Devonshire Terrace until his own new house was ready--while the
+alterations in Tavistock House went on, and Charles Dickens removed into
+it from Broadstairs, in November.
+
+His eldest son was now an Eton boy. He had been one of the party and
+had played a small part in the play at Rockingham Castle, in the
+Christmas holidays, and his father's letters to Mrs. Watson at the
+beginning of this year have reference to this play.
+
+This year he wrote and published the "Haunted Man," which he had found
+himself unable to finish for the previous Christmas. It was the last of
+the Christmas _books_. He abandoned them in favour of a Christmas number
+of "Household Words," which he continued annually for many years in
+"Household Words" and "All the Year Round," and in which he had the
+collaboration of other writers. The "Haunted Man" was dramatised and
+produced at the Adelphi Theatre, under the management of Mr. Benjamin
+Webster. Charles Dickens read the book himself, at Tavistock House, to a
+party of actors and actresses.
+
+At the end of the year he wrote the first number of "Bleak House,"
+although it was not published until March of the following year. With
+the close attention and the hard work he gave, from the time of its
+starting, to his weekly periodical, he found it to be most desirable,
+now, in beginning a new monthly serial, that he should be ready with
+some numbers in advance before the appearance of the first number.
+
+A provincial tour for the "Guild" took place at the end of the year. A
+letter to his wife, from Clifton, in November, gives a notion of the
+general success and enthusiasm with which the plays were attended. The
+"new Hardman," to whom he alludes as taking that part in Sir E. B.
+Lytton's comedy in the place of Mr. Forster, was Mr. John Tenniel, who
+was a new addition, and a very valuable and pleasant one, to the
+company. Mr. Topham, the delightful water-colour painter, Mr. Dudley
+Costello, and Mr. Wilkie Collins were also new recruits to the company
+of "splendid strollers" about this time. A letter to Mr. Wills, asking
+him to take a part in the comedy, is given here. He never did _act_ with
+the company, but he complied with Charles Dickens's desire that he
+should be "in the scheme" by giving it all sorts of assistance, and
+almost invariably being one of the party in the provincial tours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 24th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Kate will have told you, I daresay, that my despondency on coming to
+town was relieved by a talk with Lady John Russell, of which you were
+the subject, and in which she spoke of you with an earnestness of old
+affection and regard that did me good. I date my recovery (which has
+been slow) from that hour. I am still feeble, and liable to sudden
+outbursts of causeless rage and demoniacal gloom, but I shall be better
+presently. What a thing it is, that we can't be always innocently merry
+and happy with those we like best without looking out at the back
+windows of life! Well, one day perhaps--after a long night--the blinds
+on that side of the house will be down for ever, and nothing left but
+the bright prospect in front.
+
+Concerning supper-toast (of which I feel bound to make some mention),
+you did, as you always do, right, and exactly what was most agreeable to
+me.
+
+My love to your excellent husband (I wonder whether he and the
+dining-room have got to rights yet!), and to the jolly little boys and
+the calm little girl. Somehow, I shall always think of Lord Spencer as
+eternally walking up and down the platform at Rugby, in a high chill
+wind, with no apparent hope of a train--as I left him; and somehow I
+always think of Rockingham, after coming away, as if I belonged to it
+and had left a bit of my heart behind, which it is so very odd to find
+wanting twenty times a day.
+
+                    Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, faithfully yours, and his.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Night, Jan. 28th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I presume you mean Mr. Stafford and Mr. Stopford to pay Wilson (as I
+have instructed him) a guinea each? Am I right? In that just case I
+still owe you a guinea for _my_ part. I was going to send you a
+post-office order for that amount, when a faint sense of absurdity
+mantled my ingenuous visage with a blush, and I thought it better to owe
+you the money until we met. I hope it may be soon!
+
+I believe I may lay claim to the mysterious inkstand, also to a volume
+lettered on the back, "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, II.," which I
+left when I came down at Christmas. Will you take care of them as
+hostages until we effect an exchange?
+
+Charley went back in great spirits, threatening to write to George. It
+was a very wet night, and John took him to the railway. He said, on his
+return: "Mas'r Charles went off very gay, sir. He found some young
+gen'lemen as was his friends in the train, sir." "Come," said I, "I am
+glad of that. How many were there? Two or three?" "Oh dear, sir, there
+was a matter of forty, sir! All with their heads out o' the
+coach-windows, sir, a-hallooing 'Dickens!' all over the station!"
+
+Her ladyship and the ward of the FIZ-ZISH-UN send their best loves, in
+which I heartily join. If you and your dear husband come to town before
+we bring out Bulwer's comedy, I think we must have a snug reading of it.
+
+                             Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday, Jan. 31st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR LEMON,
+
+We are deeply sorry to receive the mournful intelligence of your
+calamity. But we know you will both have found comfort in that blessed
+belief, from which the sacred figure with the child upon His knee is, in
+all stages of our lives, inseparable, for of such is the kingdom of God!
+
+We join in affectionate loves to you and your dear wife. She well
+deserves your praise, I am sure.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, Feb. 10th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+There is a small part in Bulwer's comedy, but very good what there
+is--not much--my servant, who opens the play, which I should be very
+glad if you would like to do.
+
+Pray understand that there is no end of men who would do it, and that if
+you have the least objection to the trouble, I don't make this the
+expression of a wish even. Otherwise, I would like you to be in the
+scheme, which is a very great and important one, and which cannot have
+too many men who are steadily--not flightily, like some of our
+friends--in earnest, and who are not to be lightly discouraged.
+
+If you do the part, I would like to have a talk with you about the
+secretarial duties. They must be performed by someone I clearly see, and
+will require good business direction. I should like to put some young
+fellow, to whom such work and its remuneration would be an object, under
+your eye, if we could find one entire and perfect chrysolite anywhere.
+Let me know whether I am to rate you on the ship's books or not. If yes,
+consider yourself "called" to the reading (by Macready) at Forster's
+rooms, on Wednesday, the 19th, at three.
+
+And in the meantime you shall have a proof of the plan.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                     HÔTEL WAGRAM, PARIS, _Thursday, Feb. 12th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I received your letter this morning (on returning from an expedition to
+a market thirteen miles away, which involved the necessity of getting up
+at five), and am delighted to have such good accounts of all at home.
+
+We had D'Orsay to dinner yesterday, and I am hurried to dress now, in
+order to pay a promised visit to his _atelier_. He was very happy with
+us, and is much improved both in spirits and looks. Lord and Lady
+Castlereagh live downstairs here, and we went to them in the evening,
+and afterwards brought him upstairs to smoke. To-night we are going to
+see Lemaître in the renowned "Belphégor" piece. To-morrow at noon we
+leave Paris for Calais (the Boulogne boat does not serve our turn), and
+unless the weather for crossing should be absurd, I shall be at home,
+please God, early on the evening of Saturday. It continues to be
+delightful weather here--gusty, but very clear and fine. Leech and I had
+a charming country walk before breakfast this morning at Poissy and
+enjoyed it very much. The rime was on the grass and trees, and the
+country most delicious.
+
+Spencer Lyttelton is a capital companion on a trip, and a great addition
+to the party. We have got on famously and been very facetious. With best
+love to Georgina and the darlings,
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Night, late, Feb. 21st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+I have devoted a couple of hours this evening to going very carefully
+over your paper (which I had read before) and to endeavouring to bring
+it closer, and to lighten it, and to give it that sort of compactness
+which a habit of composition, and of disciplining one's thoughts like a
+regiment, and of studying the art of putting each soldier into his right
+place, may have gradually taught me to think necessary. I hope, when you
+see it in print, you will not be alarmed by my use of the pruning-knife.
+I have tried to exercise it with the utmost delicacy and discretion, and
+to suggest to you, especially towards the end, how this sort of writing
+(regard being had to the size of the journal in which it appears)
+requires to be compressed, and is made pleasanter by compression. This
+all reads very solemnly, but only because I want you to read it (I mean
+the article) with as loving an eye as I have truly tried to touch it
+with a loving and gentle hand. I propose to call it "My Mahogany
+Friend." The other name is too long, and I think not attractive. Until I
+go to the office to-morrow and see what is actually in hand, I am not
+certain of the number in which it will appear, but Georgy shall write on
+Monday and tell you. We are always a fortnight in advance of the public
+or the mechanical work could not be done. I think there are many things
+in it that are _very pretty_. The Katie part is particularly well done.
+If I don't say more, it is because I have a heavy sense, in all cases,
+of the responsibility of encouraging anyone to enter on that thorny
+track, where the prizes are so few and the blanks so many; where----
+
+But I won't write you a sermon. With the fire going out, and the first
+shadows of a new story hovering in a ghostly way about me (as they
+usually begin to do, when I have finished an old one), I am in danger of
+doing the heavy business, and becoming a heavy guardian, or something of
+that sort, instead of the light and airy Joe.
+
+So good-night, and believe that you may always trust me, and never find
+a grim expression (towards you) in any that I wear.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                                                _February 21st, 1851._
+
+Oh my dear Roberts, if you knew the trouble we have had and the money we
+pay for Drury Lane for one night for the benefit, you would never dream
+of it for the dinner. _There isn't possibility of getting a theatre._
+
+I will do all I can for your charming little daughter, and hope to
+squeeze in half-a-dozen ladies at the last; but we must not breathe the
+idea or we shall not dare to execute it, there will be such an outcry.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 27th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+Forster told me to-day that you wish Tennyson's sonnet to be read after
+your health is given on Saturday. I am perfectly certain that it would
+not do at that time. I am quite convinced that the audience would not
+receive it, under these exciting circumstances, as it ought to be
+received. If I had to read it, I would on no account undertake to do so
+at that period, in a great room crowded with a dense company. I have an
+instinctive assurance that it would fail. Being with Bulwer this
+morning, I communicated your wish to him, and he immediately felt as I
+do. I could enter into many reasons which induce me to form this
+opinion. But I believe that you have that confidence in me that I may
+spare you the statement of them.
+
+I want to know one thing from you. As I shall be obliged to be at the
+London Tavern in the afternoon of to-morrow, Friday (I write, observe,
+on Thursday night), I shall be much helped in the arrangements if you
+will send me your answer by a messenger (addressed here) on the receipt
+of this. Which would you prefer--that "Auld Lang Syne" should be sung
+after your health is given and before you return thanks, or after you
+have spoken?
+
+I cannot forbear a word about last night. I think I have told you
+sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when I was a mere boy, I was one
+of your faithful and devoted adherents in the pit; I believe as true a
+member of that true host of followers as it has ever boasted. As I
+improved myself and was improved by favouring circumstances in mind and
+fortune, I only became the more earnest (if it were possible) in my
+study of you. No light portion of my life arose before me when the quiet
+vision to which I am beholden, in I don't know how great a decree, or
+for how much--who does?--faded so nobly from my bodily eyes last night.
+And if I were to try to tell you what I felt--of regret for its being
+past for ever, and of joy in the thought that you could have taken your
+leave of _me_ but in God's own time--I should only blot this paper with
+some drops that would certainly not be of ink, and give very faint
+expression to very strong emotions.
+
+What is all this in writing! It is only some sort of relief to my full
+heart, and shows very little of it to you; but that's something, so I
+let it go.
+
+                       Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--My very flourish departs from me for the moment.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                   KNUTSFORD LODGE, GREAT MALVERN, _March 20th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR ROBERTS,
+
+Mrs. Dickens has been unwell, and I am here with her. I want you to give
+a quarter of an hour to the perusal of the enclosed prospectus; to
+consider the immense value of the design, if it be successful, to
+artists young and old; and then to bestow your favourable consideration
+on the assistance I am going to ask of you for the sake and in the name
+of the cause.
+
+For the representation of the new comedy Bulwer has written for us, to
+start this scheme, I am having an ingenious theatre made by Webster's
+people, for erection on certain nights in the Hanover Square Rooms. But
+it will first be put up in the Duke of Devonshire's house, where the
+first representation will take place before a brilliant company,
+including (I believe) the Queen.
+
+Now, will you paint us a scene--the scene of which I enclose Bulwer's
+description from the prompter's book? It will be a cloth with a
+set-piece. It should be sent to your studio or put up in a theatre
+painting-room, as you would prefer. I have asked Stanny to do another
+scene, Edwin Landseer, and Louis Haghe. The Devonshire House performance
+will probably be on Monday, the 28th of April. I should want to have the
+scenery complete by the 20th, as it would require to be elaborately
+worked and rehearsed. _You_ could do it in no time after sending in your
+pictures, and will you?
+
+What the value of such aid would be I need not say. I say no more of the
+reasons that induce me to ask it, because if they are not in the
+prospectus they are nowhere.
+
+On Monday and Tuesday nights I shall be in town for rehearsal, but until
+then I shall be here. Will you let me have a line from you in reply?
+
+                               My dear Roberts, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+           _Description of the Scene proposed:_
+
+        STREETS OF LONDON IN THE TIME OF GEORGE I.
+
+        In perspective, an alley inscribed DEADMAN'S
+        LANE; a large, old-fashioned, gloomy,
+        mysterious house in the corner, marked No. 1.
+        (_This No. 1, Deadman's Lane, has been
+        constantly referred to in the play as the abode
+        of a mysterious female figure, who enters
+        masked, and passes into this house on the scene
+        being disclosed._) It is night, and there are
+        moonlight mediums.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                             H. W. OFFICE, _Monday, March 26th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I reserve all news of the play until I come down. The Queen appoints the
+30th of April. There is no end of trouble.
+
+My father slept well last night, and is as well this morning (they send
+word) as anyone in such a state, so cut and slashed, can be. I have been
+waiting at home for Bulwer all the morning (it is now two), and am now
+waiting for Lemon before I go up there. I will not close this note until
+I have been.
+
+It is raining here incessantly. The streets are in a most miserable
+state. A van, containing the goods of some unfortunate family moving,
+has broken down close outside, and the whole scene is a picture of
+dreariness.
+
+The children are quite well and very happy. I had Dora down this
+morning, who was quite charmed to see me. That Miss Ketteridge appointed
+two to-day for seeing the house, and probably she is at this moment
+disparaging it.
+
+My father is very weak and low, but not worse, I hope, than might be
+expected. I am going home to dine with the children. By working here
+late to-night (coming back after dinner) I can finish what I have to do
+for the play. Therefore I hope to be with you to-morrow, in good time
+for dinner.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--Love to Georgy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday Morning, April 3rd, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I took my threatened walk last night, but it yielded little but
+generalities.
+
+However, I thought of something for _to-night_, that I think will make a
+splendid paper. I have an idea that it might be connected with the gas
+paper (making gas a great agent in an effective police), and made one of
+the articles. This is it: "A Night in a Station-house." If you would go
+down to our friend Mr. Yardley, at Scotland Yard, and get a letter or
+order to the acting chief authority at that station-house in Bow Street,
+to enable us to hear the charges, observe the internal economy of the
+station-house all night, go round to the cells with the visiting
+policeman, etc., I would stay there, say from twelve to-night to four or
+five in the morning. We might have a "night-cap," a fire, and some tea
+at the office hard by. If you could conveniently borrow an hour or two
+from the night we could both go. If not, I would go alone. It would make
+a wonderful good paper at a most appropriate time, when the back slums
+of London are going to be invaded by all sorts of strangers.
+
+You needn't exactly say that _I_ was going _in propriâ_ (unless it were
+necessary), and, of course, you wouldn't say that I propose to-night,
+because I am so worn by the sad arrangements in which I am engaged, and
+by what led to them, that I cannot take my natural rest. But to-morrow
+night we go to the gas-works. I might not be so disposed for this
+station-house observation as I shall be to-night for a long time, and I
+see a most singular and admirable chance for us in the descriptive way,
+not to be lost.
+
+Therefore, if you will arrange the thing before I come down at four this
+afternoon, any of the Scotland Yard people will do it, I should think;
+if our friend by any accident should not be there, I will go into it.
+
+If they should recommend any other station-house as better for the
+purpose, or would think it better for us to go to more than one under
+the guidance of some trustworthy man, of course we will pay any man and
+do as they recommend. But I think one topping station-house would be
+best.
+
+                                                     Faithfully ever.
+
+P.S.--I write from my bed.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                           _Saturday, May 24th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We are getting in a good heap of money for the Guild. The comedy has
+been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. The scene
+to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. And
+there _is_ a farce to be produced on Tuesday next, wherein a
+distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts, and in
+particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of which I say no more. I am
+pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from
+the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of
+darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague
+smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down on
+Wednesday or Thursday.
+
+Ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you
+think of us among the London fleas! But they tell me you are coming in
+for Dorsetshire. You must be very careful, when you come to town to
+attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in
+the streets. They will misdirect you for what the vulgar call "a lark,"
+meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. Always go into some
+respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his being
+dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his
+hat being made of sticking-plaster. You may perhaps see in some odd
+place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table
+before him and three thimbles on it. He will want you to bet, but don't
+do it. He really desires to cheat you. And don't buy at auctions where
+the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These,
+too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real good
+acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), I
+would recommend you to see ---- at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody
+will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by
+seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence
+a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect.
+Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The
+Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission
+is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent
+Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and
+Cheapside. I think these will please you after a time, though the tumult
+and bustle will at first bewilder you. If I can serve you in any way,
+pray command me. And with my best regards to your happy family, so
+remote from this Babel,
+
+                           Believe me, my dear Friend,
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you
+will see at Charing Cross, as you go down to the House, is a statue of
+_King Charles the First_.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                                        BROADSTAIRS, _July 8th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+We shall be delighted to see you, if you will come down on Saturday. Mr.
+Lemon may perhaps be here, with his wife, but no one else. And we can
+give you a bed that may be surpassed, with a welcome that certainly
+cannot be.
+
+The general character of Broadstairs as to size and accommodation was
+happily expressed by Miss Eden, when she wrote to the Duke of Devonshire
+(as he told me), saying how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who
+asked leave to see her garden, for not plucking it bodily up, and
+sticking it in his button-hole.
+
+As we think of putting mignonette-boxes outside the windows, for the
+younger children to sleep in by-and-by, I am afraid we should give your
+servant the cramp if we hardily undertook to lodge him. But in case you
+should decide to bring one, he is easily disposable hard by.
+
+Don't come by the boat. It is rather tedious, and both departs and
+arrives at inconvenient hours. There is a railway train from the Dover
+terminus to Ramsgate, at half-past twelve in the day, which will bring
+you in three hours. Another at half-past four in the afternoon. If you
+will tell me by which you come (I hope the former), I will await you at
+the terminus with my little brougham.
+
+You will have for a night-light in the room we shall give you, the North
+Foreland lighthouse. That and the sea and air are our only lions. It is
+a very rough little place, but a very pleasant one, and you will make it
+pleasanter than ever to me.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                 BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _July 11th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology
+for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circumstances I
+could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that I have
+more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. If I were
+not the gentlest of men I should do it!
+
+Poor dear Haldimand, I have thought of him so often. That kind of decay
+is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that I have no words to
+express my compassion and sorrow. When I was at Abbotsford, I saw in a
+vile glass case the last clothes Scott wore. Among them an old white
+hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy,
+purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. It so
+embodied Lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write,
+and laid down his pen and cried, that it associated itself in my mind
+with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. I fancy Haldimand
+in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and
+remembering the happy hours we have passed with him, and his goodness
+and truth. I think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the
+moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. Pray tell us if you hear
+more of him. We really loved him.
+
+To go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so
+ago I took Charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river
+gipsying. I secured the services of Charley's godfather (an old friend
+of mine, and a noble fellow with boys), and went down to Slough,
+accompanied by two immense hampers from Fortnum and Mason, on (I
+believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics.
+
+It cleared before we got to Slough; but the boys, who had got up at four
+(we being due at eleven), had horrible misgivings that we might not
+come, in consequence of which we saw them looking into the carriages
+before us, all face. They seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be
+all face; their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent. When
+they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were upon strong springs, and
+their waistcoats developed themselves in the usual places. When the
+first hamper came out of the luggage-van, I was conscious of their
+dancing behind the guard; when the second came out with bottles in it,
+they all stood wildly on one leg. We then got a couple of flys to drive
+to the boat-house. I put them in the first, but they couldn't sit still
+a moment, and were perpetually flying up and down like the toy figures
+in the sham snuff-boxes. In this order we went on to "Tom Brown's, the
+tailor's," where they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the
+boat-house, where they all cried in shrill chorus for "Mahogany"--a
+gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion, a waterman by
+profession. (He was likewise called during the day "Hog" and "Hogany,"
+and seemed to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) We
+embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped awning, which
+I had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing hard, went down the river.
+We dined in a field; what I suffered for fear those boys should get
+drunk, the struggles I underwent in a contest of feeling between
+hospitality and prudence, must ever remain untold. I feel, even now, old
+with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. They were very good, however.
+The speech of one became thick, and his eyes too like lobsters' to be
+comfortable, but only temporarily. He recovered, and I suppose outlived
+the salad he took. I have heard nothing to the contrary, and I imagine I
+should have been implicated on the inquest if there had been one. We had
+tea and rashers of bacon at a public-house, and came home, the last five
+or six miles in a prodigious thunderstorm. This was the great success of
+the day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else. The
+dinner had been great, and Mahogany had informed them, after a bottle of
+light champagne, that he never would come up the river "with ginger
+company" any more. But the getting so completely wet through was the
+culminating part of the entertainment. You never in your life saw such
+objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that it was at
+all advisable to go home and change, or that there was anything to
+prevent their standing at the station two mortal hours to see me off,
+was wonderful. As to getting them to their dames with any sort of sense
+that they were damp, I abandoned the idea. I thought it a success when
+they went down the street as civilly as if they were just up and newly
+dressed, though they really looked as if you could have rubbed them to
+rags with a touch, like saturated curl-paper.
+
+I am sorry you have not been able to see our play, which I suppose you
+won't now, for I take it you are not going on Monday, the 21st, our last
+night in town? It is worth seeing, not for the getting up (which modesty
+forbids me to approve), but for the little bijou it is, in the scenery,
+dresses, and appointments. They are such as never can be got together
+again, because such men as Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve, Haghe, Egg, and
+others, never can be again combined in such a work. Everything has been
+done at its best from all sorts of authorities, and it is really very
+beautiful to look at.
+
+I find I am "used up" by the Exhibition. I don't say "there is nothing
+in it"--there's too much. I have only been twice; so many things
+bewildered me. I have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so
+many sights in one has not decreased it. I am not sure that I have seen
+anything but the fountain and perhaps the Amazon. It is a dreadful thing
+to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says, "Have you seen ----?" I
+say, "Yes," because if I don't, I know he'll explain it, and I can't
+bear that. ---- took all the school one day. The school was composed of
+a hundred "infants," who got among the horses' legs in crossing to the
+main entrance from the Kensington Gate, and came reeling out from
+between the wheels of coaches undisturbed in mind. They were clinging to
+horses, I am told, all over the park.
+
+When they were collected and added up by the frantic monitors, they were
+all right. They were then regaled with cake, etc., and went tottering
+and staring all over the place; the greater part wetting their
+forefingers and drawing a wavy pattern on every accessible object. One
+infant strayed. He was not missed. Ninety and nine were taken home,
+supposed to be the whole collection, but this particular infant went to
+Hammersmith. He was found by the police at night, going round and round
+the turnpike, which he still supposed to be a part of the Exhibition. He
+had the same opinion of the police, also of Hammersmith workhouse, where
+he passed the night. When his mother came for him in the morning, he
+asked when it would be over? It was a great Exhibition, he said, but he
+thought it long.
+
+As I begin to have a foreboding that you will think the same of this act
+of vengeance of mine, this present letter, I shall make an end of it,
+with my heartiest and most loving remembrances to Watson. I should have
+liked him of all things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him,
+and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the
+thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the
+career of a booby who was plucked at college, every verse ending:
+
+        I don't care a fig what the people may think,
+        But what WILL the governor say!
+
+which was shouted with a deferential jollity towards myself, as a
+governor who had that day done a creditable action, and proved himself
+worthy of all confidence.
+
+           With love to the boys and girls,
+                                Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                 Most sincerely yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                         "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Sunday, July 20th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I have been considering the great house question since you kindly called
+yesterday evening, and come to the conclusion that I had better not let
+it go. I am convinced it is the prudent thing for me to do, and that I
+am very unlikely to find the same comforts for the rising generation
+elsewhere, for the same money. Therefore, as Robins no doubt understands
+that you would come to me yesterday--passing his life as he does amidst
+every possible phase of such negotiations--I think it hardly worth while
+to wait for the receipt of his coming letter. If you will take the
+trouble to call on him in the morning, and offer the £1,450, I shall be
+very much obliged to you. If you will receive from me full power to
+conclude the purchase (subject of course to my solicitor's approval of
+the lease), pray do. I give you _carte blanche_ to £1,500, but I think
+the £1,450 ought to win the day.
+
+I don't make any apologies for thrusting this honour upon you, knowing
+what a thorough-going old pump you are. Lemon and his wife are coming
+here, after the rehearsal, to a gipsy sort of cold dinner. Time,
+half-past three. Viands, pickled salmon and cold pigeon-pie. Occupation
+afterwards, lying on the carpet as a preparation for histrionic
+strength. Will you come with us from the Hanover Square Rooms?
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                         BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Sunday, July 27th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+A most excellent Shadow![13] I have sent it up to the printer, and Wills
+is to send you a proof. Will you look carefully at all the earlier part,
+where the use of the past tense instead of the present a little hurts
+the picturesque effect? I understand each phase of the thing to be
+_always a thing present before the mind's eye_--a shadow passing before
+it. Whatever is done, must be _doing_. Is it not so? For example, if I
+did the Shadow of Robinson Crusoe, I should not say he _was_ a boy at
+Hull, when his father lectured him about going to sea, and so forth; but
+he _is_ a boy at Hull. There he is, in that particular Shadow, eternally
+a boy at Hull; his life to me is a series of shadows, but there is no
+"was" in the case. If I choose to go to his manhood, I can. These
+shadows don't change as realities do. No phase of his existence passes
+away, if I choose to bring it to this unsubstantial and delightful life,
+the only death of which, to me, is _my_ death, and thus he is immortal
+to unnumbered thousands. If I am right, will you look at the proof
+through the first third or half of the papers, and see whether the
+Factor comes before us in that way? If not, it is merely the alteration
+of the verb here and there that is requisite.
+
+You say you are coming down to look for a place next week. Now, Jerrold
+says he is coming on Thursday, by the cheap express at half-past twelve,
+to return with me for the play early on Monday morning. Can't you make
+that holiday too? I have promised him our only spare bed, but we'll find
+you a bed hard by, and shall be delighted "to eat and drink you," as an
+American once wrote to me. We will make expeditions to Herne Bay,
+Canterbury, where not? and drink deep draughts of fresh air. Come! They
+are beginning to cut the corn. You will never see the country so pretty.
+If you stay in town these days, you'll do nothing. I feel convinced
+you'll not buy the "Memoirs of a Man of Quality." Say you'll come!
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                     BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Saturday, August 23rd, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+A "dim vision" occurs to me, arising out of your note; also presents
+itself to the brains of my other half.
+
+Supposing you should find, on looking onward, a possibility of your
+being houseless at Michaelmas, what do you say to using Devonshire
+Terrace as a temporary encampment? It will not be in its usual order,
+but we would take care that there should be as much useful furniture of
+all sorts there, as to render it unnecessary for you to move a stick. If
+you should think this a convenience, then I should propose to you to
+pile your furniture in the middle of the rooms at Tavistock House, and
+go out to Devonshire Terrace two or three weeks _before_ Michaelmas, to
+enable my workmen to commence their operations. This might be to our
+mutual convenience, and therefore I suggest it. Certainly the sooner I
+can begin on Tavistock House the better. And possibly your going into
+Devonshire Terrace might relieve you from a difficulty that would
+otherwise be perplexing.
+
+I make this suggestion (I need not say to _you_) solely on the chance of
+its being useful to both of us. If it were merely convenient to me, you
+know I shouldn't dream of it. Such an arrangement, while it would cost
+you nothing, would perhaps enable you to get your new house into order
+comfortably, and do exactly the same thing for me.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I anticipated your suggestion some weeks ago, when I found I
+couldn't build a stable. I said I ought to have permission to take the
+piece of ground into my garden, which was conceded. Loaden writes me
+this morning that he thinks he can get permission to build a stable one
+storey high, without a chimney. I reply that on the whole I would rather
+enlarge the garden than build a stable with those restrictions.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                           BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 7th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+I am in that state of mind which you may (once) have seen described in
+the newspapers as "bordering on distraction;" the house given up to me,
+the fine weather going on (soon to break, I daresay), the painting
+season oozing away, my new book waiting to be born, and
+
+                  NO WORKMEN ON THE PREMISES,
+
+along of my not hearing from you!! I have torn all my hair off, and
+constantly beat my unoffending family. Wild notions have occurred to me
+of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. Then I remember that you
+have probably written to prepare _your_ man, and restrain my audacious
+hand. Then Stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly mysterious
+visage, and says that a rat has appeared in the kitchen, and it's his
+opinion (Stone's, not the rat's) that the drains want "compo-ing;" for
+the use of which explicit language I could fell him without remorse. In
+my horrible desire to "compo" everything, the very postman becomes my
+enemy because he brings no letter from you; and, in short, I don't see
+what's to become of me unless I hear from you to-morrow, which I have
+not the least expectation of doing.
+
+Going over the house again, I have materially altered the
+plans--abandoned conservatory and front balcony--decided to make Stone's
+painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly six inches higher than the
+room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to a
+back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended
+drawing-room--now school-room--to a manageable size, making a door of
+communication between the new drawing-room and the study. Curtains and
+carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in
+preparation, and still--still--
+
+                      NO WORKMEN ON THE PREMISES.
+
+To pursue this theme is madness. Where are you? When are you coming
+home? Where is the man who is to do the work? Does he know that an army
+of artificers must be turned in at once, and the whole thing finished
+out of hand? O rescue me from my present condition. Come up to the
+scratch, I entreat and implore you!
+
+I send this to Lætitia to forward,
+
+        Being, as you well know why,
+        Completely floored by N. W., I
+                            _Sleep_.
+
+I hope you may be able to read this. My state of mind does not admit of
+coherence.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--NO WORKMEN ON THE PREMISES!
+
+Ha! ha! ha! (I am laughing demoniacally.)
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                          BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 21st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+It is quite clear we could do nothing else with the drains than what you
+have done. Will it be at all a heavy item in the estimate?
+
+If there be the _least_ chance of a necessity for the pillar, let us
+have it. Let us dance in peace, whatever we do, and only go into the
+kitchen by the staircase.
+
+Have they cut the door between the drawing-room and the study yet? The
+foreman will let Shoolbred know when the feat is accomplished.
+
+O! and did you tell him of another brass ventilator in the dining-room,
+opening into the dining-room flue?
+
+I don't think I shall come to town until you want to show the progress,
+whenever that may be. I shall look forward to another dinner, and I
+think we must encourage the Oriental, for the goodness of its wine.
+
+I am getting a complete set of a certain distinguished author's works
+prepared for a certain distinguished architect, which I hope he will
+accept, as a slight, though very inadequate, etc. etc.; affectionate,
+etc.; so heartily and kindly taking so much interest, etc. etc.
+
+                                    Love to Lætitia.
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                               BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _October 7th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+O! O! O! D---- the Pantechnicon. O!
+
+I will be at Tavistock House at twelve on Saturday, and then will wait
+for you until I see you. If we return together--as I hope we shall--our
+express will start at half-past four, and we ought to dine (somewhere
+about Temple Bar) at three.
+
+The infamous ---- says the stoves shall be fixed to-morrow.
+
+O! if this were to last long; the distraction of the new book, the
+whirling of the story through one's mind, escorted by workmen, the
+imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning to write, the not being able
+to do so, the, O! I should go---- O!
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--None. I have torn it off.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                              BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _October 10th, 1851._
+
+                  ON THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER.
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+Your remembrance at such a time--not thrown away upon me, trust me--is a
+sufficient assurance that you know how truly I feel towards you, and
+with what an earnest sympathy I must think of you now.
+
+God be with you! There is indeed nothing terrible in such a death,
+nothing that we would undo, nothing that we may remember otherwise than
+with deeply thankful, though with softened hearts.
+
+Kate sends you her affectionate love. I enclose a note from Georgina.
+Pray give my kindest remembrances to your brother Cavendish, and believe
+me now and ever,
+
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Eeles.]
+
+            "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OFFICE,
+                                 _Wednesday Evening, Oct. 22nd, 1851._
+
+DEAR MR. EELES,
+
+I send you the list I have made for the book-backs. I should like the
+"History of a Short Chancery Suit" to come at the bottom of one recess,
+and the "Catalogue of Statues of the Duke of Wellington" at the bottom
+of the other. If you should want more titles, and will let me know how
+many, I will send them to you.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+        LIST OF IMITATION BOOK-BACKS.
+
+        _Tavistock House_, 1851.
+
+        Five Minutes in China. 3 vols.
+        Forty Winks at the Pyramids. 2 vols.
+        Abernethy on the Constitution. 2 vols.
+        Mr. Green's Overland Mail. 2 vols.
+        Captain Cook's Life of Savage. 2 vols.
+        A Carpenter's Bench of Bishops. 2 vols.
+        Toot's Universal Letter-Writer. 2 vols.
+        Orson's Art of Etiquette.
+        Downeaster's Complete Calculator.
+        History of the Middling Ages. 6 vols.
+        Jonah's Account of the Whale.
+        Captain Parry's Virtues of Cold Tar.
+        Kant's Ancient Humbugs. 10 vols.
+        Bowwowdom. A Poem.
+        The Quarrelly Review. 4 vols.
+        The Gunpowder Magazine. 4 vols.
+        Steele. By the Author of "Ion."
+        The Art of Cutting the Teeth.
+        Matthew's Nursery Songs. 2 vols.
+        Paxton's Bloomers. 5 vols.
+        On the Use of Mercury by the Ancient Poets.
+        Drowsy's Recollections of Nothing. 3 vols.
+        Heavyside's Conversations with Nobody. 3 vols.
+        Commonplace Book of the Oldest Inhabitant. 2 vols.
+        Growler's Gruffiology, with Appendix. 4 vols.
+        The Books of Moses and Sons. 2 vols.
+        Burke (of Edinburgh) on the Sublime and Beautiful. 2 vols.
+        Teazer's Commentaries.
+        King Henry the Eighth's Evidences of Christianity. 5 vols.
+        Miss Biffin on Deportment.
+        Morrison's Pills Progress. 2 vols.
+        Lady Godiva on the Horse.
+        Munchausen's Modern Miracles. 4 vols.
+        Richardson's Show of Dramatic Literature. 12 vols.
+        Hansard's Guide to Refreshing Sleep. As many volumes as possible.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                   OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
+                                          _Saturday, Oct. 25th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+On the day of our departure, I thought we were going--backward--at a
+most triumphant pace; but yesterday we rather recovered. The painters
+still mislaid their brushes every five minutes, and chiefly whistled in
+the intervals; and the carpenters (especially the Pantechnicon)
+continued to look sideways with one eye down pieces of wood, as if they
+were absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the Thames
+Tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities of this transitory
+world; but still there was an improvement, and it is confirmed to-day.
+White lime is to be seen in kitchens, the bath-room is gradually
+resolving itself from an abstract idea into a fact--youthful, extremely
+youthful, but a fact. The drawing-room encourages no hope whatever, nor
+the study. Staircase painted. Irish labourers howling in the
+school-room, but I don't know why. I see nothing. Gardener vigorously
+lopping the trees, and really letting in the light and air. Foreman
+sweet-tempered but uneasy. Inimitable hovering gloomily through the
+premises all day, with an idea that a little more work is done when he
+flits, bat-like, through the rooms, than when there is no one looking
+on. Catherine all over paint. Mister McCann, encountering Inimitable in
+doorways, fades obsequiously into areas, and there encounters him again,
+and swoons with confusion. Several reams of blank paper constantly
+spread on the drawing-room walls, and sliced off again, which looks like
+insanity. Two men still clinking at the new stair-rails. I think they
+must be learning a tune; I cannot make out any other object in their
+proceedings.
+
+Since writing the above, I have been up there again, and found the young
+paper-hanger putting on his slippers, and looking hard at the walls of
+the servants' room at the top of the house, as if he meant to paper it
+one of these days. May Heaven prosper his intentions!
+
+When do you come back? I hope soon.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                                       CLIFTON, _November 13th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I have just received your second letter, and am quite delighted to find
+that all is going on so vigorously, and that you are in such a
+methodical, business-like, and energetic state. I shall come home by the
+express on Saturday morning, and shall hope to be at home between eleven
+and twelve.
+
+We had a noble night last night. The room (which is the largest but one
+in England) was crammed in every part. The effect of from thirteen to
+fourteen hundred people, all well dressed, and all seated in one
+unbroken chamber, except that the floor rose high towards the end of the
+hall, was most splendid, and we never played to a better audience. The
+enthusiasm was prodigious; the place delightful for speaking in; no end
+of gas; another hall for a dressing-room; an immense stage; and every
+possible convenience. We were all thoroughly pleased, I think, with the
+whole thing, and it was a very great and striking success.
+To-morrow-night, having the new Hardman, I am going to try the play with
+all kinds of cuts, taking out, among other things, some half-dozen
+printed pages of "Wills's Coffee House."
+
+We are very pleasant and cheerful. They are all going to Matthew
+Davenport Hill's to lunch this morning, and to see some woods about six
+or seven miles off. I prefer being quiet, and shall go out at my leisure
+and call on Elliot. We are very well lodged and boarded, and, living
+high up on the Downs, are quite out of the filth of Bristol.
+
+I saw old Landor at Bath, who has bronchitis. When he was last in town,
+"Kenyon drove him about, by God, half the morning, under a most damnable
+pretence of taking him to where Walter was at school, and they never
+found the confounded house!" He had in his pocket on that occasion a
+souvenir for Walter in the form of a Union shirt-pin, which is now in my
+possession, and shall be duly brought home.
+
+I am tired enough, and shall be glad when to-morrow night is over. We
+expect a very good house. Forster came up to town after the performance
+last night, and promised to report to you that all was well. Jerrold is
+in extraordinary force. I don't think I ever knew him so humorous. And
+this is all my news, which is quite enough. I am continually thinking of
+the house in the midst of all the bustle, but I trust it with such
+confidence to you that I am quite at my ease about it.
+
+        With best love to Georgy and the girls,
+                     Ever, my dearest Kate, most affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I forgot to say that Topham has suddenly come out as a juggler,
+and swallows candles, and does wonderful things with the poker very well
+indeed, but with a bashfulness and embarrassment extraordinarily
+ludicrous.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Eeles.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _Nov. 17th, 1851._
+
+DEAR MR. EELES,
+
+I must thank you for the admirable manner in which you have done the
+book-backs in my room. I feel personally obliged to you, I assure you,
+for the interest you have taken in my whim, and the promptitude with
+which you have completely carried it out.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday Afternoon, Dec. 5th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I write in great haste to tell you that Mr. Wills, in the utmost
+consternation, has brought me your letter, just received (four o'clock),
+and that it is _too late_ to recall your tale. I was so delighted with
+it that I put it first in the number (not hearing of any objection to my
+proposed alteration by return of post), and the number is now made up
+and in the printer's hands. I cannot possibly take the tale out--it has
+departed from me.
+
+I am truly concerned for this, but I hope you will not blame me for what
+I have done in perfect good faith. Any recollection of me from your pen
+cannot (as I think you know) be otherwise than truly gratifying to me;
+but with my name on every page of "Household Words," there would be--or
+at least I should feel--an impropriety in so mentioning myself. I was
+particular, in changing the author, to make it "Hood's _Poems_" in the
+most important place--I mean where the captain is killed--and I hope and
+trust that the substitution will not be any serious drawback to the
+paper in any eyes but yours. I would do anything rather than cause you a
+minute's vexation arising out of what has given me so much pleasure, and
+I sincerely beseech you to think better of it, and not to fancy that any
+shade has been thrown on your charming writing, by
+
+                                         The unfortunate but innocent.
+
+P.S.--I write at a gallop, not to lose another post.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                       TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, December 21st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+If you were not the most suspicious of women, always looking for soft
+sawder in the purest metal of praise, I should call your paper
+delightful, and touched in the tenderest and most delicate manner. Being
+what you are, I confine myself to the observation that I have called it
+"A Love Affair at Cranford," and sent it off to the printer.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 26th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+About the three papers.
+
+1st. With Mr. Plowman of Oxford, Wills will communicate.
+
+2nd. (Now returned.) I have seen, in nearly the same form, before. The
+list of names is overwhelming.
+
+3rd. I am not at all earnest in the Savage matter; firstly, because I
+think so tremendous a vagabond never could have obtained an honest
+living in any station of existence or at any period of time; and
+secondly, because I think it of the highest importance that such an
+association as our Guild should not appear to resent upon society the
+faults of individuals who were flagrantly impracticable.
+
+At its best, it is liable to that suspicion, as all such efforts have
+been on the part of many jealous persons, to whom it _must_ look for
+aid. And any stop that in the least encourages it is one of a fatal
+kind.
+
+I do _not_ think myself, but this is merely an individual opinion, that
+Savage _was_ a man of genius, or that anything of his writing would have
+attracted much notice but for the bastard's reference to his mother. For
+these reasons combined, I should not be inclined to add my subscription
+of two guineas to yours, unless the inscription were altered as I have
+altered it in pencil. But in that case I should be very glad to respond
+to your suggestion, and to snuff out all my smaller disinclination.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[13] Mr. Charles Knight was writing a series of papers in "Household
+Words," called "Shadows."
+
+
+
+
+1852.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the summer of this year, Charles Dickens hired a house at Dover for
+three months, whither he went with his family. At the end of this time
+he sent his children and servants back to Tavistock House, and crossed
+over to Boulogne, with his wife and sister-in-law, to inspect that town
+and its neighbourhood, with a view of making it his summer quarters in
+the following year. Many amateur performances were given in the
+provinces in aid of the fund for the Guild of Literature and Art;
+Charles Dickens, as usual, taking the whole management on his own
+shoulders.
+
+In March, the first number of "Bleak House" appeared, and he was at work
+on this book all through the year, as well as being constantly occupied
+with his editorship of "Household Words."
+
+We have, in the letters for this year, Charles Dickens's first to Lord
+John Russell (afterwards the Earl Russell); a friend whom he held in the
+highest estimation, and to whom he was always grateful for many personal
+kindnesses. We have also his first letter to Mr. Wilkie Collins, with
+whom he became most intimately associated in literary work. The
+affectionate friendship he had for him, the high value in which he held
+him as a brother-artist, are constantly expressed in Charles Dickens's
+own letters to Mr. Collins, and in his letters to other friends.
+
+"Those gallant men" (in the letter to Mr. J. Crofton Croker) had
+reference to an antiquarian club, called the Noviomagians, who were
+about to give a dinner in honour of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain
+Kellett, the officers in command of the Arctic Exploring Expedition, to
+which Charles Dickens was also invited. Mr. Crofton Croker was the
+president of this club, and to denote his office it was customary to put
+on a cocked hat after dinner.
+
+The "lost character" he writes of in a letter to Mrs. Watson, refers to
+two different decipherings of his handwriting; this sort of study being
+in fashion then, and he and his friends at Rockingham Castle deriving
+much amusement from it.
+
+The letter dated July 9th was in answer to an anonymous correspondent,
+who wrote to him as follows: "I venture to trespass on your attention
+with one serious query, touching a sentence in the last number of 'Bleak
+House.' Do the supporters of Christian missions to the heathen really
+deserve the attack that is conveyed in the sentence about Jo' seated in
+his anguish on the door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel in Foreign Parts? The allusion is severe, but is it just? Are
+such boys as Jo' neglected? What are ragged schools, town missions, and
+many of those societies I regret to see sneered at in the last number of
+'Household Words'?"
+
+The "Duke of Middlesex," in the letter we have here to Mr. Charles
+Knight, was the name of the character played by Mr. F. Stone, in Sir E.
+B. Lytton's comedy of "Not so Bad as we Seem."
+
+Our last letter in this year, to Mr. G. Linnæus Banks, was in
+acknowledgment of one from him on the subject of a proposed public
+dinner to Charles Dickens, to be given by the people of Birmingham, when
+they were also to present him with a salver and a diamond ring. The
+dinner was given in the following year, and the ring and salver (the
+latter an artistic specimen of Birmingham ware) were duly presented by
+Mr. Banks, who acted as honorary secretary, in the names of the
+subscribers, at the rooms of the Birmingham Fine Arts Association. Mr.
+Banks, and the artist, Mr. J. C. Walker, were the originators of this
+demonstration.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 31st, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+If the "taxes on knowledge" mean the stamp duty, the paper duty, and the
+advertisement duty, they seem to me to be unnecessarily confounded, and
+unfairly too.
+
+I have already declined to sign a petition for the removal of the stamp
+duty on newspapers. I think the reduced duty is some protection to the
+public against the rash and hasty launching of blackguard newspapers. I
+think the newspapers are made extremely accessible to the poor man at
+present, and that he would not derive the least benefit from the
+abolition of the stamp. It is not at all clear to me, supposing he wants
+_The Times_ a penny cheaper, that he would get it a penny cheaper if the
+tax were taken off. If he supposes he would get in competition two or
+three new journals as good to choose from, he is mistaken; not knowing
+the immense resources and the gradually perfective machinery necessary
+to the production of such a journal. It appears to me to be a fair tax
+enough, very little in the way of individuals, not embarrassing to the
+public in its mode of being levied, and requiring some small
+consideration and pauses from the American kind of newspaper projectors.
+Further, a committee has reported in favour of the repeal, and the
+subject may be held to need no present launching.
+
+The repeal of the paper duty would benefit the producers of periodicals
+immensely. It would make a very large difference to me, in the case of
+such a journal as "Household Words." But the gain to the public would be
+very small. It would not make the difference of enabling me, for
+example, to reduce the price of "Household Words," by its fractional
+effect upon a copy, or to increase the quantity of matter. I might, in
+putting the difference into my pocket, improve the quality of the paper
+a little, but not one man in a thousand would notice it. It _might_
+(though I am not sure even of this) remove the difficulties in the way
+of a deserving periodical with a small sale. Charles Knight holds that
+it would. But the case, on the whole, appeared to me so slight, when I
+went to Downing Street with a deputation on the subject, that I said (in
+addressing the Chancellor of the Exchequer) I could not honestly
+maintain it for a moment as against the soap duty, or any other pressing
+on the mass of the poor.
+
+The advertisement duty has this preposterous anomaly, that a footman in
+want of a place pays as much in the way of tax for the expression of his
+want, as Professor Holloway pays for the whole list of his miraculous
+cures.
+
+But I think, at this time especially, there is so much to be considered
+in the necessity the country will be under of having money, and the
+necessity of justice it is always under, to consider the physical and
+moral wants of the poor man's home, as to justify a man in saying: "I
+must wait a little, all taxes are more or less objectionable, and so no
+doubt are these, but we must have some; and I have not made up my mind
+that all these things that are mixed up together _are_ taxes on
+knowledge in reality."
+
+Kate and Georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest love to dear Mrs.
+Macready. We are always with you in spirit, and always talking about
+you. I am obliged to conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with
+business engagements. Saw the lecture and was delighted; thought the
+idea admirable. Again, loves upon loves to dear Mrs. Macready and to
+Miss Macready also, and Kate and all the house. I saw ---- play (O
+Heaven!) "Macbeth," the other night, in three hours and fifty minutes,
+which is quick, I think.
+
+                                       Ever and always affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. Crofton Croker.]
+
+                                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 6th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have the greatest interest in those gallant men, and should have been
+delighted to dine in their company. I feel truly obliged to you for your
+kind remembrance on such an occasion.
+
+But I am engaged to Lord Lansdowne on Wednesday, and can only drink to
+them in the spirit, which I have often done when they have been farther
+off.
+
+I hope you will find occasion to put on your cocked hat, that they may
+see how terrific and imposing "a fore-and-after" can be made on shore.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _April 6th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+My "lost character" was one of those awful documents occasionally to be
+met with, which WILL be everywhere. It glared upon me from every drawer
+I had, fell out of books, lurked under keys, hid in empty inkstands, got
+into portfolios, frightened me by inscrutably passing into locked
+despatch-boxes, and was not one character, but a thousand. This was when
+I didn't want it. I look for it this morning, and it is nowhere!
+Probably will never be beheld again.
+
+But it was very unlike this one; and there is no doubt that when these
+ventures come out good, it is only by lucky chance and coincidence. She
+never mentioned my love of order before, and it is so remarkable (being
+almost a _dis_order), that she ought to have fainted with surprise when
+my handwriting was first revealed to her.
+
+I was very sorry to leave Rockingham the other day, and came away in
+quite a melancholy state. The Birmingham people were very active; and
+the Shrewsbury gentry quite transcendent. I hope we shall have a very
+successful and dazzling trip. It is delightful to me to think of your
+coming to Birmingham; and, by-the-bye, if you will tell me in the
+previous week what hotel accommodation you want, Mr. Wills will look to
+it with the greatest pleasure.
+
+Your bookseller ought to be cashiered. I suppose "he" (as Rogers calls
+everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his
+mind from dwelling on its loss. Abortive effort!
+
+              Charley brings this with himself.
+              With kindest regards and remembrances,
+                        Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 29th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+A thousand thanks for the Shadow, which, is charming. May you often go
+(out of town) and do likewise!
+
+I dined with Charles Kemble, yesterday, to meet Emil Devrient, the
+German actor. He said (Devrient is my antecedent) that Ophelia _spoke_
+the snatches of ballads in their German version of "Hamlet," because
+they didn't know the airs. Tom Taylor said that you had published the
+airs in your "Shakespeare." I said that if it were so, I knew you would
+be happy to place them at the German's service. If you have got them and
+will send them to me, I will write to Devrient (who knows no English) a
+French explanation and reminder of the circumstance, and will tell him
+that you responded like a man and a--I was going to say publisher, but
+you are nothing of the sort, except as Tonson. Then indeed you are every
+inch a pub.!
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, June 30th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR LORD,
+
+I am most truly obliged to you for your kind note, and for your so
+generously thinking of me in the midst of your many occupations. I do
+assure you that your ever ready consideration had already attached me to
+you in the warmest manner, and made me very much your debtor. I thank
+you unaffectedly and very earnestly, and am proud to be held in your
+remembrance.
+
+                      Believe me always, yours faithfully and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Anonymous Correspondent.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _July 9th, 1852._
+
+SIR,
+
+I have received your letter of yesterday's date, and shall content
+myself with a brief reply.
+
+There was a long time during which benevolent societies were spending
+immense sums on missions abroad, when there was no such thing as a
+ragged school in England, or any kind of associated endeavour to
+penetrate to those horrible domestic depths in which such schools are
+now to be found, and where they were, to my most certain knowledge,
+neither placed nor discovered by the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel in Foreign Parts.
+
+If you think the balance between the home mission and the foreign
+mission justly held in the present time, I do not. I abstain from
+drawing the strange comparison that might be drawn between the sums even
+now expended in endeavours to remove the darkest ignorance and
+degradation from our very doors, because I have some respect for
+mistakes that may be founded in a sincere wish to do good. But I present
+a general suggestion of the still-existing anomaly (in such a paragraph
+as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing some people to
+reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance more correctly. I am
+decidedly of opinion that the two works, the home and the foreign, are
+_not_ conducted with an equal hand, and that the home claim is by far
+the stronger and the more pressing of the two.
+
+Indeed, I have very grave doubts whether a great commercial country,
+holding communication with all parts of the world, can better
+Christianise the benighted portions of it than by the bestowal of its
+wealth and energy on the making of good Christians at home, and on the
+utter removal of neglected and untaught childhood from its streets,
+before it wanders elsewhere. For, if it steadily persist in this work,
+working downward to the lowest, the travellers of all grades whom it
+sends abroad will be good, exemplary, practical missionaries, instead of
+undoers of what the best professed missionaries can do.
+
+These are my opinions, founded, I believe, on some knowledge of facts
+and some observation. If I could be scared out of them, let me add in
+all good humour, by such easily-impressed words as "antichristian" or
+"irreligious," I should think that I deserved them in their real
+signification.
+
+I have referred in vain to page 312 of "Household Words" for the sneer
+to which you call my attention. Nor have I, I assure you, the least idea
+where else it is to be found.
+
+                                     I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                        10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _July 22nd, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+This is indeed a noble letter. The description of the family is quite
+amazing. I _must_ return it myself to say that I HAVE appreciated it.
+
+I am going to do "Used Up" at Manchester on the 2nd of September. O,
+think of that! With another Mary!!! How can I ever say, "_Dear_ Joe, if
+you like!" The voice may fully frame the falsehood, but the heart--the
+heart, Mr. Wurzel--will have no part in it.
+
+My dear Mary, you do scant justice to Dover. It is not quite a place to
+my taste, being too bandy (I mean musical, no reference to its legs),
+and infinitely too genteel. But the sea is very fine, and the walks are
+quite remarkable. There are two ways of going to Folkestone, both lovely
+and striking in the highest degree; and there are heights, and downs,
+and country roads, and I don't know what, everywhere.
+
+To let you into a secret, I am not quite sure that I ever did like, or
+ever shall like, anything quite so well as "Copperfield." But I foresee,
+I think, some very good things in "Bleak House." I shouldn't wonder if
+they were the identical things that D'Israeli sees looming in the
+distance. I behold them in the months ahead and weep.
+
+Watson seemed, when I saw him last, to be holding on as by a
+sheet-anchor to theatricals at Christmas. Then, O rapture! but be still,
+my fluttering heart.
+
+This is one of what I call my wandering days before I fall to work. I
+seem to be always looking at such times for something I have not found
+in life, but may possibly come to a few thousands of years hence, in
+some other part of some other system. God knows. At all events I won't
+put your pastoral little pipe out of tune by talking about it. I'll go
+and look for it on the Canterbury road among the hop-gardens and
+orchards.
+
+                                        Ever faithfully your Friend,
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                 10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _Sunday, Aug. 1st, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+I don't see why you should go to the Ship, and I won't stand it. The
+state apartment will be occupied by the Duke of Middlesex (whom I think
+you know), but we can easily get a bed for you hard by. Therefore you
+will please to drive here next Saturday evening. Our regular dinner hour
+is half-past five. If you are later, you will find something ready for
+you.
+
+If you go on in that way about your part, I shall think you want to play
+Mr. Gabblewig. Your rôle, though a small one on the stage, is a large
+one off it; and no man is more important to the Guild, both on and off.
+
+My dear friend Watson! Dead after an illness of four days. He dined with
+us this day three weeks. I loved him as my heart, and cannot think of
+him without tears.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                            DOVER, _August 5th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+Poor dear Watson was dead when the paragraph in the paper appeared. He
+was buried in his own church yesterday. Last Sunday three weeks (the day
+before he went abroad) he dined with us, and was quite well and happy.
+She has come home, is at Rockingham with the children, and does not
+weakly desert his grave, but sets up her rest by it from the first. He
+had been wandering in his mind a little before his death, but recovered
+consciousness, and fell asleep (she says) quite gently and peacefully in
+her arms.
+
+I loved him very much, and God knows he deserved it.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+               10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+'Peared to me (as Uncle Tom would say) until within these last few days,
+that I should be able to write to you, joyfully accepting your
+Saturday's invitation after Newcastle, in behalf of all whom it
+concerned. But the Sunderland people rushed into the field to propose
+our acting there on that Saturday, the only possible night. And as it is
+the concluding Guild expedition, and the Guild has a paramount claim on
+us, I have been obliged to knock my own inclinations on the head, cut
+the throat of my own wishes, and bind the Company hand and foot to the
+Sunderland lieges. I don't mean to tell them now of your invitation
+until we shall have got out of that country. There might be rebellion.
+We are staying here for the autumn.
+
+Is there any hope of your repeating your visit to these coasts?
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                       10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _August 5th, 1852._
+
+                   ON THE DEATH OF MR. WATSON.
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I cannot bear to be silent longer, though I know full well--no one
+better I think--how your love for him, and your trust in God, and your
+love for your children will have come to the help of such a nature as
+yours, and whispered better things than any friendship can, however
+faithful and affectionate.
+
+We held him so close in our hearts--all of us here--and have been so
+happy with him, and so used to say how good he was, and what a gentle,
+generous, noble spirit he had, and how he shone out among commoner men
+as something so real and genuine, and full of every kind of worthiness,
+that it has often brought the tears into my eyes to talk of him; we have
+been so accustomed to do this when we looked forward to years of
+unchanged intercourse, that now, when everything but truth goes down
+into the dust, those recollections which make the sword so sharp pour
+balm into the wound. And if it be a consolation to us to know the
+virtues of his character, and the reasons that we had for loving him, O
+how much greater is your comfort who were so devoted to him, and were
+the happiness of his life!
+
+We have thought of you every day and every hour; we think of you now in
+the dear old house, and know how right it is, for his dear children's
+sake, that you should have bravely set up your rest in the place
+consecrated by their father's memory, and within the same summer shadows
+that fall upon his grave. We try to look on, through a few years, and to
+see the children brightening it, and George a comfort and a pride and an
+honour to you; and although it _is_ hard to think of what we have lost,
+we know how something of it will be restored by your example and
+endeavours, and the blessing that will descend upon them. We know how
+the time will come when some reflection of that cordial, unaffected,
+most affectionate presence, which we can never forget, and never would
+forget if we could--such is God's great mercy--will shine out of your
+boy's eyes upon you, his best friend and his last consoler, and fill the
+void there is now.
+
+May God, who has received into His rest through this affliction as good
+a man as ever I can know and love and mourn for on this earth, be good
+to you, dear friends, through these coming years! May all those
+compassionate and hopeful lessons of the great Teacher who shed divine
+tears for the dead bring their full comfort to you! I have no fear of
+that, my confidence is certainty.
+
+I cannot write what I wish; I had so many things to say, I seem to have
+said none. It is so with the remembrances we send. I cannot put them
+into words.
+
+If you should ever set up a record in the little church, I would try to
+word it myself, and God knows out of the fulness of my heart, if you
+should think it well.
+
+                My dear Friend,
+                        Yours, with the truest affection and sympathy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                   HÔTEL DES BAINS, BOULOGNE,
+                                      _Tuesday Night, Oct. 5th, 1852._
+
+                  ON THE DEATH OF MRS. MACREADY.
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I received your melancholy letter while we were staying at Dover, a few
+days after it was written; but I thought it best not to write to you
+until you were at home again, among your dear children.
+
+Its tidings were not unexpected to us, had been anticipated in many
+conversations, often thought of under many circumstances; but the shock
+was scarcely lessened by this preparation. The many happy days we have
+passed together came crowding back; all the old cheerful times arose
+before us; and the remembrance of what we had loved so dearly and seen
+under so many aspects--all natural and delightful and affectionate and
+ever to be cherished--was, how pathetic and touching you know best!
+
+But my dear, dear Macready, this is not the first time you have felt
+that the recollection of great love and happiness associated with the
+dead soothes while it wounds. And while I can imagine that the blank
+beside you may grow wider every day for many days to come, I _know_--I
+think--that from its depths such comfort will arise as only comes to
+great hearts like yours, when they can think upon their trials with a
+steady trust in God.
+
+My dear friend, I have known her so well, have been so happy in her
+regard, have been so light-hearted with her, have interchanged so many
+tender remembrances of you with her when you were far away, and have
+seen her ever so simply and truly anxious to be worthy of you, that I
+cannot write as I would and as I know I ought. As I would press your
+hand in your distress, I let this note go from me. I understand your
+grief, I deeply feel the reason that there is for it, yet in that very
+feeling find a softening consolation that must spring up a
+hundred-thousandfold for you. May Heaven prosper it in your breast, and
+the spirits that have gone before, from the regions of mercy to which
+they have been called, smooth the path you have to tread alone! Children
+are left you. Your good sister (God bless her!) is by your side. You
+have devoted friends, and more reasons than most men to be self-reliant
+and stedfast. Something is gone that never in this world can be
+replaced, but much is left, and it is a part of her life, her death, her
+immortality.
+
+Catherine and Georgina, who are with me here, send you their overflowing
+love and sympathy. We hope that in a little while, and for a little
+while at least, you will come among us, who have known the happiness of
+being in this bond with you, and will not exclude us from participation
+in your past and future.
+
+        Ever, my dearest Macready, with unchangeable affection,
+                                          Yours in all love and truth.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                HÔTEL DES BAINS, BOULOGNE, _Tuesday, Oct. 12th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                            H. W.
+
+I have thought of the Christmas number, but not very successfully,
+because I have been (and still am) constantly occupied with "Bleak
+House." I purpose returning home either on Sunday or Monday, as my work
+permits, and we will, immediately thereafter, dine at the office and
+talk it over, so that you may get all the men to their work.
+
+The fault of ----'s poem, besides its intrinsic meanness as a
+composition, is that it goes too glibly with the comfortable ideas (of
+which we have had a great deal too much in England since the Continental
+commotions) that a man is to sit down and make himself domestic and
+meek, no matter what is done to him. It wants a stronger appeal to
+rulers in general to let men do this, fairly, by governing them well. As
+it stands, it is at about the tract-mark ("Dairyman's Daughter," etc.)
+of political morality, and don't think that it is necessary to write
+_down_ to any part of our audience. I always hold that to be as great a
+mistake as can be made.
+
+I wish you would mention to Thomas, that I think the paper on hops
+_extremely well done_. He has quite caught the idea we want, and caught
+it in the best way. In pursuing the bridge subject, I think it would be
+advisable to look up the _Thames police_. I have a misty notion of some
+capital papers coming out of it. Will you see to this branch of the tree
+among the other branches?
+
+                                 MYSELF.
+
+To Chapman I will write. My impression is that I shall not subscribe to
+the Hood monument, as I am not at all favourable to such posthumous
+honours.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                HÔTEL DES BAINS, BOULOGNE,
+                                   _Wednesday Night, Oct. 13th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+The number coming in after dinner, since my letter was written and
+posted, I have gone over it.
+
+I am grievously depressed by it; it is so exceedingly bad. If you have
+anything else to put first, don't put ----'s paper first. (There is
+nothing better for a beginning in the number as it stands, but this is
+very bad.) It is a mistake to think of it as a first article. The
+article itself is in the main a mistake. Firstly, the subject requires
+the greatest discretion and nicety of touch. And secondly, it is all
+wrong and self-contradictory. Nobody can for a moment suppose that
+"sporting" amusements are the sports of the PEOPLE; the whole gist of
+the best part of the description is to show that they are the amusements
+of a peculiar and limited class. The greater part of them are at a
+miserable discount (horse-racing excepted, which has been already
+sufficiently done in H. W.), and there is no reason for running amuck at
+them at all. I have endeavoured to remove much of my objection (and I
+think have done so), but, both in purpose and in any general address, it
+is as wide of a first article as anything can well be. It would do best
+in the opening of the number.
+
+About Sunday in Paris there is no kind of doubt. Take it out. Such a
+thing as that crucifixion, unless it were done in a masterly manner, we
+have no business to stagger families with. Besides, the name is a
+comprehensive one, and should include a quantity of fine matter. Lord
+bless me, what I could write under that head!
+
+Strengthen the number, pray, by anything good you may have. It is a very
+dreary business as it stands.
+
+The proofs want a thorough revision.
+
+In haste, going to bed.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--I want a name for Miss Martineau's paper.
+
+        TRIUMPHANT CARRIAGES (or TRIUMPHAL).
+             DUBLIN STOUTHEARTEDNESS.
+             PATIENCE AND PREJUDICE.
+
+Take which you like best.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Watkins.]
+
+                                         MONDAY, _October 18th, 1852._
+
+SIR,
+
+On my return to town I find the letter awaiting me which you did me the
+favour to address to me, I believe--for it has no date--some days ago.
+
+I have the greatest tenderness for the memory of Hood, as I had for
+himself. But I am not very favourable to posthumous memorials in the
+monument way, and I should exceedingly regret to see any such appeal as
+you contemplate made public, remembering another public appeal that was
+made and responded to after Hood's death. I think that I best discharge
+my duty to my deceased friend, and best consult the respect and love
+with which I remember him, by declining to join in any such public
+endeavours as that which you (in all generosity and singleness of
+purpose, I am sure) advance. I shall have a melancholy gratification in
+privately assisting to place a simple and plain record over the remains
+of a great writer that should be as modest as he was himself, but I
+regard any other monument in connection with his mortal resting-place as
+a mistake.
+
+                                     I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+              OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Tuesday, Oct. 19th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+We are now getting our Christmas extra number together, and I think you
+are the boy to do, if you will, one of the stories.
+
+I propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist
+entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round
+the fire. _I don't care about their referring to Christmas at all_; nor
+do I design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names, as:
+
+        THE GRANDFATHER'S STORY.
+        THE FATHER'S STORY.
+        THE DAUGHTER'S STORY.
+        THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY.
+        THE CHILD'S STORY.
+        THE GUEST'S STORY.
+        THE OLD NURSE'S STORY.
+
+The grandfather might very well be old enough to have lived in the days
+of the highwaymen. Do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or both, to
+do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? If you do, I embrace you
+(per post), and throw up a cap I have purchased for the purpose into
+mid-air.
+
+Think of it and write me a line in reply. We are all well and blooming.
+
+Are you never coming to town any more? Never going to drink port again,
+metropolitaneously, but _always_ with Fielden?
+
+Love to Mrs. White and the children, if Lotty be not out of the list
+long ago.
+
+                                       Ever faithfully, my dear White.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                              ATHENÆUM, _Monday, November 22nd, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Having just now finished my work for the time being, I turn in here in
+the course of a rainy walk, to have the gratification of writing a few
+lines to you. If my occupations with this same right hand were less
+numerous, you would soon be tired of me, I should write to you so often.
+
+You asked Catherine a question about "Bleak House." Its circulation is
+half as large again as "Copperfield"! I have just now come to the point
+I have been patiently working up to in the writing, and I hope it will
+suggest to you a pretty and affecting thing. In the matter of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin," I partly though not entirely agree with Mr. James. No
+doubt a much lower art will serve for the handling of such a subject in
+fiction, than for a launch on the sea of imagination without such a
+powerful bark; but there are many points in the book very admirably
+done. There is a certain St. Clair, a New Orleans gentleman, who seems
+to me to be conceived with great power and originality. If he had not "a
+Grecian outline of face," which I began to be a little tired of in my
+earliest infancy, I should think him unexceptionable. He has a sister
+too, a maiden lady from New England, in whose person the besetting
+weaknesses and prejudices of the Abolitionists themselves, on the
+subject of the blacks, are set forth in the liveliest and truest colours
+and with the greatest boldness.
+
+I have written for "Household Words" of this next publication-day an
+article on the State funeral,[14] showing why I consider it altogether a
+mistake, to be temperately but firmly objected to; which I daresay will
+make a good many of the admirers of such things highly indignant. It may
+have right and reason on its side, however, none the less.
+
+Charley and I had a great talk at Dover about his going into the army,
+when I thought it right to set before him fairly and faithfully the
+objections to that career, no less than its advantages. The result was
+that he asked in a very manly way for time to consider. So I appointed
+to go down to Eton on a certain day at the beginning of this month, and
+resume the subject. We resumed it accordingly at the White Hart, at
+Windsor, and he came to the conclusion that he would rather be a
+merchant, and try to establish some good house of business, where he
+might find a path perhaps for his younger brothers, and stay at home,
+and make himself the head of that long, small procession. I was very
+much pleased with him indeed; he showed a fine sense and a fine feeling
+in the whole matter. We have arranged, therefore, that he shall leave
+Eton at Christmas, and go to Germany after the holidays, to become well
+acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a walk of life
+as he will probably tread.
+
+And I think this is the whole of my news. We are always talking of you
+at home. Mary Boyle dined with us a little while ago. You look out, I
+imagine, on a waste of water. When I came from Windsor, I thought I must
+have made a mistake and got into a boat (in the dark) instead of a
+railway-carriage. Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves. I am
+ever, with the best and truest wishes of my heart, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+               OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Monday, Nov. 22nd, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+First and foremost, there is no doubt whatever of your story suiting
+"Household Words." It is a very good story indeed, and would be
+serviceable at any time. I am not quite so clear of its suiting the
+Christmas number, for this reason. You know what the spirit of the
+Christmas number is. When I suggested the stories being about a
+highwayman, I got hold of that idea as being an adventurous one,
+including various kinds of wrong, expressing a state of society no
+longer existing among us, and pleasant to hear (therefore) from an old
+man. Now, your highwayman not being a real highwayman after all, the
+kind of suitable Christmas interest I meant to awaken in the story is
+not in it. Do you understand? For an ordinary number it is quite
+unobjectionable. If you should think of any other idea, narratable by an
+old man, which you think would strike the chord of the season; and if
+you should find time to work it out during the short remainder of this
+month, I should be greatly pleased to have it. In any case, this story
+goes straightway into type.
+
+What tremendous weather it is! Our best loves to all at home. (I have
+just bought thirty bottles of the most stunning port on earth, which
+Ellis of the Star and Garter, Richmond, wrote to me of.)
+
+I think you will find some good going in the next "Bleak House." I write
+shortly, having been working my head off.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Wednesday, Dec. 1st, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I send you the proof of "The Old Nurse's Story," with my proposed
+alteration. I shall be glad to know whether you approve of it. To assist
+you in your decision, I send you, also enclosed, the original ending.
+And I have made a line with ink across the last slip but one, where the
+alteration begins. Of course if you wish to enlarge, explain, or
+re-alter, you will do it. Do not keep the proof longer than you can
+help, as I want to get to press with all despatch.
+
+I hope I address this letter correctly. I am far from sure. In haste.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, December 9th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I am driven mad by dogs, who have taken it into their accursed heads to
+assemble every morning in the piece of ground opposite, and who have
+barked this morning _for five hours without intermission_; positively
+rendering it impossible for me to work, and so making what is really
+ridiculous quite serious to me. I wish, between this and dinner, you
+would send John to see if he can hire a gun, with a few caps, some
+powder, and a few charges of small shot. If you duly commission him with
+a card, he can easily do it. And if I get those implements up here
+to-night, I'll be the death of some of them to-morrow morning.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday Evening, Dec. 9th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I hear you are not going to poor Macready's. Now, don't you think it
+would do you good to come here instead? _I_ say it would, and I ought
+to know! We can give you everything but a bed (all ours are occupied in
+consequence of the boys being at home), and shall all be delighted to
+see you. Leave the bed to us, and we'll find one hard by. I say nothing
+of the last day of the old year, and the dancing out of that good old
+worthy that will take place here (for you might like to hear the bells
+at home); but after the twentieth, I shall be comparatively at leisure,
+and good for anything or nothing. Don't you consider it your duty to
+your family to come? _I_ do, and I again say that I ought to know.
+
+Our best love to Mrs. White and Lotty--happily so much better, we
+rejoice to hear--and all.
+
+                                  So no more at present from
+                                                     THE INIMITABLE B.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, Dec. 17th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I received your kind note yesterday morning with the truest
+gratification, for I _am_ the writer of "The Child's Story" as well as
+of "The Poor Relation's." I assure you, you have given me the liveliest
+and heartiest pleasure by what you say of it.
+
+I don't claim for my ending of "The Nurse's Story" that it would have
+made it a bit better. All I can urge in its behalf is, that it is what I
+should have done myself. But there is no doubt of the story being
+admirable as it stands, and there _is_ some doubt (I think) whether
+Forster would have found anything wrong in it, if he had not known of my
+hammering over the proofs in making up the number, with all the three
+endings before me.
+
+                  With kindest regards to Mr. Gaskell,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Dec. 20th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+If I did not know that you are likely to have a forbearing remembrance
+of my occupation, I should be full of remorse for not having sooner
+thanked you for "Basil."
+
+Not to play the sage or the critic (neither of which parts, I hope, is
+at all in my line), but to say what is the friendly truth, I may assure
+you that I have read the book with very great interest, and with a very
+thorough conviction that you have a call to this same art of fiction. I
+think the probabilities here and there require a little more respect
+than you are disposed to show them, and I have no doubt that the
+prefatory letter would have been better away, on the ground that a book
+(of all things) should speak for and explain itself. But the story
+contains admirable writing, and many clear evidences of a very delicate
+discrimination of character. It is delightful to find throughout that
+you have taken great pains with it besides, and have "gone at it" with a
+perfect knowledge of the jolter-headedness of the conceited idiots who
+suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes, and that any
+writing can be done without the utmost application, the greatest
+patience, and the steadiest energy of which the writer is capable.
+
+For all these reasons, I have made "Basil's" acquaintance with great
+gratification, and entertain a high respect for him. And I hope that I
+shall become intimate with many worthy descendants of his, who are yet
+in the limbo of creatures waiting to be born.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I am open to any proposal to go anywhere any day or days this
+week. Fresh air and change in any amount I am ready for. If I could only
+find an idle man (this is a general observation), he would find the
+warmest recognition in this direction.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Evening, Dec. 20th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Every appearance of brightness! Shall I expect you to-morrow morning? If
+so, at what hour?
+
+I think of taking train afterwards, and going down for a walk on Chatham
+lines. If you can spare the day for fresh air and an impromptu bit of
+fish and chop, I can recommend you one of the most delightful of men for
+a companion. O, he is indeed refreshing!!!
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                   OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Christmas Eve, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have gone carefully through the number--an awful one for the amount of
+correction required--and have made everything right. If my mind could
+have been materialised, and drawn along the tops of all the spikes on
+the outside of the Queen's Bench prison, it could not have been more
+agonised than by the ----, which, for imbecility, carelessness, slovenly
+composition, relatives without antecedents, universal chaos, and one
+absorbing whirlpool of jolter-headedness, beats anything in print and
+paper I have ever "gone at" in my life.
+
+I shall come and see how you are to-morrow. Meantime everything is in
+perfect trim in these parts, and I have sent down to Stacey to come here
+and top up with a final interview before I go.
+
+Just after I had sent the messenger off to you, yesterday, concerning
+the toll-taker memoranda, the other idea came into my head, and in the
+most obliging manner came out of it.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Here is ---- perpetually flitting about Brydges Street, and
+hovering in the neighbourhood, with a veil of secrecy drawn down over
+his chin, so ludicrously transparent, that I can't help laughing while
+he looks at me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. G. Linnæus Banks.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 26th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I will not attempt to tell you how affected and gratified I am by the
+intelligence your kind letter conveys to me. Nothing would be more
+welcome to me than such a mark of confidence and approval from such a
+source, nothing more precious, or that I could set a higher worth upon.
+
+I hasten to return the gauges, of which I have marked one as the size of
+the finger, from which this token will never more be absent as long as I
+live.
+
+With feelings of the liveliest gratitude and cordiality towards the many
+friends who so honour me, and with many thanks to you for the genial
+earnestness with which you represent them,
+
+                             I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Will you do me the favour to inform the dinner committee that a
+friend of mine, Mr. Clement, of Shrewsbury, is very anxious to purchase
+a ticket for the dinner, and that if they will be so good as to forward
+one for him to me I shall feel much obliged.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] The great Duke of Wellington's funeral.
+
+
+
+
+1853.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In this year, Charles Dickens was still writing "Bleak House," and went
+to Brighton for a short time in the spring. In May he had an attack of
+illness, a return of an old trouble of an inflammatory pain in the
+side, which was short but very severe while it lasted. Immediately on
+his recovery, early in June, a departure from London for the summer was
+resolved upon. He had decided upon trying Boulogne this year for his
+holiday sojourn, and as soon as he was strong enough to travel, he, his
+wife, and sister-in-law went there in advance of the family, taking up
+their quarters at the Hôtel des Bains, to find a house, which was
+speedily done. The pretty little Villa des Moulineaux, and its excellent
+landlord, at once took his fancy, and in that house, and in another on
+the same ground, also belonging to M. Beaucourt, he passed three very
+happy summers. And he became as much attached to "Our French Watering
+Place" as to "Our English" one. Having written a sketch of Broadstairs
+under that name in "Household Words," he did the same of Boulogne under
+the former title.
+
+During the summer, besides his other work, he was employed in dictating
+"The Child's History of England," which he published in "Household
+Words," and which was the only book he ever wrote by dictation. But, as
+at Broadstairs and other seaside homes, he had always plenty of
+relaxation and enjoyment in the visits of his friends. In September he
+finished "Bleak House," and in October he started with Mr. Wilkie
+Collins and Mr. Egg from Boulogne, on an excursion through parts of
+Switzerland and Italy; his wife and family going home at the same time,
+and he himself returning to Tavistock House early in December. His
+eldest son, Charles, had left Eton some time before this, and had gone
+for the completion of his education to Leipsic. He was to leave Germany
+at the end of the year, therefore it was arranged that he should meet
+the travellers in Paris on their homeward journey, and they all returned
+together.
+
+Just before Christmas he went to Birmingham in fulfilment of an offer
+which he had made at the dinner given to him at Birmingham on the 6th of
+January (of which he writes to Mr. Macready in the first letter that
+follows here), to give two readings from his own books for the benefit
+of the New Midland Institute. They were his first public readings. He
+read "The Christmas Carol" on one evening, and "The Cricket on the
+Hearth" on the next, before enormous audiences. The success was so
+great, and the sum of money realised for the institute so large, that he
+consented to give a second reading of "The Christmas Carol," remaining
+another night in Birmingham for the purpose, on the condition that seats
+were reserved, at prices within their means, for the working men. And to
+his great satisfaction they formed a large proportion, and were among
+the most enthusiastic and appreciative of his audience. He was
+accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law, and on this occasion a
+breakfast was given to him after his last reading, at which a silver
+flower-basket, duly inscribed, was very gracefully presented to _Mrs._
+Charles Dickens.
+
+The letters in this year require little explanation. Those to his wife
+and sister-in-law and Mr. Wills give a little history of his Italian
+journey. At Naples he found his excellent friend Sir James Emerson
+Tennent, with his wife and daughter, with whom he joined company in the
+ascent of Vesuvius.
+
+The two letters to M. Regnier, the distinguished actor of the Théâtre
+Français--with whom Charles Dickens had formed a sincere friendship
+during his first residence in Paris--on the subject of a projected
+benefit to Miss Kelly, need no further explanation.
+
+Mr. John Delane, editor of _The Times_, and always a highly-esteemed
+friend of Charles Dickens, had given him an introduction to a school at
+Boulogne, kept by two English gentlemen, one a clergyman and the other a
+former Eton master, the Rev. W. Bewsher and Mr. Gibson. He had at
+various times four boys at this school, and very frequently afterwards
+he expressed his gratitude to Mr. Delane for having given him the
+introduction, which turned out so satisfactory in every respect.
+
+The letter of grateful acknowledgment from Mr. Poole and Charles
+Dickens to Lord Russell was for the pension for which the old dramatic
+author was indebted to that nobleman, and which enabled him to live
+comfortably until the end of his life.
+
+A note to Mr. Marcus Stone was sent with a copy of "The Child's History
+of England." The sketch referred to was one of "Jo'," in "Bleak House,"
+which showed great feeling and artistic promise, since fully fulfilled
+by the young painter, but very remarkable in a boy so young as he was at
+that time. The letter to Mr. Stanfield, in seafaring language, is a
+specimen of a playful way in which he frequently addressed that dear
+friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+       "A curiosity from _him_. No date. No signature."--W. H. H.
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have not a shadow of a doubt about Miss Martineau's story. It is
+certain to tell. I think it very effectively, admirably done; a fine
+plain purpose in it; quite a singular novelty. For the last story in the
+Christmas number it will be great. I couldn't wish for a better.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell's ghost story I have got this morning; have not yet read.
+It is long.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                                H.M.S. _Tavistock, January 2nd, 1853._
+
+Yoho, old salt! Neptun' ahoy! You don't forget, messmet, as you was to
+meet Dick Sparkler and Mark Porpuss on the fok'sle of the good ship
+_Owssel Words_, Wednesday next, half-past four? Not you; for when did
+Stanfell ever pass his word to go anywheers and not come! Well. Belay,
+my heart of oak, belay! Come alongside the _Tavistock_ same day and
+hour, 'stead of _Owssel Words_. Hail your shipmets, and they'll drop
+over the side and join you, like two new shillings a-droppin' into the
+purser's pocket. Damn all lubberly boys and swabs, and give me the lad
+with the tarry trousers, which shines to me like di'mings bright!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday Night, Jan. 14th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have been much affected by the receipt of your kindest and best of
+letters; for I know out of the midst of what anxieties it comes to me,
+and I appreciate such remembrance from my heart. You and yours are
+always with us, however. It is no new thing for you to have a part in
+any scene of my life. It very rarely happens that a day passes without
+our thoughts and conversation travelling to Sherborne. We are so much
+there that I cannot tell you how plainly I see you as I write.
+
+I know you would have been full of sympathy and approval if you had been
+present at Birmingham, and that you would have concurred in the tone I
+tried to take about the eternal duties of the arts to the people. I took
+the liberty of putting the court and that kind of thing out of the
+question, and recognising nothing _but_ the arts and the people. The
+more we see of life and its brevity, and the world and its varieties,
+the more we know that no exercise of our abilities in any art, but the
+addressing of it to the great ocean of humanity in which we are drops,
+and not to bye-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever
+will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect. Is it not so? _You_
+should have as much practical information on this subject, now, my dear
+friend, as any man.
+
+My dearest Macready, I cannot forbear this closing word. I still look
+forward to our meeting as we used to do in the happy times we have
+known together, so far as your old hopefulness and energy are concerned.
+And I think I never in my life have been more glad to receive a sign,
+than I have been to hail that which I find in your handwriting.
+
+Some of your old friends at Birmingham are full of interest and enquiry.
+Kate and Georgina send their dearest loves to you, and to Miss Macready,
+and to all the children. I am ever, and no matter where I am--and quite
+as much in a crowd as alone--my dearest Macready,
+
+                           Your affectionate and most attached Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 3rd, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+The subject is certainly not too serious, so sensibly treated. I have no
+doubt that you may do a great deal of good by pursuing it in "Household
+Words." I thoroughly agree in all you say in your note, have similar
+reasons for giving it some anxious consideration, and shall be greatly
+interested in it. Pray decide to do it. Send the papers, as you write
+them, to me. Meanwhile I will think of a name for them, and bring it to
+bear upon yours, if I think yours improvable. I am sure you may rely on
+being widely understood and sympathised with.
+
+Forget that I called those two women my dear friends! Why, if I told you
+a fiftieth part of what I have thought about them, you would write me
+the most suspicious of notes, refusing to receive the fiftieth part of
+that. So I don't write, particularly as you laid your injunctions on me
+concerning Ruth. In revenge, I will now mention one word that I wish you
+would take out whenever you reprint that book. She would never--I am
+ready to make affidavit before any authority in the land--have called
+her seducer "Sir," when they were living at that hotel in Wales. A girl
+pretending to be what she really was would have done it, but she--never!
+
+                                           Ever most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 9th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I meant to have spoken to you last night about a matter in which I hope
+you can assist me, but I forgot it. I think I must have been quite
+_bouleversé_ by your supposing (as you pretended to do, when you went
+away) that it was not a great pleasure and delight to me to see you act!
+
+There is a certain Miss Kelly, now sixty-two years old, who was once one
+of the very best of English actresses, in the greater and better days of
+the English theatre. She has much need of a benefit, and I am exerting
+myself to arrange one for her, on about the 9th of June, if possible, at
+the St. James's Theatre. The first piece will be an entertainment of her
+own, and she will act in the last. Between these two (and at the best
+time of the night), it would be a great attraction to the public, and a
+great proof of friendship to me, if you would act. If we could manage,
+through your influence and with your assistance, to present a little
+French vaudeville, such as "_Le bon Homme jadis_," it would make the
+night a grand success.
+
+Mitchell's permission, I suppose, would be required. That I will
+undertake to apply for, if you will tell me that you are willing to help
+us, and that you could answer for the other necessary actors in the
+little French piece, whatever the piece might be, that you would choose
+for the purpose. Pray write me a short note in answer, on this point.
+
+I ought to tell you that the benefit will be "under distinguished
+patronage." The Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Leinster, the Duke of
+Beaufort, etc. etc., are members of the committee with me, and I have no
+doubt that the audience will be of the _élite_.
+
+I have asked Mr. Chapman to come to me to-morrow, to arrange for the
+hiring of the theatre. Mr. Harley (a favourite English comedian whom you
+may know) is our secretary. And if I could assure the committee
+to-morrow afternoon of your co-operation, I am sure they would be
+overjoyed.
+
+                                                  _Votre tout dévoué._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 20th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I am heartily obliged to you for your kind letter respecting Miss
+Kelly's benefit. It is to take place _on Thursday, the 16th June_;
+Thursday the 9th (the day originally proposed) being the day of Ascot
+Races, and therefore a bad one for the purpose.
+
+Mitchell, like a brave _garçon_ as he is, most willingly consents to
+your acting for us. Will you think what little French piece it will be
+best to do, in order that I may have it ready for the bills?
+
+                               Ever faithfully yours, my dear Regnier.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  BOULOGNE, _Monday, June 13th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+You will be glad, I know, to hear that we had a delightful passage
+yesterday, and that I made a perfect phenomenon of a dinner. It is
+raining hard to-day, and my back feels the draught; but I am otherwise
+still mending.
+
+I have signed, sealed, and delivered a contract for a house (once
+occupied for two years by a man I knew in Switzerland), which is not a
+large one, but stands in the middle of a great garden, with what the
+landlord calls a "forest" at the back, and is now surrounded by flowers,
+vegetables, and all manner of growth. A queer, odd, French place, but
+extremely well supplied with all table and other conveniences, and
+strongly recommended.
+
+The address is:
+
+        Château des Moulineaux,
+        Rue Beaurepaire, Boulogne.
+
+There is a coach-house, stabling for half-a-dozen horses, and I don't
+know what.
+
+We take possession this afternoon, and I am now laying in a good stock
+of creature comforts. So no more at present from
+
+                                                Yours ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Mrs. Dickens and her sister unite in kindest regards.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      CHÂTEAU DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                    _Saturday Night, June 18th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                           "BLEAK HOUSE."
+
+Thank God, I have done half the number with great care, and hope to
+finish on Thursday or Friday next. O how thankful I feel to be able to
+have done it, and what a relief to get the number out!
+
+                 GENERAL MOVEMENTS OF INIMITABLE.
+
+_I don't think_ (I am not sure) I shall come to London until after the
+completion of "Bleak House," No. 18--the number after this now in
+hand--for it strikes me that I am better here at present. I have picked
+up in the most extraordinary manner, and I believe you would never
+suppose to look at me that I had had that week or barely an hour of it.
+If there should be any occasion for our meeting in the meantime, a run
+over here would do you no harm, and we should be delighted to see you at
+any time. If you suppose this place to be in a street, you are much
+mistaken. It is in the country, though not more than ten minutes' walk
+from the post-office, and is the best doll's-house of many rooms, in the
+prettiest French grounds, in the most charming situation I have ever
+seen; the best place I have ever lived in abroad, except at Genoa. You
+can scarcely imagine the beauty of the air in this richly-wooded
+hill-side. As to comforts in the house, there are all sorts of things,
+beginning with no end of the coldest water and running through the most
+beautiful flowers down to English foot-baths and a Parisian
+liqueur-stand. Your parcel (frantic enclosures and all) arrived quite
+safely last night. This will leave by steamer to-morrow, Sunday evening.
+There is a boat in the morning, but having no one to send to-night I
+can't reach it, and to-morrow being Sunday it will come to much the same
+thing.
+
+I think that's all at present.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+        CHÂTEAU DES MOULINEAUX, RUE BEAUREPAIRE, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Thursday, June 23rd, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR PUMPION,
+
+I take the earliest opportunity, after finishing my number--ahem!--to
+write you a line, and to report myself (thank God) brown, well, robust,
+vigorous, open to fight any man in England of my weight, and growing a
+moustache. Any person of undoubted pluck, in want of a customer, may
+hear of me at the bar of Bleak House, where my money is down.
+
+I think there is an abundance of places here that would suit you well
+enough; and Georgina is ready to launch on voyages of discovery and
+observation with you. But it is necessary that you should consider for
+how long a time you want it, as the folks here let much more
+advantageously for the tenant when they know the term--don't like to let
+without. It seems to me that the best thing you can do is to get a paper
+of the South Eastern tidal trains, fix your day for coming over here in
+five hours (when you will pay through to Boulogne at London Bridge), let
+me know the day, and come and see how you like the place. _I_ like it
+better than ever. We can give you a bed (two to spare, at a pinch
+three), and show you a garden and a view or so. The town is not so cheap
+as places farther off, but you get a great deal for your money, and by
+far the best wine at tenpence a bottle that I have ever drank anywhere.
+I really desire no better.
+
+I may mention for your guidance (for I count upon your coming to
+overhaul the general aspect of things), that you have nothing on earth
+to do with your luggage when it is once in the boat, _until after you
+have walked ashore_. That you will be filtered with the rest of the
+passengers through a hideous, whitewashed, quarantine-looking
+custom-house, where a stern man of a military aspect will demand your
+passport. That you will have nothing of the sort, but will produce your
+card with this addition: "Restant à Boulogne, chez M. Charles Dickens,
+Château des Moulineaux." That you will then be passed out at a little
+door, like one of the ill-starred prisoners on the bloody September
+night, into a yelling and shrieking crowd, cleaving the air with the
+names of the different hotels, exactly seven thousand six hundred and
+fifty-four in number. And that your heart will be on the point of
+sinking with dread, then you will find yourself in the arms of the
+Sparkler of Albion. All unite in kindest regards.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I thought you might like to see the flourish again.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                               BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, July 27th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have thought of another article to be called "Frauds upon the
+Fairies," _à propos_ of George Cruikshank's editing. Half playfully and
+half seriously, I mean to protest most strongly against alteration, for
+any purpose, of the beautiful little stories which are so tenderly and
+humanly useful to us in these times, when the world is too much with us,
+early and late; and then to re-write "Cinderella" according to Total
+Abstinence, Peace Society, and Bloomer principles, and expressly for
+their propagation.
+
+I shall want his book of "Hop o' my Thumb" (Forster noticed it in the
+last _Examiner_), and the most simple and popular version of
+"Cinderella" you can get me. I shall not be able to do it until after
+finishing "Bleak House," but I shall do it the more easily for having
+the books by me. So send them, if convenient, in your next parcel.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                   CHÂTEAU DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                            _Sunday, Aug. 24th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Some unaccountable delay in the transmission here of the parcel which
+contained your letter, caused me to come into the receipt of it a whole
+week after its date. I immediately wrote to Miss Coutts, who has written
+to you, and I hope some good may come of it. I know it will not be her
+fault if none does. I was very much concerned to read your account of
+poor Mrs. Warner, and to read her own plain and unaffected account of
+herself. Pray assure her of my cordial sympathy and remembrance, and of
+my earnest desire to do anything in my power to help to put her mind at
+ease.
+
+We are living in a beautiful little country place here, where I have
+been hard at work ever since I came, and am now (after an interval of a
+week's rest) going to work again to finish "Bleak House." Kate and
+Georgina send their kindest loves to you, and Miss Macready, and all the
+rest. They look forward, I assure you, to their Sherborne visit, when
+I--a mere forlorn wanderer--shall be roaming over the Alps into Italy. I
+saw "The Midsummer Night's Dream" of the Opéra Comique, done here (very
+well) last night. The way in which a poet named Willyim Shay Kes Peer
+gets drunk in company with Sir John Foll Stayffe, fights with a noble
+'night, Lor Latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of-honour you may have
+read of in history, called Mees Oleevia), and promises not to do so any
+more on observing symptoms of love for him in the Queen of England, is
+very remarkable. Queen Elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable
+disguise of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three broad,
+following him into taverns and worse places, and enquiring of persons of
+doubtful reputation for "the sublime Williams," was inexpressibly
+ridiculous. And yet the nonsense was done with a sense quite admirable.
+
+I have been very much struck by the book you sent me. It is one of the
+wisest, the manliest, and most serviceable I ever read. I am reading it
+again with the greatest pleasure and admiration.
+
+                          Ever most affectionately yours,
+                                                     My dear Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Saturday, Aug. 27th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I received your letter--most welcome and full of interest to me--when I
+was hard at work finishing "Bleak House." We are always talking of you;
+and I had said but the day before, that one of the first things I would
+do on my release would be to write to you. To finish the topic of "Bleak
+House" at once, I will only add that I like the conclusion very much
+and think it _very pretty indeed_. The story has taken extraordinarily,
+especially during the last five or six months, when its purpose has been
+gradually working itself out. It has retained its immense circulation
+from the first, beating dear old "Copperfield" by a round ten thousand
+or more. I have never had so many readers. We had a little reading of
+the final double number here the night before last, and it made a great
+impression I assure you.
+
+We are all extremely well, and like Boulogne very much indeed. I laid
+down the rule before we came, that we would know nobody here, and we
+_do_ know nobody here. We evaded callers as politely as we could, and
+gradually came to be understood and left to ourselves. It is a fine
+bracing air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of town
+and country. We live on a green hill-side out of the town, but are in
+the town (on foot) in ten minutes. Things are tolerably cheap, and
+exceedingly good; the people very cheerful, good-looking, and obliging;
+the houses very clean; the distance to London short, and easily
+traversed. I think if you came to know the place (which I never did
+myself until last October, often as I have been through it), you could
+be but in one mind about it.
+
+Charley is still at Leipzig. I shall take him up somewhere on the Rhine,
+to bring him home for Christmas, as I come back on my own little tour.
+He has been in the Hartz Mountains on a walking tour, and has written a
+journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. It has cost about
+as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies.
+
+I contemplate starting from here on Monday, the 10th of October;
+Catherine, Georgina, and the rest of them will then go home. I shall go
+first by Paris and Geneva to Lausanne, for it has a separate place in my
+memory. If the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a
+summer), I shall then go by Chamonix and Martigny, over the Simplon to
+Milan, thence to Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Naples, thence, I hope, to
+Sicily. Back by Bologna, Florence, Rome, Verona, Mantua, etc., to
+Venice, and home by Germany, arriving in good time for Christmas Day.
+Three nights in Christmas week, I have promised to read in the Town Hall
+at Birmingham, for the benefit of a new and admirable institution for
+working men projected there. The Friday will be the last night, and I
+shall read the "Carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that
+they shall have that night entirely to themselves.
+
+It just occurs to me that I mean to engage, for the two months odd, a
+travelling servant. I have not yet got one. If you should happen to be
+interested in any good foreigner, well acquainted with the countries and
+the languages, who would like such a master, how delighted I should be
+to like _him_!
+
+Ever since I have been here, I have been very hard at work, often
+getting up at daybreak to write through many hours. I have never had the
+least return of illness, thank God, though I was so altered (in a week)
+when I came here, that I doubt if you would have known me. I am redder
+and browner than ever at the present writing, with the addition of a
+rather formidable and fierce moustache. Lowestoft I know, by walking
+over there from Yarmouth, when I went down on an exploring expedition,
+previous to "Copperfield." It is a fine place. I saw the name
+"Blunderstone" on a direction-post between it and Yarmouth, and took it
+from the said direction-post for the book. We imagined the Captain's
+ecstasies when we saw the birth of his child in the papers. In some of
+the descriptions of Chesney Wold, I have taken many bits, chiefly about
+trees and shadows, from observations made at Rockingham. I wonder
+whether you have ever thought so! I shall hope to hear from you again
+soon, and shall not fail to write again before I go away. There seems to
+be nothing but "I" in this letter; but "I" know, my dear friend, that
+you will be more interested in that letter in the present connection,
+than in any other I could take from the alphabet.
+
+Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves, and more messages than
+this little sheet would hold. If I were to give you a hint of what we
+feel at the sight of your handwriting, and at the receipt of a word from
+yourself about yourself, and the dear boys, and the precious little
+girls, I should begin to be sorrowful, which is rather the tendency of
+my mind at the close of another long book. I heard from Cerjat two or
+three days since. Goff, by-the-bye, lived in this house two years.
+
+                Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                Yours, with true affection and regard.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+                    CHÂTEAU DES MOULINEAUX, RUE BEAUREPAIRE, BOULOGNE.
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+               A note--Cerberus-like--of three heads.
+
+First. I know you will be glad to hear that the manager is himself
+again. Vigorous, brown, energetic, muscular; the pride of Albion and the
+admiration of Gaul.
+
+Secondly. I told Wills when I left home, that I was quite pained to see
+the end of your excellent "Bowl of Punch" altered. I was unaffectedly
+touched and gratified by the heartiness of the original; and saw no
+earthly, celestial, or subterranean objection to its remaining, as it
+did not so unmistakably apply to me as to necessitate the observance of
+my usual precaution in the case of such references, by any means.
+
+Thirdly. If you ever have a holiday that you don't know what to do with,
+_do_ come and pass a little time here. We live in a charming garden in a
+very pleasant country, and should be delighted to receive you. Excellent
+light wines on the premises, French cookery, millions of roses, two cows
+(for milk punch), vegetables cut for the pot, and handed in at the
+kitchen window; five summer-houses, fifteen fountains (with no water in
+'em), and thirty-seven clocks (keeping, as I conceive, Australian time;
+having no reference whatever to the hours on this side of the globe).
+
+I know, my dear Cunningham, that the British nation can ill afford to
+lose you; and that when the Audit Office mice are away, the cats of that
+great public establishment will play. But pray consider that the bow may
+be sometimes bent too long, and that ever-arduous application, even in
+patriotic service, is to be avoided. No one can more highly estimate
+your devotion to the best interests of Britain than I. But I wish to see
+it tempered with a wise consideration for your own amusement,
+recreation, and pastime. All work and no play may make Peter a dull boy
+as well as Jack. And (if I may claim the privilege of friendship to
+remonstrate) I would say that you do not take enough time for your
+meals. Dinner, for instance, you habitually neglect. Believe me, this
+rustic repose will do you good. Winkles also are to be obtained in these
+parts, and it is well remarked by Poor Richard, that a bird in the
+handbook is worth two in the bush.
+
+                                                 Ever cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, _Sept. 8th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I am in town for a day or two, and Forster tells me I may now write to
+thank you for the happiness you have given me by honouring my name with
+such generous mention, on such a noble place, in your great book. I
+believe he has told you already that I wrote to him from Boulogne, not
+knowing what to do, as I had not received the precious volume, and
+feared you might have some plan of sending it to me, with which my
+premature writing would interfere.
+
+You know how heartily and inexpressibly I prize what you have written to
+me, or you never would have selected me for such a distinction. I could
+never thank you enough, my dear Landor, and I will not thank you in
+words any more. Believe me, I receive the dedication like a great
+dignity, the worth of which I hope I thoroughly know. The Queen could
+give me none in exchange that I wouldn't laughingly snap my fingers at.
+
+We are staying at Boulogne until the 10th of October, when I go into
+Italy until Christmas, and the rest come home.
+
+Kate and Georgina would send you their best loves if they were here, and
+would never leave off talking about it if I went back and told them I
+had written to you without such mention of them. Walter is a very good
+boy, and comes home from school with honourable commendation. He passed
+last Sunday in solitary confinement (in a bath-room) on bread and water,
+for terminating a dispute with the nurse by throwing a chair in her
+direction. It is the very first occasion of his ever having got into
+trouble, for he is a great favourite with the whole house, and one of
+the most amiable boys in the boy world. (He comes out on birthdays in a
+blaze of shirt-pin).
+
+If I go and look at your old house, as I shall if I go to Florence, I
+shall bring you back another leaf from the same tree as I plucked the
+last from.
+
+                         Ever, my dear Landor,
+                                    Heartily and affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Delane.]
+
+                    VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 12th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR DELANE,
+
+I am very much obliged to you, I assure you, for your frank and full
+reply to my note. Nothing could be more satisfactory, and I have to-day
+seen Mr. Gibson and placed my two small representatives under his
+charge. His manner is exactly what you describe him. I was greatly
+pleased with his genuineness altogether.
+
+We remain here until the tenth of next month, when I am going to desert
+my wife and family and run about Italy until Christmas. If I can execute
+any little commission for you or Mrs. Delane--in the Genoa street of
+silversmiths, or anywhere else--I shall be delighted to do so. I have
+been in the receipt of several letters from Macready lately, and
+rejoice to find him quite himself again, though I have great misgivings
+that he will lose his eldest boy before he can be got to India.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister are proud of your message, and beg their
+kind regards to be forwarded in return; my other half being particularly
+comforted and encouraged by your account of Mr. Gibson. In this charge I
+am to include Mrs. Delane, who, I hope, will make an exchange of
+remembrances, and give me hers for mine.
+
+I never saw anything so ridiculous as this place at present. They
+expected the Emperor ten or twelve days ago, and put up all manner of
+triumphal arches made of evergreens, which look like tea-leaves now, and
+will take a withered and weird appearance hardly to be foreseen, long
+before the twenty-fifth, when the visit is vaguely expected to come off.
+In addition to these faded garlands all over the leading streets, there
+are painted eagles hoisted over gateways and sprawling across a hundred
+ways, which have been washed out by the rain and are now being blistered
+by the sun, until they look horribly ludicrous. And a number of our
+benighted compatriots who came over to see a perfect blaze of _fêtes_,
+go wandering among these shrivelled preparations and staring at ten
+thousand flag-poles without any flags upon them, with a kind of
+indignant curiosity and personal injury quite irresistible. With many
+thanks,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                 BOULOGNE, _Sunday, Sept. 18th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                              COURIER.
+
+Edward Kaub will bring this. He turned up yesterday, accounting for his
+delay by waiting for a written recommendation, and having at the last
+moment (as a foreigner, not being an Englishman) a passport to get. I
+quite agree with you as to his appearance and manner, and have engaged
+him. It strikes me that it would be an excellent beginning if you would
+deliver him a neat and appropriate address, telling him what in your
+conscience you can find to tell of me favourably as a master, and
+particularly impressing upon him _readiness and punctuality_ on his part
+as the great things to be observed. I think it would have a much better
+effect than anything I could say in this stage, if said from yourself.
+But I shall be much obliged to you if you will act upon this hint
+forthwith.
+
+                            W. H. WILLS.
+
+No letter having arrived from the popular author of "The Larboard
+Fin,"[15] by this morning's post, I rather think one must be on the way
+in the pocket of Gordon's son. If Kaub calls for this before young
+Scotland arrives, you will understand if I do not herein refer to an
+unreceived letter. But I shall leave this open, until Kaub comes for it.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                 VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                        _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR LORD,
+
+Your note having been forwarded to me here, I cannot forbear thanking
+you with all my heart for your great kindness. Mr. Forster had
+previously sent me a copy of your letter to him, together with the
+expression of the high and lasting gratification he had in your handsome
+response. I know he feels it most sincerely.
+
+I became the prey of a perfect spasm of sensitive twinges, when I found
+that the close of "Bleak House" had not penetrated to "the wilds of the
+North" when your letter left those parts. I was so very much interested
+in it myself when I wrote it here last month, that I have a fond sort of
+faith in its interesting its readers. But for the hope that you may have
+got it by this time, I should refuse comfort. That supports me.
+
+The book has been a wonderful success. Its audience enormous.
+
+I fear there is not much chance of my being able to execute any little
+commission for Lady John anywhere in Italy. But I am going across the
+Alps, leaving here on the tenth of next month, and returning home to
+London for Christmas Day, and should indeed be happy if I could do her
+any dwarf service.
+
+You will be interested, I think, to hear that Poole lives happily on his
+pension, and lives within it. He is quite incapable of any mental
+exertion, and what he would have done without it I cannot imagine. I
+send it to him at Paris every quarter. It is something, even amid the
+estimation in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what
+shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully remembered
+as he, with the best reason, remembers you. Forgive my saying this. But
+the manner of that transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh
+in my memory in association with your name, and I cannot help it.
+
+                            My dear Lord,
+                                    Yours very faithfully and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                              BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+The courier was unfortunately engaged. He offered to recommend another,
+but I had several applicants, and begged Mr. Wills to hold a grand
+review at the "Household Words" office, and select the man who is to
+bring me down as his victim. I am extremely sorry the man you recommend
+was not to be had. I should have been so delighted to take him.
+
+I am finishing "The Child's History," and clearing the way through
+"Household Words," in general, before I go on my trip. I forget whether
+I told you that Mr. Egg the painter and Mr. Collins are going with me.
+The other day I was in town. In case you should not have heard of the
+condition of that deserted village, I think it worth mentioning. All the
+streets of any note were unpaved, mountains high, and all the omnibuses
+were sliding down alleys, and looking into the upper windows of small
+houses. At eleven o'clock one morning I was positively _alone_ in Bond
+Street. I went to one of my tailors, and he was at Brighton. A
+smutty-faced woman among some gorgeous regimentals, half finished, had
+not the least idea when he would be back. I went to another of my
+tailors, and he was in an upper room, with open windows and surrounded
+by mignonette boxes, playing the piano in the bosom of his family. I
+went to my hosier's, and two of the least presentable of "the young men"
+of that elegant establishment were playing at draughts in the back shop.
+(Likewise I beheld a porter-pot hastily concealed under a Turkish
+dressing-gown of a golden pattern.) I then went wandering about to look
+for some ingenious portmanteau, and near the corner of St. James's
+Street saw a solitary being sitting in a trunk-shop, absorbed in a book
+which, on a close inspection, I found to be "Bleak House." I thought
+this looked well, and went in. And he really was more interested in
+seeing me, when he knew who I was, than any face I had seen in any
+house, every house I knew being occupied by painters, including my own.
+I went to the Athenæum that same night, to get my dinner, and it was
+shut up for repairs. I went home late, and had forgotten the key and was
+locked out.
+
+Preparations were made here, about six weeks ago, to receive the
+Emperor, who is not come yet. Meanwhile our countrymen (deluded in the
+first excitement) go about staring at these arrangements, with a
+personal injury upon them which is most ridiculous. And they _will_
+persist in speaking an unknown tongue to the French people, who _will_
+speak English to them.
+
+Kate and Georgina send their kindest loves. We are all quite well. Going
+to drop two small boys here, at school with a former Eton tutor highly
+recommended to me. Charley was heard of a day or two ago. He says his
+professor "is very short-sighted, always in green spectacles, always
+drinking weak beer, always smoking a pipe, and always at work." The last
+qualification seems to appear to Charley the most astonishing one.
+
+                        Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 HOTEL DE LA VILLA, MILAN, _Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I have walked to that extent in Switzerland (walked over the Simplon on
+Sunday, as an addition to the other feats) that one pair of the new
+strong shoes has gone to be mended this morning, and the other is in but
+a poor way; the snow having played the mischief with them.
+
+On the Swiss side of the Simplon, we slept at the beastliest little
+town, in the wildest kind of house, where some fifty cats tumbled into
+the corridor outside our bedrooms all at once in the middle of the
+night--whether through the roof or not, I don't know; for it was dark
+when we got up--and made such a horrible and terrific noise that we
+started out of our beds in a panic. I strongly objected to opening the
+door lest they should get into the room and tear at us; but Edward
+opened his, and laid about him until he dispersed them. At Domo D'Ossola
+we had three immense bedrooms (Egg's bed twelve feet wide!), and a sala
+of imperceptible extent in the dim light of two candles and a wood fire;
+but were very well and very cheaply entertained. Here, we are, as you
+know, housed in the greatest comfort.
+
+We continue to get on very well together. We really do admirably. I lose
+no opportunity of inculcating the lesson that it is of no use to be out
+of temper in travelling, and it is very seldom wanted for any of us. Egg
+is an excellent fellow, and full of good qualities; I am sure a generous
+and staunch man at heart, and a good and honourable nature.
+
+I shall send Catherine from Genoa a list of the places where letters
+will find me. I shall hope to hear from you too, and shall be very glad
+indeed to do so. No more at present.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                   CROCE DI MALTA, GENOA, _Saturday, Oct. 29th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We had thirty-one hours consecutively on the road between this and
+Milan, and arrived here in a rather damaged condition. We live at the
+top of this immense house, overlooking the port and sea, pleasantly and
+airily enough, though it is no joke to get so high, and though the
+apartment is rather vast and faded.
+
+The old walks are pretty much the same as ever, except that they have
+built behind the Peschiere on the San Bartolomeo hill, and changed the
+whole town towards San Pietro d'Arena, where we seldom went. The Bisagno
+looks just the same, strong just now, and with very little water in it.
+Vicoli stink exactly as they used to, and are fragrant with the same old
+flavour of very rotten cheese kept in very hot blankets. The Mezzaro
+pervades them as before. The old Jesuit college in the Strada Nuova is
+under the present government the Hôtel de Ville, and a very splendid
+caffé with a terrace garden has arisen between it and Palavicini's old
+palace. Another new and handsome caffé has been built in the Piazza
+Carlo Felice, between the old caffé of the Bei Arti (where Fletcher
+stopped for the bouquets in the green times, when we went to the ----'s
+party), and the Strada Carlo Felice. The old beastly gate and guardhouse
+on the Albaro road are still in their dear old beastly state, and the
+whole of that road is just as it was. The man without legs is still in
+the Strada Nuova; but the beggars in general are all cleared off, and
+our old one-armed Belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two ago.
+I am going to the Peschiere to-day. The puppets are here, and the opera
+is open, but only with a buffo company, and without a buffet. We went to
+the Scala, where they did an opera of Verdi's, called "Il Trovatore,"
+and a poor enough ballet. The whole performance miserable indeed. I wish
+you were here to take some of the old walks. It is quite strange to walk
+about alone. Good-bye, my dear Georgy. Pray tell me how Kate is. I
+rather fancy from her letter, though I scarcely know why, that she is
+not quite as well as she was at Boulogne. I was charmed with your
+account of the Plornishghenter and everything and everybody else. Kiss
+them all for me.
+
+                                       Ever most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      HÔTEL DES ÉTRANGERS, NAPLES,
+                                       _Friday Night, Nov. 4th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+Instead of embarking on Monday at Genoa, we were delayed (in consequence
+of the boat's being a day later when there are thirty-one days in the
+month) until Tuesday. Going aboard that morning at half-past nine, we
+found the steamer more than full of passengers from Marseilles, and in a
+state of confusion not to be described. We could get no places at the
+table, got our dinners how we could on deck, had no berths or sleeping
+accommodation of any kind, and had paid heavy first-class fares! To add
+to this, we got to Leghorn too late to steam away again that night,
+getting the ship's papers examined first--as the authorities said so,
+not being favourable to the new express English ship, English
+officered--and we lay off the lighthouse all night long. The scene on
+board beggars description. Ladies on the tables, gentlemen under the
+tables, and ladies and gentlemen lying indiscriminately on the open
+deck, arrayed like spoons on a sideboard. No mattresses, no blankets,
+nothing. Towards midnight, attempts were made by means of an awning and
+flags to make this latter scene remotely approach an Australian
+encampment; and we three lay together on the bare planks covered with
+overcoats. We were all gradually dozing off when a perfectly tropical
+rain fell, and in a moment drowned the whole ship. The rest of the night
+was passed upon the stairs, with an immense jumble of men and women.
+When anybody came up for any purpose we all fell down; and when anybody
+came down we all fell up again. Still, the good-humour in the English
+part of the passengers was quite extraordinary. There were excellent
+officers aboard, and the first mate lent me his cabin to wash in in the
+morning, which I afterwards lent to Egg and Collins. Then we and the
+Emerson Tennents (who were aboard) and the captain, the doctor, and the
+second officer went off on a jaunt together to Pisa, as the ship was to
+lie at Leghorn all day.
+
+The captain was a capital fellow, but I led him, facetiously, such a
+life all day, that I got almost everything altered at night. Emerson
+Tennent, with the greatest kindness, turned his son out of his state
+room (who, indeed, volunteered to go in the most amiable manner), and I
+got a good bed there. The store-room down by the hold was opened for Egg
+and Collins, and they slept with the moist sugar, the cheese in cut, the
+spices, the cruets, the apples and pears--in a perfect chandler's shop;
+in company with what the ----'s would call a "hold gent"--who had been
+so horribly wet through overnight that his condition frightened the
+authorities--a cat, and the steward--who dozed in an arm-chair, and all
+night long fell headforemost, once in every five minutes, on Egg, who
+slept on the counter or dresser. Last night I had the steward's own
+cabin, opening on deck, all to myself. It had been previously occupied
+by some desolate lady, who went ashore at Civita Vecchia. There was
+little or no sea, thank Heaven, all the trip; but the rain was heavier
+than any I have ever seen, and the lightning very constant and vivid. We
+were, with the crew, some two hundred people; with boats, at the utmost
+stretch, for one hundred, perhaps. I could not help thinking what would
+happen if we met with any accident; the crew being chiefly Maltese, and
+evidently fellows who would cut off alone in the largest boat on the
+least alarm. The speed (it being the crack express ship for the India
+mail) very high; also the running through all the narrow rocky channels.
+Thank God, however, here we are. Though the more sensible and
+experienced part of the passengers agreed with me this morning that it
+was not a thing to try often. We had an excellent table after the first
+day, the best wines and so forth, and the captain and I swore eternal
+friendship. Ditto the first officer and the majority of the passengers.
+We got into the bay about seven this morning, but could not land until
+noon. We towed from Civita Vecchia the entire Greek navy, I believe,
+consisting of a little brig-of-war, with great guns, fitted as a
+steamer, but disabled by having burst the bottom of her boiler in her
+first run. She was just big enough to carry the captain and a crew of
+six or so, but the captain was so covered with buttons and gold that
+there never would have been room for him on board to put these valuables
+away if he hadn't worn them, which he consequently did, all night.
+
+Whenever anything was wanted to be done, as slackening the tow-rope or
+anything of that sort, our officers roared at this miserable potentate,
+in violent English, through a speaking-trumpet, of which he couldn't
+have understood a word under the most favourable circumstances, so he
+did all the wrong things first, and the right things always last. The
+absence of any knowledge of anything not English on the part of the
+officers and stewards was most ridiculous. I met an Italian gentleman on
+the cabin steps, yesterday morning, vainly endeavouring to explain that
+he wanted a cup of tea for his sick wife. And when we were coming out of
+the harbour at Genoa, and it was necessary to order away that boat of
+music you remember, the chief officer (called aft for the purpose, as
+"knowing something of Italian,") delivered himself in this explicit and
+clear manner to the principal performer: "Now, signora, if you don't
+sheer off, you'll be run down; so you had better trice up that guitar of
+yours, and put about."
+
+We get on as well as possible, and it is extremely pleasant and
+interesting, and I feel that the change is doing me great and real
+service, after a long continuous strain upon the mind; but I am pleased
+to think that we are at our farthest point, and I look forward with joy
+to coming home again, to my old room, and the old walks, and all the old
+pleasant things.
+
+I wish I had arranged, or could have done so--for it would not have been
+easy--to find some letters here. It is a blank to stay for five days in
+a place without any.
+
+I don't think Edward knows fifty Italian words; but much more French is
+spoken in Italy now than when we were here, and he stumbles along
+somehow.
+
+I am afraid this is a dull letter, for I am very tired. You must take
+the will for the deed, my dear, and good night.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                ROME, _Sunday Night, Nov. 13th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We arrived here yesterday afternoon, at between three and four. On
+sending to the post-office this morning, I received your pleasant little
+letter, and one from Miss Coutts, who is still at Paris. But to my
+amazement there was none from Catherine! You mention her writing, and I
+cannot but suppose that your two letters must have been posted together.
+However, I received none from her, and I have all manner of doubts
+respecting the plainness of its direction. They will not produce the
+letters here as at Genoa, but persist in looking them out at the
+post-office for you. I shall send again to-morrow, and every day until
+Friday, when we leave here. If I find no letter from her _to-morrow_, I
+shall write to her nevertheless by that post which brings this, so that
+you may both hear from me together.
+
+One night, at Naples, Edward came in, open-mouthed, to the table d'hôte
+where we were dining with the Tennents, to announce "The Marchese
+Garofalo." I at first thought it must be the little parrot-marquess who
+was once your escort from Genoa; but I found him to be a man (married to
+an Englishwoman) whom we used to meet at Ridgway's. He was very glad to
+see me, and I afterwards met him at dinner at Mr. Lowther's, our chargé
+d'affaires. Mr. Lowther was at the Rockingham play, and is a very
+agreeable fellow. We had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight,
+preparatory to which I was near having the ridiculous adventure of not
+being able to find the house and coming back dinnerless. I went in an
+open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman, to my
+surprise, pulled up at the end of the Chiaja. "Behold the house," says
+he, "of Il Signor Larthoor!"--at the same time pointing with his whip
+into the seventh heaven, where the early stars were shining. "But the
+Signor Larthoor," returns the Inimitable darling, "lives at Pausilippo."
+"It is true," says the coachman (still pointing to the evening star),
+"but he lives high up the Salita Sant' Antonio, where no carriage ever
+yet ascended, and that is the house" (evening star as aforesaid), "and
+one must go on foot. Behold the Salita Sant' Antonio!" I went up it, a
+mile and a half I should think. I got into the strangest places, among
+the wildest Neapolitans--kitchens, washing-places, archways, stables,
+vineyards--was baited by dogs, answered in profoundly unintelligible
+Neapolitan, from behind lonely locked doors, in cracked female voices,
+quaking with fear; could hear of no such Englishman or any Englishman.
+By-and-by I came upon a Polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old
+Frenchman, with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not
+rained for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in
+his hand. To him I appealed concerning the Signor Larthoor. "Sir," said
+he, with the sweetest politeness, "can you speak French?" "Sir," said I,
+"a little." "Sir," said he, "I presume the Signor Loothere"--you will
+observe that he changed the name according to the custom of his
+country--"is an Englishman." I admitted that he was the victim of
+circumstances and had that misfortune. "Sir," said he, "one word more.
+_Has_ he a servant with a wooden leg?" "Great Heaven, sir," said I, "how
+do I know! I should think not, but it is possible." "It is always," said
+the Frenchman, "possible. Almost all the things of the world are always
+possible." "Sir," said I--you may imagine my condition and dismal sense
+of my own absurdity, by this time--"that is true." He then took an
+immense pinch of snuff, wiped the dust off his umbrella, led me to an
+arch commanding a wonderful view of the bay of Naples, and pointed deep
+into the earth from which I had mounted. "Below there, near the lamp,
+one finds an Englishman, with a servant with a wooden leg. It is always
+possible that he is the Signor Loothere." I had been asked at six, and
+it was now getting on for seven. I went down again in a state of
+perspiration and misery not to be described, and without the faintest
+hope of finding the place. But as I was going down to the lamp, I saw
+the strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a
+white-waistcoat (evidently hired) standing on the top of it, fuming. I
+dashed in at a venture, found it was the place, made the most of the
+whole story, and was indescribably popular. The best of it was, that as
+nobody ever did find the place, he had put a servant at the bottom of
+the Salita, to "wait for an English gentleman." The servant (as he
+presently pleaded), deceived by the moustache, had allowed the English
+gentleman to pass unchallenged.
+
+The night before we left Naples we were at the San Carlo, where, with
+the Verdi rage of our old Genoa time, they were again doing the
+"Trovatore." It seemed rubbish on the whole to me, but was very fairly
+done. I think "La Tenco," the prima donna, will soon be a great hit in
+London. She is a very remarkable singer and a fine actress, to the best
+of my judgment on such premises. There seems to be no opera here, at
+present. There was a Festa in St. Peter's to-day, and the Pope passed to
+the Cathedral in state. We were all there.
+
+We leave here, please God, on Friday morning, and post to Florence in
+three days and a half. We came here by Vetturino. Upon the whole, the
+roadside inns are greatly improved since our time. Half-past three and
+half-past four have been, however, our usual times of rising on the
+road.
+
+I was in my old place at the Coliseum this morning, and it was as grand
+as ever. With that exception the ruined part of Rome--the real original
+Rome--looks smaller than my remembrance made it. It is the only place on
+which I have yet found that effect. We are in the old hotel.
+
+You are going to Bonchurch I suppose? will be there, perhaps, when this
+letter reaches you? I shall be pleased to think of you as at home again,
+and making the commodious family mansion look natural and home-like. I
+don't like to think of my room without anybody to peep into it now and
+then. Here is a world of travelling arrangements for me to settle, and
+here are Collins and Egg looking sideways at me with an occasional
+imploring glance as beseeching me to settle it. So I leave off.
+Good-night.
+
+                          Ever, my dearest Georgy,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+        HÔTEL DES ÎLES BRITANNIQUES, PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, ROME,
+                                            _Monday, Nov. 14th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+As I never made a good bargain in my life--except once, when, on going
+abroad, I let my house on excellent terms to an admirable tenant, who
+never paid anything--I sent Edward into the Casa Dies yesterday morning,
+while I invested the premises from the outside, and carefully surveyed
+them. It is a very clean, large, bright-looking house at the corner of
+the Via Gregoriana; not exactly in a part of Rome I should pick out for
+living in, and on what I should be disposed to call the wrong side of
+the street. However, this is not to the purpose. Signor Dies has no idea
+of letting an apartment for a short time--scouted the idea of a
+month--signified that he could not be brought to the contemplation of
+two months--was by no means clear that he could come down to the
+consideration of three. This of course settled the business speedily.
+
+This hotel is no longer kept by the Melloni I spoke of, but is even
+better kept than in his time, and is a very admirable house. I have
+engaged a small apartment for you to be ready on Thursday afternoon (at
+two piastres and a half--two-and-a-half per day--sitting-room and three
+bedrooms, one double-bedded and two not). If you would like to change to
+ours, which is a very good one, on Friday morning, you can of course do
+so. As our dining-room is large, and there is no table d'hôte here, I
+will order dinner in it for our united parties at six on Thursday. You
+will be able to decide how to arrange for the remainder of your stay,
+after being here and looking about you--two really necessary
+considerations in Rome.
+
+Pray make my kind regards to Lady Tennent, and Miss Tennent, and your
+good son, who became homeless for my sake. Mr. Egg and Mr. Collins
+desire to be also remembered.
+
+It has been beautiful weather since we left Naples, until to-day, when
+it rains in a very dogged, sullen, downcast, and determined manner. We
+have been speculating at breakfast on the possibility of its raining in
+a similar manner at Naples, and of your wandering about the hotel,
+refusing consolation.
+
+I grieve to report the Orvieto considerably damaged by the general vine
+failure, but still far from despicable. Montefiascone (the Est wine you
+know) is to be had here; and we have had one bottle in the very finest
+condition, and one in a second-rate state.
+
+The Coliseum, in its magnificent old decay, is as grand as ever; and
+with the electric telegraph darting through one of its ruined arches
+like a sunbeam and piercing direct through its cruel old heart, is even
+grander.
+
+                             Believe me always, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                                      ROME, _Monday, Nov. 14th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST CATHERINE,
+
+As I have mentioned in my letter to Georgy (written last night but
+posted with this), I received her letter without yours, to my unbounded
+astonishment. This morning, on sending again to the post-office, I at
+last got yours, and most welcome it is with all its contents.
+
+I found Layard at Naples, who went up Vesuvius with us, and was very
+merry and agreeable. He is travelling with Lord and Lady Somers, and
+Lord Somers being laid up with an attack of malaria fever, Layard had a
+day to spare. Craven, who was Lord Normanby's Secretary of Legation in
+Paris, now lives at Naples, and is married to a French lady. He is very
+hospitable and hearty, and seemed to have vague ideas that something
+might be done in a pretty little private theatre he has in his house. He
+told me of Fanny Kemble and the Sartoris's being here. I have also heard
+of Thackeray's being here--I don't know how truly. Lockhart is here,
+and, I fear, very ill. I mean to go and see him.
+
+We are living in the old hotel, which is not now kept by Meloni, who has
+retired. I don't know whether you recollect an apartment at the top of
+the house, to which we once ran up with poor Roche to see the horses
+start in the race at the Carnival time? That is ours, in which I at
+present write. We have a large back dining-room, a handsome front
+drawing-room, looking into the Piazza del Popolo, and three front
+bedrooms, all on a floor. The whole costs us about four shillings a day
+each. The hotel is better kept than ever. There is a little kitchen to
+each apartment where the dinner is kept hot. There is no house
+comparable to it in Paris, and it is better than Mivart's. We start for
+Florence, post, on Friday morning, and I am bargaining for a carriage to
+take us on to Venice.
+
+Edward is an excellent servant, and always cheerful and ready for his
+work. He knows no Italian, except the names of a few things, but French
+is far more widely known here now than in our time. Neither is he an
+experienced courier as to roads and so forth; but he picks up all that I
+want to know, here and there, somehow or other. I am perfectly pleased
+with him, and would rather have him than an older hand. Poor dear Roche
+comes back to my mind though, often.
+
+I have written to engage the courier from Turin into France, from
+_Tuesday, the 6th December_. This will bring us home some two days after
+the tenth, probably. I wrote to Charley from Naples, giving him his
+choice of meeting me at Lyons, in Paris, or at Boulogne. I gave him full
+instructions what to do if he arrived before me, and he will write to me
+at Turin saying where I shall find him. I shall be a day or so later
+than I supposed as the nearest calculation I could make when I wrote to
+him; but his waiting for me at an hotel will not matter.
+
+We have had delightful weather, with one day's exception, until to-day,
+when it rained very heavily and suddenly. Egg and Collins have gone to
+the Vatican, and I am "going" to try whether I can hit out anything for
+the Christmas number. Give my love to Forster, and tell him I won't
+write to him until I hear from him.
+
+I have not come across any English whom I know except Layard and the
+Emerson Tennents, who will be here on Thursday from Civita Vecchia, and
+are to dine with us. The losses up to this point have been two pairs of
+shoes (one mine and one Egg's), Collins's snuff-box, and Egg's
+dressing-gown.
+
+We observe the managerial punctuality in all our arrangements, and have
+not had any difference whatever.
+
+I have been reserving this side all through my letter, in the conviction
+that I had something else to tell you. If I had, I cannot remember what
+it is. I introduced myself to Salvatore at Vesuvius, and reminded him of
+the night when poor Le Gros fell down the mountains. He was full of
+interest directly, remembered the very hole, put on his gold-banded
+cap, and went up with us himself. He did not know that Le Gros was dead,
+and was very sorry to hear it. He asked after the ladies, and hoped they
+were very happy, to which I answered, "Very." The cone is completely
+changed since our visit, is not at all recognisable as the same place;
+and there is no fire from the mountain, though there is a great deal of
+smoke. Its last demonstration was in 1850.
+
+I shall be glad to think of your all being at home again, as I suppose
+you will be soon after the receipt of this. Will you see to the
+invitations for Christmas Day, and write to Lætitia? I shall be very
+happy to be at home again myself, and to embrace you; for of course I
+miss you _very much_, though I feel that I could not have done a better
+thing to clear my mind and freshen it up again, than make this
+expedition. If I find Charley much ahead of me, I shall start on through
+a night or so to meet him, and leave the others to catch us up. I look
+upon the journey as almost closed at Turin. My best love to Mamey, and
+Katey, and Sydney, and Harry, and the darling Plornishghenter. We often
+talk about them, and both my companions do so with interest. They always
+send all sorts of messages to you, which I never deliver. God bless you!
+Take care of yourself.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                          ROME, _Thursday Afternoon, Nov. 17th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Just as I wrote the last words of the enclosed little story for the
+Christmas number just now, Edward brought in your letter. Also one from
+Forster (tell him) which I have not yet opened. I will write again--and
+write to him--from Florence. I am delighted to have news of you.
+
+The enclosed little paper for the Christmas number is in a character
+that nobody else is likely to hit, and which is pretty sure to be
+considered pleasant. Let Forster have the MS. with the proof, and I know
+he will correct it to the minutest point. I have a notion of another
+little story, also for the Christmas number. If I can do it at Venice, I
+will, and send it straight on. But it is not easy to work under these
+circumstances. In travelling we generally get up about three; and in
+resting we are perpetually roaming about in all manner of places. Not to
+mention my being laid hold of by all manner of people.
+
+KEEP "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" IMAGINATIVE! is the solemn and continual
+Conductorial Injunction. Delighted to hear of Mrs. Gaskell's
+contributions.
+
+Yes by all manner of means to Lady Holland. Will you ask her whether she
+has Sydney Smith's letters to me, which I placed (at Mrs. Smith's
+request) either in Mrs. Smith's own hands or in Mrs. Austin's? I cannot
+remember which, but I think the latter.
+
+In making up the Christmas number, don't consider my paper or papers,
+with any reference saving to where they will fall best. I have no
+liking, in the case, for any particular place.
+
+All perfectly well. Companion moustaches (particularly Egg's) dismal in
+the extreme. Kindest regards to Mrs. Wills.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  FLORENCE, _Monday, Nov. 21st, 1853._
+
+                               H. W.
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I sent you by post from Rome, on Wednesday last, a little story for the
+Christmas number, called "The Schoolboy's Story." I have an idea of
+another short one, to be called "Nobody's Story," which I hope to be
+able to do at Venice, and to send you straight home before this month is
+out. I trust you have received the first safely.
+
+Edward continues to do extremely well. He is always, early and late,
+what you have seen him. He is a very steady fellow, a little too bashful
+for a courier even; settles prices of everything now, as soon as we come
+into an hotel; and improves fast. His knowledge of Italian is painfully
+defective, and, in the midst of a howling crowd at a post-house or
+railway station, this deficiency perfectly stuns him. I was obliged last
+night to get out of the carriage, and pluck him from a crowd of porters
+who were putting our baggage into wrong conveyances--by cursing and
+ordering about in all directions. I should think about ten substantives,
+the names of ten common objects, form his whole Italian stock. It
+matters very little at the hotels, where a great deal of French is
+spoken now; but, on the road, if none of his party knew Italian, it
+would be a very serious inconvenience indeed.
+
+Will you write to Ryland if you have not heard from him, and ask him
+what the Birmingham reading-nights are really to be? For it is
+ridiculous enough that I positively don't know. Can't a Saturday Night
+in a Truck District, or a Sunday Morning among the Ironworkers (a fine
+subject) be knocked out in the course of the same visit?
+
+If you should see any managing man you know in the Oriental and
+Peninsular Company, I wish you would very gravely mention to him from me
+that if they are not careful what they are about with their steamship
+_Valetta_, between Marseilles and Naples, they will suddenly find that
+they will receive a blow one fine day in _The Times_, which it will be
+a very hard matter for them ever to recover. When I sailed in her from
+Genoa, there had been taken on board, _with no caution in most cases
+from the agent, or hint of discomfort_, at least forty people of both
+sexes for whom there was no room whatever. I am a pretty old traveller
+as you know, but I never saw anything like the manner in which pretty
+women were compelled to lie among the men in the great cabin and on the
+bare decks. The good humour was beyond all praise, but the natural
+indignation very great; and I was repeatedly urged to stand up for the
+public in "Household Words," and to write a plain description of the
+facts to _The Times_. If I had done either, and merely mentioned that
+all these people paid heavy first-class fares, I will answer for it that
+they would have been beaten off the station in a couple of months. I did
+neither, because I was the best of friends with the captain and all the
+officers, and never saw such a fine set of men; so admirable in the
+discharge of their duty, and so zealous to do their best by everybody.
+It is impossible to praise them too highly. But there is a strong desire
+at all the ports along the coast to throw impediments in the way of the
+English service, and to favour the French and Italian boats. In those
+boats (which I know very well) great care is taken of the passengers,
+and the accommodation is very good. If the Peninsula and Oriental add to
+all this the risk of such an exposure as they are _certain_ to get (if
+they go on so) in _The Times_, they are dead sure to get a blow from the
+public which will make them stagger again. I say nothing of the number
+of the passengers and the room in the ship's boats, though the frightful
+consideration the contrast presented must have been in more minds than
+mine. I speak only of the taking people for whom there is no sort of
+accommodation as the most decided swindle, and the coolest, I ever did
+with my eyes behold.
+
+        Kindest regards from fellow-travellers.
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                VENICE, _Friday, November 25th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We found an English carriage from Padua at Florence, and hired it to
+bring it back again. We travelled post with four horses all the way
+(from Padua to this place there is a railroad) and travelled all night.
+We left Florence at half-past six in the morning, and got to Padua at
+eleven next day--yesterday. The cold at night was most intense. I don't
+think I have ever felt it colder. But our carriage was very comfortable,
+and we had some wine and some rum to keep us warm. We came by Bologna
+(where we had tea) and Ferrara. You may imagine the delays in the night
+when I tell you that each of our passports, after receiving _six visés_
+at Florence, received in the course of the one night, _nine more_, every
+one of which was written and sealed; somebody being slowly knocked out
+of bed to do it every time! It really was excruciating.
+
+Landor had sent me a letter to his son, and on the day before we left
+Florence I thought I would go out to Fiesoli and leave it. So I got a
+little one-horse open carriage and drove off alone. We were within half
+a mile of the Villa Landoro, and were driving down a very narrow lane
+like one of those at Albaro, when I saw an elderly lady coming towards
+us, very well dressed in silk of the Queen's blue, and walking freshly
+and briskly against the wind at a good round pace. It was a bright,
+cloudless, very cold day, and I thought she walked with great spirit, as
+if she enjoyed it. I also thought (perhaps that was having him in my
+mind) that her ruddy face was shaped like Landor's. All of a sudden the
+coachman pulls up, and looks enquiringly at me. "What's the matter?"
+says I. "Ecco la Signora Landoro?" says he. "For the love of Heaven,
+don't stop," says I. "_I_ don't know her, I am only going to the house
+to leave a letter--go on!" Meanwhile she (still coming on) looked at me,
+and I looked at her, and we were both a good deal confused, and so went
+our several ways. Altogether, I think it was as disconcerting a meeting
+as I ever took part in, and as odd a one. Under any other circumstances
+I should have introduced myself, but the separation made the
+circumstances so peculiar that "I didn't like."
+
+The Plornishghenter is evidently the greatest, noblest, finest,
+cleverest, brightest, and most brilliant of boys. Your account of him is
+most delightful, and I hope to find another letter from you somewhere on
+the road, making me informed of his demeanour on your return. On which
+occasion, as on every other, I have no doubt he will have distinguished
+himself as an irresistibly attracting, captivating May-Roon-Ti-Groon-Ter.
+Give him a good many kisses for me. I quite agree with Syd as to his
+ideas of paying attention to the old gentleman. It's not bad, but
+deficient in originality. The usual deficiency of an inferior intellect
+with so great a model before him. I am very curious to see whether the
+Plorn remembers me on my reappearance.
+
+I meant to have gone to work this morning, and to have tried a second
+little story for the Christmas number of "Household Words," but my
+letters have (most pleasantly) put me out, and I defer all such wise
+efforts until to-morrow. Egg and Collins are out in a gondola with a
+servitore di piazza.
+
+You will find this but a stupid letter, but I really have no news. We go
+to the opera, whenever there is one, see sights, eat and drink, sleep
+in a natural manner two or three nights, and move on again. Edward was a
+little crushed at Padua yesterday. He had been extraordinarily cold all
+night in the rumble, and had got out our clothes to dress, and I think
+must have been projecting a five or six hours' sleep, when I announced
+that he was to come on here in an hour and a half to get the rooms and
+order dinner. He fell into a sudden despondency of the profoundest kind,
+but was quite restored when we arrived here between eight and nine. We
+found him waiting at the Custom House with a gondola in his usual brisk
+condition.
+
+It is extraordinary how few English we see. With the exception of a
+gentlemanly young fellow (in a consumption I am afraid), married to the
+tiniest little girl, in a brown straw hat, and travelling with his
+sister and her sister, and a consumptive single lady, travelling with a
+maid and a Scotch terrier christened Trotty Veck, we have scarcely seen
+any, and have certainly spoken to none, since we left Switzerland. These
+were aboard the _Valetta_, where the captain and I indulged in all
+manner of insane suppositions concerning the straw hat--the "Little
+Matron" we called her; by which name she soon became known all over the
+ship. The day we entered Rome, and the moment we entered it, there was
+the Little Matron, alone with antiquity--and Murray--on the wall. The
+very first church I entered, there was the Little Matron. On the last
+afternoon, when I went alone to St. Peter's, there was the Little Matron
+and her party. The best of it is, that I was extremely intimate with
+them, invited them to Tavistock House, when they come home in the
+spring, and have not the faintest idea of their name.
+
+There was no table d'hôte at Rome, or at Florence, but there is one
+here, and we dine at it to-day, so perhaps we may stumble upon
+somebody. I have heard from Charley this morning, who appoints (wisely)
+Paris as our place of meeting. I had a letter from Coote, at Florence,
+informing me that his volume of "Household Songs" was ready, and
+requesting permission to dedicate it to me. Which of course I gave.
+
+I am beginning to think of the Birmingham readings. I suppose you won't
+object to be taken to hear them? This is the last place at which we
+shall make a stay of more than one day. We shall stay at Parma one, and
+at Turin one, supposing De la Rue to have been successful in taking
+places with the courier into France for the day on which we want them
+(he was to write to bankers at Turin to do it), and then we shall come
+hard and fast home. I feel almost there already, and shall be delighted
+to close the pleasant trip, and get back to my own Piccola Camera--if,
+being English, you understand what _that_ is. My best love and kisses to
+Mamey, Katey, Sydney, Harry, and the noble Plorn. Last, not least, to
+yourself, and many of them. I will not wait over to-morrow, tell Kate,
+for her letter; but will write then, whether or no.
+
+                            Ever, my dearest Georgy,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 19th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MARCUS,
+
+You made an excellent sketch from a book of mine which I have received
+(and have preserved) with great pleasure. Will you accept from me, in
+remembrance of it, _this_ little book? I believe it to be true, though
+it may be sometimes not as genteel as history has a habit of being.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[15] Meaning Mr. W. H. Wills himself.
+
+
+
+
+1854.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+The summer of this year was also spent at Boulogne, M. Beaucourt being
+again the landlord; but the house, though still on the same "property,"
+stood on the top of the hill, above the Moulineaux, and was called the
+Villa du Camp de Droite.
+
+In the early part of the year Charles Dickens paid several visits to the
+English provinces, giving readings from his books at many of the large
+manufacturing towns, and always for some good and charitable purpose.
+
+He was still at work upon "Hard Times," which was finished during the
+summer, and was constantly occupied with "Household Words." Many of our
+letters for this year are to the contributors to this journal. The last
+is an unusually interesting one. He had for some time past been much
+charmed with the writings of a certain Miss Berwick, who, he knew, to be
+a contributor under a feigned name. When at last the lady confided her
+real name, and he discovered in the young poetess the daughter of his
+dear friends, Mr.[16] and Mrs. Procter, the "new sensation" caused him
+intense surprise, and the greatest pleasure and delight. Miss Adelaide
+Procter was, from this time, a frequent contributor to "Household
+Words," more especially to the Christmas numbers.
+
+There are really very few letters in this year requiring any explanation
+from us--many explaining themselves, and many having allusion to
+incidents in the past year, which have been duly noted by us for 1853.
+
+The portrait mentioned in the letter to Mr. Collins, for which he was
+sitting to Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A., was to be one of a series of oil
+sketches of the then celebrated literary men of the day, in their
+studies. We believe this portrait to be now in the possession of Mrs.
+Ward.
+
+In explanation of the letter to Mr. John Saunders on the subject of the
+production of the latter's play, called "Love's Martyrdom," we will
+give the dramatist's own words:
+
+        "Having printed for private circulation a play
+        entitled 'Love's Martyrdom,' and for which I
+        desired to obtain the independent judgment of
+        some of our most eminent literary men, before
+        seeking the ordeal of the stage, I sent a copy
+        to Mr. Dickens, and the letter in question is
+        his acknowledgment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        "He immediately took steps for the introduction
+        of the play to the theatre. At first he
+        arranged with Mr. Phelps, of Sadler's Wells,
+        but subsequently, with that gentleman's
+        consent, removed it to the Haymarket. There it
+        was played with Miss Helen Faucit in the
+        character of Margaret, Miss Swanborough (who
+        shortly after married and left the stage) as
+        Julia, Mr. Barry Sullivan as Franklyn, and Mr.
+        Howe as Laneham.
+
+        "As far as the play itself was concerned, it
+        was received on all sides as a genuine dramatic
+        and poetic success, achieved, however, as an
+        eminent critic came to my box to say, through
+        greater difficulties than he had ever before
+        seen a dramatic work pass through. The time has
+        not come for me to speak freely of these, but I
+        may point to two of them: the first being the
+        inadequate rehearsals, which caused Mr. Dickens
+        to tell me on the stage, four or five days only
+        before the first performance, that the play was
+        not then in as good a state as it would have
+        been in at Paris three weeks earlier. The other
+        was the breakdown of the performer of a most
+        important secondary part; a collapse so
+        absolute that he was changed by the management
+        before the second representation of the piece."
+
+This ill-luck of the beginning, pursued the play to its close.
+
+        "The Haymarket Theatre was at the time in the
+        very lowest state of prostration, through the
+        Crimean War; the habitual frequenters were
+        lovers of comedy, and enjoyers of farce and
+        burlesque; and there was neither the money nor
+        the faith to call to the theatre by the usual
+        methods, vigorously and discriminatingly
+        pursued, the multitudes that I believed could
+        have been so called to a better and more
+        romantic class of comedy.
+
+        "Even under these and other, similarly
+        depressing circumstances, the nightly receipts
+        were about £60, the expenses being £80; and on
+        the last--an author's--night, there was an
+        excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to
+        the best of my recollection, about £140, but
+        certainly between £120 and £140. And with that
+        night--the sixth or seventh--the experiment
+        ended."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 7th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I heartily assure you that to have your name coupled with anything I
+have done is an honour and a pleasure to me. I cannot say that I am
+sorry that you should have thought it necessary to write to me, for it
+is always delightful to me to see your hand, and to know (though I want
+no outward and visible sign as an assurance of the fact) that you are
+ever the same generous, earnest, gallant man.
+
+Catherine and Georgina send their kind loves. So does Walter Landor, who
+came home from school with high judicial commendation and a prize into
+the bargain.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Landor, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, January 13th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+On the very day after I sent the Christmas number to Rockingham, I heard
+of your being at Brighton. I should have sent another there, but that I
+had a misgiving I might seem to be making too much of it. For, when I
+thought of the probability of the Rockingham copy going on to Brighton,
+and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes
+at once at Junction House at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty
+overcame me. I was heartily pleased with the Birmingham audience, which
+was a very fine one. I never saw, nor do I suppose anybody ever did,
+such an interesting sight as the working people's night. There were two
+thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant
+audience it is impossible to imagine. They lost nothing, misinterpreted
+nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most
+delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that I felt as if
+we were all bodily going up into the clouds together. It is an enormous
+place for the purpose; but I had considered all that carefully, and I
+believe made the most distant person hear as well as if I had been
+reading in my own room. I was a little doubtful before I began on the
+first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite
+effort; but I soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that
+we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all
+appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire.
+
+I am obliged to go out on Monday at five and to dine out; but I will be
+at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint. You say you
+are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and
+would dine with us alone on Tuesday, _that_ is the plan that we should
+all like best. Let me have one word from you by post on Monday morning.
+Few things that I saw, when I was away, took my fancy so much as the
+Electric Telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel
+old heart of the Coliseum at Rome. And on the summit of the Alps, among
+the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained
+against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters of great beams--to say
+nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the Channel.
+With kindest loves,
+
+                             Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                Most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, January 16th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+It is all very well to pretend to love me as you do. Ah! If you loved as
+_I_ love, Mary! But, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a
+letter as yours, Falkland, Falkland, madam, becomes my part in "The
+Rivals," and I play it with desperate earnestness.
+
+As thus:
+
+        FALKLAND (_to Acres_). Then you see her, sir,
+        sometimes?
+
+        ACRES. See her! Odds beams and sparkles, yes.
+        See her acting! Night after night.
+
+        FALKLAND (_aside and furious_). Death and the
+        devil! Acting, and I not there! Pray, sir
+        (_with constrained calmness_), what does she
+        act?
+
+        ACRES. Odds, monthly nurses and babbies! Sairey
+        Gamp and Betsey Prig, "which, wotever it is, my
+        dear (_mimicking_), I likes it brought reg'lar
+        and draw'd mild!" _That's_ very like her.
+
+        FALKLAND. Confusion! Laceration! Perhaps, sir,
+        perhaps she sometimes acts--ha! ha! perhaps she
+        sometimes acts, I say--eh! sir?--a--ha, ha, ha!
+        a fairy? (_With great bitterness._)
+
+        ACRES. Odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes!
+        You should hear her sing as a fairy. You should
+        see her dance as a fairy. Tol de rol
+        lol--la--lol--liddle diddle. (_Sings and
+        dances_). _That's_ very like her.
+
+        FALKLAND. Misery! while I, devoted to her
+        image, can scarcely write a line now and then,
+        or pensively read aloud to the people of
+        Birmingham. (_To him._) And they applaud her,
+        no doubt they applaud her, sir. And she--I see
+        her! Curtsies and smiles! And they--curses on
+        them! they laugh and--ha, ha, ha!--and clap
+        their hands--and say it's very good. Do they
+        not say it's very good, sir? Tell me. Do they
+        not?
+
+        ACRES. Odds, thunderings and pealings, of
+        course they do! and the third fiddler, little
+        Tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. Ho,
+        ho, ho, I can't bear it (_mimicking_); take me
+        out! Ha, ha, ha! O what a one she is! She'll be
+        the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha! _That's_ very
+        like her!
+
+        FALKLAND. Damnation! Heartless Mary! (_Rushes
+        out._)
+
+Scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up into form of
+letters, representing the following inscription:
+
+        When the praise thou meetest
+        To thine ear is sweetest,
+        O then
+                                     REMEMBER JOE!
+                   (_Curtain falls._)
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 16th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Guilty. The accused pleads guilty, but throws himself upon the mercy of
+the court. He humbly represents that his usual hour for getting up, in
+the course of his travels, was three o'clock in the morning, and his
+usual hour for going to bed, nine or ten the next night. That the places
+in which he chiefly deviated from these rules of hardship, were Rome and
+Venice; and that at those cities of fame he shut himself up in solitude,
+and wrote Christmas papers for the incomparable publication known as
+"Household Words." That his correspondence at all times, arising out of
+the business of the said "Household Words" alone, was very heavy. That
+his offence, though undoubtedly committed, was unavoidable, and that a
+nominal punishment will meet the justice of the case.
+
+We had only three bad days out of the whole time. After Naples, which
+was very hot, we had very cold, clear, bright weather. When we got to
+Chamounix, we found the greater part of the inns shut up and the people
+gone. No visitors whatsoever, and plenty of snow. These were the very
+best circumstances under which to see the place, and we stayed a couple
+of days at the Hôtel de Londres (hastily re-furbished for our
+entertainment), and climbed through the snow to the Mer de Glace, and
+thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we went, in mule procession (I walking) to
+the old hotel at Martigny, where Collins was ill, and I suppose I bored
+Egg to death by talking all the evening about the time when you and I
+were there together. Naples (a place always painful to me, in the
+intense degradation of the people) seems to have only three classes of
+inhabitants left in it--priests, soldiers (standing army one hundred
+thousand strong), and spies. Of macaroni we ate very considerable
+quantities everywhere; also, for the benefit of Italy, we took our share
+of every description of wine. At Naples I found Layard, the Nineveh
+traveller, who is a friend of mine and an admirable fellow; so we
+fraternised and went up Vesuvius together, and ate more macaroni and
+drank more wine. At Rome, the day after our arrival, they were making a
+saint at St. Peter's; on which occasion I was surprised to find what an
+immense number of pounds of wax candles it takes to make the regular,
+genuine article. From Turin to Paris, over the Mont Cenis, we made only
+one journey. The Rhone, being frozen and foggy, was not to be navigated,
+so we posted from Lyons to Chalons, and everybody else was doing the
+like, and there were no horses to be got, and we were stranded at
+midnight in amazing little cabarets, with nothing worth mentioning to
+eat in them, except the iron stove, which was rusty, and the
+billiard-table, which was musty. We left Turin on a Tuesday evening, and
+arrived in Paris on a Friday evening; where I found my son Charley,
+hot--or I should rather say cold--from Germany, with his arms and legs
+so grown out of his coat and trousers, that I was ashamed of him, and
+was reduced to the necessity of taking him, under cover of night, to a
+ready-made establishment in the Palais Royal, where they put him into
+balloon-waisted pantaloons, and increased my confusion. Leaving Calais
+on the evening of Sunday, the 10th of December; fact of distinguished
+author's being aboard, was telegraphed to Dover; thereupon authorities
+of Dover Railway detained train to London for distinguished author's
+arrival, rather to the exasperation of British public. D. A. arrived at
+home between ten and eleven that night, thank God, and found all well
+and happy.
+
+I think you see _The Times_, and if so, you will have seen a very
+graceful and good account of the Birmingham readings. It was the most
+remarkable thing that England could produce, I think, in the way of a
+vast intelligent assemblage; and the success was most wonderful and
+prodigious--perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether. They wound
+up by giving my wife a piece of plate, having given me one before; and
+when you come to dine here (may it be soon!) it shall be duly displayed
+in the centre of the table.
+
+Tell Mrs. Cerjat, to whom my love, and all our loves, that I have highly
+excited them at home here by giving them an account in detail of all
+your daughters; further, that the way in which Catherine and Georgina
+have questioned me and cross-questioned me about you all,
+notwithstanding, is maddening. Mrs. Watson has been obliged to pass her
+Christmas at Brighton alone with her younger children, in consequence of
+her two eldest boys coming home to Rockingham from school with the
+whooping-cough. The quarantine expires to-day, however; and she drives
+here, on her way back into Northamptonshire, to-morrow.
+
+The sad affair of the Preston strike remains unsettled; and I hear, on
+strong authority, that if that were settled, the Manchester people are
+prepared to strike next. Provisions very dear, but the people very
+temperate and quiet in general. So ends this jumble, which looks like
+the index to a chapter in a book, I find, when I read it over.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Cerjat, heartily your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 18th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I am quite delighted to find that you are so well satisfied, and that
+the enterprise has such a light upon it. I think I never was better
+pleased in my life than I was with my Birmingham friends.
+
+That principle of fair representation of all orders carefully carried
+out, I believe, will do more good than any of us can yet foresee. Does
+it not seem a strange thing to consider that I have never yet seen with
+these eyes of mine, a mechanic in any recognised position on the
+platform of a Mechanics' Institution?
+
+Mr. Wills may be expected to sink, shortly, under the ravages of letters
+from all parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, proposing readings. He
+keeps up his spirits, but I don't see how they are to carry him through.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and Miss Hogarth beg their kindest regards; and I am, my
+dear sir, with much regard, too,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 30th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+Indeed there is no fear of my thinking you the owner of a cold heart. I
+am more than three parts disposed, however, to be ferocious with you for
+ever writing down such a preposterous truism.
+
+My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing
+else--the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of
+this time--the men who, through long years to come, will do more to
+damage the real useful truths of political economy than I could do (if I
+tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average of
+cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a
+soldier in nankeens on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur,
+and who would comfort the labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to
+and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one
+inhabited place from another in the whole area of England, is not more
+than four miles. Bah! What have you to do with these?
+
+I shall put the book upon a private shelf (after reading it) by "Once
+upon a Time." I should have buried my pipe of peace and sent you this
+blast of my war-horn three or four days ago, but that I have been
+reading to a little audience of three thousand five hundred at Bradford.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, March 7th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I am tardy in answering your letter; but "Hard Times," and an immense
+amount of enforced correspondence, are my excuse. To you a sufficient
+one, I know.
+
+As I should judge from outward and visible appearances, I have exactly
+as much chance of seeing the Russian fleet reviewed by the Czar as I
+have of seeing the English fleet reviewed by the Queen.
+
+"Club Law" made me laugh very much when I went over it in the proof
+yesterday. It is most capitally done, and not (as I feared it might be)
+too directly. It is in the next number but one.
+
+Mrs. ---- has gone stark mad--and stark naked--on the spirit-rapping
+imposition. She was found t'other day in the street, clothed only in her
+chastity, a pocket-handkerchief and a visiting card. She had been
+informed, it appeared, by the spirits, that if she went out in that trim
+she would be invisible. She is now in a madhouse, and, I fear,
+hopelessly insane. One of the curious manifestations of her disorder is
+that she can bear nothing black. There is a terrific business to be
+done, even when they are obliged to put coals on her fire.
+
+---- has a thing called a Psycho-grapher, which writes at the dictation
+of spirits. It delivered itself, a few nights ago, of this
+extraordinarily lucid message:
+
+                               X. Y. Z!
+
+upon which it was gravely explained by the true believers that "the
+spirits were out of temper about something." Said ---- had a great party
+on Sunday, when it was rumoured "a count was going to raise the dead." I
+stayed till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for neither
+count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch. It is really
+inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can be run away with by
+such small deer.
+
+_À propos_ of spiritual messages comes in Georgina, and, hearing that I
+am writing to you, delivers the following enigma to be conveyed to Mrs.
+White:
+
+        "Wyon of the Mint lives _at_ the Mint."
+
+Feeling my brain going after this, I only trust it with loves from all
+to all.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 17th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+I have read the article with much interest. It is most conscientiously
+done, and presents a great mass of curious information condensed into a
+surprisingly small space.
+
+I have made a slight note or two here and there, with a soft pencil, so
+that a touch of indiarubber will make all blank again.
+
+And I earnestly entreat your attention to the point (I have been working
+upon it, weeks past, in "Hard Times") which I have jocosely suggested on
+the last page but one. The English are, so far as I know, the
+hardest-worked people on whom the sun shines. Be content if, in their
+wretched intervals of pleasure, they read for amusement and do no worse.
+They are born at the oar, and they live and die at it. Good God, what
+would we have of them!
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+        OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
+              NO. 16, WELLINGTON STREET, NORTH STRAND,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 12th, 1854._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I know all the walks for many and many miles round about Malvern, and
+delightful walks they are. I suppose you are already getting very stout,
+very red, very jovial (in a physical point of view) altogether.
+
+Mark and I walked to Dartford from Greenwich, last Monday, and found
+Mrs. ---- acting "The Stranger" (with a strolling company from the
+Standard Theatre) in Mr. Munn's schoolroom. The stage was a little wider
+than your table here, and its surface was composed of loose boards laid
+on the school forms. Dogs sniffed about it during the performances, and
+_the_ carpenter's highlows were ostentatiously taken off and displayed
+in the proscenium.
+
+We stayed until a quarter to ten, when we were obliged to fly to the
+railroad, but we sent the landlord of the hotel down with the following
+articles:
+
+        1 bottle superior old port,
+        1   do.    do.    golden sherry,
+        1   do.    do.    best French brandy,
+        1   do.    do.    1st quality old Tom gin,
+        1 bottle superior prime Jamaica rum,
+        1   do.    do.    small still _Isla_ whiskey,
+        1 kettle boiling water, two pounds finest white lump sugar,
+        Our cards,
+        1 lemon,
+                  and
+        Our compliments.
+
+The effect we had previously made upon the theatrical company by being
+beheld in the first two chairs--there was nearly a pound in the
+house--was altogether electrical.
+
+My ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed at your not
+saying that you drink two-and-twenty tumblers of the limpid element,
+every day. The children also unite in "loves," and the Plornishghenter,
+on being asked if he would send his, replies "Yes--man," which we
+understand to signify cordial acquiescence.
+
+Forster just come back from lecturing at Sherborne. Describes said
+lecture as "Blaze of Triumph."
+
+                              H. W. AGAIN.
+
+Miss--I mean Mrs.--Bell's story very nice. I have sent it to the
+printer, and entitled it "The Green Ring and the Gold Ring."
+
+This apartment looks desolate in your absence; but, O Heavens, how tidy!
+
+                                F. W.
+
+Mrs. Wills supposed to have gone into a convent at Somers Town.
+
+                                       My dear Wills,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday Night, April 15th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have read the "Fatal Revenge." Don't do what the minor theatrical
+people call "despi-ser" me, but I think it's very bad. The concluding
+narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business. Still,
+the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and
+are always knocking other people's bones about in such a very irrational
+way, that I object. The way in which earthquakes won't swallow the
+monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won't boil them, is extremely
+aggravating. Also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain
+anything.
+
+You have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that I
+am truly grateful. With the dust of "Maturin" in my eyes, I sat down and
+read "The Death of Friends," and the dust melted away in some of those
+tears it is good to shed. I remember to have read "The Backroom Window"
+some years ago, and I have associated it with you ever since. It is a
+most delightful paper. But the two volumes are all delightful, and I
+have put them on a shelf where you sit down with Charles Lamb again,
+with Talfourd's vindication of him hard by.
+
+We never meet. I hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange London
+I have an inclination to adapt a portion of the Church Service to our
+common experience. Thus:
+
+"We have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have
+met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no
+help in us."
+
+            But I am always, my dear Procter,
+                                      (At a distance),
+                                                 Very cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _April 21st, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I safely received the paper from Mr. Shaen, welcomed it with three
+cheers, and instantly despatched it to the printer, who has it in hand
+now.
+
+I have no intention of striking. The monstrous claims at domination made
+by a certain class of manufacturers, and the extent to which the way is
+made easy for working men to slide down into discontent under such
+hands, are within my scheme; but I am not going to strike, so don't be
+afraid of me. But I wish you would look at the story yourself, and judge
+where and how near I seem to be approaching what you have in your mind.
+The first two months of it will show that.
+
+I will "make my will" on the first favourable occasion. We were playing
+games last night, and were fearfully clever. With kind regards to Mr.
+Gaskell, always, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 30th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I can_not_ stand a total absence of ventilation, and I should have liked
+(in an amiable and persuasive manner) to have punched ----'s head, and
+opened the register stoves. I saw the supper tables, sir, in an empty
+state, and was charmed with them. Likewise I recovered myself from a
+swoon, occasioned by long contact with an unventilated man of a strong
+flavour from Copenhagen, by drinking an unknown species of celestial
+lemonade in that enchanted apartment.
+
+I am grieved to say that on Saturday I stand engaged to dine, at three
+weeks' notice, with one ----, a man who has read every book that ever
+was written, and is a perfect gulf of information. Before exploding a
+mine of knowledge he has a habit of closing one eye and wrinkling up his
+nose, so that he seems perpetually to be taking aim at you and knocking
+you over with a terrific charge. Then he looks again, and takes another
+aim. So you are always on your back, with your legs in the air.
+
+How can a man be conversed with, or walked with, in the county of
+Middlesex, when he is reviewing the Kentish Militia on the shores of
+Dover, or sailing, every day for three weeks, between Dover and Calais?
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--"Humphry Clinker" is certainly Smollett's best. I am rather
+divided between "Peregrine Pickle" and "Roderick Random," both
+extraordinarily good in their way, which is a way without tenderness;
+but you will have to read them both, and I send the first volume of
+"Peregrine" as the richer of the two.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 7th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+I cannot become one of the committee for Wilson's statue, after
+entertaining so strong an opinion against the expediency of such a
+memorial in poor dear Talfourd's case. But I will subscribe my three
+guineas, and will pay that sum to the account at Coutts's when I go
+there next week, before leaving town.
+
+"The Goldsmiths" admirably done throughout. It is a book I have long
+desired to see done, and never expected to see half so well done. Many
+thanks to you for it.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Please to observe the address at Boulogne: "Villa du Camp de
+Droite."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                 VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, _Thursday, June 22nd, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think I
+may as well report all well.
+
+We have a most charming place here. It beats the former residence all to
+nothing. We have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers,
+and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and
+everything that is airy and fresh. The great Beaucourt hovers about us
+like a guardian genius, and I imagine that no English person in a
+carriage could by any possibility find the place.
+
+Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain
+inimitable creature has made the most of it, I will say nothing, until
+you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. At present I will only
+observe that I have written exactly seventy-two words of "Hard Times,"
+since I have been here.
+
+The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat, in every stage
+and aspect of sea-sickness.
+
+The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say)
+sixty thousand soldiers. I don't imagine it to be near enough to bother
+us.
+
+If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to
+come over with the proofs on a Saturday, when the tide serves well,
+before you and Mrs. W. make your annual visit. Recollect there is always
+a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out.
+
+                                              Kind regards.
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+            VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                   _Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+Bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of "Hard Times" I beg to report this
+tenement--AMAZING!!! Range of view and air, most free and delightful;
+hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks
+already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of
+a "home" at rounders.
+
+I hope to finish and get to town by next Wednesday night, the 19th; what
+do you say to coming back with me on the following Tuesday? The interval
+I propose to pass in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded
+license in the metropolis. If you will come and breakfast with me about
+midnight--anywhere--any day, and go to bed no more until we fly to these
+pastoral retreats, I shall be delighted to have so vicious an associate.
+
+Will you undertake to let Ward know that if he still wishes me to sit to
+him, he shall have me as long as he likes, at Tavistock House, on
+Monday, the 24th, from ten A.M.?
+
+I have made it understood here that we shall want to be taken the
+greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on nourishing meats. Several
+new dishes have been rehearsed and have come out very well. I have met
+with what they call in the City "a parcel" of the celebrated 1846
+champagne. It is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good when
+weak.
+
+The camp is about a mile off. Voluptuous English authors reposing from
+their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other
+things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny,
+and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (About one hundred
+and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on Beaucourt
+since we have been here, and he has clinked glasses with them every one,
+and read a MS. book of his father's, on soldiers in general, to them
+all.)
+
+I shall be glad to hear what you say to these various proposals. I write
+with the Emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour
+floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible
+retreat. It is like being up in a balloon. Lionising Englishmen and
+Germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway
+up. Ha! ha! ha!
+
+Kindest regards from all. The Plornishghenter adds Mr. and Mrs. Goose's
+duty.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--The cobbler has been ill these many months, and unable to work;
+has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it cut three times a week. The
+little dog sits at the door so unhappy and anxious to help, that I every
+day expect to see him beginning a pair of top boots.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Saturday, July 22nd, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGINA,
+
+Neither you nor Catherine did justice to Collins's book.[17] I think it
+far away the cleverest novel I have ever seen written by a new hand. It
+is in some respects masterly. "Valentine Blyth" is as original, and as
+well done as anything can be. The scene where he shows his pictures is
+full of an admirable humour. Old Mat is admirably done. In short, I call
+it a very remarkable book, and have been very much surprised by its
+great merit.
+
+Tell Kate, with my love, that she will receive to-morrow in a little
+parcel, the complete proofs of "Hard Times." They will not be
+corrected, but she will find them pretty plain. I am just now going to
+put them up for her. I saw Grisi the night before last in "Lucrezia
+Borgia"--finer than ever. Last night I was drinking gin-slings till
+daylight, with Buckstone of all people, who saw me looking at the
+Spanish dancers, and insisted on being convivial. I have been in a blaze
+of dissipation altogether, and have succeeded (I think), in knocking the
+remembrance of my work out.
+
+Loves to all the darlings, from the Plornish-Maroon upward. London is
+far hotter than Naples.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                 VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Thursday, Aug. 17th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I sent your MS. off to Wills yesterday, with instructions to forward it
+to you without delay. I hope you will have received it before this
+notification comes to hand.
+
+The usual festivity of this place at present--which is the blessing of
+soldiers by the ten thousand--has just now been varied by the baptising
+of some new bells, lately hung up (to my sorrow and lunacy) in a
+neighbouring church. An English lady was godmother; and there was a
+procession afterwards, wherein an English gentleman carried "the relics"
+in a highly suspicious box, like a barrel organ; and innumerable English
+ladies in white gowns and bridal wreaths walked two and two, as if they
+had all gone to school again.
+
+At a review, on the same day, I was particularly struck by the
+commencement of the proceedings, and its singular contrast to the usual
+military operations in Hyde Park. Nothing would induce the general
+commanding in chief to begin, until chairs were brought for all the
+lady-spectators. And a detachment of about a hundred men deployed into
+all manner of farmhouses to find the chairs. Nobody seemed to lose any
+dignity by the transaction, either.
+
+            With kindest regards, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. William Harness.]
+
+                   VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Saturday, Aug. 19th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR HARNESS,
+
+Yes. The book came from me. I could not put a memorandum to that effect
+on the title-page, in consequence of my being here.
+
+I am heartily glad you like it. I know the piece you mention, but am far
+from being convinced by it. A great misgiving is upon me, that in many
+things (this thing among the rest) too many are martyrs to _our_
+complacency and satisfaction, and that we must give up something thereof
+for their poor sakes.
+
+My kindest regards to your sister, and my love (if I may send it) to
+another of your relations.
+
+                                        Always, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+               VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                         _Wednesday, Sept. 6th, 1854._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Any Saturday on which the tide serves your purpose (next Saturday
+excepted) will suit me for the flying visit you hint at; and we shall be
+delighted to see you. Although the camp is not above a mile from this
+gate, we never see or hear of it, unless we choose. If you could come
+here in dry weather you would find it as pretty, airy, and pleasant a
+situation as you ever saw. We illuminated the whole front of the house
+last night--eighteen windows--and an immense palace of light was seen
+sparkling on this hill-top for miles and miles away. I rushed to a
+distance to look at it, and never saw anything of the same kind half so
+pretty.
+
+The town[18] looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with
+streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday--the whole range
+of the cliff tops lined with troops, and the artillery matches in hand,
+all ready to fire the great guns the moment she made the harbour; the
+sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the Prince in a blazing
+uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to see--a stupendous
+silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as never was
+heard. It was almost as fine a sight as one could see under a deep blue
+sky. In our own proper illumination I laid on all the servants, all the
+children now at home, all the visitors (it is the annual "Household
+Words" time), one to every window, with everything ready to light up on
+the ringing of a big dinner-bell by your humble correspondent. St.
+Peter's on Easter Monday was the result.
+
+                                    Best love from all.
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                BOULOGNE, _Tuesday, Sept. 26th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+First, I have to report that I received your letter with much pleasure.
+
+Secondly, that the weather has entirely changed. It is so cool that we
+have not only a fire in the drawing-room regularly, but another to dine
+by. The delicious freshness of the air is charming, and it is generally
+bright and windy besides.
+
+Thirdly, that ----'s intellectual faculties appear to have developed
+suddenly. He has taken to borrowing money; from which I infer (as
+he has no intention whatever of repaying) that his mental powers are
+of a high order. Having got a franc from me, he fell upon Mrs. Dickens
+for five sous. She declining to enter into the transaction, he
+beleaguered that feeble little couple, Harry and Sydney, into paying
+two sous each for "tickets" to behold the ravishing spectacle of an
+utterly-non-existent-and-there-fore-impossible-to-be-produced toy
+theatre. He eats stony apples, and harbours designs upon his
+fellow-creatures until he has become light-headed. From the couch
+rendered uneasy by this disorder he has arisen with an excessively
+protuberant forehead, a dull slow eye, a complexion of a leaden hue, and
+a croaky voice. He has become a horror to me, and I resort to the most
+cowardly expedients to avoid meeting him. He, on the other hand, wanting
+another franc, dodges me round those trees at the corner, and at the
+back door; and I have a presentiment upon me that I shall fall a
+sacrifice to his cupidity at last.
+
+On the Sunday night after you left, or rather on the Monday morning at
+half-past one, Mary was taken _very ill_. English cholera. She was
+sinking so fast, and the sickness was so exceedingly alarming, that it
+evidently would not do to wait for Elliotson. I caused everything to be
+done that we had naturally often thought of, in a lonely house so full
+of children, and fell back upon the old remedy; though the difficulty of
+giving even it was rendered very great by the frightful sickness. Thank
+God, she recovered so favourably that by breakfast time she was fast
+asleep. She slept twenty-four hours, and has never had the least
+uneasiness since. I heard--of course afterwards--that she had had an
+attack of sickness two nights before. I think that long ride and those
+late dinners had been too much for her. Without them I am inclined to
+doubt whether she would have been ill.
+
+Last Sunday as ever was, the theatre took fire at half-past eleven in
+the forenoon. Being close by the English church, it showered hot sparks
+into that temple through the open windows. Whereupon the congregation
+shrieked and rose and tumbled out into the street; ---- benignly
+observing to the only ancient female who would listen to him, "I fear we
+must part;" and afterwards being beheld in the street--in his robes and
+with a kind of sacred wildness on him--handing ladies over the kennel
+into shops and other structures, where they had no business whatever, or
+the least desire to go. I got to the back of the theatre, where I could
+see in through some great doors that had been forced open, and whence
+the spectacle of the whole interior, burning like a red-hot cavern, was
+really very fine, even in the daylight. Meantime the soldiers were at
+work, "saving" the scenery by pitching it into the next street; and the
+poor little properties (one spinning-wheel, a feeble imitation of a
+water-mill, and a basketful of the dismalest artificial flowers very
+conspicuous) were being passed from hand to hand with the greatest
+excitement, as if they were rescued children or lovely women. In four or
+five hours the whole place was burnt down, except the outer walls. Never
+in my days did I behold such feeble endeavours in the way of
+extinguishment. On an average I should say it took ten minutes to throw
+half a gallon of water on the great roaring heap; and every time it was
+insulted in this way it gave a ferocious burst, and everybody ran off.
+Beaucourt has been going about for two days in a clean collar; which
+phenomenon evidently means something, but I don't know what. Elliotson
+reports that the great conjuror lives at his hotel, has extra wine every
+day, and fares expensively. Is he the devil?
+
+I have heard from the Kernel.[19] Wa'al, sir, sayin' as he minded to
+locate himself with us for a week, I expected to have heard from him
+again this morning, but have not. Beard comes to-morrow.
+
+Kindest regards and remembrances from all. Ward lives in a little street
+between the two Tintilleries. The Plornish-Maroon desires his duty. He
+had a fall yesterday, through overbalancing himself in kicking his
+nurse.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                                   BOULOGNE, _Friday, Oct. 13th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Having some little matters that rather press on my attention to see to
+in town, I have made up my mind to relinquish the walking project, and
+come straight home (by way of Folkestone) on Tuesday. I shall be due in
+town at midnight, and shall hope to see you next day, with the top of
+your coat-collar mended.
+
+Everything that happens here we suppose to be an announcement of the
+taking of Sebastopol. When a church-clock strikes, we think it is the
+joy-bell, and fly out of the house in a burst of nationality--to sneak
+in again. If they practise firing at the camp, we are sure it is the
+artillery celebrating the fall of the Russian, and we become
+enthusiastic in a moment. I live in constant readiness to illuminate the
+whole house. Whatever anybody says I believe; everybody says, every day,
+that Sebastopol is in flames. Sometimes the Commander-in-Chief has blown
+himself up, with seventy-five thousand men. Sometimes he has "cut" his
+way through Lord Raglan, and has fallen back on the advancing body of
+the Russians, one hundred and forty-two thousand strong, whom he is
+going to "bring up" (I don't know where from, or how, or when, or why)
+for the destruction of the Allies. All these things, in the words of the
+catechism, "I steadfastly believe," until I become a mere driveller, a
+moonstruck, babbling, staring, credulous, imbecile, greedy, gaping,
+wooden-headed, addle-brained, wool-gathering, dreary, vacant, obstinate
+civilian.
+
+                           Ever, my fellow-countryman, affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Saunders.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _October 26th, 1854._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt of your
+obliging communication. Allow me to thank you for it, in the first
+place, with great cordiality.
+
+Although I cannot say that I came without any prepossessions to the
+perusal of your play (for I had favourable inclinings towards it before
+I began), I _can_ say that I read it with the closest attention, and
+that it inspired me with a strong interest, and a genuine and high
+admiration. The parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of
+your task appear to me those in which you shine most. I would
+particularly instance the end of Julia as a very striking example of
+this. The delicacy and beauty of her redemption from her weak rash
+lover, are very far, indeed beyond the range of any ordinary dramatist,
+and display the true poetical strength.
+
+As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, and in seeing the child of your
+fancy on his stage, I will venture to point out to you not only what I
+take to be very dangerous portions of "Love's Martyrdom" as it stands,
+_for presentation on the stage_, but portions which I believe Mr. Phelps
+will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before him in the
+persons of live men and women on the wooden boards. Knowing him, I think
+he will be then as violently discouraged as he is now generously
+exalted; and it may be useful to you to be prepared for the
+consideration of those passages.
+
+I do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the play of modern
+times best known to an audience proceeds upon the main idea of this,
+namely, that there was a hunchback who, because of his deformity,
+mistrusted himself. But it is certainly a grain in the balance when the
+balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most
+carefully trimmed. The incident of the ring is an insignificant one to
+look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to convey to an audience,
+and the least thing will make it ludicrous. If it be so well done by Mr.
+Phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be
+disagreeable. If it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so,
+because you revert to it. The quarrel scene between the two brothers in
+the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and
+impetuosity--which can alone bear out Franklyn, before the bodily eyes
+of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own
+brother--is lost. That the two should be parted, and that Franklyn
+should again drive at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a
+state of things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong
+direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave
+unhappy. I would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by
+that picture, more than once. All the most sudden inconstancy of
+Clarence I would soften down. Margaret must act much better than any
+actress I have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places;
+therefore, I think she needs compression too.
+
+All this applies solely to the theatre. If you ever revise the sheets
+for readers, will you note in the margin the broken laughter and the
+appeals to the Deity? If, on summing them up, you find you want them
+all, I would leave them as they stand by all means. If not, I would blot
+accordingly.
+
+It is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by anticipating
+what I believe Mr. Phelps will discover--or what, if ever he should pass
+it, I have a strong conviction the audience will find out--that I have
+ventured on these few hints. Your concurrence with them generally, on
+reconsideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands, can not
+in the least affect my interest in your success. On the other hand, I
+have a perfect confidence in your not taking my misgivings ill; they
+arise out of my sincere desire for the triumph of your work.
+
+With renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me,
+
+                                     I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _November 1st, 1854._
+                                   (And a constitutionally foggy day.)
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I thought it better not to encumber the address to working men with
+details. Firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect
+the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning
+and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly
+understood; and thirdly, because the paper was meant as an opening to a
+persistent pressure of the whole question on the public, which would
+yield other opportunities of touching on such points.
+
+In the number _for next week_--not this--is one of those following-up
+articles called "A Home Question." It is not written by me, but is
+generally of my suggesting, and is exceedingly well done by a thorough
+and experienced hand. I think you will find in it, generally, what you
+want. I have told the printers to send you a proof by post as soon as it
+is corrected--that is to say, as soon as some insertions I made in it
+last night are in type and in their places.
+
+My dear old Parr, I don't believe a word you write about King John! That
+is to say, I don't believe you take into account the enormous difference
+between the energy summonable-up in your study at Sherborne and the
+energy that will fire up in you (without so much as saying "With your
+leave" or "By your leave") in the Town Hall at Birmingham. I know you,
+you ancient codger, I know you! Therefore I will trouble you to be so
+good as to do an act of honesty after you have been to Birmingham, and
+to write to me, "Ingenuous boy, you were correct. I find I could have
+read 'em 'King John' with the greatest ease."
+
+In that vast hall in the busy town of Sherborne, in which our
+illustrious English novelist is expected to read next month--though he
+is strongly of opinion that he is deficient in power, and too old--I
+wonder what accommodation there is for reading! because our illustrious
+countryman likes to stand at a desk breast-high, with plenty of room
+about him, a sloping top, and a ledge to keep his book from tumbling
+off. If such a thing should not be there, however, on his arrival, I
+suppose even a Sherborne carpenter could knock it up out of a deal
+board. _Is_ there a deal board in Sherborne though? I should like to
+hear Katey's opinion on that point.
+
+In this week's "Household Words" there is an exact portrait of our
+Boulogne landlord, which I hope you will like. I think of opening the
+next long book I write with a man of juvenile figure and strong face,
+who is always persuading himself that he is infirm. What do you think of
+the idea? I should like to have your opinion about it. I would make him
+an impetuous passionate sort of fellow, devilish grim upon occasion, and
+of an iron purpose. Droll, I fancy?
+
+---- is getting a little too fat, but appears to be troubled by the
+great responsibility of directing the whole war. He doesn't seem to be
+quite clear that he has got the ships into the exact order he intended,
+on the sea point of attack at Sebastopol. We went to the play last
+Saturday night with Stanfield, whose "high lights" (as Maclise calls
+those knobs of brightness on the top of his cheeks) were more radiant
+than ever. We talked of you, and I told Stanny how they are imitating
+his "Acis and Galatea" sea in "Pericles," at Phelps's. He didn't half
+like it; but I added, in nautical language, that it was merely a
+piratical effort achieved by a handful of porpoise-faced swabs, and that
+brought him up with a round turn, as we say at sea.
+
+We are looking forward to the twentieth of next month with great
+pleasure. All Tavistock House send love and kisses to all Sherborne
+House. If there is anything I can bring down for you, let me know in
+good course of time.
+
+                             Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, Nov. 1st, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I take upon myself to answer your letter to Catherine, as I am referred
+to in it.
+
+The "Walk" is not my writing. It is very well done by a close imitator.
+Why I found myself so "used up" after "Hard Times" I scarcely know,
+perhaps because I intended to do nothing in that way for a year, when
+the idea laid hold of me by the throat in a very violent manner, and
+because the compression and close condensation necessary for that
+disjointed form of publication gave me perpetual trouble. But I really
+was tired, which is a result so very incomprehensible that I can't
+forget it. I have passed an idle autumn in a beautiful situation, and am
+dreadfully brown and big. For further particulars of Boulogne, see "Our
+French Watering Place," in this present week of "Household Words," which
+contains a faithful portrait of our landlord there.
+
+If you carry out that bright Croydon idea, rely on our glad
+co-operation, only let me know all about it a few days beforehand; and
+if you feel equal to the contemplation of the moustache (which has been
+cut lately) it will give us the heartiest pleasure to come and meet you.
+This in spite of the terrific duffery of the Crystal Palace. It is a
+very remarkable thing in itself; but to have so very large a building
+continually crammed down one's throat, and to find it a new page in "The
+Whole Duty of Man" to go there, is a little more than even I (and you
+know how amiable I am) can endure.
+
+You always like to know what I am going to do, so I beg to announce that
+on the 19th of December I am going to read the "Carol" at Reading, where
+I undertook the presidency of the Literary Institution on the death of
+poor dear Talfourd. Then I am going on to Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, to
+do the like for another institution, which is one of the few remaining
+pleasures of Macready's life. Then I am coming home for Christmas Day.
+Then I believe I must go to Bradford, in Yorkshire, to read once more to
+a little fireside party of four thousand. Then I am coming home again
+to get up a new little version of "The Children in the Wood" (yet to be
+written, by-the-bye), for the children to act on Charley's birthday.
+
+I am full of mixed feeling about the war--admiration of our valiant men,
+burning desires to cut the Emperor of Russia's throat, and something
+like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the
+wrongs and sufferings of the people at home. When I consider the
+Patriotic Fund on the one hand, and on the other the poverty and
+wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which in London alone, an
+infinitely larger number of English people than are likely to be slain
+in the whole Russian war have miserably and needlessly died--I feel as
+if the world had been pushed back five hundred years. If you are reading
+new books just now, I think you will be interested with a controversy
+between Whewell and Brewster, on the question of the shining orbs about
+us being inhabited or no. Whewell's book is called, "On the Plurality of
+Worlds;" Brewster's, "More Worlds than One." I shouldn't wonder if you
+know all about them. They bring together a vast number of points of
+great interest in natural philosophy, and some very curious reasoning on
+both sides, and leave the matter pretty much where it was.
+
+We had a fine absurdity in connection with our luggage, when we left
+Boulogne. The barometer had within a few hours fallen about a foot, in
+honour of the occasion, and it was a tremendous night, blowing a gale of
+wind and raining a little deluge. The luggage (pretty heavy, as you may
+suppose), in a cart drawn by two horses, stuck fast in a rut in our
+field, and couldn't be moved. Our man, made a lunatic by the extremity
+of the occasion, ran down to the town to get two more horses to help it
+out, when he returned with those horses and carter B, the most beaming
+of men; carter A, who had been soaking all the time by the disabled
+vehicle, descried in carter B the acknowledged enemy of his existence,
+took his own two horses out, and walked off with them! After which, the
+whole set-out remained in the field all night, and we came to town,
+thirteen individuals, with one comb and a pocket-handkerchief. I was
+upside-down during the greater part of the passage.
+
+Dr. Rae's account of Franklin's unfortunate party is deeply interesting;
+but I think hasty in its acceptance of the details, particularly in the
+statement that they had eaten the dead bodies of their companions, which
+I don't believe. Franklin, on a former occasion, was almost starved to
+death, had gone through all the pains of that sad end, and lain down to
+die, and no such thought had presented itself to any of them. In famous
+cases of shipwreck, it is very rare indeed that any person of any
+humanising education or refinement resorts to this dreadful means of
+prolonging life. In open boats, the coarsest and commonest men of the
+shipwrecked party have done such things; but I don't remember more than
+one instance in which an officer had overcome the loathing that the idea
+had inspired. Dr. Rae talks about their _cooking_ these remains too. I
+should like to know where the fuel came from.
+
+         Kindest love and best regards.
+                      Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                      TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday Night, Nov. 3rd, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+First of all, here is enclosed a letter for Mrs. Stanfield, which, if
+you don't immediately and faithfully deliver, you will hear of in an
+unpleasant way from the station-house at the curve of the hill above
+you.
+
+Secondly, this is not to remind you that we meet at the Athenæum next
+Monday at five, because none but a mouldy swab as never broke biscuit or
+lay out on the for'sel-yard-arm in a gale of wind ever forgot an
+appointment with a messmate.
+
+But what I want you to think of at your leisure is this: when our dear
+old Macready was in town last, I saw it would give him so much interest
+and pleasure if I promised to go down and read my "Christmas Carol" to
+the little Sherborne Institution, which is now one of the few active
+objects he has in the life about him, that I came out with that promise
+in a bold--I may say a swaggering way. Consequently, on Wednesday, the
+20th of December, I am going down to see him, with Kate and Georgina,
+returning to town in good time for Christmas, on Saturday, the 23rd. Do
+you think you could manage to go and return with us? I really believe
+there is scarcely anything in the world that would give him such
+extraordinary pleasure as such a visit; and if you would empower me to
+send him an intimation that he may expect it, he will have a daily joy
+in looking forward to the time (I am seriously sure) which we--whose
+light has not gone out, and who are among our old dear pursuits and
+associations--can scarcely estimate.
+
+I don't like to broach the idea in a careless way, and so I propose it
+thus, and ask you to think of it.
+
+                                       Ever most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Procter.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 17th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MISS PROCTER,
+
+You have given me a new sensation. I did suppose that nothing in this
+singular world could surprise me, but you have done it.
+
+You will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and talent of your
+writing to be sincere. From the first, I have always had an especial
+interest in that Miss Berwick, and have over and over again questioned
+Wills about her. I suppose he has gone on gradually building up an
+imaginary structure of life and adventure for her, but he has given me
+the strangest information! Only yesterday week, when we were "making up"
+"The Poor Travellers," as I sat meditatively poking the office fire, I
+said to him, "Wills, have you got that Miss Berwick's proof back, of the
+little sailor's song?" "No," he said. "Well, but why not?" I asked him.
+"Why, you know," he answered, "as I have often told you before, she
+don't live at the place to which her letters are addressed, and so
+there's always difficulty and delay in communicating with her." "Do you
+know what age she is?" I said. Here he looked unfathomably profound, and
+returned, "Rather advanced in life." "You said she was a governess,
+didn't you?" said I; to which he replied in the most emphatic and
+positive manner, "A governess."
+
+He then came and stood in the corner of the hearth, with his back to the
+fire, and delivered himself like an oracle concerning you. He told me
+that early in life (conveying to me the impression of about a quarter of
+a century ago) you had had your feelings desperately wounded by some
+cause, real or imaginary--"It does not matter which," said I, with the
+greatest sagacity--and that you had then taken to writing verses. That
+you were of an unhappy temperament, but keenly sensitive to
+encouragement. That you wrote after the educational duties of the day
+were discharged. That you sometimes thought of never writing any more.
+That you had been away for some time "with your pupils." That your
+letters were of a mild and melancholy character, and that you did not
+seem to care as much as might be expected about money. All this time I
+sat poking the fire, with a wisdom upon me absolutely crushing; and
+finally I begged him to assure the lady that she might trust me with her
+real address, and that it would be better to have it now, as I hoped our
+further communications, etc. etc. etc. You must have felt enormously
+wicked last Tuesday, when I, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously
+prattling to you. But you have given me so much pleasure, and have made
+me shed so many tears, that I can only think of you now in association
+with the sentiment and grace of your verses.
+
+So pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of Richard Watts, though I
+am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion.[20]
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] The poet "Barry Cornwall."
+
+[17] "Hide and Seek."
+
+[18] On the occasion of the Prince Consort's visit to the camp at
+Boulogne.
+
+[19] Mr. Egg.
+
+[20] The inscription on the house in Rochester known as "Watts's
+Charity" is to the effect that it furnishes a night's lodging for six
+poor travellers--"not being Rogues or Proctors."
+
+
+
+
+1855.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens gave public readings at
+Reading, Sherborne, and Bradford in Yorkshire, to which reference is
+made in the first following letters. Besides this, he was fully occupied
+in getting up a play for his children, which was acted on the 6th
+January. Mr. Planché's fairy extravaganza of "Fortunio and his Seven
+Gifted Servants" was the play selected, the parts being filled by all
+his own children and some of their young friends, and Charles Dickens,
+Mr. Mark Lemon, and Mr. Wilkie Collins playing with them, the only
+grown-up members of the company. In February he made a short trip to
+Paris with Mr. Wilkie Collins, with an intention of going on to
+Bordeaux, which was abandoned on account of bad weather. Out of the
+success of the children's play at Tavistock House rose a scheme for a
+serious play at the same place. Mr. Collins undertaking to write a
+melodrama for the purpose, and Mr. Stanfield to paint scenery and
+drop-scene, Charles Dickens turned one of the rooms of the house into a
+very perfect little theatre, and in June "The Lighthouse" was acted for
+three nights, with "Mr. Nightingale's Diary" and "Animal Magnetism" as
+farces; the actors being himself and several members of the original
+amateur company, the actresses, his two daughters and his sister-in-law.
+Mr. Stanfield, after entering most heartily into the enterprise, and
+giving constant time and attention to the painting of his beautiful
+scenes, was unfortunately ill and unable to attend the first
+performance. We give a letter to him, reporting its great success.
+
+In this summer Charles Dickens made a speech at a great meeting at Drury
+Lane Theatre on the subject of "Administrative Reform," of which he
+writes to Mr. Macready. On this subject of "Administrative Reform," too,
+we give two letters to the great Nineveh traveller Mr. Layard (now Sir
+Austen H. Layard), for whom, as his letters show, he conceived at once
+the affectionate friendship which went on increasing from this time for
+the rest of his life. Mr. Layard also spoke at the Drury Lane meeting.
+
+Charles Dickens had made a promise to give another reading at Birmingham
+for the funds of the institute which still needed help; and in a letter
+to Mr. Arthur Ryland, asking him to fix a time for it, he gives the
+first idea of a selection from "David Copperfield," which was afterwards
+one of the most popular of his readings.
+
+He was at all times fond of making excursions for a day--or two or three
+days--to Rochester and its neighbourhood; and after one of these, this
+year, he writes to Mr. Wills that he has seen a "small freehold" to be
+sold, _opposite_ the house on which he had fixed his childish affections
+(and which he calls in _this_ letter the "Hermitage," its real name
+being "Gad's Hill Place"). The latter house was not, at that time, to be
+had, and he made some approach to negotiations as to the other "little
+freehold," which, however, did not come to anything. Later in the year,
+however, Mr. Wills, by an accident, discovered that Gad's Hill Place,
+the property of Miss Lynn, the well-known authoress, and a constant
+contributor to "Household Words," was itself for sale; and a negotiation
+for its purchase commenced, which was not, however, completed until the
+following spring.
+
+Later in the year, the performance of "The Lighthouse" was repeated, for
+a charitable purpose, at the Campden House theatre.
+
+This autumn was passed at Folkestone. Charles Dickens had decided upon
+spending the following winter in Paris, and the family proceeded there
+from Folkestone in October, making a halt at Boulogne; from whence his
+sister-in-law preceded the party to Paris, to secure lodgings, with the
+help of Lady Olliffe. He followed, to make his choice of apartments that
+had been found, and he writes to his wife and to Mr. Wills, giving a
+description of the Paris house. Here he began "Little Dorrit." In a
+letter to Mrs. Watson, from Folkestone, he gives her the name which he
+had first proposed for this story--"Nobody's Fault."
+
+During his absence from England, Mr. and Mrs. Hogarth occupied Tavistock
+House, and his eldest son, being now engaged in business, remained with
+them, coming to Paris only for Christmas. Three of his boys were at
+school at Boulogne at this time, and one, Walter Landor, at Wimbledon,
+studying for an Indian army appointment.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 3rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+When your Christmas letter did not arrive according to custom, I felt as
+if a bit of Christmas had fallen out and there was no supplying the
+piece. However, it was soon supplied by yourself, and the bowl became
+round and sound again.
+
+The Christmas number of "Household Words," I suppose, will reach
+Lausanne about midsummer. The first ten pages or so--all under the head
+of "The First Poor Traveller"--are written by me, and I hope you will
+find, in the story of the soldier which they contain, something that may
+move you a little. It moved me _not_ a little in the writing, and I
+believe has touched a vast number of people. We have sold eighty
+thousand of it.
+
+I am but newly come home from reading at Reading (where I succeeded poor
+Talfourd as the president of an institution), and at Sherborne, in
+Dorsetshire, and at Bradford, in Yorkshire. Wonderful audiences! and the
+number at the last place three thousand seven hundred. And yet but for
+the noise of their laughing and cheering, they "went" like one man.
+
+The absorption of the English mind in the war is, to me, a melancholy
+thing. Every other subject of popular solicitude and sympathy goes down
+before it. I fear I clearly see that for years to come domestic reforms
+are shaken to the root; every miserable red-tapist flourishes war over
+the head of every protester against his humbug; and everything connected
+with it is pushed to such an unreasonable extent, that, however kind and
+necessary it may be in itself, it becomes ridiculous. For all this it is
+an indubitable fact, I conceive, that Russia MUST BE stopped, and that
+the future peace of the world renders the war imperative upon us. The
+Duke of Newcastle lately addressed a private letter to the newspapers,
+entreating them to exercise a larger discretion in respect of the
+letters of "Our Own Correspondents," against which Lord Raglan protests
+as giving the Emperor of Russia information for nothing which would cost
+him (if indeed he could get it at all) fifty or a hundred thousand
+pounds a year. The communication has not been attended with much effect,
+so far as I can see. In the meantime I do suppose we have the
+wretchedest Ministry that ever was--in whom nobody not in office of some
+sort believes--yet whom there is nobody to displace. The strangest
+result, perhaps, of years of Reformed Parliaments that ever the general
+sagacity did _not_ foresee.
+
+Let me recommend you, as a brother-reader of high distinction, two
+comedies, both Goldsmith's--"She Stoops to Conquer" and "The
+Good-natured Man." Both are so admirable and so delightfully written
+that they read wonderfully. A friend of mine, Forster, who wrote "The
+Life of Goldsmith," was very ill a year or so ago, and begged me to read
+to him one night as he lay in bed, "something of Goldsmith's." I fell
+upon "She Stoops to Conquer," and we enjoyed it with that wonderful
+intensity, that I believe he began to get better in the first scene, and
+was all right again in the fifth act.
+
+I am charmed by your account of Haldimand, to whom my love. Tell him
+Sydney Smith's daughter has privately printed a life of her father with
+selections from his letters, which has great merit, and often presents
+him exactly as he used to be. I have strongly urged her to publish it,
+and I think she will do so, about March.
+
+My eldest boy has come home from Germany to learn a business life at
+Birmingham (I think), first of all. The whole nine are well and happy.
+Ditto, Mrs. Dickens. Ditto, Georgina. My two girls are full of interest
+in yours; and one of mine (as I think I told you when I was at Elysée)
+is curiously like one of yours in the face. They are all agog now about
+a great fairy play, which is to come off here next Monday. The house is
+full of spangles, gas, Jew theatrical tailors, and pantomime carpenters.
+We all unite in kindest and best loves to dear Mrs. Cerjat and all the
+blooming daughters. And I am, with frequent thoughts of you and cordial
+affection, ever, my dear Cerjat,
+
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 3rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+This is a word of heartfelt greeting; in exchange for yours, which came
+to me most pleasantly, and was received with a cordial welcome. If I had
+leisure to write a letter, I should write you, at this point, perhaps
+the very best letter that ever was read; but, being in the agonies of
+getting up a gorgeous fairy play for the postboys, on Charley's birthday
+(besides having the work of half-a-dozen to do as a regular thing), I
+leave the merits of the wonderful epistle to your lively fancy.
+
+Enclosing a kiss, if you will have the kindness to return it when done
+with.
+
+I have just been reading my "Christmas Carol" in Yorkshire. I should
+have lost my heart to the beautiful young landlady of my hotel (age
+twenty-nine, dress, black frock and jacket, exquisitely braided) if it
+had not been safe in your possession.
+
+Many, many happy years to you! My regards to that obstinate old
+Wurzell[21] and his dame, when you have them under lock and key again.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 27th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+Let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your story; not because it
+is the end of a task to which you had conceived a dislike (for I imagine
+you to have got the better of that delusion by this time), but because
+it is the vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious labour. It
+seems to me that you have felt the ground thoroughly firm under your
+feet, and have strided on with a force and purpose that MUST now give
+you pleasure.
+
+You will not, I hope, allow that not-lucid interval of dissatisfaction
+with yourself (and me?), which beset you for a minute or two once upon a
+time, to linger in the shape of any disagreeable association with
+"Household Words." I shall still look forward to the large sides of
+paper, and shall soon feel disappointed if they don't begin to reappear.
+
+I thought it best that Wills should write the business letter on the
+conclusion of the story, as that part of our communications had always
+previously rested with him. I trust you found it satisfactory? I refer
+to it, not as a matter of mere form, but because I sincerely wish
+everything between us to be beyond the possibility of misunderstanding
+or reservation.
+
+                             Dear Mrs. Gaskell, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 29th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+I have been in the greatest difficulty--which I am not yet out of--to
+know what to read at Birmingham. I fear the idea of next month is now
+impracticable. Which of two other months do you think would be
+preferable for your Birmingham objects? Next May, or next December?
+
+Having already read two Christmas books at Birmingham, I should like to
+get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of
+one of my long books. I have been poring over "Copperfield" (which is my
+favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called
+by some such name as "Young Housekeeping and Little Emily." But there is
+still the huge difficulty that I constructed the whole with immense
+pains, and have so woven it up and blended it together, that I cannot
+yet so separate the parts as to tell the story of David's married life
+with Dora, and the story of Mr. Peggotty's search for his niece, within
+the time. This is my object. If I could possibly bring it to bear, it
+would make a very attractive reading, with, a strong interest in it, and
+a certain completeness.
+
+This is exactly the state of the case. I don't mind confiding to you,
+that I never can approach the book with perfect composure (it had such
+perfect possession of me when I wrote it), and that I no sooner begin to
+try to get it into this form, than I begin to read it all, and to feel
+that I cannot disturb it. I have not been unmindful of the agreement we
+made at parting, and I have sat staring at the backs of my books for an
+inspiration. This project is the only one that I have constantly
+reverted to, and yet I have made no progress in it!
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, _Saturday Evening, Feb. 3rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I am coming to Paris for a week, with my friend Collins--son of the
+English painter who painted our green lanes and our cottage children so
+beautifully. Do not tell this to Le Vieux. Unless I have the ill fortune
+to stumble against him in the street I shall not make my arrival known
+to him.
+
+I purpose leaving here on Sunday, the 11th, but I shall stay that night
+at Boulogne to see two of my little boys who are at school there. We
+shall come to Paris on Monday, the 12th, arriving there in the evening.
+
+Now, _mon cher_, do you think you can, without inconvenience, engage me
+for a week an apartment--cheerful, light, and wholesome--containing a
+comfortable _salon et deux chambres à coucher_. I do not care whether it
+is an hotel or not, but the reason why I do not write for an apartment
+to the Hôtel Brighton is, that there they expect one to dine at home (I
+mean in the apartment) generally; whereas, as we are coming to Paris
+expressly to be always looking about us, we want to dine wherever we
+like every day. Consequently, what we want to find is a good apartment,
+where we can have our breakfast but where we shall never dine.
+
+Can you engage such accommodation for me? If you can, I shall feel very
+much obliged to you. If the apartment should happen to contain a little
+bed for a servant I might perhaps bring one, but I do not care about
+that at all. I want it to be pleasant and gay, and to throw myself _en
+garçon_ on the festive _diableries de Paris_.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister send their kindest regards to Madame Regnier
+and you, in which I heartily join. All the children send their loves to
+the two brave boys and the Normandy _bonnes_.
+
+I shall hope for a short answer from you one day next week. My dear
+Regnier,
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, Feb. 9th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I want to alter the arrangements for to-morrow, and put you to some
+inconvenience.
+
+When I was at Gravesend t'other day, I saw, at Gad's Hill--just opposite
+to the Hermitage, where Miss Lynn used to live--a little freehold to be
+sold. The spot and the very house are literally "a dream of my
+childhood," and I should like to look at it before I go to Paris. With
+that purpose I must go to Strood by the North Kent, at a quarter-past
+ten to-morrow morning, and I want you, strongly booted, to go with me!
+(I know the particulars from the agent.)
+
+Can you? Let me know. If you can, can you manage so that we can take the
+proofs with us? If you can't, will you bring them to Tavistock House at
+dinner time to-morrow, half-past five? Forster will dine with us, but no
+one else.
+
+I am uncertain of your being in town to-night, but I send John up with
+this.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      HÔTEL MEURICE, PARIS, _Friday, Feb. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I heard from home last night; but the posts are so delayed and put out
+by the snow, that they come in at all sorts of times except the right
+times, and utterly defy all calculation. Will you tell Catherine with my
+love, that I will write to her again to-morrow afternoon; I hope she may
+then receive my letter by Monday morning, and in it I purpose telling
+her when I may be expected home. The weather is so severe and the roads
+are so bad, that the journey to and from Bordeaux seems out of the
+question. We have made up our minds to abandon it for the present, and
+to return about Tuesday night or Wednesday. Collins continues in a queer
+state, but is perfectly cheerful under the stoppage of his wine and
+other afflictions.
+
+We have a beautiful apartment, very elegantly furnished, very thickly
+carpeted, and as warm as any apartment in Paris _can_ be in such
+weather. We are very well waited on and looked after. We breakfast at
+ten, read and write till two, and then I go out walking all over Paris,
+while the invalid sits by the fire or is deposited in a café. We dine at
+five, in a different restaurant every day, and at seven or so go to the
+theatre--sometimes to two theatres, sometimes to three. We get home
+about twelve, light the fire, and drink lemonade, to which _I_ add rum.
+We go to bed between one and two. I live in peace, like an elderly
+gentleman, and regard myself as in a negative state of virtue and
+respectability.
+
+The theatres are not particularly good, but I have seen Lemaître act in
+the most wonderful and astounding manner. I am afraid we must go to the
+Opéra Comique on Sunday. To-morrow we dine with Regnier and to-day with
+the Olliffes.
+
+"La Joie fait Peur," at the Français, delighted me. Exquisitely played
+and beautifully imagined altogether. Last night we went to the Porte St.
+Martin to see a piece (English subject) called "Jane Osborne," which the
+characters pronounce "Ja Nosbornnne." The seducer was Lord Nottingham.
+The comic Englishwoman's name (she kept lodgings and was a very bad
+character) was Missees Christmas. She had begun to get into great
+difficulties with a gentleman of the name of Meestair Cornhill, when we
+were obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, by the intolerable
+stench of the place. The whole theatre must be standing over some vast
+cesspool. It was so alarming that I instantly rushed into a café and had
+brandy.
+
+My ear has gradually become so accustomed to French, that I understand
+the people at the theatres (for the first time) with perfect ease and
+satisfaction. I walked about with Regnier for an hour and a half
+yesterday, and received many compliments on my angelic manner of
+speaking the celestial language. There is a winter Franconi's now, high
+up on the Boulevards, just like the round theatre on the Champs Elysées,
+and as bright and beautiful. A clown from Astley's is all in high favour
+there at present. He talks slang English (being evidently an idiot), as
+if he felt a perfect confidence that everybody understands him. His
+name is Boswell, and the whole cirque rang last night with cries for Boz
+Zwilllll! Boz Zweellll! Boz Zwuallll! etc. etc. etc. etc.
+
+I must begin to look out for the box of bon-bons for the noble and
+fascinating Plornish-Maroon. Give him my love and a thousand kisses.
+
+Loves to Mamey, Katey, Sydney, Harry, and the following stab to
+Anne--she forgot to pack me any shaving soap.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Georgy, most affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Collins sends kind regards.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      HÔTEL MEURICE, PARIS, _Friday, Feb. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I received your letter yesterday evening. I have not yet seen the lists
+of trains and boats, but propose arranging to return about Tuesday or
+Wednesday. In the meantime I am living like Gil Blas and doing nothing.
+I am very much obliged to you, indeed, for the trouble you have kindly
+taken about the little freehold. It is clear to me that its merits
+resolve themselves into the view and the spot. If I had more money these
+considerations might, with me, overtop all others. But, as it is, I
+consider the matter quite disposed of, finally settled in the negative,
+and to be thought no more about. I shall not go down and look at it, as
+I could add nothing to your report.
+
+Paris is finer than ever, and I go wandering about it all day. We dine
+at all manner of places, and go to two or three theatres in the evening.
+I suppose, as an old farmer said of Scott, I am "makin' mysel'" all the
+time; but I seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior
+vagabond.
+
+I live in continual terror of ----, and am strongly fortified within
+doors, with a means of retreat into my bedroom always ready. Up to the
+present blessed moment, his staggering form has not appeared.
+
+As to yesterday's post from England, I have not, at the present moment,
+the slightest idea where it may be. It is under the snow somewhere, I
+suppose; but nobody expects it, and _Galignani_ reprints every morning
+leaders from _The Times_ of about a fortnight or three weeks old.
+
+Collins, who is not very well, sends his "penitent regards," and says he
+is enjoying himself as much as a man with the weight of a broken promise
+on his conscience can.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _February 26th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+Charley came home, I assure you, perfectly delighted with his visit to
+you, and rapturous in his accounts of your great kindness to him.
+
+It appears to me that the first question in reference to my reading (I
+have not advanced an inch in my "Copperfield" trials by-the-bye) is,
+whether you think you could devise any plan in connection with the room
+at Dee's, which would certainly bring my help in money up to five
+hundred pounds. That is what I want. If it could be done by a
+subscription for two nights, for instance, I would not be chary of my
+time and trouble. But if you cannot see your way clearly to that result
+in that connection, then I think it would be better to wait until we can
+have the Town Hall at Christmas. I have promised to read, about
+Christmas time, at Sheffield and at Peterboro'. I _could_ add Birmingham
+to the list, then, if need were. But what I want is, to give the
+institution in all five hundred pounds. That is my object, and nothing
+less will satisfy me.
+
+Will you think it over, taking counsel with whomsoever you please, and
+let me know what conclusion you arrive at. Only think of me as
+subservient to the institution.
+
+                     My dear Mr. Ryland, always very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _February 28th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR DAVID ROBERTS,
+
+I hope to make it quite plain to you, in a few words, why I think it
+right to stay away from the Lord Mayor's dinner to the club. If I did
+not feel a kind of rectitude involved in my non-acceptance of his
+invitation, your note would immediately induce me to change my mind.
+
+Entertaining a strong opinion on the subject of the City Corporation as
+it stands, and the absurdity of its pretensions in an age perfectly
+different, in all conceivable respects, from that to which it properly
+belonged as a reality, I have expressed that opinion on more than one
+occasion, within a year or so, in "Household Words." I do not think it
+consistent with my respect for myself, or for the art I profess, to blow
+hot and cold in the same breath; and to laugh at the institution in
+print, and accept the hospitality of its representative while the ink is
+staring us all in the face. There is a great deal too much of this among
+us, and it does not elevate the earnestness or delicacy of literature.
+
+This is my sole consideration. Personally I have always met the present
+Lord Mayor on the most agreeable terms, and I think him an excellent
+one. As between you, and me, and him, I cannot have the slightest
+objection to your telling him the truth. On a more private occasion,
+when he was not keeping his state, I should be delighted to interchange
+any courtesy with that honourable and amiable gentleman, Mr. Moon.
+
+                                    Believe me always cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Austen H. Layard.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday Evening, April 3rd, 1855._
+
+DEAR LAYARD,
+
+Since I had the pleasure of seeing you again at Miss Coutts's (really a
+greater pleasure to me than I could easily tell you), I have thought a
+good deal of the duty we all owe you of helping you as much as we can.
+Being on very intimate terms with Lemon, the editor of "Punch" (a most
+affectionate and true-hearted fellow), I mentioned to him in confidence
+what I had at heart. You will find yourself the subject of their next
+large cut, and of some lines in an earnest spirit. He again suggested
+the point to Mr. Shirley Brookes, one of their regular corps, who will
+do what is right in _The Illustrated London News_ and _The Weekly
+Chronicle_, papers that go into the hands of large numbers of people. I
+have also communicated with Jerrold, whom I trust, and have begged him
+not to be diverted from the straight path of help to the most useful man
+in England on all possible occasions. Forster I will speak to carefully,
+and I have no doubt it will quicken him a little; not that we have
+anything to complain of in his direction. If you ever see any new
+loophole, cranny, needle's-eye, through which I can present your case to
+"Household Words," I most earnestly entreat you, as your staunch friend
+and admirer--you _can_ have no truer--to indicate it to me at any time
+or season, and to count upon my being Damascus steel to the core.
+
+All this is nothing; because all these men, and thousands of others,
+dote upon you. But I know it would be a comfort to me, in your
+hard-fighting place, to be assured of such sympathy, and therefore only
+I write.
+
+You have other recreations for your Sundays in the session, I daresay,
+than to come here. But it is generally a day on which I do not go out,
+and when we dine at half-past five in the easiest way in the world, and
+smoke in the peacefulest manner. Perhaps one of these Sundays after
+Easter you might not be indisposed to begin to dig us out?
+
+And I should like, on a Saturday of your appointing, to get a few of the
+serviceable men I know--such as I have mentioned--about you here. Will
+you think of this, too, and suggest a Saturday for our dining together?
+
+I am really ashamed and moved that you should do your part so manfully
+and be left alone in the conflict. I felt you to be all you are the
+first moment I saw you. I know you will accept my regard and fidelity
+for what they are worth.
+
+                                     Dear Layard, very heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Austen H. Layard.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, April 10th, 1855._
+
+DEAR LAYARD,
+
+I shall of course observe the strictest silence, at present, in
+reference to your resolutions. It will be a most acceptable occupation
+to me to go over them with you, and I have not a doubt of their
+producing a strong effect out of doors.
+
+There is nothing in the present time at once so galling and so alarming
+to me as the alienation of the people from their own public affairs. I
+have no difficulty in understanding it. They have had so little to do
+with the game through all these years of Parliamentary Reform, that they
+have sullenly laid down their cards, and taken to looking on. The
+players who are left at the table do not see beyond it, conceive that
+gain and loss and all the interest of the play are in their hands, and
+will never be wiser until they and the table and the lights and the
+money are all overturned together. And I believe the discontent to be so
+much the worse for smouldering, instead of blazing openly, that it is
+extremely like the general mind of France before the breaking out of the
+first Revolution, and is in danger of being turned by any one of a
+thousand accidents--a bad harvest--the last strain too much of
+aristocratic insolence or incapacity--a defeat abroad--a mere chance at
+home--with such a devil of a conflagration as never has been beheld
+since.
+
+Meanwhile, all our English tuft-hunting, toad-eating, and other
+manifestations of accursed gentility--to say nothing of the Lord knows
+who's defiances of the proven truth before six hundred and fifty
+men--ARE expressing themselves every day. So, every day, the disgusted
+millions with this unnatural gloom are confirmed and hardened in the
+very worst of moods. Finally, round all this is an atmosphere of
+poverty, hunger, and ignorant desperation, of the mere existence of
+which perhaps not one man in a thousand of those not actually enveloped
+in it, through the whole extent of this country, has the least idea.
+
+It seems to me an absolute impossibility to direct the spirit of the
+people at this pass until it shows itself. If they begin to bestir
+themselves in the vigorous national manner; if they would appear in
+political reunion, array themselves peacefully but in vast numbers
+against a system that they know to be rotten altogether, make themselves
+heard like the sea all round this island, I for one should be in such a
+movement heart and soul, and should think it a duty of the plainest kind
+to go along with it, and try to guide it by all possible means. But you
+can no more help a people who do not help themselves than you can help
+a man who does not help himself. And until the people can be got up from
+the lethargy, which is an awful symptom of the advanced state of their
+disease, I know of nothing that can be done beyond keeping their wrongs
+continually before them.
+
+I shall hope to see you soon after you come back. Your speeches at
+Aberdeen are most admirable, manful, and earnest. I would have such
+speeches at every market-cross, and in every town-hall, and among all
+sorts and conditions of men; up in the very balloons, and down in the
+very diving-bells.
+
+                                                Ever, cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, April 14th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I cannot express to you how very much delighted I am with the "Steele."
+I think it incomparably the best of the series. The pleasanter humanity
+of the subject may commend it more to one's liking, but that again
+requires a delicate handling, which you have given to it in a most
+charming manner. It is surely not possible to approach a man with a
+finer sympathy, and the assertion of the claims of literature throughout
+is of the noblest and most gallant kind.
+
+I don't agree with you about the serious papers in _The Spectator_,
+which I think (whether they be Steele's or Addison's) are generally as
+indifferent as the humour of _The Spectator_ is delightful. And I have
+always had a notion that Prue understood her husband very well, and held
+him in consequence, when a fonder woman with less show of caprice must
+have let him go. But these are points of opinion. The paper is masterly,
+and all I have got to say is, that if ---- had a grain of the honest
+sentiment with which it overflows, he never would or could have made so
+great a mistake.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, April 26th, 1855._
+
+                       ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I will call for you at two, and go with you to Highgate, by all means.
+
+Leech and I called on Tuesday evening and left our loves. I have not
+written to you since, because I thought it best to leave you quiet for a
+day. I have no need to tell you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts have
+been constantly with you, and that I have not forgotten (and never shall
+forget) who sat up with me one night when a little place in my house was
+left empty.
+
+It is hard to lose any child, but there are many blessed sources of
+consolation in the loss of a baby. There is a beautiful thought in
+Fielding's "Journey from this World to the Next," where the baby he had
+lost many years before was found by him all radiant and happy, building
+him a bower in the Elysian Fields where they were to live together when
+he came.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Our kindest loves to Mrs. Lemon.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, May 20th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I have a little lark in contemplation, if you will help it to fly.
+
+Collins has done a melodrama (a regular old-style melodrama), in which
+there is a very good notion. I am going to act it, as an experiment, in
+the children's theatre here--I, Mark, Collins, Egg, and my daughter
+Mary, the whole _dram. pers._; our families and yours the whole
+audience; for I want to make the stage large and shouldn't have room for
+above five-and-twenty spectators. Now there is only one scene in the
+piece, and that, my tarry lad, is the inside of a lighthouse. Will you
+come and paint it for us one night, and we'll all turn to and help? It
+is a mere wall, of course, but Mark and I have sworn that you must do
+it. If you will say yes, I should like to have the tiny flats made,
+after you have looked at the place, and not before. On Wednesday in this
+week I am good for a steak and the play, if you will make your own
+appointment here; or any day next week except Thursday. Write me a line
+in reply. We mean to burst on an astonished world with the melodrama,
+without any note of preparation. So don't say a syllable to Forster if
+you should happen to see him.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday Afternoon, Six o'clock, May 22nd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+Your note came while I was out walking. Even if I had been at home I
+could not have managed to dine together to-day, being under a beastly
+engagement to dine out. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall
+expect you here some time to-morrow, and will remain at home. I only
+wait your instructions to get the little canvases made. O, what a pity
+it is not the outside of the light'us, with the sea a-rowling agin it!
+Never mind, we'll get an effect out of the inside, and there's a storm
+and a shipwreck "off;" and the great ambition of my life will be
+achieved at last, in the wearing of a pair of very coarse petticoat
+trousers. So hoorar for the salt sea, mate, and bouse up!
+
+                                               Ever affectionately,
+                                                                DICKY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 23rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+Stanny says he is only sorry it is not the outside of the lighthouse
+with a raging sea and a transparent light. He enters into the project
+with the greatest delight, and I think we shall make a capital thing of
+it.
+
+It now occurs to me that we may as well do a farce too. I should like to
+get in a little part for Katey, and also for Charley, if it were
+practicable. What do you think of "Animal Mag."? You and I in our old
+parts; Collins, Jeffrey; Charley, the Markis; Katey and Mary (or
+Georgina), the two ladies? Can you think of anything merry that is
+better? It ought to be broad, as a relief to the melodrama, unless we
+could find something funny with a story in it too. I rather incline
+myself to "Animal Mag." Will you come round and deliver your sentiments?
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Great projects are afoot here for a grown-up play in about three weeks'
+time. Former schoolroom arrangements to be reversed--large stage and
+small audience. Stanfield bent on desperate effects, and all day long
+with his coat off, up to his eyes in distemper colours.
+
+Will you appear in your celebrated character of Mr. Nightingale? I want
+to wind up with that popular farce, we all playing our old parts.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+That's right! You will find the words come back very quickly. Why, _of
+course_ your people are to come, and if Stanfield don't astonish 'em,
+I'm a Dutchman. O Heaven, if you could hear the ideas he proposes to me,
+making even _my_ hair stand on end!
+
+Will you get Marcus or some similar bright creature to copy out old
+Nightingale's part for you, and then return the book? This is the
+prompt-book, the only one I have; and Katey and Georgina (being also in
+wild excitement) want to write their parts out with all despatch.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+I shall expect you to-morrow evening at "Household Words." I have
+written a little ballad for Mary--"The Story of the Ship's Carpenter and
+the Little Boy, in the Shipwreck."
+
+Let us close up with "Mr. Nightingale's Diary." Will you look whether
+you have a book of it, or your part.
+
+All other matters and things hereunto belonging when we meet.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Trollope.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday Morning, June 19th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,
+
+I was out of town on Sunday, or I should have answered your note
+immediately on its arrival. I cannot have the pleasure of seeing the
+famous "medium" to-night, for I have some theatricals at home. But I
+fear I shall not in any case be a good subject for the purpose, as I
+altogether want faith in the thing.
+
+I have not the least belief in the awful unseen world being available
+for evening parties at so much per night; and, although I should be
+ready to receive enlightenment from any source, I must say I have very
+little hope of it from the spirits who express themselves through
+mediums, as I have never yet observed them to talk anything but
+nonsense, of which (as Carlyle would say) there is probably enough in
+these days of ours, and in all days, among mere mortality.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, June 20th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I write a hasty note to let you know that last night was perfectly
+wonderful!!!
+
+Such an audience! Such a brilliant success from first to last! The Queen
+had taken it into her head in the morning to go to Chatham, and had
+carried Phipps with her. He wrote to me asking if it were possible to
+give him a quarter of an hour. I got through that time before the
+overture, and he came without any dinner, so influenced by eager
+curiosity. Lemon and I did every conceivable absurdity, I think, in the
+farce; and they never left off laughing. At supper I proposed your
+health, which was drunk with nine times nine, and three cheers over. We
+then turned to at Scotch reels (having had no exercise), and danced in
+the maddest way until five this morning.
+
+It is as much as I can do to guide the pen.
+
+                  With loves to Mrs. Stanfield and all,
+                                       Ever most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, June 30th, 1855._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I write shortly, after a day's work at my desk, rather than lose a post
+in answering your enthusiastic, earnest, and young--how young, in all
+the best side of youth--letter.
+
+To tell you the truth, I confidently expected to hear from you. I knew
+that if there were a man in the world who would be interested in, and
+who would approve of, my giving utterance to whatever was in me at this
+time, it would be you. I was as sure of you as of the sun this morning.
+
+The subject is surrounded by difficulties; the Association is sorely in
+want of able men; and the resistance of all the phalanx, who have an
+interest in corruption and mismanagement, is the resistance of a
+struggle against death. But the great, first, strong necessity is to
+rouse the people up, to keep them stirring and vigilant, to carry the
+war dead into the tent of such creatures as ----, and ring into their
+souls (or what stands for them) that the time for dandy insolence is
+gone for ever. It may be necessary to come to that law of primogeniture
+(I have no love for it), or to come to even greater things; but this is
+the first service to be done, and unless it is done, there is not a
+chance. For this, and to encourage timid people to come in, I went to
+Drury Lane the other night; and I wish you had been there and had seen
+and heard the people.
+
+The Association will be proud to have your name and gift. When we sat
+down on the stage the other night, and were waiting a minute or two to
+begin, I said to Morley, the chairman (a thoroughly fine earnest
+fellow), "this reminds me so of one of my dearest friends, with a
+melancholy so curious, that I don't know whether the place feels
+familiar to me or strange." He was full of interest directly, and we
+went on talking of you until the moment of his getting up to open the
+business.
+
+They are going to print my speech in a tract-form, and send it all over
+the country. I corrected it for the purpose last night. We are all well.
+Charley in the City; all the boys at home for the holidays; three prizes
+brought home triumphantly (one from the Boulogne waters and one from
+Wimbledon); I taking dives into a new book, and runs at leap-frog over
+"Household Words;" and Anne going to be married--which is the only bad
+news.
+
+Catherine, Georgie, Mary, Katey, Charley, and all the rest, send
+multitudes of loves. Ever, my dearest Macready, with unalterable
+affection and attachment,
+
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+             3, ALBION VILLAS, FOLKESTONE, _Tuesday, July 17th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+Walter goes back to school on the 1st of August. Will you come out of
+school to this breezy vacation on the same day, or rather _this day
+fortnight, July 31st_? for that is the day on which he leaves us, and we
+begin (here's a parent!) to be able to be comfortable. Why a boy of that
+age should seem to have on at all times a hundred and fifty pair of
+double-soled boots, and to be always jumping a bottom stair with the
+whole hundred and fifty, I don't know. But the woeful fact is within my
+daily experience.
+
+We have a very pleasant little house, overlooking the sea, and I think
+you will like the place. It rained, in honour of our arrival, with the
+greatest vigour, yesterday. I went out after dinner to buy some nails
+(you know the arrangements that would be then in progress), and I
+stopped in the rain, about halfway down a steep, crooked street, like a
+crippled ladder, to look at a little coachmaker's, where there had just
+been a sale. Speculating on the insolvent coachmaker's business, and
+what kind of coaches he could possibly have expected to get orders for
+in Folkestone, I thought, "What would bring together fifty people now,
+in this little street, at this little rainy minute?" On the instant, a
+brewer's van, with two mad horses in it, and the harness dangling about
+them--like the trappings of those horses you are acquainted with, who
+bolted through the starry courts of heaven--dashed by me, and in that
+instant, such a crowd as would have accumulated in Fleet Street sprang
+up magically. Men fell out of windows, dived out of doors, plunged down
+courts, precipitated themselves down steps, came down waterspouts,
+instead of rain, I think, and I never saw so wonderful an instance of
+the gregarious effect of an excitement.
+
+A man, a woman, and a child had been thrown out on the horses taking
+fright and the reins breaking. The child is dead, and the woman very ill
+but will probably recover, and the man has a hand broken and other
+mischief done to him.
+
+Let me know what Wigan says. If he does not take the play, and readily
+too, I would recommend you not to offer it elsewhere. You have gained
+great reputation by it, have done your position a deal of good, and (as
+I think) stand so well with it, that it is a pity to engender the notion
+that you care to stand better.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                   FOLKESTONE, _September 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Scrooge is delighted to find that Bob Cratchit is enjoying his holiday
+in such a delightful situation; and he says (with that warmth of nature
+which has distinguished him since his conversion), "Make the most of
+it, Bob; make the most of it."
+
+[I am just getting to work on No. 3 of the new book, and am in the
+hideous state of mind belonging to that condition.]
+
+I have not a word of news. I am steeped in my story, and rise and fall
+by turns into enthusiasm and depression.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                FOLKESTONE, _Sunday, Sept. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+This will be a short letter, but I hope not unwelcome. If you knew how
+often I write to you--in intention--I don't know where you would find
+room for the correspondence.
+
+Catherine tells me that you want to know the name of my new book. I
+cannot bear that you should know it from anyone but me. It will not be
+made public until the end of October; the title is:
+
+                            "NOBODY'S FAULT."
+
+Keep it as the apple of your eye--an expressive form of speech, though I
+have not the least idea of what it means.
+
+Next, I wish to tell you that I have appointed to read at Peterboro', on
+Tuesday, the 18th of December. I have told the Dean that I cannot accept
+his hospitality, and that I am going with Mr. Wills to the inn,
+therefore I shall be absolutely at your disposal, and shall be more than
+disappointed if you don't stay with us. As the time approaches will you
+let me know your arrangements, and whether Mr. Wills can bespeak any
+rooms for you in arranging for me? Georgy will give you our address in
+Paris as soon as we shall have settled there. We shall leave here, I
+think, in rather less than a month from this time.
+
+You know my state of mind as well as I do, indeed, if you don't know it
+much better, it is not the state of mind I take it to be. How I work,
+how I walk, how I shut myself up, how I roll down hills and climb up
+cliffs; how the new story is everywhere--heaving in the sea, flying with
+the clouds, blowing in the wind; how I settle to nothing, and wonder (in
+the old way) at my own incomprehensibility. I am getting on pretty well,
+have done the first two numbers, and am just now beginning the third;
+which egotistical announcements I make to you because I know you will be
+interested in them.
+
+All the house send their kindest loves. I think of inserting an
+advertisement in _The Times_, offering to submit the Plornishghenter to
+public competition, and to receive fifty thousand pounds if such another
+boy cannot be found, and to pay five pounds (my fortune) if he can.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                               FOLKESTONE, _Sunday, Sept. 30th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+Welcome from the bosom of the deep! If a hornpipe will be acceptable to
+you at any time (as a reminder of what the three brothers were always
+doing), I shall be, as the chairman says at Mr. Evans's, "happy to
+oblige."
+
+I have almost finished No. 3, in which I have relieved my indignant soul
+with a scarifier. Sticking at it day after day, I am the incompletest
+letter-writer imaginable--seem to have no idea of holding a pen for any
+other purpose but that book. My fair Laura has not yet reported
+concerning Paris, but I should think will have done so before I see you.
+And now to that point. I purpose being in town on _Monday, the 8th_,
+when I have promised to dine with Forster. At the office, between
+half-past eleven and one that day, I will expect you, unless I hear
+from you to the contrary. Of course the H. W. stories are at your
+disposition. If you should have completed your idea, we might breakfast
+together at the G. on the Tuesday morning and discuss it. Or I shall be
+in town after ten on the Monday night. At the office I will tell you the
+idea of the Christmas number, which will put you in train, I hope, for a
+story. I have postponed the shipwreck idea for a year, as it seemed to
+require more force from me than I could well give it with the weight of
+a new start upon me.
+
+All here send their kindest remembrances. We missed you very much, and
+the Plorn was quite inconsolable. We slide down Cæsar occasionally.
+
+They launched the boat, the rapid building of which you remember, the
+other day. All the fishermen in the place, all the nondescripts, and all
+the boys pulled at it with ropes from six A.M. to four P.M. Every now
+and then the ropes broke, and they all fell down in the shingle. The
+obstinate way in which the beastly thing wouldn't move was so
+exasperating that I wondered they didn't shoot it, or burn it. Whenever
+it moved an inch they all cheered; whenever it wouldn't move they all
+swore. Finally, when it was quite given over, some one tumbled against
+it accidentally (as it appeared to me, looking out at my window here),
+and it instantly shot about a mile into the sea, and they all stood
+looking at it helplessly.
+
+Kind regards to Pigott, in which all unite.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                               FOLKESTONE, _Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have been hammering away in that strenuous manner at my book, that I
+have had leisure for scarcely any letters but such, as I have been
+obliged to write; having a horrible temptation when I lay down my
+book-pen to run out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide
+down the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the relief
+that only exercise gives me.
+
+Your letter to Miss Coutts in behalf of little Miss Warner I despatched
+straightway. She is at present among the Pyrenees, and a letter from her
+crossed that one of mine in which I enclosed yours, last week.
+
+Pray stick to that dim notion you have of coming to Paris! How
+delightful it would be to see your aged countenance and perfectly bald
+head in that capital! It will renew your youth, to visit a theatre
+(previously dining at the Trois Frères) in company with the jocund boy
+who now addresses you. Do, do stick to it.
+
+You will be pleased to hear, I know, that Charley has gone into Baring's
+house under very auspicious circumstances. Mr. Bates, of that firm, had
+done me the kindness to place him at the brokers' where he was. And when
+said Bates wrote to me a fortnight ago to say that an excellent opening
+had presented itself at Baring's, he added that the brokers gave Charley
+"so high a character for ability and zeal" that it would be unfair to
+receive him as a volunteer, and he must begin at a fifty-pound salary,
+to which I graciously consented.
+
+As to the suffrage, I have lost hope even in the ballot. We appear to me
+to have proved the failure of representative institutions without an
+educated and advanced people to support them. What with teaching people
+to "keep in their stations," what with bringing up the soul and body of
+the land to be a good child, or to go to the beershop, to go a-poaching
+and go to the devil; what with having no such thing as a middle class
+(for though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is
+nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper); what with
+flunkyism, toadyism, letting the most contemptible lords come in for all
+manner of places, reading _The Court Circular_ for the New Testament, I
+do reluctantly believe that the English people are habitually consenting
+parties to the miserable imbecility into which we have fallen, _and
+never will help themselves out of it_. Who is to do it, if anybody is,
+God knows. But at present we are on the down-hill road to being
+conquered, and the people WILL be content to bear it, sing "Rule
+Britannia," and WILL NOT be saved.
+
+In No. 3 of my new book I have been blowing off a little of indignant
+steam which would otherwise blow me up, and with God's leave I shall
+walk in the same all the days of my life; but I have no present
+political faith or hope--not a grain.
+
+I am going to read the "Carol" here to-morrow in a long carpenter's
+shop, which looks far more alarming as a place to hear in than the Town
+Hall at Birmingham.
+
+Kindest loves from all to your dear sister, Kate and the darlings. It is
+blowing a gale here from the south-west and raining like mad.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                     2, RUE ST. FLORENTIN, _Tuesday, Oct. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAREST CATHERINE,
+
+We have had the most awful job to find a place that would in the least
+suit us, for Paris is perfectly full, and there is nothing to be got at
+any sane price. However, we have found two apartments--an _entresol_ and
+a first floor, with a kitchen and servants' room at the top of the
+house, at No. 49, Avenue des Champs Elysées.
+
+You must be prepared for a regular Continental abode. There is only one
+window in each room, but the front apartments all look upon the main
+street of the Champs Elysées, and the view is delightfully cheerful.
+There are also plenty of rooms. They are not over and above well
+furnished, but by changing furniture from rooms we don't care for to
+rooms we _do_ care for, we shall be able to make them home-like and
+presentable. I think the situation itself almost the finest in Paris;
+and the children will have a window from which to look on the busy life
+outside.
+
+We could have got a beautiful apartment in the Rue Faubourg St. Honoré
+for a very little more, most elegantly furnished; but the greater part
+of it was on a courtyard, and it would never have done for the children.
+This, that I have taken for six months, is seven hundred francs per
+month, and twenty more for the _concierge_. What you have to expect is a
+regular French residence, which a little habitation will make pretty and
+comfortable, with nothing showy in it, but with plenty of rooms, and
+with that wonderful street in which the Barrière de l'Étoile stands
+outside. The amount of rooms is the great thing, and I believe it to be
+the place best suited for us, at a not unreasonable price in Paris.
+
+Georgina and Lady Olliffe[22] send their loves. Georgina and I add ours
+to Mamey, Katey, the Plorn, and Harry.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS,
+                                            _Friday, Oct. 19th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+After going through unheard-of bedevilments (of which you shall have
+further particulars as soon as I come right side upwards, which may
+happen in a day or two), we are at last established here in a series of
+closets, but a great many of them, with all Paris perpetually passing
+under the windows. Letters may have been wandering after me to that home
+in the Rue de Balzac, which is to be the subject of more lawsuits
+between the man who let it to me and the man who wouldn't let me have
+possession, than any other house that ever was built. But I have had no
+letters at all, and have been--ha, ha!--a maniac since last Monday.
+
+I will try my hand at that paper for H. W. to-morrow, if I can get a
+yard of flooring to sit upon; but we have really been in that state of
+topsy-turvyhood that even that has been an unattainable luxury, and may
+yet be for eight-and-forty hours or so, for anything I see to the
+contrary.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+              49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS,
+                                      _Sunday Night, Oct. 21st, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Coming here from a walk this afternoon, I found your letter of yesterday
+awaiting me. I send this reply by my brother Alfred, who is here, and
+who returns home to-morrow. You should get it at the office early on
+Tuesday.
+
+I will go to work to-morrow, and will send you, please God, an article
+by Tuesday's post, which you will get on Wednesday forenoon. Look
+carefully to the proof, as I shall not have time to receive it for
+correction. When you arrange about sending your parcels, will you
+ascertain, and communicate to me, the prices of telegraph messages? It
+will save me trouble, having no foreign servant (though French is in
+that respect a trump), and may be useful on an emergency.
+
+I have two floors here--_entresol_ and first--in a doll's house, but
+really pretty within, and the view without astounding, as you will say
+when you come. The house is on the Exposition side, about half a quarter
+of a mile above Franconi's, of course on the other side of the way, and
+close to the Jardin d'Hîver. Each room has but one window in it, but we
+have no fewer than six rooms (besides the back ones) looking on the
+Champs Elysées, with the wonderful life perpetually flowing up and down.
+We have no spare-room, but excellent stowage for the whole family,
+including a capital dressing-room for me, and a really slap-up kitchen
+near the stairs. Damage for the whole, seven hundred francs a month.
+
+But, sir--but--when Georgina, the servants, and I were here for the
+first night (Catherine and the rest being at Boulogne), I heard Georgy
+restless--turned out--asked: "What's the matter?" "Oh, it's dreadfully
+dirty. I can't sleep for the smell of my room." Imagine all my
+stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak by a thousand. Imagine
+the porter, the porter's wife, the porter's wife's sister, a feeble
+upholsterer of enormous age from round the corner, and all his workmen
+(four boys), summoned. Imagine the partners in the proprietorship of the
+apartment, and martial little man with François-Prussian beard, also
+summoned. Imagine your inimitable chief briefly explaining that dirt is
+not in his way, and that he is driven to madness, and that he devotes
+himself to no coat and a dirty face, until the apartment is thoroughly
+purified. Imagine co-proprietors at first astounded, then urging that
+"it's not the custom," then wavering, then affected, then confiding
+their utmost private sorrows to the Inimitable, offering new carpets
+(accepted), embraces (not accepted), and really responding like French
+bricks. Sallow, unbrushed, unshorn, awful, stalks the Inimitable through
+the apartment until last night. Then all the improvements were
+concluded, and I do really believe the place to be now worth eight or
+nine hundred francs per month. You must picture it as the smallest place
+you ever saw, but as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean as
+anything human can be, and with a moving panorama always outside, which
+is Paris in itself.
+
+You mention a letter from Miss Coutts as to Mrs. Brown's illness, which
+you say is "enclosed to Mrs. Charles Dickens."
+
+It is not enclosed, and I am mad to know where she writes from that I
+may write to her. Pray set this right, for her uneasiness will be
+greatly intensified if she have no word from me.
+
+I thought we were to give £1,700 for the house at Gad's Hill. Are we
+bound to £1,800? Considering the improvements to be made, it is a little
+too much, isn't it? I have a strong impression that at the utmost we
+were only to divide the difference, and not to pass £1,750. You will set
+me right if I am wrong. But I don't think I am.
+
+I write very hastily, with the piano playing and Alfred looking for
+this.
+
+                                      Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                  49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSÉES,
+                                         _Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+In the Gad's Hill matter, I too would like to try the effect of "not
+budging." _So do not go beyond the_ £1,700. Considering what I should
+have to expend on the one hand, and the low price of stock on the other,
+I do not feel disposed to go beyond that mark. They won't let a
+purchaser escape for the sake of the £100, I think. And Austin was
+strongly of opinion, when I saw him last, that £1,700 was enough.
+
+You cannot think how pleasant it is to me to find myself generally known
+and liked here. If I go into a shop to buy anything, and give my card,
+the officiating priest or priestess brightens up, and says: "_Ah! c'est
+l'écrivain célèbre! Monsieur porte un nom très-distingué. Mais! je suis
+honoré et intéressé de voir Monsieur Dick-in. Je lis un des livres de
+monsieur tous les jours_" (in the _Moniteur_). And a man who brought
+some little vases home last night, said: "_On connaît bien en France que
+Monsieur Dick-in prend sa position sur la dignité de la littérature. Ah!
+c'est grande chose! Et ses caractères_" (this was to Georgina, while he
+unpacked) "_sont si spirituellement tournées! Cette Madame Tojare_"
+(Todgers), "_ah! qu'elle est drôle et précisément comme une dame que je
+connais à Calais._"
+
+You cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will only recollect
+it is the great main road from the Place de la Concorde to the Barrière
+de l'Étoile.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                                     _Wednesday, November 21st, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+In thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday,
+let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the
+representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. I have hardly ever
+been so affected and interested in any theatre. Its construction is in
+the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole
+conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion.
+
+Through the whole story from beginning to end, I recognise the true
+spirit and feeling of an artist, and I most heartily offer you and your
+fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. That
+it will prove a very great and a lasting one, I cannot for a moment
+doubt.
+
+O my friend! If I could see an English actress with but one hundredth
+part of the nature and art of Madame Plessy, I should believe our
+English theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. But I have
+no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. I may as well expect ever
+to see upon an English stage an accomplished artist, able to write and
+to embody what he writes, like you.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Madame Viardot.]
+
+              49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSÉES, _Monday, Dec. 3rd, 1855._
+
+DEAR MADAME VIARDOT,
+
+Mrs. Dickens tells me that you have only borrowed the first number of
+"Little Dorrit," and are going to send it back. Pray do nothing of the
+sort, and allow me to have the great pleasure of sending you the
+succeeding numbers as they reach me. I have had such delight in your
+great genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of it,
+that I am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's intellectual
+pleasure.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 23rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of putting you in
+possession of my Little Friend No. 2, before the general public. It is,
+of course, at the disposal of your circle, but until the month is out,
+is understood to be a prisoner in the castle.
+
+If I had time to write anything, I should still quite vainly try to
+tell you what interest and happiness I had in once more seeing you among
+your dear children. Let me congratulate you on your Eton boys. They are
+so handsome, frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. A kiss
+to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love of my heart to
+every stone in the old house.
+
+Enormous effect at Sheffield. But really not a better audience
+perceptively than at Peterboro', for that could hardly be, but they were
+more enthusiastically demonstrative, and they took the line, "and to
+Tiny Tim who did NOT die," with a most prodigious shout and roll of
+thunder.
+
+                          Ever, my dear Friend, most faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Captain Cavendish Boyle was governor of the military prison at
+Weedon.
+
+[22] Wife of the late Sir Joseph Olliffe, Physician to the British
+Embassy.
+
+
+
+
+1856.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens having taken an _appartement_ in Paris for the winter
+months, 49, Avenue des Champs Elysées, was there with his family until
+the middle of May. He much enjoyed this winter sojourn, meeting many old
+friends, making new friends, and interchanging hospitalities with the
+French artistic world. He had also many friends from England to visit
+him. Mr. Wilkie Collins had an _appartement de garçon_ hard by, and the
+two companions were constantly together. The Rev. James White and his
+family also spent their winter at Paris, having taken an _appartement_
+at 49, Avenue des Champs Elysées, and the girls of the two families had
+the same masters, and took their lessons together. After the Whites'
+departure, Mr. Macready paid Charles Dickens a visit, occupying the
+vacant _appartement_.
+
+During this winter Charles Dickens was, however, constantly backwards
+and forwards between Paris and London on "Household Words" business, and
+was also at work on his "Little Dorrit."
+
+While in Paris he sat for his portrait to the great Ary Scheffer. It
+was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of this year, and is now
+in the National Portrait Gallery.
+
+The summer was again spent at Boulogne, and once more at the Villa des
+Moulineaux, where he received constant visits from English friends, Mr.
+Wilkie Collins taking up his quarters for many weeks at a little cottage
+in the garden; and there the idea of another play, to be acted at
+Tavistock House, was first started. Many of our letters for this year
+have reference to this play, and will show the interest which Charles
+Dickens took in it, and the immense amount of care and pains given by
+him to the careful carrying out of this favourite amusement.
+
+The Christmas number of "Household Words," written by Charles Dickens
+and Mr. Collins, called "The Wreck of the _Golden Mary_," was planned by
+the two friends during this summer holiday.
+
+It was in this year that one of the great wishes of his life was to be
+realised, the much-coveted house--Gad's Hill Place--having been
+purchased by him, and the cheque written on the 14th of March--on a
+"Friday," as he writes to his sister-in-law, in the letter of this date.
+He frequently remarked that all the important, and so far fortunate,
+events of his life had happened to him on a Friday. So that, contrary to
+the usual superstition, that day had come to be looked upon by his
+family as his "lucky" day.
+
+The allusion to the "plainness" of Miss Boyle's handwriting is
+good-humouredly ironical; that lady's writing being by no means famous
+for its legibility.
+
+The "Anne" mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, which follows
+the one to Miss Boyle, was the faithful servant who had lived with the
+family so long; and who, having left to be married the previous year,
+had found it a very difficult matter to recover from her sorrow at this
+parting. And the "godfather's present" was for a son of Mr. Edmund
+Yates.
+
+"The Humble Petition" was written to Mr. Wilkie Collins during that
+gentleman's visit to Paris.
+
+The explanation of the remark to Mr. Wills (6th April), that he had paid
+the money to Mr. Poole, is that Charles Dickens was the trustee through
+whom the dramatist received his pension.
+
+The letter to the Duke of Devonshire has reference to the peace
+illuminations after the Crimean war.
+
+The M. Forgues for whom, at Mr. Collins's request, he writes a short
+biography of himself, was the editor of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
+
+The speech at the London Tavern was on behalf of the Artists' Benevolent
+Fund.
+
+Miss Kate Macready had sent some clever poems to "Household Words," with
+which Charles Dickens had been much pleased. He makes allusion to these,
+in our two remaining letters to Mr. Macready.
+
+"I did write it for you" (letter to Mrs. Watson, 17th October), refers
+to that part of "Little Dorrit" which treats of the visit of the Dorrit
+family to the Great St. Bernard. An expedition which it will be
+remembered he made himself, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Watson and
+other friends.
+
+The letter to Mrs. Horne refers to a joke about the name of a friend of
+this lady's, who had once been brought by her to Tavistock House. The
+letter to Mr. Mitton concerns the lighting of the little theatre at
+Tavistock House.
+
+Our last letter is in answer to one from Mr. Kent, asking him to sit to
+Mr. John Watkins for his photograph. We should add, however, that he did
+subsequently give this gentleman some sittings.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                         49, CHAMPS ELYSÉES, _Sunday, Jan. 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I should like Morley to do a Strike article, and to work into it the
+greater part of what is here. But I cannot represent myself as holding
+the opinion that all strikes among this unhappy class of society, who
+find it so difficult to get a peaceful hearing, are always necessarily
+wrong, because I don't think so. To open a discussion of the question
+by saying that the men are "_of course_ entirely and painfully in the
+wrong," surely would be monstrous in any one. Show them to be in the
+wrong here, but in the name of the eternal heavens show why, upon the
+merits of this question. Nor can I possibly adopt the representation
+that these men are wrong because by throwing themselves out of work they
+throw other people, possibly without their consent. If such a principle
+had anything in it, there could have been no civil war, no raising by
+Hampden of a troop of horse, to the detriment of Buckinghamshire
+agriculture, no self-sacrifice in the political world. And O, good God,
+when ---- treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose
+that these mistaken men don't feel it in the depths of their hearts, and
+don't honestly and honourably, most devoutly and faithfully believe that
+for those very children, when they shall have children, they are bearing
+all these miseries now!
+
+I hear from Mrs. Fillonneau that her husband was obliged to leave town
+suddenly before he could get your parcel, consequently he has not
+brought it; and White's sovereigns--unless you have got them back
+again--are either lying out of circulation somewhere, or are being spent
+by somebody else. I will write again on Tuesday. My article is to begin
+the enclosed.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                  49, CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS, _Monday, Jan. 7th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I want to know how "Jack and the Beanstalk" goes. I have a notion from a
+notice--a favourable notice, however--which I saw in _Galignani_, that
+Webster has let down the comic business.
+
+In a piece at the Ambigu, called the "Rentrée à Paris," a mere scene in
+honour of the return of the troops from the Crimea the other day, there
+is a novelty which I think it worth letting you know of, as it is easily
+available, either for a serious or a comic interest--the introduction of
+a supposed electric telegraph. The scene is the railway terminus at
+Paris, with the electric telegraph office on the prompt side, and the
+clerks _with their backs to the audience_--much more real than if they
+were, as they infallibly would be, staring about the house--working the
+needles; and the little bell perpetually ringing. There are assembled to
+greet the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined elements of
+interest--old veteran fathers, young children, agonised mothers, sisters
+and brothers, girl lovers--each impatient to know of his or her own
+object of solicitude. Enter to these a certain marquis, full of sympathy
+for all, who says: "My friends, I am one of you. My brother has no
+commission yet. He is a common soldier. I wait for him as well as all
+brothers and sisters here wait for _their_ brothers. Tell me whom you
+are expecting." Then they all tell him. Then he goes into the
+telegraph-office, and sends a message down the line to know how long the
+troops will be. Bell rings. Answer handed out on slip of paper. "Delay
+on the line. Troops will not arrive for a quarter of an hour." General
+disappointment. "But we have this brave electric telegraph, my friends,"
+says the marquis. "Give me your little messages, and I'll send them
+off." General rush round the marquis. Exclamations: "How's Henri?" "My
+love to Georges;" "Has Guillaume forgotten Elise?" "Is my son wounded?"
+"Is my brother promoted?" etc. etc. Marquis composes tumult. Sends
+message--such a regiment, such a company--"Elise's love to Georges."
+Little bell rings, slip of paper handed out--"Georges in ten minutes
+will embrace his Elise. Sends her a thousand kisses." Marquis sends
+message--such a regiment, such a company--"Is my son wounded?" Little
+bell rings. Slip of paper handed out--"No. He has not yet upon him those
+marks of bravery in the glorious service of his country which his dear
+old father bears" (father being lamed and invalided). Last of all, the
+widowed mother. Marquis sends message--such a regiment, such a
+company--"Is my only son safe?" Little bell rings. Slip of paper handed
+out--"He was first upon the heights of Alma." General cheer. Bell rings
+again, another slip of paper handed out. "He was made a sergeant at
+Inkermann." Another cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper
+handed out. "He was made colour-sergeant at Sebastopol." Another cheer.
+Bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "He was the first
+man who leaped with the French banner on the Malakhoff tower."
+Tremendous cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out.
+"But he was struck down there by a musket-ball, and----Troops have
+proceeded. Will arrive in half a minute after this." Mother abandons all
+hope; general commiseration; troops rush in, down a platform; son only
+wounded, and embraces her.
+
+As I have said, and as you will see, this is available for any purpose.
+But done with equal distinction and rapidity, it is a tremendous effect,
+and got by the simplest means in the world. There is nothing in the
+piece, but it was impossible not to be moved and excited by the
+telegraph part of it.
+
+I hope you have seen something of Stanny, and have been to pantomimes
+with him, and have drunk to the absent Dick. I miss you, my dear old
+boy, at the play, woefully, and miss the walk home, and the partings at
+the corner of Tavistock Square. And when I go by myself, I come home
+stewing "Little Dorrit" in my head; and the best part of _my_ play is
+(or ought to be) in Gordon Street.
+
+I have written to Beaucourt about taking that breezy house--a little
+improved--for the summer, and I hope you and yours will come there often
+and stay there long. My present idea, if nothing should arise to unroot
+me sooner, is to stay here until the middle of May, then plant the
+family at Boulogne, and come with Catherine and Georgy home for two or
+three weeks. When I shall next run across I don't know, but I suppose
+next month.
+
+We are up to our knees in mud here. Literally in vehement despair, I
+walked down the avenue outside the Barrière de l'Étoile here yesterday,
+and went straight on among the trees. I came back with top-boots of mud
+on. Nothing will cleanse the streets. Numbers of men and women are for
+ever scooping and sweeping in them, and they are always one lake of
+yellow mud. All my trousers go to the tailor's every day, and are
+ravelled out at the heels every night. Washing is awful.
+
+Tell Mrs. Lemon, with my love, that I have bought her some Eau d'Or, in
+grateful remembrance of her knowing what it is, and crushing the tyrant
+of her existence by resolutely refusing to be put down when that monster
+would have silenced her. You may imagine the loves and messages that are
+now being poured in upon me by all of them, so I will give none of them;
+though I am pretending to be very scrupulous about it, and am looking (I
+have no doubt) as if I were writing them down with the greatest care.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                      49, CHAMPS ELYSÉES, _Saturday, Jan. 19th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+I had no idea you were so far on with your book, and heartily
+congratulate you on being within sight of land.
+
+It is excessively pleasant to me to get your letter, as it opens a
+perspective of theatrical and other lounging evenings, and also of
+articles in "Household Words." It will not be the first time that we
+shall have got on well in Paris, and I hope it will not be by many a
+time the last.
+
+I purpose coming over, early in February (as soon, in fact, as I shall
+have knocked out No. 5 of "Little D."), and therefore we can return in a
+jovial manner together. As soon as I know my day of coming over, I will
+write to you again, and (as the merchants--say Charley--would add)
+"communicate same" to you.
+
+The lodging, _en garçon_, shall be duly looked up, and I shall of course
+make a point of finding it close here. There will be no difficulty in
+that. I will have concluded the treaty before starting for London, and
+will take it by the month, both because that is the cheapest way, and
+because desirable places don't let for shorter terms.
+
+I have been sitting to Scheffer to-day--conceive this, if you please,
+with No. 5 upon my soul--four hours!! I am so addleheaded and bored,
+that if you were here, I should propose an instantaneous rush to the
+Trois Frères. Under existing circumstances I have no consolation.
+
+I think THE portrait[23] is the most astounding thing ever beheld upon
+this globe. It has been shrieked over by the united family as "Oh! the
+very image!" I went down to the _entresol_ the moment I opened it, and
+submitted it to the Plorn--then engaged, with a half-franc musket, in
+capturing a Malakhoff of chairs. He looked at it very hard, and gave it
+as his opinion that it was Misser Hegg. We suppose him to have
+confounded the Colonel with Jollins. I met Madame Georges Sand the other
+day at a dinner got up by Madame Viardot for that great purpose. The
+human mind cannot conceive any one more astonishingly opposed to all my
+preconceptions. If I had been shown her in a state of repose, and asked
+what I thought her to be, I should have said: "The Queen's monthly
+nurse." _Au reste_, she has nothing of the _bas bleu_ about her, and is
+very quiet and agreeable.
+
+The way in which mysterious Frenchmen call and want to embrace me,
+suggests to any one who knows me intimately, such infamous lurking,
+slinking, getting behind doors, evading, lying--so much mean resort to
+craven flights, dastard subterfuges, and miserable poltroonery--on my
+part, that I merely suggest the arrival of cards like this:
+
+[Illustration: HW:
+
+  Horgues
+  homme de lettres
+  or
+  Drouse
+  membre de l'Institut
+  or
+  Cregibus Patalanternois
+  Ecole des Beaux arts
+
+  --every five minutes. Books also arrive with, on the flyleaf,
+
+  Jaubaud
+  Hommage à l'illustre romancier d'Angleterre
+
+  Charles De Kean.]
+
+--and I then write letters of terrific _empressement_, with assurances
+of all sorts of profound considerations, and never by any chance become
+visible to the naked eye.
+
+At the Porte St. Martin they are doing the "Orestes," put into French
+verse by Alexandre Dumas. Really one of the absurdest things I ever saw.
+The scene of the tomb, with all manner of classical females, in black,
+grouping themselves on the lid, and on the steps, and on each other, and
+in every conceivable aspect of obtrusive impossibility, is just like the
+window of one of those artists in hair, who address the friends of
+deceased persons. To-morrow week a fête is coming off at the Jardin
+d'Hîver, next door but one here, which I must certainly go to. The fête
+of the company of the Folies Nouvelles! The ladies of the company are to
+keep stalls, and are to sell to Messieurs the Amateurs orange-water and
+lemonade. Paul le Grand is to promenade among the company, dressed as
+Pierrot. Kalm, the big-faced comic singer, is to do the like, dressed as
+a Russian Cossack. The entertainments are to conclude with "La Polka des
+Bêtes féroces, par la Troupe entière des Folies Nouvelles." I wish,
+without invasion of the rights of British subjects, or risk of war, ----
+could be seized by French troops, brought over, and made to assist.
+
+The _appartement_ has not grown any bigger since you last had the joy of
+beholding me, and upon my honour and word I live in terror of asking
+---- to dinner, lest she should not be able to get in at the dining-room
+door. I _think_ (am not sure) the dining-room would hold her, if she
+could be once passed in, but I don't see my way to that. Nevertheless,
+we manage our own family dinners very snugly there, and have good ones,
+as I think you will say, every day at half-past five.
+
+I have a notion that we may knock out a _series_ of descriptions for H.
+W. without much trouble. It is very difficult to get into the
+Catacombs, but my name is so well known here that I think I may succeed.
+I find that the guillotine can be got set up in private, like Punch's
+show. What do you think of _that_ for an article? I find myself
+underlining words constantly. It is not my nature. It is mere imbecility
+after the four hours' sitting.
+
+All unite in kindest remembrances to you, your mother and brother.
+
+                                                       Ever cordially.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                         49, CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS, _Jan. 28th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I am afraid you will think me an abandoned ruffian for not having
+acknowledged your more than handsome warm-hearted letter before now.
+But, as usual, I have been so occupied, and so glad to get up from my
+desk and wallow in the mud (at present about six feet deep here), that
+pleasure correspondence is just the last thing in the world I have had
+leisure to take to. Business correspondence with all sorts and
+conditions of men and women, O my Mary! is one of the dragons I am
+perpetually fighting; and the more I throw it, the more it stands upon
+its hind legs, rampant, and throws me.
+
+Yes, on that bright cold morning when I left Peterboro', I felt that the
+best thing I could do was to say that word that I would do anything in
+an honest way to avoid saying, at one blow, and make off. I was so sorry
+to leave you all! You can scarcely imagine what a chill and blank I felt
+on that Monday evening at Rockingham. It was so sad to me, and
+engendered a constraint so melancholy and peculiar, that I doubt if I
+were ever much more out of sorts in my life. Next morning, when it was
+light and sparkling out of doors, I felt more at home again. But when I
+came in from seeing poor dear Watson's grave, Mrs. Watson asked me to go
+up in the gallery, which I had last seen in the days of our merry play.
+We went up, and walked into the very part he had made and was so fond
+of, and she looked out of one window and I looked out of another, and
+for the life of me I could not decide in my own heart whether I should
+console or distress her by going and taking her hand, and saying
+something of what was naturally in my mind. So I said nothing, and we
+came out again, and on the whole perhaps it was best; for I have no
+doubt we understood each other very well without speaking a word.
+
+Sheffield was a tremendous success and an admirable audience. They made
+me a present of table-cutlery after the reading was over; and I came
+away by the mail-train within three-quarters of an hour, changing my
+dress and getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn,
+partly on the platform. When we got among the Lincolnshire fens it began
+to snow. That changed to sleet, that changed to rain; the frost was all
+gone as we neared London, and the mud has all come. At two or three
+o'clock in the morning I stopped at Peterboro' again, and thought of you
+all disconsolately. The lady in the refreshment-room was very hard upon
+me, harder even than those fair enslavers usually are. She gave me a cup
+of tea, as if I were a hyena and she my cruel keeper with a strong
+dislike to me. I mingled my tears with it, and had a petrified bun of
+enormous antiquity in miserable meekness.
+
+It is clear to me that climates are gradually assimilating over a great
+part of the world, and that in the most miserable part of our year there
+is very little to choose between London and Paris, except that London is
+not so muddy. I have never seen dirtier or worse weather than we have
+had here since I returned. In desperation I went out to the Barrières
+last Sunday on a headlong walk, and came back with my very eyebrows
+smeared with mud. Georgina is usually invisible during the walking time
+of the day. A turned-up nose may be seen in the midst of splashes, but
+nothing more.
+
+I am settling to work again, and my horrible restlessness immediately
+assails me. It belongs to such times. As I was writing the preceding
+page, it suddenly came into my head that I would get up and go to
+Calais. I don't know why; the moment I got there I should want to go
+somewhere else. But, as my friend the Boots says (see Christmas number
+"Household Words"): "When you come to think what a game you've been up
+to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap
+you were, and how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and
+never to-day, that's where it is."
+
+My dear Mary, would you favour me with the name and address of the
+professor that taught you writing, for I want to improve myself? Many a
+hand have I seen with many characteristics of beauty in it--some loopy,
+some dashy, some large, some small, some sloping to the right, some
+sloping to the left, some not sloping at all; but what I like in _your_
+hand, Mary, is its plainness, it is like print. Them as runs may read
+just as well as if they stood still. I should have thought it was
+copper-plate if I hadn't known you. They send all sorts of messages from
+here, and so do I, with my best regards to Bedgy and pardner and the
+blessed babbies. When shall we meet again, I wonder, and go somewhere!
+Ah!
+
+                     Believe me ever, my dear Mary,
+                                    Yours truly and affectionately,
+
+                                                                  Joe.
+                          (That doesn't look plain.)
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                          "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, Feb. 8th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I must write this at railroad speed, for I have been at it all day, and
+have numbers of letters to cram into the next half-hour. I began the
+morning in the City, for the Theatrical Fund; went on to Shepherd's
+Bush; came back to leave cards for Mr. Baring and Mr. Bates; ran across
+Piccadilly to Stratton Street, stayed there an hour, and shot off here.
+I have been in four cabs to-day, at a cost of thirteen shillings. Am
+going to dine with Mark and Webster at half-past four, and finish the
+evening at the Adelphi.
+
+The dinner was very successful. Charley was in great force, and floored
+Peter Cunningham and the Audit Office on a question about some bill
+transactions with Baring's. The other guests were B. and E., Shirley
+Brooks, Forster, and that's all. The dinner admirable. I never had a
+better. All the wine I sent down from Tavistock House. Anne waited, and
+looked well and happy, very much brighter altogether. It gave me great
+pleasure to see her so improved. Just before dinner I got all the
+letters from home. They could not have arrived more opportunely.
+
+The godfather's present looks charming now it is engraved, and John is
+just now going off to take it to Mrs. Yates. To-morrow Wills and I are
+going to Gad's Hill. It will occupy the whole day, and will just leave
+me time to get home to dress for dinner.
+
+And that's all that I have to say, except that the first number of
+"Little Dorrit" has gone to forty thousand, and the other one fast
+following.
+
+My best love to Catherine, and to Mamey and Katey, and Walter and Harry,
+and the noble Plorn. I am grieved to hear about his black eye, and fear
+that I shall find it in the green and purple state on my return.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+   THE HUMBLE PETITION OF CHARLES DICKENS, A DISTRESSED FOREIGNER,
+
+SHEWETH,
+
+That your Petitioner has not been able to write one word to-day, or to
+fashion forth the dimmest shade of the faintest ghost of an idea.
+
+That your Petitioner is therefore desirous of being taken out, and is
+not at all particular where.
+
+That your Petitioner, being imbecile, says no more. But will ever, etc.
+(whatever that may be).
+
+                                             PARIS, _March 3rd, 1856._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                          "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OFFICE, _March 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+Buckstone has been with me to-day in a state of demi-semi-distraction,
+by reason of Macready's dreading his asthma so much as to excuse himself
+(of necessity, I know) from taking the chair for the fund on the
+occasion of their next dinner. I have promised to back Buckstone's
+entreaty to you to take it; and although I know that you have an
+objection which you once communicated to me, I still hold (as I did
+then) that it is a reason _for_ and not against. Pray reconsider the
+point. Your position in connection with dramatic literature has always
+suggested to me that there would be a great fitness and grace in your
+appearing in this post. I am convinced that the public would regard it
+in that light, and I particularly ask you to reflect that we never can
+do battle with the Lords, if we will not bestow ourselves to go into
+places which they have long monopolised. Now pray discuss this matter
+with yourself once more. If you can come to a favourable conclusion I
+shall be really delighted, and will of course come from Paris to be by
+you; if you cannot come to a favourable conclusion I shall be really
+sorry, though I of course most readily defer to your right to regard
+such a matter from your own point of view.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OFFICE, _Tuesday, March 11th, 1856_.[24]
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I have been in bed half the day with my cold, which is excessively
+violent, consequently have to write in a great hurry to save the post.
+
+Tell Catherine that I have the most prodigious, overwhelming, crushing,
+astounding, blinding, deafening, pulverising, scarifying secret, of
+which Forster is the hero, imaginable by the whole efforts of the whole
+British population. It is a thing of that kind that, after I knew it,
+(from himself) this morning, I lay down flat as if an engine and tender
+had fallen upon me.
+
+Love to Catherine (not a word of Forster before anyone else), and to
+Mamey, Katey, Harry, and the noble Plorn. Tell Collins with my kind
+regards that Forster has just pronounced to me that "Collins is a
+decidedly clever fellow." I hope he is a better fellow in health, too.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                        "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, March 14th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I am amazed to hear of the snow (I don't know why, but it excited John
+this morning beyond measure); though we have had the same east wind
+here, and _the_ cold and _my_ cold have both been intense.
+
+Yesterday evening Webster, Mark, Stanny, and I went to the Olympic,
+where the Wigans ranged us in a row in a gorgeous and immense private
+box, and where we saw "Still Waters Run Deep." I laughed (in a
+conspicuous manner) to that extent at Emery, when he received the
+dinner-company, that the people were more amused by me than by the
+piece. I don't think I ever saw anything meant to be funny that struck
+me as so extraordinarily droll. I couldn't get over it at all. After the
+piece we went round, by Wigan's invitation, to drink with him. It being
+positively impossible to get Stanny off the stage, we stood in the wings
+during the burlesque. Mrs. Wigan seemed really glad to see her old
+manager, and the company overwhelmed him with embraces. They had nearly
+all been at the meeting in the morning.
+
+I have seen Charley only twice since I came to London, having regularly
+been in bed until mid-day. To my amazement, my eye fell upon him at the
+Adelphi yesterday.
+
+This day I have paid the purchase-money for Gad's Hill Place. After
+drawing the cheque, I turned round to give it to Wills (£1,790), and
+said: "Now isn't it an extraordinary thing--look at the day--Friday! I
+have been nearly drawing it half-a-dozen times, when the lawyers have
+not been ready, and here it comes round upon a Friday, as a matter of
+course."
+
+Kiss the noble Plorn a dozen times for me, and tell him I drank his
+health yesterday, and wished him many happy returns of the day; also
+that I hope he will not have broken all his toys before I come back.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+              49, CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS, _Saturday, March 22nd, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I want you--you being quite well again, as I trust you are, and resolute
+to come to Paris--so to arrange your order of march as to let me know
+beforehand when you will come, and how long you will stay. We owe Scribe
+and his wife a dinner, and I should like to pay the debt when you are
+with us. Ary Scheffer too would be delighted to see you again. If I
+could arrange for a certain day I would secure them. We cannot afford
+(you and I, I mean) to keep much company, because we shall have to look
+in at a theatre or so, I daresay!
+
+It would suit my work best, if I could keep myself clear until Monday,
+the 7th of April. But in case that day should be too late for the
+beginning of your brief visit with a deference to any other engagements
+you have in contemplation, then fix an earlier one, and I will make
+"Little Dorrit" curtsy to it. My recent visit to London and my having
+only just now come back have thrown me a little behindhand; but I hope
+to come up with a wet sail in a few days.
+
+You should have seen the ruins of Covent Garden Theatre. I went in the
+moment I got to London--four days after the fire. Although the audience
+part and the stage were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a
+piece of wood half the size of a lucifer-match for the eye to rest on,
+though nothing whatever remained but bricks and smelted iron lying on a
+great black desert, the theatre still looked so wonderfully like its
+old self grown gigantic that I never saw so strange a sight. The wall
+dividing the front from the stage still remained, and the iron
+pass-doors stood ajar in an impossible and inaccessible frame. The
+arches that supported the stage were there, and the arches that
+supported the pit; and in the centre of the latter lay something like a
+Titanic grape-vine that a hurricane had pulled up by the roots, twisted,
+and flung down there; this was the great chandelier. Gye had kept the
+men's wardrobe at the top of the house over the great entrance
+staircase; when the roof fell in it came down bodily, and all that part
+of the ruins was like an old Babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating
+the black ground, sometimes in pieces so large that I could make out the
+clothes in the "Trovatore."
+
+I should run on for a couple of hours if I had to describe the spectacle
+as I saw it, wherefore I will immediately muzzle myself. All here unite
+in kindest loves to dear Miss Macready, to Katie, Lillie, Benvenuta, my
+godson, and the noble Johnny. We are charmed to hear such happy accounts
+of Willy and Ned, and send our loving remembrance to them in the next
+letters. All Parisian novelties you shall see and hear for yourself.
+
+                         Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--Mr. F.'s aunt sends her defiant respects.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+          49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS,
+                 _Thursday Night, March 27th, 1856 (after post time)._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+If I had had any idea of your coming (see how naturally I use the word
+when I am three hundred miles off!) to London so soon, I would never
+have written one word about the jump over next week. I am vexed that I
+did so, but as I did I will not now propose a change in the
+arrangements, as I know how methodical you tremendously old fellows are.
+That's your secret I suspect. That's the way in which the blood of the
+Mirabels mounts in your aged veins, even at your time of life.
+
+How charmed I shall be to see you, and we all shall be, I will not
+attempt to say. On that expected Sunday you will lunch at Amiens but not
+dine, because we shall wait dinner for you, and you will merely have to
+tell that driver in the glazed hat to come straight here. When the
+Whites left I added their little apartment to this little apartment,
+consequently you shall have a snug bedroom (is it not waiting expressly
+for you?) overlooking the Champs Elysées. As to the arm-chair in my
+heart, no man on earth----but, good God! you know all about it.
+
+You will find us in the queerest of little rooms all alone, except that
+the son of Collins the painter (who writes a good deal in "Household
+Words") dines with us every day. Scheffer and Scribe shall be admitted
+for one evening, because they know how to appreciate you. The Emperor we
+will not ask unless you expressly wish it; it makes a fuss.
+
+If you have no appointed hotel at Boulogne, go to the Hôtel des Bains,
+there demand "Marguerite," and tell her that I commended you to her
+special care. It is the best house within my experience in France;
+Marguerite the best housekeeper in the world.
+
+I shall charge at "Little Dorrit" to-morrow with new spirits. The sight
+of you is good for my boyish eyes, and the thought of you for my dawning
+mind. Give the enclosed lines a welcome, then send them on to Sherborne.
+
+                             Ever yours most affectionately and truly.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                 49, CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS, _Sunday, April 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                           CHRISTMAS.
+
+Collins and I have a mighty original notion (mine in the beginning) for
+another play at Tavistock House. I propose opening on Twelfth Night the
+theatrical season of that great establishment. But now a tremendous
+question.
+
+Is
+
+                              MRS. WILLS!
+
+game to do a Scotch housekeeper, in a supposed country-house, with Mary,
+Katey, Georgina, etc.? If she can screw her courage up to saying "Yes,"
+that country-house opens the piece in a singular way, and that Scotch
+housekeeper's part shall flow from the present pen. If she says "No"
+(but she won't), no Scotch housekeeper can be. The Tavistock House
+season of four nights pauses for a reply. Scotch song (new and original)
+of Scotch housekeeper would pervade the piece.
+
+                                   YOU
+
+had better pause for breath.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+                                  POOLE.
+
+I have paid him his money. Here is the proof of life. If you will get me
+the receipt to sign, the money can go to my account at Coutts's.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR CATHERINE,
+
+I did nothing at Dover (except for "Household Words"), and have not
+begun "Little Dorrit," No. 8, yet. But I took twenty-mile walks in the
+fresh air, and perhaps in the long run did better than if I had been at
+work. The report concerning Scheffer's portrait I had from Ward. It is
+in the best place in the largest room, but I find the _general_
+impression of the artists exactly mine. They almost all say that it
+wants something; that nobody could mistake whom it was meant for, but
+that it has something disappointing in it, etc. etc. Stanfield likes it
+better than any of the other painters, I think. His own picture is
+magnificent. And Frith, in a "Little Child's Birthday Party," is quite
+delightful. There are many interesting pictures. When you see Scheffer,
+tell him from me that Eastlake, in his speech at the dinner, referred to
+the portrait as "a contribution from a distinguished man of genius in
+France, worthy of himself and of his subject."
+
+I did the maddest thing last night, and am deeply penitent this morning.
+We stayed at Webster's till any hour, and they wanted me, at last, to
+make punch, which couldn't be done when the jug was brought, because (to
+Webster's burning indignation) there was only one lemon in the house.
+Hereupon I then and there besought the establishment in general to come
+and drink punch on Thursday night, after the play; on which occasion it
+will become necessary to furnish fully the table with some cold viands
+from Fortnum and Mason's. Mark has looked in since I began this note, to
+suggest that the great festival may come off at "Household Words"
+instead. I am inclined to think it a good idea, and that I shall
+transfer the locality to that business establishment. But I am at
+present distracted with doubts and torn by remorse.
+
+The school-room and dining-room I have brought into habitable condition
+and comfortable appearance. Charley and I breakfast at half-past eight,
+and meet again at dinner when he does not dine in the City, or has no
+engagement. He looks very well.
+
+The audiences at Gye's are described to me as absolute marvels of
+coldness. No signs of emotion can be hammered, out of them. Panizzi sat
+next me at the Academy dinner, and took it very ill that I disparaged
+----. The amateurs here are getting up another pantomime, but quarrel so
+violently among themselves that I doubt its ever getting on the stage.
+Webster expounded his scheme for rebuilding the Adelphi to Stanfield and
+myself last night, and I felt bound to tell him that I thought it wrong
+from beginning to end. This is all the theatrical news I know.
+
+I write by this post to Georgy. Love to Mamey, Katey, Harry, and the
+noble Plorn. I should be glad to see him here.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+You will not be much surprised to hear that I have done nothing yet
+(except for H. W.), and have only just settled down into a corner of the
+school-room. The extent to which John and I wallowed in dust for four
+hours yesterday morning, getting things neat and comfortable about us,
+you may faintly imagine. At four in the afternoon came Stanfield, to
+whom I no sooner described the notion of the new play, than he
+immediately upset all my new arrangements by making a proscenium of the
+chairs, and planning the scenery with walking-sticks. One of the least
+things he did was getting on the top of the long table, and hanging over
+the bar in the middle window where that top sash opens, as if he had got
+a hinge in the middle of his body. He is immensely excited on the
+subject. Mark had a farce ready for the managerial perusal, but it won't
+do.
+
+I went to the Dover theatre on Friday night, which was a miserable
+spectacle. The pit is boarded over, and it is a drinking and smoking
+place. It was "for the benefit of Mrs. ----," and the town had been very
+extensively placarded with "Don't forget Friday." I made out four and
+ninepence (I am serious) in the house, when I went in. We may have
+warmed up in the course of the evening to twelve shillings. A Jew played
+the grand piano; Mrs. ---- sang no end of songs (with not a bad voice,
+poor creature); Mr. ---- sang comic songs fearfully, and danced clog
+hornpipes capitally; and a miserable woman, shivering in a shawl and
+bonnet, sat in the side-boxes all the evening, nursing Master ----, aged
+seven months. It was a most forlorn business, and I should have
+contributed a sovereign to the treasury, if I had known how.
+
+I walked to Deal and back that day, and on the previous day walked over
+the downs towards Canterbury in a gale of wind. It was better than still
+weather after all, being wonderfully fresh and free.
+
+If the Plorn were sitting at this school-room window in the corner, he
+would see more cats in an hour than he ever saw in his life. _I_ never
+saw so many, I think, as I have seen since yesterday morning.
+
+There is a painful picture of a great deal of merit (Egg has bought it)
+in the exhibition, painted by the man who did those little interiors of
+Forster's. It is called "The Death of Chatterton." The dead figure is a
+good deal like Arthur Stone; and I was touched on Saturday to see that
+tender old file standing before it, crying under his spectacles at the
+idea of seeing his son dead. It was a very tender manifestation of his
+gentle old heart.
+
+This sums up my news, which is no news at all. Kiss the Plorn for me,
+and expound to him that I am always looking forward to meeting him
+again, among the birds and flowers in the garden on the side of the hill
+at Boulogne.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, June 1st, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
+
+Allow me to thank you with all my heart for your kind remembrance of me
+on Thursday night. My house was already engaged to Miss Coutts's, and I
+to--the top of St. Paul's, where the sight was most wonderful! But
+seeing that your cards gave me leave to present some person not named, I
+conferred them on my excellent friend Dr. Elliotson, whom I found with
+some fireworkless little boys in a desolate condition, and raised to the
+seventh heaven of happiness. You are so fond of making people happy,
+that I am sure you approve.
+
+                                Always your faithful and much obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+I have never seen anything about myself in print which has much
+correctness in it--any biographical account of myself I mean. I do not
+supply such particulars when I am asked for them by editors and
+compilers, simply because I am asked for them every day. If you want to
+prime Forgues, you may tell him without fear of anything wrong, that I
+was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of February, 1812; that my father was
+in the Navy Pay Office; that I was taken by him to Chatham when I was
+very young, and lived and was educated there till I was twelve or
+thirteen, I suppose; that I was then put to a school near London, where
+(as at other places) I distinguished myself like a brick; that I was
+put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's, and didn't
+much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as I can remember)
+applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the study of
+such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate parliamentary
+reporter--at that time a calling pursued by many clever men who were
+young at the Bar; that I made my début in the gallery (at about
+eighteen, I suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no longer in
+existence, called _The Mirror of Parliament_; that when _The Morning
+Chronicle_ was purchased by Sir John Easthope and acquired a large
+circulation, I was engaged there, and that I remained there until I had
+begun to publish "Pickwick," when I found myself in a condition to
+relinquish that part of my labours; that I left the reputation behind me
+of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and that I could
+do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances, and often did.
+(I daresay I am at this present writing the best shorthand writer in the
+world.)
+
+That I began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to write
+fugitive pieces for the old "Monthly Magazine," when I was in the
+gallery for _The Mirror of Parliament_; that my faculty for descriptive
+writing was seized upon the moment I joined _The Morning Chronicle_, and
+that I was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and wrote
+the greater part of the short descriptive "Sketches by BOZ" in that
+paper; that I had been a writer when I was a mere baby, and always an
+actor from the same age; that I married the daughter of a writer to the
+signet in Edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of Scott,
+and who first made Lockhart known to him.
+
+And that here I am.
+
+Finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell Wills and
+he'll get them for you.
+
+This is the first time I ever set down even these particulars, and,
+glancing them over, I feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing
+himself in the keeper's absence.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--I made a speech last night at the London Tavern, at the end of
+which all the company sat holding their napkins to their eyes with one
+hand, and putting the other into their pockets. A hundred people or so
+contributed nine hundred pounds then and there.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                      VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                             _Sunday, June 15th 1856._
+
+MY DEAR OLD BOY,
+
+This place is beautiful--a burst of roses. Your friend Beaucourt (who
+_will not_ put on his hat), has thinned the trees and greatly improved
+the garden. Upon my life, I believe there are at least twenty distinct
+smoking-spots expressly made in it.
+
+And as soon as you can see your day in next month for coming over with
+Stanny and Webster, will you let them both know? I should not be very
+much surprised if I were to come over and fetch you, when I know what
+your day is. Indeed, I don't see how you could get across properly
+without me.
+
+There is a fête here to-night in honour of the Imperial baptism, and
+there will be another to-morrow. The Plorn has put on two bits of ribbon
+(one pink and one blue), which he calls "companys," to celebrate the
+occasion. The fact that the receipts of the fêtes are to be given to the
+sufferers by the late floods reminds me that you will find at the
+passport office a tin-box, condescendingly and considerately labelled in
+English:
+
+                         FOR THE OVERFLOWINGS,
+
+which the chief officer clearly believes to mean, for the sufferers from
+the inundations.
+
+I observe more Mingles in the laundresses' shops, and one inscription,
+which looks like the name of a duet or chorus in a playbill, "Here they
+mingle."
+
+Will you congratulate Mrs. Lemon, with our loves, on her gallant victory
+over the recreant cabman?
+
+Walter has turned up, rather brilliant on the whole; and that (with
+shoals of remembrances and messages which I don't deliver) is all my
+present intelligence.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                       H. W. OFFICE, _July 2nd, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I am concerned to hear that you are ill, that you sit down before fires
+and shiver, and that you have stated times for doing so, like the demons
+in the melodramas, and that you mean to take a week to get well in.
+
+Make haste about it, like a dear fellow, and keep up your spirits,
+because I have made a bargain with Stanny and Webster that they shall
+come to Boulogne to-morrow week, Thursday the 10th, and stay a week. And
+you know how much pleasure we shall all miss if you are not among us--at
+least for some part of the time.
+
+If you find any unusually light appearance in the air at Brighton, it is
+a distant refraction (I have no doubt) of the gorgeous and shining
+surface of Tavistock House, now transcendently painted. The theatre
+partition is put up, and is a work of such terrific solidity, that I
+suppose it will be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins of London, by
+that Australian of Macaulay's who is to be impressed by its ashes. I
+have wandered through the spectral halls of the Tavistock mansion two
+nights, with feelings of the profoundest depression. I have breakfasted
+there, like a criminal in Pentonville (only not so well). It is more
+like Westminster Abbey by midnight than the lowest-spirited man--say you
+at present for example--can well imagine.
+
+There has been a wonderful robbery at Folkestone, by the new manager of
+the Pavilion, who succeeded Giovannini. He had in keeping £16,000 of a
+foreigner's, and bolted with it, as he supposed, but in reality with
+only £1,400 of it. The Frenchman had previously bolted with the whole,
+which was the property of his mother. With him to England the Frenchman
+brought a "lady," who was, all the time and at the same time,
+endeavouring to steal all the money from him and bolt with it herself.
+The details are amazing, and all the money (a few pounds excepted) has
+been got back.
+
+They will be full of sympathy and talk about you when I get home, and I
+shall tell them that I send their loves beforehand. They are all
+enclosed. The moment you feel hearty, just write me that word by post. I
+shall be so delighted to receive it.
+
+                          Ever, my dear Boy, your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                    VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                   _Saturday Evening, July 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I write to you so often in my books, and my writing of letters is
+usually so confined to the numbers that I _must_ write, and in which I
+have no kind of satisfaction, that I am afraid to think how long it is
+since we exchanged a direct letter. But talking to your namesake this
+very day at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that I would come into
+my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and write, "My dear
+Landor, how are you?" for the pleasure of having the answer under your
+own hand. That you _do_ write, and that pretty often, I know beforehand.
+Else why do I read _The Examiner_?
+
+We were in Paris from October to May (I perpetually flying between that
+city and London), and there we found out, by a blessed accident, that
+your godson was horribly deaf. I immediately consulted the principal
+physician of the Deaf and Dumb Institution there (one of the best
+aurists in Europe), and he kept the boy for three months, and took
+unheard-of pains with him. He is now quite recovered, has done extremely
+well at school, has brought home a prize in triumph, and will be
+eligible to "go up" for his India examination soon after next Easter.
+Having a direct appointment, he will probably be sent out soon after he
+has passed, and so will fall into that strange life "up the country,"
+before he well knows he is alive, which indeed seems to be rather an
+advanced stage of knowledge.
+
+And there in Paris, at the same time, I found Marguerite Power and
+Little Nelly, living with their mother and a pretty sister, in a very
+small, neat apartment, and working (as Marguerite told me) hard for a
+living. All that I saw of them filled me with respect, and revived the
+tenderest remembrances of Gore House. They are coming to pass two or
+three weeks here for a country rest, next month. We had many long talks
+concerning Gore House, and all its bright associations; and I can
+honestly report that they hold no one in more gentle and affectionate
+remembrance than you. Marguerite is still handsome, though she had the
+smallpox two or three years ago, and bears the traces of it here and
+there, by daylight. Poor little Nelly (the quicker and more observant of
+the two) shows some little tokens of a broken-off marriage in a face too
+careworn for her years, but is a very winning and sensible creature.
+
+We are expecting Mary Boyle too, shortly.
+
+I have just been propounding to Forster if it is not a wonderful
+testimony to the homely force of truth, that one of the most popular
+books on earth has nothing in it to make anyone laugh or cry? Yet I
+think, with some confidence, that you never did either over any passage
+in "Robinson Crusoe." In particular, I took Friday's death as one of the
+least tender and (in the true sense) least sentimental things ever
+written. It is a book I read very much; and the wonder of its prodigious
+effect on me and everyone, and the admiration thereof, grows on me the
+more I observe this curious fact.
+
+Kate and Georgina send you their kindest loves, and smile approvingly on
+me from the next room, as I bend over my desk. My dear Landor, you see
+many I daresay, and hear from many I have no doubt, who love you
+heartily; but we silent people in the distance never forget you. Do not
+forget us, and let us exchange affection at least.
+
+                                         Ever your Admirer and Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
+
+               VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, NEAR BOULOGNE,
+                                     _Saturday Night, July 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
+
+From this place where I am writing my way through the summer, in the
+midst of rosy gardens and sea airs, I cannot forbear writing to tell you
+with what uncommon pleasure I received your interesting letter, and how
+sensible I always am of your kindness and generosity. You were always in
+the mind of my household during your illness; and to have so beautiful,
+and fresh, and manly an assurance of your recovery from it, under your
+own hand, is a privilege and delight that I will say no more of.
+
+I am so glad you like Flora. It came into my head one day that we have
+all had our Floras, and that it was a half-serious, half-ridiculous
+truth which had never been told. It is a wonderful gratification to me
+to find that everybody knows her. Indeed, some people seem to think I
+have done them a personal injury, and that their individual Floras (God
+knows where they are, or who!) are each and all Little Dorrit's.
+
+We were all grievously disappointed that you were ill when we played Mr.
+Collins's "Lighthouse" at my house. If you had been well, I should have
+waited upon you with my humble petition that you would come and see it;
+and if you had come I think you would have cried, which would have
+charmed me. I hope to produce another play at home next Christmas, and
+if I can only persuade you to see it from a special arm-chair, and can
+only make you wretched, my satisfaction will be intense. May I tell you,
+to beguile a moment, of a little "Tag," or end of a piece, I saw in
+Paris this last winter, which struck me as the prettiest I had ever met
+with? The piece was not a new one, but a revival at the Vaudeville--"Les
+Mémoires du Diable." Admirably constructed, very interesting, and
+extremely well played. The plot is, that a certain M. Robin has come
+into possession of the papers of a deceased lawyer, and finds some
+relating to the wrongful withholding of an estate from a certain
+baroness, and to certain other frauds (involving even the denial of the
+marriage to the deceased baron, and the tarnishing of his good name)
+which are so very wicked that he binds them up in a book and labels them
+"Mémoires du Diable." Armed with this knowledge he goes down to the
+desolate old château in the country--part of the wrested-away
+estate--from which the baroness and her daughter are going to be
+ejected. He informs the mother that he can right her and restore the
+property, but must have, as his reward, her daughter's hand in marriage.
+She replies: "I cannot promise my daughter to a man of whom I know
+nothing. The gain would be an unspeakable happiness, but I resolutely
+decline the bargain." The daughter, however, has observed all, and she
+comes forward and says: "Do what you have promised my mother you can do,
+and I am yours." Then the piece goes on to its development, in an
+admirable way, through the unmasking of all the hypocrites. Now, M.
+Robin, partly through his knowledge of the secret ways of the old
+château (derived from the lawyer's papers), and partly through his going
+to a masquerade as the devil--the better to explode what he knows on the
+hypocrites--is supposed by the servants at the château really to be the
+devil. At the opening of the last act he suddenly appears there before
+the young lady, and she screams, but, recovering and laughing, says:
+"You are not really the ----?" "Oh dear no!" he replies, "have no
+connection with him. But these people down here are so frightened and
+absurd! See this little toy on the table; I open it; here's a little
+bell. They have a notion that whenever this bell rings I shall appear.
+Very ignorant, is it not?" "Very, indeed," says she. "Well," says M.
+Robin, "if you should want me very much to appear, try the bell, if only
+for a jest. Will you promise?" Yes, she promises, and the play goes on.
+At last he has righted the baroness completely, and has only to hand
+her the last document, which proves her marriage and restores her good
+name. Then he says: "Madame, in the progress of these endeavours I have
+learnt the happiness of doing good for its own sake. I made a necessary
+bargain with you; I release you from it. I have done what I undertook to
+do. I wish you and your amiable daughter all happiness. Adieu! I take my
+leave." Bows himself out. People on the stage astonished. Audience
+astonished--incensed. The daughter is going to cry, when she looks at
+the box on the table, remembers the bell, runs to it and rings it, and
+he rushes back and takes her to his heart; upon which we all cry with
+pleasure, and then laugh heartily.
+
+This looks dreadfully long, and perhaps you know it already. If so, I
+will endeavour to make amends with Flora in future numbers.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister beg to present their remembrances to your
+Grace, and their congratulations on your recovery. I saw Paxton now and
+then when you were ill, and always received from him most encouraging
+accounts. I don't know how heavy he is going to be (I mean in the
+scale), but I begin to think Daniel Lambert must have been in his
+family.
+
+                               Ever your Grace's faithful and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                       VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                            _Tuesday, July 8th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I perfectly agree with you in your appreciation of Katie's poem, and
+shall be truly delighted to publish it in "Household Words." It shall go
+into the very next number we make up. We are a little in advance (to
+enable Wills to get a holiday), but as I remember, the next number made
+up will be published in three weeks.
+
+We are pained indeed to read your reference to my poor boy. God keep him
+and his father. I trust he is not conscious of much suffering himself.
+If that be so, it is, in the midst of the distress, a great comfort.
+
+"Little Dorrit" keeps me pretty busy, as you may suppose. The beginning
+of No. 10--the first line--now lies upon my desk. It would not be easy
+to increase upon the pains I take with her anyhow.
+
+We are expecting Stanfield on Thursday, and Peter Cunningham and his
+wife on Monday. I would we were expecting you! This is as pretty and odd
+a little French country house as could be found anywhere; and the
+gardens are most beautiful.
+
+In "Household Words," next week, pray read "The Diary of Anne Rodway"
+(in two not long parts). It is by Collins, and I think possesses great
+merit and real pathos.
+
+Being in town the other day, I saw Gye by accident, and told him, when
+he praised ---- to me, that she was a very bad actress. "Well!" said he,
+"_you_ may say anything, but if anybody else had told me that I should
+have stared." Nevertheless, I derived an impression from his manner that
+she had not been a profitable speculation in respect of money. That very
+same day Stanfield and I dined alone together at the Garrick, and drank
+your health. We had had a ride by the river before dinner (of course he
+_would_ go and look at boats), and had been talking of you. It was this
+day week, by-the-bye.
+
+I know of nothing of public interest that is new in France, except that
+I am changing my moustache into a beard. We all send our most tender
+loves to dearest Miss Macready and all the house. The Hammy boy is
+particularly anxious to have his love sent to "Misr Creedy."
+
+                        Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+            VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE, _Sunday, July 13th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+We are all sorry that you are not coming until the middle of next month,
+but we hope that you will then be able to remain, so that we may all
+come back together about the 10th of October. I think (recreation
+allowed, etc.), that the play will take that time to write. The ladies
+of the _dram. pers._ are frightfully anxious to get it under way, and to
+see you locked up in the pavilion; apropos of which noble edifice I have
+omitted to mention that it is made a more secluded retreat than it used
+to be, and is greatly improved by the position of the door being
+changed. It is as snug and as pleasant as possible; and the Genius of
+Order has made a few little improvements about the house (at the rate of
+about tenpence apiece), which the Genius of Disorder will, it is hoped,
+appreciate.
+
+I think I must come over for a small spree, and to fetch you. Suppose I
+were to come on the 9th or 10th of August to stay three or four days in
+town, would that do for you? Let me know at the end of this month.
+
+I cannot tell you what a high opinion I have of Anne Rodway. I took
+"Extracts" out of the title because it conveyed to the many-headed an
+idea of incompleteness--of something unfinished--and is likely to stall
+some readers off. I read the first part at the office with strong
+admiration, and read the second on the railway coming back here, being
+in town just after you had started on your cruise. My behaviour before
+my fellow-passengers was weak in the extreme, for I cried as much as you
+could possibly desire. Apart from the genuine force and beauty of the
+little narrative, and the admirable personation of the girl's identity
+and point of view, it is done with an amount of honest pains and
+devotion to the work which few men have better reason to appreciate than
+I, and which no man can have a more profound respect for. I think it
+excellent, feel a personal pride and pleasure in it which is a
+delightful sensation, and know no one else who could have done it.
+
+Of myself I have only to report that I have been hard at it with "Little
+Dorrit," and am now doing No. 10. This last week I sketched out the
+notion, characters, and progress of the farce, and sent it off to Mark,
+who has been ill of an ague. It ought to be very funny. The cat business
+is too ludicrous to be treated of in so small a sheet of paper, so I
+must describe it _vivâ voce_ when I come to town. French has been so
+insufferably conceited since he shot tigerish cat No. 1 (intent on the
+noble Dick, with green eyes three inches in advance of her head), that I
+am afraid I shall have to part with him. All the boys likewise (in new
+clothes and ready for church) are at this instant prone on their
+stomachs behind bushes, whooshing and crying (after tigerish cat No. 2):
+"French!" "Here she comes!" "There she goes!" etc. I dare not put my
+head out of window for fear of being shot (it is as like a _coup d'état_
+as possible), and tradesmen coming up the avenue cry plaintively: "_Ne
+tirez pas, Monsieur Fleench; c'est moi--boulanger. Ne tirez pas, mon
+ami._"
+
+Likewise I shall have to recount to you the secret history of a robbery
+at the Pavilion at Folkestone, which you will have to write.
+
+Tell Piggot, when you see him, that we shall all be much pleased if he
+will come at his own convenience while you are here, and stay a few days
+with us.
+
+I shall have more than one notion of future work to suggest to you while
+we are beguiling the dreariness of an arctic winter in these parts. May
+they prosper!
+
+Kind regards from all to the Dramatic Poet of the establishment, and to
+the D. P.'s mother and brother.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+P.S.--If the "Flying Dutchman" should be done again, pray do go and see
+it. Webster expressed his opinion to me that it was "a neat piece." I
+implore you to go and see a neat piece.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                               BOULOGNE, _Thursday, August 7th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I do not feel disposed to record those two Chancery cases; firstly,
+because I would rather have no part in engendering in the mind of any
+human creature, a hopeful confidence in that den of iniquity.
+
+And secondly, because it seems to me that the real philosophy of the
+facts is altogether missed in the narrative. The wrong which chanced to
+be set right in these two cases was done, as all such wrong is, mainly
+because these wicked courts of equity, with all their means of evasion
+and postponement, give scoundrels confidence in cheating. If justice
+were cheap, sure, and speedy, few such things could be. It is because it
+has become (through the vile dealing of those courts and the vermin they
+have called into existence) a positive precept of experience that a man
+had better endure a great wrong than go, or suffer himself to be taken,
+into Chancery, with the dream of setting it right. It is because of
+this that such nefarious speculations are made.
+
+Therefore I see nothing at all to the credit of Chancery in these cases,
+but everything to its discredit. And as to owing it to Chancery to bear
+testimony to its having rendered justice in two such plain matters, I
+have no debt of the kind upon my conscience.
+
+                                            In haste, ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                 BOULOGNE, _Friday, August 8th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I like the second little poem very much indeed, and think (as you do)
+that it is a great advance upon the first. Please to note that I make it
+a rule to pay for everything that is inserted in "Household Words,"
+holding it to be a part of my trust to make my fellow-proprietors
+understand that they have no right to unrequited labour. Therefore, when
+Wills (who has been ill and is gone for a holiday) does his invariable
+spiriting gently, don't make Katey's case different from Adelaide
+Procter's.
+
+I am afraid there is no possibility of my reading Dorsetshirewards. I
+have made many conditional promises thus: "I am very much occupied; but
+if I read at all, I will read for your institution in such an order on
+my list." Edinburgh, which is No. 1, I have been obliged to put as far
+off as next Christmas twelvemonth. Bristol stands next. The working men
+at Preston come next. And so, if I were to go out of the record and read
+for your people, I should bring such a house about my ears as would
+shake "Little Dorrit" out of my head.
+
+Being in town last Saturday, I went to see Robson in a burlesque of
+"Medea." It is an odd but perfectly true testimony to the extraordinary
+power of his performance (which is of a very remarkable kind indeed),
+that it points the badness of ----'s acting in a most singular manner,
+by bringing out what she might do and does not. The scene with Jason is
+perfectly terrific; and the manner in which the comic rage and jealousy
+does not pitch itself over the floor at the stalls is in striking
+contrast to the manner in which the tragic rage and jealousy does. He
+has a frantic song and dagger dance, about ten minutes long altogether,
+which has more passion in it than ---- could express in fifty years.
+
+We all unite in kindest love to Miss Macready and all your dear ones;
+not forgetting my godson, to whom I send his godfather's particular love
+twice over. The Hammy boy is so brown that you would scarcely know him.
+
+                         Ever, my dear Macready, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday Morning, Sept. 28th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I suddenly remember this morning that in Mr. Curtis's article, "Health
+and Education," I left a line which must come out. It is in effect that
+the want of healthy training leaves girls in a fit state to be the
+subjects of mesmerism. I would not on any condition hurt Elliotson's
+feelings (as I should deeply) by leaving that depreciatory kind of
+reference in any page of H. W. He has suffered quite enough without a
+stab from a friend. So pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what
+Bradbury calls "the Friars," take that passage out. By some
+extraordinary accident, after observing it, I forgot to do it.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, Oct. 4th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MAMEY,
+
+The preparations for the play are already beginning, and it is
+christened (this is a great dramatic secret, which I suppose you know
+already) "The Frozen Deep."
+
+Tell Katey, with my best love, that if she fail to come back six times
+as red, hungry, and strong as she was when she went away, I shall give
+her part to somebody else.
+
+We shall all be very glad to see you both back again; when I say "we" I
+include the birds (who send their respectful duty) and the Plorn.
+
+Kind regards to all at Brighton.
+
+                        Ever, my dear Mamey, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                           Tavistock House, _Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I _did_ write it for you; and I hoped in writing it, that you would
+think so. All those remembrances are fresh in my mind, as they often
+are, and gave me an extraordinary interest in recalling the past. I
+should have been grievously disappointed if you had not been pleased,
+for I took aim at you with a most determined intention.
+
+Let me congratulate you most heartily on your handsome Eddy having
+passed his examination with such credit. I am sure there is a spirit
+shining out of his eyes, which will do well in that manly and generous
+pursuit. You will naturally feel his departure very much, and so will
+he; but I have always observed within my experience, that the men who
+have left home young have, many long years afterwards, had the tenderest
+love for it, and for all associated with it. That's a pleasant thing to
+think of, as one of the wise and benevolent adjustments in these lives
+of ours.
+
+I have been so hard at work (and shall be for the next eight or nine
+months), that sometimes I fancy I have a digestion, or a head, or
+nerves, or some odd encumbrance of that kind, to which I am altogether
+unaccustomed, and am obliged to rush at some other object for relief; at
+present the house is in a state of tremendous excitement, on account of
+Mr. Collins having nearly finished the new play we are to act at
+Christmas, which is very interesting and extremely clever. I hope this
+time you will come and see it. We purpose producing it on Charley's
+birthday, Twelfth Night; but we shall probably play four nights
+altogether--"The Lighthouse" on the last occasion--so that if you could
+come for the two last nights, you would see both the pieces. I am going
+to try and do better than ever, and already the school-room is in the
+hands of carpenters; men from underground habitations in theatres, who
+look as if they lived entirely upon smoke and gas, meet me at unheard-of
+hours. Mr. Stanfield is perpetually measuring the boards with a chalked
+piece of string and an umbrella, and all the elder children are wildly
+punctual and business-like to attract managerial commendation. If you
+don't come, I shall do something antagonistic--try to unwrite No. 11, I
+think. I should particularly like you to see a new and serious piece so
+done. Because I don't think you know, without seeing, how good it is!!!
+
+None of the children suffered, thank God, from the Boulogne risk. The
+three little boys have gone back to school there, and are all well.
+Katey came away ill, but it turned out that she had the whooping-cough
+for the second time. She has been to Brighton, and comes home to-day. I
+hear great accounts of her, and hope to find her quite well when she
+arrives presently. I am afraid Mary Boyle has been praising the Boulogne
+life too highly. Not that I deny, however, our having passed some very
+pleasant days together, and our having had great pleasure in her visit.
+
+You will object to me dreadfully, I know, with a beard (though not a
+great one); but if you come and see the play, you will find it necessary
+there, and will perhaps be more tolerant of the fearful object
+afterwards. I need not tell you how delighted we should be to see
+George, if you would come together. Pray tell him so, with my kind
+regards. I like the notion of Wentworth and his philosophy of all
+things. I remember a philosophical gravity upon him, a state of
+suspended opinion as to myself, it struck me, when we last met, in which
+I thought there was a great deal of oddity and character.
+
+Charley is doing very well at Baring's, and attracting praise and reward
+to himself. Within this fortnight there turned up from the West Indies,
+where he is now a chief justice, an old friend of mine, of my own age,
+who lived with me in lodgings in the Adelphi, when I was just Charley's
+age. He had a great affection for me at that time, and always supposed I
+was to do some sort of wonders. It was a very pleasant meeting indeed,
+and he seemed to think it so odd that I shouldn't be Charley!
+
+This is every atom of no-news that will come out of my head, and I
+firmly believe it is all I have in it--except that a cobbler at
+Boulogne, who had the nicest of little dogs, that always sat in his
+sunny window watching him at work, asked me if I would bring the dog
+home, as he couldn't afford to pay the tax for him. The cobbler and the
+dog being both my particular friends, I complied. The cobbler parted
+with the dog heart-broken. When the dog got home here, my man, like an
+idiot as he is, tied him up and then untied him. The moment the gate was
+open, the dog (on the very day after his arrival) ran out. Next day,
+Georgy and I saw him lying, all covered with mud, dead, outside the
+neighbouring church. How am I ever to tell the cobbler? He is too poor
+to come to England, so I feel that I must lie to him for life, and say
+that the dog is fat and happy. Mr. Plornish, much affected by this
+tragedy, said: "I s'pose, pa, I shall meet the cobbler's dog" (in
+heaven).
+
+Georgy and Catherine send their best love, and I send mine. Pray write
+to me again some day, and I can't be too busy to be happy in the sight
+of your familiar hand, associated in my mind with so much that I love
+and honour.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Mr. Watson, most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Horne.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _Oct. 20th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HORNE,
+
+I answer your note by return of post, in order that you may know that
+the Stereoscopic Nottage has not written to me yet. Of course I will not
+lose a moment in replying to him when he does address me.
+
+We shall be greatly pleased to see you again. You have been very, very
+often in our thoughts and on our lips, during this long interval.
+
+And "she" is near you, is she? O I remember her well! And I am still of
+my old opinion! Passionately devoted to her sex as I am (they are the
+weakness of my existence), I still consider her a failure. She had some
+extraordinary christian-name, which I forget. Lashed into verse by my
+feelings, I am inclined to write:
+
+        My heart disowns
+        Ophelia Jones;
+
+only I think it was a more sounding name.
+
+        Are these the tones--
+        Volumnia Jones?
+
+No. Again it seems doubtful.
+
+        God bless her bones,
+        Petronia Jones!
+
+I think not.
+
+        Carve I on stones
+        Olympia Jones?
+
+Can _that_ be the name? Fond memory favours it more than any other. My
+love to her.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Mrs. Horne, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 1st, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
+
+The moment the first bill is printed for the first night of the new play
+I told you of, I send it to you, in the hope that you will grace it with
+your presence. There is not one of the old actors whom you will fail to
+inspire as no one else can; and I hope you will see a little result of a
+friendly union of the arts, that you may think worth seeing, and that
+you can see nowhere else.
+
+We propose repeating it on Thursday, the 8th; Monday, the 12th; and
+Wednesday, the 14th of January. I do not encumber this note with so many
+bills, and merely mention those nights in case any one of them should be
+more convenient to you than the first.
+
+But I shall hope for the first, unless you dash me (N. B.--I put Flora
+into the current number on purpose that this might catch you softened
+towards me, and at a disadvantage). If there is hope of your coming, I
+will have the play clearly copied, and will send it to you to read
+beforehand. With the most grateful remembrances, and the sincerest good
+wishes for your health and happiness,
+
+                      I am ever, my dear Duke of Devonshire,
+                                            Your faithful and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                         Tavistock House, _Wednesday, Dec. 3rd, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+The inspector from the fire office--surveyor, by-the-bye, they called
+him--duly came. Wills described him as not very pleasant in his manners.
+I derived the impression that he was so exceedingly dry, that if _he_
+ever takes fire, he must burn out, and can never otherwise be
+extinguished.
+
+Next day, I received a letter from the secretary, to say that the said
+surveyor had reported great additional risk from fire, and that the
+directors, at their meeting next Tuesday, would settle the extra amount
+of premium to be paid.
+
+Thereupon I thought the matter was becoming complicated, and wrote a
+common-sense note to the secretary (which I begged might be read to the
+directors), saying that I was quite prepared to pay any extra premium,
+but setting forth the plain state of the case. (I did not say that the
+Lord Chief Justice, the Chief Baron, and half the Bench were coming;
+though I felt a temptation to make a joke about burning them all.)
+
+Finally, this morning comes up the secretary to me (yesterday having
+been the great Tuesday), and says that he is requested by the directors
+to present their compliments, and to say that they could not think of
+charging for any additional risk at all; feeling convinced that I would
+place the gas (which they considered to be the only danger) under the
+charge of one competent man. I then explained to him how carefully and
+systematically that was all arranged, and we parted with drums beating
+and colours flying on both sides.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday Evening, Dec. 13th_, 1856.
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+We shall be charmed to squeeze Willie's friend in, and it shall be done
+by some undiscovered power of compression on the second night, Thursday,
+the 14th. Will you make our compliments to his honour, the Deputy
+Fiscal, present him with the enclosed bill, and tell him we shall be
+cordially glad to see him? I hope to entrust him with a special shake of
+the hand, to be forwarded to our dear boy (if a hoary sage like myself
+may venture on that expression) by the next mail.
+
+I would have proposed the first night, but that is too full. You may
+faintly imagine, my venerable friend, the occupation of these also gray
+hairs, between "Golden Marys," "Little Dorrits," "Household Wordses,"
+four stage-carpenters entirely boarding on the premises, a carpenter's
+shop erected in the back garden, size always boiling over on all the
+lower fires, Stanfield perpetually elevated on planks and splashing
+himself from head to foot, Telbin requiring impossibilities of smart
+gasmen, and a legion of prowling nondescripts for ever shrinking in and
+out. Calm amidst the wreck, your aged friend glides away on the "Dorrit"
+stream, forgetting the uproar for a stretch of hours, refreshes himself
+with a ten or twelve miles walk, pitches headforemost into foaming
+rehearsals, placidly emerges for editorial purposes, smokes over buckets
+of distemper with Mr. Stanfield aforesaid, again calmly floats upon the
+"Dorrit" waters.
+
+        With very best love to Miss Macready and all the rest,
+                    Ever, my dear Macready, most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 15th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
+
+I am not _quite_ clear about the story; not because it is otherwise than
+exceedingly pretty, but because I am rather in a difficult position as
+to stories just now. Besides beginning a long one by Collins with the
+new year (which will last five or six months), I have, as I always have
+at this time, a considerable residue of stories written for the
+Christmas number, not suitable to it, and yet available for the general
+purposes of "Household Words." This limits my choice for the moment to
+stories that have some decided specialties (or a great deal of story) in
+them.
+
+But I will look over the accumulation before you come, and I hope you
+will never see your little friend again but in print.
+
+You will find us expecting you on the night of the twenty-fourth, and
+heartily glad to welcome you. The most terrific preparations are in hand
+for the play on Twelfth Night. There has been a carpenter's shop in the
+garden for six weeks; a painter's shop in the school-room; a gasfitter's
+shop all over the basement; a dressmaker's shop at the top of the house;
+a tailor's shop in my dressing-room. Stanfield has been incessantly on
+scaffoldings for two months; and your friend has been writing "Little
+Dorrit," etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was turned
+upside-down by the genie.
+
+                         Kindest love from all, and from me.
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Christmas Eve, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I cannot leave your letter unanswered, because I am really anxious that
+you should understand why I cannot comply with your request.
+
+Scarcely a week passes without my receiving requests from various
+quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by all the processes ever
+invented. Apart from my having an invincible objection to the
+multiplication of my countenance in the shop-windows, I have not,
+between my avocations and my needful recreation, the time to comply with
+these proposals. At this moment there are three cases out of a vast
+number, in which I have said: "If I sit at all, it shall be to you
+first, to you second, and to you third." But I assure you, I consider
+myself almost as unlikely to go through these three conditional
+achievements as I am to go to China. Judge when I am likely to get to
+Mr. Watkins!
+
+I highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with my writings. I
+doubt if I have a more genial reader in the world.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[23] Of Mr. Wilkie Collins.
+
+[24] This note was written after hearing from Mr. Forster of his
+intended marriage.
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE TO "THE LIGHTHOUSE."
+
+(Spoken by CHARLES DICKENS.)
+
+_Slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down._
+
+
+        A story of those rocks where doomed ships come
+        To cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home,
+        Where solitary men, the long year through--
+        The wind their music and the brine their view--
+        Warn mariners to shun the beacon-light;
+        A story of those rocks is here to-night.
+        Eddystone lighthouse
+
+[_Exterior view discovered._
+
+                              In its ancient form;
+        Ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm
+        That shiver'd it to nothing; once again
+        Behold outgleaming on the angry main!
+        Within it are three men; to these repair
+        In our frail bark of Fancy, swift as air!
+
+        They are but shadows, as the rower grim
+        Took none but shadows in his boat with him.
+        So be _ye_ shades, and, for a little space,
+        The real world a dream without a trace.
+        Return is easy. It will have ye back
+        Too soon to the old beaten dusty track;
+        For but one hour forget it. Billows rise,
+        Blow winds, fall rain, be black ye midnight skies;
+        And you who watch the light, arise! arise!
+
+        [_Exterior view rises and discovers the scene._
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF THE WRECK.
+
+
+I.
+
+        The wind blew high, the waters raved,
+          A ship drove on the land,
+        A hundred human creatures saved,
+          Kneeled down upon the sand.
+        Threescore were drowned, threescore were thrown
+          Upon the black rocks wild,
+        And thus among them, left alone,
+          They found one helpless child.
+
+
+II.
+
+        A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred,
+          Stood out from all the rest,
+        And gently laid the lonely head
+          Upon his honest breast.
+        And travelling o'er the desert wide,
+          It was a solemn joy,
+        To see them, ever side by side,
+          The sailor and the boy.
+
+
+III.
+
+        In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst,
+          The two were still but one,
+        Until the strong man drooped the first,
+          And felt his labours done.
+        Then to a trusty friend he spake,
+          "Across the desert wide,
+        O take this poor boy for my sake!"
+              And kissed the child and died.
+
+
+IV.
+
+        Toiling along in weary plight,
+          Through heavy jungle, mire,
+        These two came later every night
+          To warm them at the fire.
+        Until the captain said one day,
+          "O seaman good and kind,
+        To save thyself now come away,
+          And leave the boy behind!"
+
+
+V.
+
+        The child was slumb'ring near the blaze,
+          "O captain, let him rest
+        Until it sinks, when God's own ways
+          Shall teach us what is best!"
+        They watched the whitened ashy heap,
+          They touched the child in vain;
+        They did not leave him there asleep,
+          He never woke again.
+
+This song was sung to the music of "Little Nell," a ballad composed by
+the late Mr. George Linley, to the words of Miss Charlotte Young, and
+dedicated to Charles Dickens. He was very fond of it, and his eldest
+daughter had been in the habit of singing it to him constantly since she
+was quite a child.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE
+PRESS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 63, "levee" changed to "levée" (regular levée every)
+
+Page 66, "levee" changed to "levée"  (a regular levée)
+
+Page 114, word "or" inserted into text. (hencoop or any old)
+
+Page 304, 305,  307, 312, "Chateau" changed to "Château"
+
+Page 339, "chistened" changed to "christened" (christened Trotty Veck)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS ***
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+
+Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Letters of Charles Dickens
+       Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Mamie Dickens
+        Georgina Hogarth
+
+Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25852]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Susan Skinner, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+<h1>THE LETTERS</h1>
+
+<h3>OF</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/1title_sig.png" width="400" height="167" alt="HW: Charles Dickens" title="HW: Charles Dickens" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+<h1>THE LETTERS</h1>
+
+<h3>OF</h3>
+
+<h1>CHARLES DICKENS.</h1>
+
+<h4>EDITED BY</h4>
+
+<h3>HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.</h3>
+
+<h4>In Two Volumes.</h4>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />VOL. I.<br />
+
+1833 to 1856.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+<b>London:</b><br />
+CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.<br />
+1880.<br />
+<small>[<i>The Right of Translation is Reserved.</i>]</small></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'><small>CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,</small><br />
+<small>CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.</small></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+TO<br />
+<br />
+<big>KATE PERUGINI,</big><br />
+<br />
+THIS MEMORIAL OF HER FATHER<br />
+<br />
+<small>IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED</small><br />
+<br />
+BY HER AUNT AND SISTER.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>We</span> intend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement
+to the "Life of Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That
+work, perfect and exhaustive as a biography, is only incomplete
+as regards correspondence; the scheme of the
+book having made it impossible to include in its space
+any letters, or hardly any, besides those addressed to
+Mr. Forster. As no man ever expressed <i>himself</i> more
+in his letters than Charles Dickens, we believe that in
+publishing this careful selection from his general correspondence
+we shall be supplying a want which has been
+universally felt.</div>
+
+<p>Our request for the loan of letters was so promptly
+and fully responded to, that we have been provided with
+more than sufficient material for our work. By arranging
+the letters in chronological order, we find that they
+very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative
+of the events of each year. Our collection dates from
+1833, the commencement of Charles Dickens's literary
+life, just before the starting of the "Pickwick Papers,"
+and is carried on up to the day before his death, in 1870.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the
+arrangements of letters up to the end of 1839, for he had
+a careless habit in those days about dating his letters,
+very frequently putting only the day of the week on
+which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of
+his later life, when his dates were always of the very
+fullest.</p>
+
+<p>A blank is made in Charles Dickens's correspondence
+with his family by the absence of any letter addressed to
+his daughter Kate (Mrs. Perugini), to her great regret
+and to ours. In 1873, her furniture and other possessions
+were stored in the warehouse of the Pantechnicon at the
+time of the great fire there. All her property was
+destroyed, and, among other things, a box of papers which
+included her letters from her father.</p>
+
+<p>It was our intention as well as our desire to have
+thanked, individually, every one&mdash;both living friends and
+representatives of dead ones&mdash;for their readiness to give
+us every possible help to make our work complete. But
+the number of such friends, besides correspondents
+hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions
+of letters, make it impossible in our space to do otherwise
+than to express, collectively, our earnest and heartfelt
+thanks.</p>
+
+<p>A separate word of gratitude, however, must be given
+by us to Mr. Wilkie Collins for the invaluable help which
+we have received from his great knowledge and experience,
+in the technical part of our work, and for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
+deep interest which he has shown from the beginning,
+in our undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>It is a great pleasure to us to have the name of
+Henry Fielding Dickens associated with this book. To
+him, for the very important assistance he has given in
+making our Index, we return our loving thanks.</p>
+
+<p>In writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope,
+left nothing out which in any way requires explanation
+from us. But we have purposely made them as short
+as possible; our great desire being to give to the public
+another book from Charles Dickens's own hands&mdash;as it
+were, a portrait of himself by himself.</p>
+
+<p>Those letters which need no explanation&mdash;and of
+those we have many&mdash;we give without a word from us.</p>
+
+<p>In publishing the more private letters, we do so with
+the view of showing him in his homely, domestic life&mdash;of
+showing how in the midst of his own constant and arduous
+work, no household matter was considered too trivial to
+claim his care and attention. He would take as much
+pains about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of
+furniture, the superintending any little improvement in
+the house, as he would about the more serious business
+of his life; thus carrying out to the very letter his
+favourite motto of "What is worth doing at all is worth
+doing well."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Mamie Dickens.</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Georgina Hogarth.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">London</span>: <i>October</i>, 1879.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>ERRATA.</h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. I.</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Errata">
+<tr><td align='left'>Page</td><td align='left'>111,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;line 6. For "because if I hear of you," <i>read</i> "because I hear of you."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;114,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;line 24. For "any old end," <i>read</i> "or any old end."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left' valign='top'>&nbsp;137.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;First paragraph, second sentence, <i>should read</i>, "All the ancient part of Rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme, far beyond the possibility of exaggeration. As to the," etc.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;456,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;line 11. For "Mr." <i>read</i> "Mrs."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Book I.</h2>
+
+<h3>1833 <span class="smcap">to</span> 1842.</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>THE</h3>
+
+<h2>LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1833 <span class="smcap">or</span> 1834, <span class="smcap">and</span> 1835, 1836.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>We</span> have been able to procure so few early letters of any
+general interest that we put these first years together.
+Charles Dickens was then living, as a bachelor, in Furnival's
+Inn, and was engaged as a parliamentary reporter on
+<i>The Morning Chronicle</i>. The "Sketches by Boz" were
+written during these years, published first in "The Monthly
+Magazine" and continued in <i>The Evening Chronicle</i>. He
+was engaged to be married to Catherine Hogarth in 1835&mdash;the
+marriage took place on the 2nd April, 1836; and he
+continued to live in Furnival's Inn with his wife for more
+than a year after their marriage. They passed the summer
+months of that year in a lodging at Chalk, near Gravesend,
+in the neighbourhood associated with all his life, from his
+childhood to his death. The two letters which we publish,
+addressed to his wife as Miss Hogarth, have no date, but
+were written in 1835. The first of the two refers to the
+offer made to him by Chapman and Hall to edit a monthly
+periodical, the emolument (which he calls "too tempting to
+resist!") to be fourteen pounds a month. The bargain was
+concluded, and this was the starting of "The Pickwick
+Papers." The first number was published in March, 1836.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+The second letter to Miss Hogarth was written after he had
+completed three numbers of "Pickwick," and the character
+who is to "make a decided hit" is "Jingle."</div>
+
+<p>The first letter of this book is addressed to Henry
+Austin, a friend from his boyhood, who afterwards married
+his second sister Letitia. It bears no date, but must have
+been written in 1833 or 1834, during the early days of his
+reporting for <i>The Morning Chronicle</i>; the journey on which
+he was "ordered" being for that paper.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class='smcap'>Furnivall's Inn</span>, <i>Wednesday Night, past 12.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have just been ordered on a journey, the length of
+which is at present uncertain. I may be back on Sunday
+very probably, and start again on the following day. Should
+this be the case, you shall hear from me before.</p>
+
+<p>Don't laugh. I am going (alone) in a gig; and, to
+quote the eloquent inducement which the proprietors of
+Hampstead <i>chays</i> hold out to Sunday riders&mdash;"the gen'l'm'n
+drives himself." I am going into Essex and Suffolk. It
+strikes me I shall be spilt before I pay a turnpike. I have
+a presentiment I shall run over an only child before I reach
+Chelmsford, my first stage.</p>
+
+<p>Let the evident haste of this specimen of "The Polite
+Letter Writer" be its excuse, and</p>
+
+<p>Believe me, dear Henry, most sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/2signature.png" width="400" height="89" alt="Signature: Charles Dickens" title="Signature: Charles Dickens" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;To avoid the monotony of a constant repetition, we propose to dispense with
+the signature at the close of each letter, excepting to the first and last letters of our
+collection. Charles Dickens's handwriting altered so much during these years of his life,
+that we have thought it advisable to give a facsimile of his autograph to this our first
+letter; and we reproduce in the same way his latest autograph<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Furnival's Inn</span>, <i>Wednesday Evening, 1835.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The House is up; but I am very sorry to say that I
+must stay at home. I have had a visit from the publishers
+this morning, and the story cannot be any longer delayed;
+it must be done to-morrow, as there are more important
+considerations than the mere payment for the story involved
+too. I must exercise a little self-denial, and set to work.</p>
+
+<p>They (Chapman and Hall) have made me an offer of
+fourteen pounds a month, to write and edit a new publication
+they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published
+monthly, and each number to contain four woodcuts. I am
+to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a
+decisive answer on Friday morning. The work will be no
+joke, but the emolument is too tempting to resist.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br /><i>Sunday Evening.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>I have at this moment got Pickwick and his friends on
+the Rochester coach, and they are going on swimmingly,
+in company with a very different character from any I have
+yet described, who I flatter myself will make a decided hit.
+I want to get them from the ball to the inn before I go to
+bed; and I think that will take me until one or two o'clock
+at the earliest. The publishers will be here in the morning,
+so you will readily suppose I have no alternative but to
+stick at my desk.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1837.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>From</span> the commencement of "The Pickwick Papers," and
+of Charles Dickens's married life, dates the commencement
+of his literary life and his sudden world-wide fame. And
+this year saw the beginning of many of those friendships
+which he most valued, and of which he had most reason to
+be proud, and which friendships were ended only by death.</div>
+
+<p>The first letters which we have been able to procure to
+Mr. Macready and Mr. Harley will be found under this date.
+In January, 1837, he was living in Furnival's Inn, where
+his first child, a son, was born. It was an eventful year to
+him in many ways. He removed from Furnival's Inn to
+Doughty Street in March, and here he sustained the first
+great grief of his life. His young sister-in-law, Mary
+Hogarth, to whom he was devotedly attached, died very
+suddenly, at his house, on the 7th May. In the autumn
+of this year he took lodgings at Broadstairs. This was
+his first visit to that pleasant little watering-place, of which
+he became very fond, and whither he removed for the
+autumn months with all his household, for many years in
+succession.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the monthly numbers of "Pickwick," which
+were going on through this year until November, when the
+last number appeared, he had commenced "Oliver Twist,"
+which was appearing also monthly, in the magazine called
+"Bentley's Miscellany," long before "Pickwick" was
+completed. And during this year he had edited, for
+Mr. Bentley, "The Life of Grimaldi," the celebrated
+clown. To this book he wrote himself only the preface,
+and altered and rearranged the autobiographical MS.
+which was in Mr. Bentley's possession.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. Harley, which bears no date, but must
+have been written either in 1836 or 1837, refers to a farce
+called "The Strange Gentleman" (founded on one of the
+"Sketches," called the "Great Winglebury Duel"), which he
+wrote expressly for Mr. Harley, and which was produced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+at the St. James's Theatre, under the management of
+Mr. Braham. The only other piece which he wrote for that
+theatre was the story of an operetta, called "The Village
+Coquettes," the music of which was composed by Mr. John
+Hullah.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. J. P.
+Harley.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+48, <span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Saturday Morning.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have considered the terms on which I could afford
+just now to sell Mr. Braham the acting copyright in London
+of an entirely new piece for the St. James's Theatre; and
+I could not sit down to write one in a single act of about
+one hour long, under a hundred pounds. For a new piece
+in two acts, a hundred and fifty pounds would be the sum
+I should require.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whether, with reference to arrangements
+that were made with any other writers, this may or
+may not appear a large item. I state it merely with regard
+to the value of my own time and writings at this moment;
+and in so doing I assure you I place the remuneration
+below the mark rather than above it.</p>
+
+<p>As you begged me to give you my reply upon this
+point, perhaps you will lay it before Mr. Braham. If these
+terms exceed his inclination or the ability of the theatre,
+there is an end of the matter, and no harm done.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+48, <span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Wednesday Evening.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>There is a semi-business, semi-pleasure little dinner
+which I intend to give at The Prince of Wales, in
+Leicester Place, Leicester Square, on Saturday, at five for
+half-past precisely, at which only Talfourd, Forster, Ainsworth,
+Jerdan, and the publishers will be present. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+to celebrate (that is too great a word, but I can think of
+no better) the conclusion of my "Pickwick" labours; and
+so I intend, before you take that roll upon the grass
+you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of one of the first
+complete copies of the work. I shall be much delighted if
+you would join us.</p>
+
+<p>I know too well the many anxieties that press upon
+you just now to seek to persuade you to come if you would
+prefer a night's repose and quiet. Let me assure you, notwithstanding,
+most honestly and heartily that there is no
+one I should be more happy or gratified to see, and that
+among your brilliant circle of well-wishers and admirers you
+number none more unaffectedly and faithfully yours than,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Sir, yours most truly.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1838.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> February of this year Charles Dickens made an expedition
+with his friend, and the illustrator of most of his books,
+Mr. Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"), to investigate for himself
+the real facts as to the condition of the Yorkshire schools,
+and it may be observed that portions of a letter to his
+wife, dated Greta Bridge, Yorkshire, which will be found
+among the following letters, were reproduced in "Nicholas
+Nickleby." In the early summer he had a cottage at
+Twickenham Park. In August and September he was
+again at Broadstairs; and in the late autumn he made
+another bachelor excursion&mdash;Mr. Browne being again his
+companion&mdash;in England, which included his first visit to
+Stratford-on-Avon and Kenilworth. In February appeared
+the first number of "Nicholas Nickleby," on which work
+he was engaged all through the year, writing each number
+ready for the following month, and never being in advance,
+as was his habit with all his other periodical works, until
+his very latest ones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></div>
+
+<p>The first letter which appears under this date, from
+Twickenham Park, is addressed to Mr. Thomas Mitton, a
+schoolfellow at one of his earliest schools, and afterwards
+for some years his solicitor. The letter contains instructions
+for his first will; the friend of almost his whole life,
+Mr. John Forster, being appointed executor to this will as
+he was to the last, to which he was "called upon to act"
+only three years before his own death.</p>
+
+<p>The letter which we give in this year to Mr. Justice
+Talfourd is, unfortunately, the only one we have been able
+to procure to that friend, who was, however, one with
+whom he was most intimately associated, and with whom
+he maintained a constant correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>The letter beginning "Respected Sir" was an answer
+to a little boy (Master Hastings Hughes), who had written
+to him as "Nicholas Nickleby" approached completion,
+stating his views and wishes as to the rewards and punishments
+to be bestowed on the various characters in the book.
+The letter was sent to him through the Rev. Thomas
+Barham, author of "The Ingoldsby Legends."</p>
+
+<p>The two letters to Mr. Macready, at the end of this year,
+refer to a farce which Charles Dickens wrote, with an idea
+that it might be suitable for Covent Garden Theatre, then
+under Mr. Macready's management.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Greta Bridge</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 1st, 1838.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am afraid you will receive this later than I could
+wish, as the mail does not come through this place until two
+o'clock to-morrow morning. However, I have availed
+myself of the very first opportunity of writing, so the fault
+is that mail's, and not this.</p>
+
+<p>We reached Grantham between nine and ten on Thursday
+night, and found everything prepared for our reception
+in the very best inn I have ever put up at. It is odd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+enough that an old lady, who had been outside all day and
+came in towards dinner time, turned out to be the mistress
+of a Yorkshire school returning from the holiday stay in
+London. She was a very queer old lady, and showed us a
+long letter she was carrying to one of the boys from his
+father, containing a severe lecture (enforced and aided by
+many texts of Scripture) on his refusing to eat boiled meat.
+She was very communicative, drank a great deal of brandy
+and water, and towards evening became insensible, in which
+state we left her.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday we were up again shortly after seven <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>,
+came on upon our journey by the Glasgow mail, which
+charged us the remarkably low sum of six pounds fare for
+two places inside. We had a very droll male companion
+until seven o'clock in the evening, and a most delicious
+lady's-maid for twenty miles, who implored us to keep a
+sharp look-out at the coach-windows, as she expected the
+carriage was coming to meet her and she was afraid of
+missing it. We had many delightful vauntings of the same
+kind; but in the end it is scarcely necessary to say that the
+coach did not come, but a very dirty girl did.</p>
+
+<p>As we came further north the mire grew deeper. About
+eight o'clock it began to fall heavily, and, as we crossed the
+wild heaths hereabout, there was no vestige of a track. The
+mail kept on well, however, and at eleven we reached a
+bare place with a house standing alone in the midst of a
+dreary moor, which the guard informed us was Greta Bridge.
+I was in a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully
+cold, and there were no outward signs of anybody
+being up in the house. But to our great joy we discovered
+a comfortable room, with drawn curtains and a most blazing
+fire. In half an hour they gave us a smoking supper and
+a bottle of mulled port (in which we drank your health),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+and then we retired to a couple of capital bedrooms,
+in each of which there was a rousing fire halfway up the
+chimney.</p>
+
+<p>We have had for breakfast, toast, cakes, a Yorkshire pie,
+a piece of beef about the size and much the shape of my
+portmanteau, tea, coffee, ham, and eggs; and are now going
+to look about us. Having finished our discoveries, we start
+in a postchaise for Barnard Castle, which is only four miles
+off, and there I deliver the letter given me by Mitton's
+friend. All the schools are round about that place, and a
+dozen old abbeys besides, which we shall visit by some means
+or other to-morrow. We shall reach York on Saturday
+I hope, and (God willing) I trust I shall be at home on
+Wednesday morning.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would call on Mrs. Bentley and thank her for
+the letter; you can tell her when I expect to be in York.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand loves and kisses to the darling boy, whom I
+see in my mind's eye crawling about the floor of this Yorkshire
+inn. Bless his heart, I would give two sovereigns for
+a kiss. Remember me too to Frederick, who I hope is
+attentive to you.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not extraordinary that the same dreams which have
+constantly visited me since poor Mary died follow me everywhere?
+After all the change of scene and fatigue, I have
+dreamt of her ever since I left home, and no doubt shall till
+I return. I should be sorry to lose such visions, for they
+are very happy ones, if it be only the seeing her in one's
+sleep. I would fain believe, too, sometimes, that her spirit
+may have some influence over them, but their perpetual
+repetition is extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>Love to all friends.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dear Kate,</span><br />
+Your affectionate Husband.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Twickenham Park</span>, <i>Tuesday Night.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Tom</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sat down this morning and put on paper my
+testamentary meaning. Whether it is sufficiently legal
+or not is another question, but I hope it is. The rough
+draft of the clauses which I enclose will be preceded by
+as much of the fair copy as I send you, and followed by
+the usual clause about the receipts of the trustees being
+a sufficient discharge. I also wish to provide that if all
+our children should die before twenty-one, and Kate married
+again, half the surplus should go to her and half to my
+surviving brothers and sisters, share and share alike.</p>
+
+<p>This will be all, except a few lines I wish to add
+which there will be no occasion to consult you about, as
+they will merely bear reference to a few tokens of remembrance
+and one or two slight funeral directions.
+And so pray God that you may be gray, and Forster
+bald, long before you are called upon to act as my
+executors.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I shall see you at the water-party on
+Thursday? We will then make an appointment for
+Saturday morning, and if you think my clauses will do, I
+will complete my copy, seal it up, and leave it in your
+hands. There are some other papers which you ought to
+have. We must get a box.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Serjeant
+Talfourd,
+M.P.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Twickenham Park</span>, <i>Sunday, July 15th, 1838.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Talfourd</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how much pleasure I have derived
+from the receipt of your letter. I have heard little of
+you, and seen less, for so long a time, that your handwriting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+came like the renewal of some old friendship,
+and gladdened my eyes like the face of some old friend.</p>
+
+<p>If I hear from Lady Holland before you return, I
+shall, as in duty bound, present myself at her bidding;
+but between you and me and the general post, I hope
+she may not renew her invitation until I can visit her
+with you, as I would much rather avail myself of your
+personal introduction. However, whatever her ladyship
+may do I shall respond to, and anyway shall be only too
+happy to avail myself of what I am sure cannot fail to
+form a very pleasant and delightful introduction.</p>
+
+<p>Your kind invitation and reminder of the subject of a
+pleasant conversation in one of our pleasant rides, has
+thrown a gloom over the brightness of Twickenham, for
+here I am chained. It is indispensably necessary that
+"Oliver Twist" should be published in three volumes, in
+September next. I have only just begun the last one,
+and, having the constant drawback of my monthly work,
+shall be sadly harassed to get it finished in time, especially
+as I have several very important scenes (important to the
+story I mean) yet to write. Nothing would give me so
+much pleasure as to be with you for a week or so. I
+can only imperfectly console myself with the hope that
+when you see "Oliver" you will like the close of the
+book, and approve my self-denial in staying here to write
+it. I should like to know your address in Scotland when
+you leave town, so that I may send you the earliest copy
+if it be produced in the vacation, which I pray Heaven
+it may.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, believe that though my body is on the banks
+of the Thames, half my heart is going the Oxford circuit.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and Charley desire their best remembrances
+(the latter expresses some anxiety, not unmixed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+with apprehension, relative to the Copyright Bill, in which
+he conceives himself interested), with hearty wishes that
+you may have a fine autumn, which is all you want, being
+sure of all other means of enjoyment that a man can have.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">I am, my dear Talfourd,</span><br />
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I hope you are able to spare a moment now and
+then to glance at "Nicholas Nickleby," and that you have
+as yet found no reason to alter the opinion you formed on
+the appearance of the first number.</p>
+
+<p>You know, I suppose, that they elected me at the
+Athen&aelig;um? Pray thank Mr. Serjeant Storks for me.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury</span>, <i>Thursday, Nov. 1st, 1838.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Love</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your welcome letter on arriving here last
+night, and am rejoiced to hear that the dear children are so
+much better. I hope that in your next, or your next but
+one, I shall learn that they are quite well. A thousand
+kisses to them. I wish I could convey them myself.</p>
+
+<p>We found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room,
+and capital beds all ready for us at Leamington, after a
+very agreeable (but very cold) ride. We started in a postchaise
+next morning for Kenilworth, with which we were
+both enraptured, and where I really think we MUST have
+lodgings next summer, please God that we are in good
+health and all goes well. You cannot conceive how delightful
+it is. To read among the ruins in fine weather
+would be perfect luxury. From here we went on to
+Warwick Castle, which is an ancient building, newly
+restored, and possessing no very great attraction beyond
+a fine view and some beautiful pictures; and thence to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+Stratford-upon-Avon, where we sat down in the room
+where Shakespeare was born, and left our autographs
+and read those of other people and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>We remained at Stratford all night, and found to our
+unspeakable dismay that father's plan of proceeding by
+Bridgenorth was impracticable, as there were no coaches.
+So we were compelled to come here by way of Birmingham
+and Wolverhampton, starting at eight o'clock through
+a cold wet fog, and travelling, when the day had cleared up,
+through miles of cinder-paths and blazing furnaces, and
+roaring steam-engines, and such a mass of dirt, gloom, and
+misery as I never before witnessed. We got pretty well
+accommodated here when we arrived at half-past four, and
+are now going off in a postchaise to Llangollen&mdash;thirty
+miles&mdash;where we shall remain to-night, and where the
+Bangor mail will take us up to-morrow. Such are our
+movements up to this point, and when I have received your
+letter at Chester I shall write to you again and tell you
+when I shall be back. I can say positively that I shall
+not exceed the fortnight, and I think it very possible that
+I may return a day or two before it expires.</p>
+
+<p>We were at the play last night. It was a bespeak&mdash;"The
+Love Chase," a ballet (with a phenomenon!), divers
+songs, and "A Roland for an Oliver." It is a good theatre,
+but the actors are very funny. Browne laughed with such
+indecent heartiness at one point of the entertainment, that
+an old gentleman in the next box suffered the most violent
+indignation. The bespeak party occupied two boxes, the
+ladies were full-dressed, and the gentlemen, to a man, in
+white gloves with flowers in their button-holes. It amused
+us mightily, and was really as like the Miss Snevellicci
+business as it could well be.</p>
+
+<p>My side has been very bad since I left home, although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+I have been very careful not to drink much, remaining to
+the full as abstemious as usual, and have not eaten any
+great quantity, having no appetite. I suffered such an
+ecstasy of pain all night at Stratford that I was half dead
+yesterday, and was obliged last night to take a dose of
+henbane. The effect was most delicious. I slept soundly,
+and without feeling the least uneasiness, and am a great
+deal better this morning; neither do I find that the henbane
+has affected my head, which, from the great effect it
+had upon me&mdash;exhilarating me to the most extraordinary
+degree, and yet keeping me sleepy&mdash;I feared it would. If
+I had not got better I should have turned back to Birmingham,
+and come straight home by the railroad. As it
+is, I hope I shall make out the trip.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you, my darling. I long to be back with you
+again and to see the sweet Babs.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your faithful and most affectionate Husband.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Master
+Hastings
+Hughes.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doughty Street, London</span>, <i>Dec. 12th, 1838.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Respected Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have given Squeers one cut on the neck and two
+on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and
+began to cry, which, being a cowardly thing, is just what I
+should have expected from him&mdash;wouldn't you?</p>
+
+<p>I have carefully done what you told me in your letter
+about the lamb and the two "sheeps" for the little boys.
+They have also had some good ale and porter, and some
+wine. I am sorry you didn't say <i>what</i> wine you would like
+them to have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked
+very much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked
+a good deal. He was rather greedy, and that's the truth,
+and I believe it went the wrong way, which I say served
+him right, and I hope you will say so too.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind his
+doing so he should like to have the rest hashed to-morrow
+with some greens, which he is very fond of, and so am I.
+He said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he
+thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it cold.
+You should have seen him drink it. I thought he never
+would have left off. I also gave him three pounds of
+money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more, and he said
+directly that he should give more than half to his mamma
+and sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I
+say he is a good fellow for saying so; and if anybody says
+he isn't I am ready to fight him whenever they like&mdash;there!</p>
+
+<p>Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it.
+Your drawing of her is very like, except that I don't think
+the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is particularly
+like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty disagreeable
+thing, and I know it will make her very cross when she
+sees it; and what I say is that I hope it may. You will
+say the same I know&mdash;at least I think you will.</p>
+
+<p>I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot
+write very fast when I like the person I am writing to,
+because that makes me think about them, and I like you,
+and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight o'clock at night,
+and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is
+my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So I will not
+say anything more besides this&mdash;and that is my love to
+you and Neptune; and if you will drink my health every
+Christmas Day I will drink yours&mdash;come.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 11em;">I am,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Respected Sir,</span><br />
+Your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I don't write my name very plain, but you know
+what it is you know, so never mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Monday Morning.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have not seen you for the past week, because I
+hoped when we next met to bring "The Lamplighter" in
+my hand. It would have been finished by this time, but
+I found myself compelled to set to work first at the
+"Nickleby" on which I am at present engaged, and
+which I regret to say&mdash;after my close and arduous application
+last month&mdash;I find I cannot write as quickly as
+usual. I must finish it, at latest, by the 24th (a doubtful
+comfort!), and the instant I have done so I will apply
+myself to the farce. I am afraid to name any particular
+day, but I pledge myself that you shall have it this
+month, and you may calculate on that promise. I send
+you with this a copy of a farce I wrote for Harley when
+he left Drury Lane, and in which he acted for some
+seventy nights. It is the best thing he does. It is
+barely possible you might like to try it. Any local or
+temporary allusions could be easily altered.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me that I only feel gratified and flattered by
+your inquiry after the farce, and that if I had as much
+time as I have inclination, I would write on and on and
+on, farce after farce and comedy after comedy, until I
+wrote you something that would run. You do me justice
+when you give me credit for good intentions; but the
+extent of my good-will and strong and warm interest in
+you personally and your great undertaking, you cannot
+fathom nor express.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;For Heaven's sake don't fancy that I hold "The
+Strange Gentleman" in any estimation, or have a wish upon
+the subject<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+48, <span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>December 13th, 1838.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I can have but one opinion on the subject&mdash;withdraw
+the farce at once, by all means.</p>
+
+<p>I perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most
+heartily and cordially for your kind and manly conduct,
+which is only what I should have expected from you;
+though, under such circumstances, I sincerely believe there
+are few but you&mdash;if any&mdash;who would have adopted it.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me that I have no other feeling of disappointment
+connected with this matter but that arising from the
+not having been able to be of some use to you. And trust
+me that, if the opportunity should ever arrive, my ardour
+will only be increased&mdash;not damped&mdash;by the result of this
+experiment.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me always, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1839.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Charles Dickens</span> was still living in Doughty Street, but
+he removed at the end of this year to 1, Devonshire
+Terrace, Regent's Park. He hired a cottage at Petersham
+for the summer months, and in the autumn took lodgings
+at Broadstairs.</div>
+
+<p>The cottage at Alphington, near Exeter, mentioned in
+the letter to Mr. Mitton, was hired by Charles Dickens
+for his parents.</p>
+
+<p>He was at work all through this year on "Nicholas
+Nickleby."</p>
+
+<p>We have now the commencement of his correspondence
+with Mr. George Cattermole. His first letter was written
+immediately after Mr. Cattermole's marriage with Miss
+Elderton, a distant connection of Charles Dickens; hence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+the allusions to "cousin," which will be found in many
+of his letters to Mr. Cattermole. The bride and bridegroom
+were passing their honeymoon in the neighbourhood
+of Petersham, and the letter refers to a request from them
+for the loan of some books, and also to his having lent
+them his pony carriage and groom, during their stay in this
+neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>The first letter in this year to Mr. Macready is in
+answer to one from him, announcing his retirement from
+the management of Covent Garden Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>The portrait by Mr. Maclise, mentioned to Mr. Harley,
+was the, now, well-known one, which appeared as a
+frontispiece to "Nicholas Nickleby."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Sunday.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will have, if you please, three dozen of the extraordinary
+champagne; and I am much obliged to you for
+recollecting me.</p>
+
+<p>I ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication,
+but I am, notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely
+sorry, for my own sake and the sake of thousands, who may
+now go and whistle for a theatre&mdash;at least, such a theatre
+as you gave them; and I do now in my heart believe that
+for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has
+passed away. If I may jest with my misfortunes, and
+quote the Portsmouth critic of Mr. Crummles's company,
+I say that: "As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's
+visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding
+with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open
+a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama
+is gone&mdash;perfectly gone."</p>
+
+<p>With the same perverse and unaccountable feeling which
+causes a heart-broken man at a dear friend's funeral to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+see something irresistibly comical in a red-nosed or one-eyed
+undertaker, I receive your communication with ghostly
+facetiousness; though on a moment's reflection I find better
+cause for consolation in the hope that, relieved from your
+most trying and painful duties, you will now have leisure to
+return to pursuits more congenial to your mind, and to
+move more easily and pleasantly among your friends. In
+the long catalogue of the latter, I believe that there is not
+one prouder of the name, or more grateful for the store of
+delightful recollections you have enabled him to heap up
+from boyhood, than,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">My dear Macready,</span><br />
+Yours always faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 8em;"><span class="smcap">New London Inn, Exeter,</span></span><br />
+<i>Wednesday Morning, March 6th, 1839.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Tom</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Perhaps you have heard from Kate that I succeeded
+yesterday in the very first walk, and took a cottage at
+a place called Alphington, one mile from Exeter, which
+contains, on the ground-floor, a good parlour and kitchen,
+and above, a full-sized country drawing-room and three
+bedrooms; in the yard behind, coal-holes, fowl-houses, and
+meat-safes out of number; in the kitchen, a neat little
+range; in the other rooms, good stoves and cupboards;
+and all for twenty pounds a year, taxes included. There
+is a good garden at the side well stocked with cabbages,
+beans, onions, celery, and some flowers. The stock
+belonging to the landlady (who lives in the adjoining
+cottage), there was some question whether she was not
+entitled to half the produce, but I settled the point by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+paying five shillings, and becoming absolute master of the
+whole!</p>
+
+<p>I do assure you that I am charmed with the place and
+the beauty of the country round about, though I have not
+seen it under very favourable circumstances, for it
+snowed when I was there this morning, and blew bitterly
+from the east yesterday. It is really delightful, and when
+the house is to rights and the furniture all in, I shall be
+quite sorry to leave it. I have had some few things
+second-hand, but I take it seventy pounds will be the mark,
+even taking this into consideration. I include in that estimate
+glass and crockery, garden tools, and such like little
+things. There is a spare bedroom of course. That I have
+furnished too.</p>
+
+<p>I am on terms of the closest intimacy with Mrs.
+Samuell, the landlady, and her brother and sister-in-law,
+who have a little farm hard by. They are capital specimens
+of country folks, and I really think the old woman herself
+will be a great comfort to my mother. Coals are dear just
+now&mdash;twenty-six shillings a ton. They found me a boy to
+go two miles out and back again to order some this
+morning. I was debating in my mind whether I should
+give him eighteenpence or two shillings, when his fee was
+announced&mdash;twopence!</p>
+
+<p>The house is on the high road to Plymouth, and,
+though in the very heart of Devonshire, there is as much
+long-stage and posting life as you would find in Piccadilly.
+The situation is charming. Meadows in front, an orchard
+running parallel to the garden hedge, richly-wooded hills
+closing in the prospect behind, and, away to the left,
+before a splendid view of the hill on which Exeter is
+situated, the cathedral towers rising up into the sky in
+the most picturesque manner possible. I don't think I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+ever saw so cheerful or pleasant a spot. The drawing-room
+is nearly, if not quite, as large as the outer room
+of my old chambers in Furnival's Inn. The paint and
+paper are new, and the place clean as the utmost excess of
+snowy cleanliness can be.</p>
+
+<p>You would laugh if you could see me powdering away
+with the upholsterer, and endeavouring to bring about all
+sorts of impracticable reductions and wonderful arrangements.
+He has by him two second-hand carpets; the important
+ceremony of trying the same comes off at three this
+afternoon. I am perpetually going backwards and forwards.
+It is two miles from here, so I have plenty of
+exercise, which so occupies me and prevents my being
+lonely that I stopped at home to read last night, and
+shall to-night, although the theatre is open. Charles Kean
+has been the star for the last two evenings. He was stopping
+in this house, and went away this morning. I have got
+his sitting-room now, which is smaller and more comfortable
+than the one I had before.</p>
+
+<p>You will have heard perhaps that I wrote to my mother
+to come down to-morrow. There are so many things she
+can make comfortable at a much less expense than I could,
+that I thought it best. If I had not, I could not have
+returned on Monday, which I now hope to do, and to be in
+town at half-past eight.</p>
+
+<p>Will you tell my father that if he could devise any
+means of bringing him down, I think it would be a great
+thing for him to have Dash, if it be only to keep down the
+trampers and beggars. The cheque I send you below.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Elm Cottage, Petersham</span>, <i>Wednesday Morning.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Why is "Peveril" lingering on my dusty shelves
+in town, while my fair cousin and your fair bride remains in
+blissful ignorance of his merits? There he is, I grieve
+to say, but there he shall not be long, for I shall be
+visiting my other home on Saturday morning, and will
+bring him bodily down and forward him the moment he
+arrives.</p>
+
+<p>Not having many of my books here, I don't find any
+among them which I think more suitable to your purpose
+than a carpet-bagful sent herewith, containing the Italian
+and German novelists (convenient as being easily taken up
+and laid down again; and I suppose you won't read long
+at a sitting), Leigh Hunt's "Indicator" and "Companion"
+(which have the same merit), "Hood's Own" (complete),
+"A Legend of Montrose," and "Kenilworth," which I
+have just been reading with greater delight than ever,
+and so I suppose everybody else must be equally interested
+in. I have Goldsmith, Swift, Fielding, Smollett, and the
+British Essayists "handy;" and I need not say that you
+have them on hand too, if you like.</p>
+
+<p>You know all I would say from my heart and soul on
+the auspicious event of yesterday; but you don't know
+what I could say about the delightful recollections I have
+of your "good lady's" charming looks and bearing, upon
+which I discoursed most eloquently here last evening,
+and at considerable length. As I am crippled in
+this respect, however, by the suspicion that possibly
+she may be looking over your shoulder while you read
+this note (I would lay a moderate wager that you have
+looked round twice or thrice already), I shall content<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+myself with saying that I am ever heartily, my dear
+Cattermole,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Hers and yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;My man (who with his charge is your man
+while you stay here) waits to know if you have any orders
+for him.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. J. P.
+Harley.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Elm Cottage, Petersham, near Richmond</span>,</span><br />
+<i>June 28th, 1839.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Harley,</span></p>
+
+<p>I have "left my home," and been here ever since the
+end of April, and shall remain here most probably until the
+end of September, which is the reason that we have been
+such strangers of late.</p>
+
+<p>I am very sorry that I cannot dine with you on Sunday,
+but some people are coming here, and I cannot get away.
+Better luck next time, I hope.</p>
+
+<p>I was on the point of writing to you when your note
+came, to ask you if you would come down here next
+Saturday&mdash;to-morrow week, I mean&mdash;and stop till Monday.
+I will either call for you at the theatre, at any time you
+name, or send for you, "punctual," and have you brought
+down. Can you come if it's fine? Say yes, like a good
+fellow as you are, and say it per post.</p>
+
+<p>I have countermanded that face. Maclise has made
+another face of me, which all people say is astonishing.
+The engraving will be ready soon, and I would rather you
+had that, as I am sure you would if you had seen it.</p>
+
+<p>In great haste to save the post, I am, my dear
+Harley,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Longman.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Monday Morning.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On Friday I have a family dinner at home&mdash;uncles,
+aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins&mdash;an annual gathering.</p>
+
+<p>By what fatality is it that you always ask me to dine on
+the wrong day?</p>
+
+<p>While you are tracing this non-consequence to its cause,
+I wish you would tell Mr. Sydney Smith that of all the men
+I ever heard of and never saw, I have the greatest curiosity
+to see and the greatest interest to know him.</p>
+
+<p>Begging my best compliments at home,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">I am, my dear Sir,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Petersham</span>, <i>July 26th, 1839.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Fix your visit for whenever you please. It can never
+give us anything but delight to see you, and it is better to
+look forward to such a pleasure than to look back upon it,
+as the last gratification is enjoyable all our lives, and the
+first for a few short stages in the journey.</p>
+
+<p>I feel more true and cordial pleasure than I can express
+to you in the request you have made. Anything which can
+serve to commemorate our friendship and to keep the recollection
+of it alive among our children is, believe me, and
+ever will be, most deeply prized by me. I accept the office
+with hearty and fervent satisfaction; and, to render this
+pleasant bond between us the more complete, I must solicit
+you to become godfather to the last and final branch of
+a genteel small family of three which I am told may be
+looked for in that auspicious month when Lord Mayors are
+born and guys prevail. This I look upon as a bargain
+between us, and I have shaken hands with you in spirit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+upon it. Family topics remind me of Mr. Kenwigs. As
+the weather is wet, and he is about to make his last appearance
+on my little stage, I send Mrs. Macready an early
+proof of the next number, containing an account of his
+baby's progress.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to send you something else on Monday&mdash;a
+tragedy. Don't be alarmed. I didn't write it, nor do I
+want it acted. A young Scotch lady whom I don't know
+(but she is evidently very intelligent and accomplished)
+has sent me a translation of a German play, soliciting my
+aid and advice in the matter of its publication. Among a
+crowd of Germanisms, there are many things in it which
+are so very striking, that I am sure it will amuse you very
+much. At least I think it will; it has me. I am going to
+send it back to her&mdash;when I come to Elstree will be time
+enough; and meantime, if you bestow a couple of hours
+upon it, you will not think them thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>It's a large parcel, and I must keep it here till somebody
+goes up to town and can book it by the coach. I
+warrant it, large as it looks, readable in two hours; and
+I very much want to know what you think of the first
+act, and especially the opening, which seems to me quite
+famous. The metre is very odd and rough, but now and
+then there's a wildness in it which helps the thing very
+much; and altogether it has left a something on my mind
+which I can't get rid of.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens joins with me in kindest regards to yourself,
+Mrs., and Miss Macready. And I am always,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">My dear Macready,</span><br />
+Faithfully and truly yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;A dreadful thought has just occurred to me&mdash;that
+this is a quadruple letter, and that Elstree may not be within
+the twopenny post. Pray Heaven my fears are unfounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">40, <span class="smcap">Albion Street, Broadstairs</span>,</span><br />
+<i>September 21st, 1839.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am so anxious to prefer a request to you which
+does not admit of delay that I send you a double letter,
+with the one redeeming point though of having very
+little in it.</p>
+
+<p>Let me prefix to the last number of "Nickleby," and to
+the book, a duplicate of the leaf which I now send you.
+Believe me that there will be no leaf in the volume which
+will afford me in times to come more true pleasure and
+gratification, than that in which I have written your name
+as foremost among those of the friends whom I love and
+honour. Believe me, there will be no one line in it conveying
+a more honest truth or a more sincere feeling than
+that which describes its dedication to you as a slight token
+of my admiration and regard.</p>
+
+<p>So let me tell the world by this frail record that I
+was a friend of yours, and interested to no ordinary extent
+in your proceedings at that interesting time when you
+showed them such noble truths in such noble forms, and
+gave me a new interest in, and associations with, the labours
+of so many months.</p>
+
+<p>I write to you very hastily and crudely, for I have been
+very hard at work, having only finished to-day, and my
+head spins yet. But you know what I mean. I am then
+always,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;(Proof of Dedication enclosed): "To W. C.
+Macready, Esq., the following pages are inscribed, as a
+slight token of admiration and regard, by his friend, the
+Author."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Friday Night, Oct. 25th, 1839.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The book, the whole book, and nothing but the
+book (except the binding, which is an important item),
+has arrived at last, and is forwarded herewith. The red
+represents my blushes at its gorgeous dress; the gilding,
+all those bright professions which I do not make to you;
+and the book itself, my whole heart for twenty months,
+which should be yours for so short a term, as you have it
+always.</p>
+
+<p>With best regards to Mrs. and Miss Macready, always
+believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">My dear Macready,</span><br />
+Your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <i>Thursday, Nov. 14th, 1839.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Tom Landseer&mdash;that is, the deaf one, whom everybody
+quite loves for his sweet nature under a most
+deplorable infirmity&mdash;Tom Landseer asked me if I would
+present to you from him the accompanying engraving,
+which he has executed from a picture by his brother
+Edwin; submitting it to you as a little tribute from an
+unknown but ardent admirer of your genius, which speaks
+to his heart, although it does not find its way there through
+his ears. I readily undertook the task, and send it herewith.</p>
+
+<p>I urged him to call upon you with me and proffer it
+boldly; but he is a very modest and delicately-minded
+creature, and was shy of intruding. If you thank him
+through me, perhaps you will say something about my
+bringing him to call, and so gladden the gentle artist and
+make him happy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You must come and see my new house when we have it
+to rights. By Christmas Day we shall be, I hope, your
+neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>Kate progresses splendidly, and, with me, sends her best
+remembrances to Mrs. Macready and all your house.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever believe me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Dear Macready,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1840.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Charles Dickens</span> was at Broadstairs with his family for the
+autumn months. During all this year he was busily engaged
+with the periodical entitled "Master Humphrey's Clock," in
+which the story of "The Old Curiosity Shop" subsequently
+appeared. Nearly all these letters to Mr. George Cattermole
+refer to the illustrations for this story.</div>
+
+<p>The one dated March 9th alludes to short papers written
+for "Master Humphrey's Clock" prior to the commencement
+of "The Old Curiosity Shop."</p>
+
+<p>We have in this year Charles Dickens's first letter to
+Mr. Daniel Maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately,
+the only letters we have been able to obtain addressed to
+this much-loved friend and most intimate companion.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, January 13th, 1840.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to
+you. My now periodical work appears&mdash;or I should rather
+say the first number does&mdash;on Saturday, the 28th of March;
+and as it has to be sent to America and Germany, and
+must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+hand; I having in fact begun it on Saturday last. Instead
+of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each only,
+it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and
+monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the
+imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is
+a new one&mdash;I mean the plan of the fiction&mdash;and it will
+comprehend a great variety of tales. The title is: "Master
+Humphrey's Clock."</p>
+
+<p>Now, among other improvements, I have turned my
+attention to the illustrations, meaning to have woodcuts
+dropped into the text and no separate plates. I want to
+know whether you would object to make me a little sketch
+for a woodcut&mdash;in indian-ink would be quite sufficient&mdash;about
+the size of the enclosed scrap; the subject, an old
+quaint room with antique Elizabethan furniture, and in
+the chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock&mdash;the clock
+belonging to Master Humphrey, in fact, and no figures.
+This I should drop into the text at the head of my opening
+page.</p>
+
+<p>I want to know besides&mdash;as Chapman and Hall are my
+partners in the matter, there need be no delicacy about
+my asking or your answering the question&mdash;what would be
+your charge for such a thing, and whether (if the work
+answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the
+joke at regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms? I
+should tell you that I intend to ask Maclise to join me
+likewise, and that the copying the drawing on wood and
+the cutting will be done in first-rate style. We are justified
+by past experience in supposing that the sale would be
+enormous, and the popularity very great; and when I explain
+to you the notes I have in my head, I think you will
+see that it opens a vast number of very good subjects.</p>
+
+<p>I want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+would fix your own time and place&mdash;either here or at your
+house or at the Athen&aelig;um, though this would be the best
+place, because I have my papers about me. If you would
+take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday,
+I could tell you more in two minutes than in
+twenty letters, albeit I have endeavoured to make this as
+businesslike and stupid as need be.</p>
+
+<p>Of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet
+a profound secret, or there would be fifty Humphreys in
+the field. So write me a line like a worthy gentleman, and
+convey my best remembrances to your worthy lady.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me always, my dear Cattermole,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday Afternoon.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I think the drawing most famous, and so do the
+publishers, to whom I sent it to-day. If Browne should
+suggest anything for the future which may enable him to
+do you justice in copying (on which point he is very
+anxious), I will communicate it to you. It has occurred
+to me that perhaps you will like to see his copy on the
+block before it is cut, and I have therefore told Chapman
+and Hall to forward it to you.</p>
+
+<p>In future, I will take care that you have the number to
+choose your subject from. I ought to have done so, perhaps,
+in this case; but I was very anxious that you should
+do the room.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as
+enclosed, regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with
+the publishers, they will be happy to enter upon it when,
+where, and how you please.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, March 9th, 1840.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been induced, on looking over the works of
+the "Clock," to make a slight alteration in their disposal,
+by virtue of which the story about "John Podgers" will
+stand over for some little time, and that short tale will
+occupy its place which you have already by you, and which
+treats of the assassination of a young gentleman under circumstances
+of peculiar aggravation. I shall be greatly
+obliged to you if you will turn your attention to this last
+morsel as the feature of No. 3, and still more if you can
+stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last
+importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather
+than find one in it. I would neither have made this
+alteration nor have troubled you about it, but for weighty
+and cogent reasons which I feel very strongly, and into
+the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no
+part.</p>
+
+<p>I should tell you perhaps, with reference to Chapman and
+Hall, that they will never trouble you (as they never trouble
+me) but when there is real and pressing occasion, and that
+their representations in this respect, unlike those of most
+men of business, are to be relied upon.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how admirably I think Master
+Humphrey's room comes out, or what glowing accounts I
+hear of the second design you have done. I had not the
+faintest anticipation of anything so good&mdash;taking into
+account the material and the despatch.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 8em;">With best regards at home,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Believe me, dear Cattermole,</span><br />
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The new (No. 3) tale begins: "I hold a lieutenant's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+commission in his Majesty's army, and served abroad in
+the campaigns of 1677 and 1678." It has at present no
+title.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. S. A.
+Diezman.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>10th March, 1840.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will not attempt to tell you how much gratified
+I have been by the receipt of your first English letter;
+nor can I describe to you with what delight and gratification
+I learn that I am held in such high esteem by
+your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is
+flattering indeed.</p>
+
+<p>To you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often,
+I fear, very irksome) task of clothing me in the German
+garb, I owe a long arrear of thanks. I wish you would
+come to England, and afford me an opportunity of slightly
+reducing the account.</p>
+
+<p>It is with great regret that I have to inform you, in
+reply to the request contained in your pleasant communication,
+that my publishers have already made such arrangements
+and are in possession of such stipulations
+relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that I
+have no power to send them out of England. If I had,
+I need not tell you what pleasure it would afford me to
+promote your views.</p>
+
+<p>I am too sensible of the trouble you must have already
+had with my writings to impose upon you now a long letter.
+I will only add, therefore, that I am,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 8em;">My dear Sir,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">With great sincerity,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Daniel
+Maclise.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>June 2nd, 1840.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Maclise</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+My foot is in the house,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My bath is on the sea,</span><br />
+And, before I take a souse,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here's a single note to thee.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary
+sublimity; that this place is, as the Guide Book most justly
+observes, "unsurpassed for the salubrity of the refreshing
+breezes, which are wafted on the ocean's pinions from far-distant
+shores." That we are all right after the perils and
+voyages of yesterday. That the sea is rolling away in
+front of the window at which I indite this epistle, and that
+everything is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a
+splendid coast can make it. Bear these recommendations
+in mind, and shunning Talfourdian pledges, come to the
+bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair front, where
+no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and
+where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs
+off, and then they keep open and won't shut again.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Come!</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I can no more.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>December 21st.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Kit, the single gentleman, and Mr. Garland go down
+to the place where the child is, and arrive there at night.
+There has been a fall of snow. Kit, leaving them behind,
+runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in one hand and
+the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a
+little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+make his presence known. In a window&mdash;supposed to be
+that of the child's little room&mdash;a light is burning, and in
+that room the child (unknown, of course, to her visitors,
+who are full of hope) lies dead.</p>
+
+<p>If you have any difficulty about Kit, never mind about
+putting him in.</p>
+
+<p>The two others to-morrow.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday Morning.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sent the MS. of the enclosed proof, marked 2, up
+to Chapman and Hall, from Devonshire, mentioning a subject
+of an old gateway, which I had put in expressly with a view
+to your illustrious pencil. By a mistake, however, it went
+to Browne instead. Chapman is out of town, and such
+things have gone wrong in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>The subject to which I wish to call your attention is in
+an unwritten number to follow this one, but it is a mere
+echo of what you will find at the conclusion of this proof
+marked 2. I want the cart, gaily decorated, going through
+the street of the old town with the wax brigand displayed
+to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also dispersing
+bills. As many flags and inscriptions about Jarley's Wax
+Work fluttering from the cart as you please. You know the
+wax brigands, and how they contemplate small oval miniatures?
+That's the figure I want. I send you the scrap of
+MS. which contains the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Will you, when you have done this, send it with all
+speed to Chapman and Hall, as we are mortally pressed for
+time, and I must go hard to work to make up for what I
+have lost by being dutiful and going to see my father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I want to see you about a frontispiece to our first
+"Clock" volume, which will come out (I think) at the end
+of September, and about other matters. When shall we
+meet and where?</p>
+
+<p>I say nothing about our cousin or the baby, for Kate
+bears this, and will make me a full report and convey all
+loves and congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>Could you dine with us on Sunday, at six o'clock sharp?
+I'd come and fetch you in the morning, and we could take
+a ride and walk. We shall be quite alone, unless Macready
+comes. What say you?</p>
+
+<p>Don't forget despatch, there's a dear fellow, and ever
+believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>December 22nd, 1840.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The child lying dead in the little sleeping-room,
+which is behind the open screen. It is winter time, so there
+are no flowers; but upon her breast and pillow, and about
+her bed, there may be strips of holly and berries, and such
+free green things. Window overgrown with ivy. The little
+boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by
+the bedside, if you like it so; but I think it will be quieter
+and more peaceful if she is quite alone. I want it to
+express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to
+have something of a happy look, if death can.</p>
+
+
+<p>2.</p>
+
+<p>The child has been buried inside the church, and the
+old man, who cannot be made to understand that she is
+dead, repairs to the grave and sits there all day long,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey. His
+staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie
+beside him. "She'll come to-morrow," he says when it
+gets dark, and goes sorrowfully home. I think an hourglass
+running out would help the notion; perhaps her little
+tilings upon his knee, or in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear
+to finish it.</p>
+
+<p>Love to Missis.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever and always heartily.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1841.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> the summer of this year Charles Dickens made, accompanied
+by Mrs. Dickens, his first visit to Scotland, and
+was received in Edinburgh with the greatest enthusiasm.</div>
+
+<p>He was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn,
+and at the close of the year he went to Windsor for change
+of air after a serious illness.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th January "The Old Curiosity Shop" was
+finished. In the following week the first number of
+his story of "Barnaby Rudge" appeared, in "Master
+Humphrey's Clock," and the last number of this story
+was written at Windsor, in November of this year.</p>
+
+<p>We have the first letters to his dear and valued friends
+the Rev. William Harness and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth.
+Also his first letter to Mr. Monckton Milnes (now Lord
+Houghton).</p>
+
+<p>Of the letter to Mr. John Tomlin we would only remark,
+that it was published in an American magazine, edited by
+Mr. E. A. Poe, in the year 1842.</p>
+
+<p>"The New First Rate" (first letter to Mr. Harrison
+Ainsworth) must, we think, be an allusion to the outside
+cover of "Bentley's Miscellany," which first appeared in
+this year, and of which Mr. Ainsworth was editor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The two letters to Mr. Lovejoy are in answer to a
+requisition from the people of Reading that he would
+represent them in Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. George Cattermole (26th June) refers
+to a dinner given to Charles Dickens by the people of
+Edinburgh, on his first visit to that city.</p>
+
+<p>The "poor Overs," mentioned in the letter to Mr.
+Macready of 24th August, was a carpenter dying of consumption,
+to whom Dr. Elliotson had shown extraordinary
+kindness. "When poor Overs was dying" (wrote Charles
+Dickens to Mr. Forster), "he suddenly asked for a pen and
+ink and some paper, and made up a little parcel for me,
+which it was his last conscious act to direct. She (his
+wife) told me this, and gave it me. I opened it last night.
+It was a copy of his little book, in which he had written my
+name, 'with his devotion.' I thought it simple and affecting
+of the poor fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"The Saloon," alluded to in our last letter of this year,
+was an institution at Drury Lane Theatre during Mr.
+Macready's management. The original purpose for which
+this saloon was established having become perverted and
+degraded, Charles Dickens had it much at heart to remodel
+and improve it. Hence this letter to Mr. Macready.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+William
+Harness.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday Morning, Jan. 2nd, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Harness</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I should have been very glad to join your pleasant
+party, but all next week I shall be laid up with a broken
+heart, for I must occupy myself in finishing the "Curiosity
+Shop," and it is such a painful task to me that I must concentrate
+myself upon it tooth and nail, and go out nowhere
+until it is done.</p>
+
+<p>I have delayed answering your kind note in a vague
+hope of being heart-whole again by the seventh. The
+present state of my work, however (Christmas not being a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+very favourable season for making progress in such doings),
+assures me that this cannot be, and that I must heroically
+deny myself the pleasure you offer.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always believe me,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday, Jan. 14th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you
+for altering the child, or how much I hope that my wish
+in that respect didn't go greatly against the grain.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the old inn this morning. Words cannot say how
+good it is. I can't bear the thought of its being cut, and
+should like to frame and glaze it in <i>statu quo</i> for ever and
+ever.</p>
+
+<p>Will you do a little tail-piece for the "Curiosity" story?&mdash;only
+one figure if you like&mdash;giving some notion of the
+etherealised spirit of the child; something like those little
+figures in the frontispiece. If you will, and can despatch it
+at once, you will make me happy.</p>
+
+<p>I am, for the time being, nearly dead with work and
+grief for the loss of my child.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Always, my dear George,</span><br />
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday Night, Jan. 28th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sent to Chapman and Hall yesterday morning about
+the second subject for No. 2 of "Barnaby," but found they
+had sent it to Browne.</p>
+
+<p>The first subject of No. 3 I will either send to you on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+Saturday, or, at latest, on Sunday morning. I have also
+directed Chapman and Hall to send you proofs of what has
+gone before, for reference, if you need it.</p>
+
+<p>I want to know whether you feel ravens in general and
+would fancy Barnaby's raven in particular. Barnaby being
+an idiot, my notion is to have him always in company
+with a pet raven, who is immeasurably more knowing than
+himself. To this end I have been studying my bird, and
+think I could make a very queer character of him. Should
+you like the subject when this raven makes his first
+appearance?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday Evening, Jan. 30th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you the first four slips of No. 48, containing
+the description of the locksmith's house, which I think will
+make a good subject, and one you will like. If you put
+the "'prentice" in it, show nothing more than his paper cap,
+because he will be an important character in the story, and
+you will need to know more about him as he is minutely
+described. I may as well say that he is very short. Should
+you wish to put the locksmith in, you will find him described
+in No. 2 of "Barnaby" (which I told Chapman and Hall
+to send you). Browne has done him in one little thing, but
+so very slightly that you will not require to see his sketch, I
+think.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I must know what you think about the raven,
+my buck; I otherwise am in this fix. I have given
+Browne no subject for this number, and time is flying.
+If you would like to have the raven's first appearance,
+and don't object to having both subjects, so be it. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+shall be delighted. If otherwise, I must feed that hero
+forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, without
+saying that I have deeply felt your hearty and most
+invaluable co-operation in the beautiful illustrations you
+have made for the last story, that I look at them with a
+pleasure I cannot describe to you in words, and that it is
+impossible for me to say how sensible I am of your
+earnest and friendly aid. Believe me that this is the very
+first time any designs for what I have written have
+touched and moved me, and caused me to feel that they
+expressed the idea I had in my mind.</p>
+
+<p>I am most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you,
+and am full of pleasure and delight.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Believe me, my dear Cattermole,</span><br />
+Always heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Tomlin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park,</span></span><br />
+<span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You are quite right in feeling assured that I should
+answer the letter you have addressed to me. If you had
+entertained a presentiment that it would afford me sincere
+pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted and
+admiring reader of my books in the backwoods of America,
+you would not have been far wrong.</p>
+
+<p>I thank you cordially and heartily both for your letter
+and its kind and courteous terms. To think that I have
+awakened a fellow-feeling and sympathy with the creatures
+of many thoughtful hours among the vast solitudes in which
+you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and pride to
+me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+remembrance and approval, sounding from the green forests
+on the banks of the Mississippi, sink deeper into my heart
+and gratify it more than all the honorary distinctions that
+all the courts in Europe could confer.</p>
+
+<p>It is such things as these that make one hope one does
+not live in vain, and that are the highest reward of an
+author's life. To be numbered among the household gods
+of one's distant countrymen, and associated with their
+homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each nook
+and corner of the world's great mass there lives one well-wisher
+who holds communion with one in the spirit, is a
+worthy fame indeed, and one which I would not barter for
+a mine of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>That I may be happy enough to cheer some of your
+leisure hours for a very long time to come, and to hold
+a place in your pleasant thoughts, is the earnest wish of
+"Boz."</p>
+
+<p>And, with all good wishes for yourself, and with a
+sincere reciprocation of all your kindly feeling,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">I am, dear Sir,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. R.
+Monckton
+Milnes</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Wednesday, March 10th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Milnes</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I thank you very much for the "Nickleby" correspondence,
+which I will keep for a day or two, and return
+when I see you. Poor fellow! The long letter is quite
+admirable, and most affecting.</p>
+
+<p>I am not quite sure either of Friday or Saturday, for,
+independently of the "Clock" (which for ever wants winding),
+I am getting a young brother off to New Zealand just
+now, and have my mornings sadly cut up in consequence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+But, knowing your ways, I know I may say that I will
+come if I can; and that if I can't I won't.</p>
+
+<p>That Nellicide was the act of Heaven, as you may see
+any of these fine mornings when you look about you. If
+you knew the pain it gave me&mdash;but what am I talking of?
+if you don't know, nobody does. I am glad to shake you
+by the hand again autographically,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">And am always,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday, February 9th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>My notes tread upon each other's heels. In my last
+I quite forgot business.</p>
+
+<p>Will you, for No. 49, do the locksmith's house, which
+was described in No. 48? I mean the outside. If you can,
+without hurting the effect, shut up the shop as though it
+were night, so much the better. Should you want a figure,
+an ancient watchman in or out of his box, very sleepy, will
+be just the thing for me.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to Chapman and requested him to send
+you a block of a long shape, so that the house may come
+upright as it were.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Old Ship Hotel, Brighton</span>, <i>Feb. 26th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Kittenmoles</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I passed your house on Wednesday, being then atop
+of the Brighton Era; but there was nobody at the door,
+saving a solitary poulterer, and all my warm-hearted aspirations
+lodged in the goods he was delivering. No doubt you
+observed a peculiar relish in your dinner. That was the
+cause.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I send you the MS. I fear you will have to read all the
+five slips; but the subject I think of is at the top of the
+last, when the guest, with his back towards the spectator,
+is looking out of window. I think, in your hands, it will
+be a very pretty one.</p>
+
+<p>Then, my boy, when you have done it, turn your
+thoughts (as soon as other engagements will allow) first to
+the outside of The Warren&mdash;see No. 1; secondly, to the
+outside of the locksmith's house, by night&mdash;see No. 3.
+Put a penny pistol to Chapman's head and demand the
+blocks of him.</p>
+
+<p>I have addled my head with writing all day, and have
+barely wit enough left to send my love to my cousin,
+and&mdash;there's a genealogical poser&mdash;what relation of mine
+may the dear little child be? At present, I desire to be
+commended to her clear blue eyes.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear George,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Faithfully yours,</span><br />
+<div class="figright" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/3boz.png" width="150" height="91" alt="Signature: Boz." title="Signature: Boz." />
+</div><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Harrison
+Ainsworth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>April 29th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Ainsworth</span>,</div>
+
+<p>With all imaginable pleasure. I quite look forward
+to the day. It is an age since we met, and it ought not
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>The artist has just sent home your "Nickleby." He
+suggested variety, pleading his fancy and genius. As an
+artful binder must have his way, I put the best face on
+the matter, and gave him his. I will bring it together
+with the "Pickwick" to your house-warming with me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old <i>Royal George</i> went down in consequence of
+having too much weight on one side. I trust the new
+"First Rate" won't be heavy anywhere. There seems to
+me to be too much whisker for a shilling, but that's a
+matter of taste.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. G.
+Lovejoy.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday Evening, May 31st, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am much obliged and flattered by the receipt of
+your letter, which I should have answered immediately
+on its arrival but for my absence from home at the
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>My principles and inclinations would lead me to
+aspire to the distinction you invite me to seek, if there
+were any reasonable chance of success, and I hope I
+should do no discredit to such an honour if I won and
+wore it. But I am bound to add, and I have no hesitation
+in saying plainly, that I cannot afford the expense
+of a contested election. If I could, I would act on your
+suggestion instantly. I am not the less indebted to you
+and the friends to whom the thought occurred, for your
+good opinion and approval. I beg you to understand
+that I am restrained solely (and much against my will) by
+the consideration I have mentioned, and thank both you
+and them most warmly.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>June 10th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am favoured with your note of yesterday's date,
+and lose no time in replying to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sum you mention, though small I am aware in
+the abstract, is greater than I could afford for such a
+purpose; as the mere sitting in the House and attending
+to my duties, if I were a member, would oblige me to
+make many pecuniary sacrifices, consequent upon the very
+nature of my pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>The course you suggest did occur to me when I
+received your first letter, and I have very little doubt
+indeed that the Government would support me&mdash;perhaps
+to the whole extent. But I cannot satisfy myself that to
+enter Parliament under such circumstances would enable
+me to pursue that honourable independence without which
+I could neither preserve my own respect nor that of my
+constituents. I confess therefore (it may be from not
+having considered the points sufficiently, or in the right
+light) that I cannot bring myself to propound the subject
+to any member of the administration whom I know. I
+am truly obliged to you nevertheless, and am,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Dear Sir,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Wednesday Evening, July 28th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Can you do for me by Saturday evening&mdash;I know
+the time is short, but I think the subject will suit you, and
+I am greatly pressed&mdash;a party of rioters (with Hugh and
+Simon Tappertit conspicuous among them) in old John
+Willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage,
+smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting
+astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls,
+eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.;
+John Willet, fallen backward in his chair, regarding them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with
+none of The Maypole customers at his back.</p>
+
+<p>It's in your way, and you'll do it a hundred times better
+than I can suggest it to you, I know.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Friday, August 6th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Here is a subject for the next number; the next to
+that I hope to send you the MS. of very early in the week,
+as the best opportunities of illustration are all coming off
+now, and we are in the thick of the story.</p>
+
+<p>The rioters went, sir, from John Willet's bar (where you
+saw them to such good purpose) straight to The Warren,
+which house they plundered, sacked, burned, pulled down as
+much of as they could, and greatly damaged and destroyed.
+They are supposed to have left it about half an hour. It
+is night, and the ruins are here and there flaming and
+smoking. I want&mdash;if you understand&mdash;to show one of the
+turrets laid open&mdash;the turret where the alarm-bell is, mentioned
+in No. 1; and among the ruins (at some height if
+possible) Mr. Haredale just clutching our friend, the mysterious
+file, who is passing over them like a spirit; Solomon
+Daisy, if you can introduce him, looking on from the ground
+below.</p>
+
+<p>Please to observe that the M. F. wears a large cloak
+and a slouched hat. This is important, because Browne
+will have him in the same number, and he has not changed
+his dress meanwhile. Mr. Haredale is supposed to have
+come down here on horseback, pell-mell; to be excited to
+the last degree. I think it will make a queer picturesque
+thing in your hands. I have told Chapman and Hall that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+you may like to have a block of a peculiar shape for it.
+One of them will be with you almost as soon as you receive
+this.</p>
+
+<p>We are very anxious to know that our cousin is out of
+her trouble, and you free from your anxiety. Mind you
+write when it comes off. And when she is quite comfortable
+come down here for a day or two, like a bachelor,
+as you will be. It will do you a world of good. Think of
+that.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, dear Cattermole,</span><br />
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;When you have done the subject, I wish you'd
+write me one line and tell me how, that I may be sure we
+agree. Loves from Kate.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday, August 13th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Will you turn your attention to a frontispiece for
+our first volume, to come upon the left-hand side of the
+book as you open it, and to face a plain printed title?
+My idea is, some scene from the "Curiosity Shop," in a
+pretty border, or scroll-work, or architectural device; it
+matters not what, so that it be pretty. The scene even
+might be a fanciful thing, partaking of the character of
+the story, but not reproducing any particular passage in it,
+if you thought that better for the effect.</p>
+
+<p>I ask you to think of this, because, although the volume
+is not published until the end of September, there is no
+time to lose. We wish to have it engraved with great
+care, and worked very skilfully; and this cannot be done
+unless we get it on the stocks soon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They will give you every opportunity of correction,
+alteration, revision, and all other ations and isions
+connected with the fine arts.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always believe me,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>August 19th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>When Hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off
+from The Warren beckoned to their pals, they forced into
+a very remarkable postchaise Dolly Varden and Emma
+Haredale, and bore them away with all possible rapidity;
+one of their company driving, and the rest running
+beside the chaise, climbing up behind, sitting on the
+top, lighting the way with their torches, etc. etc. If
+you can express the women inside without showing them&mdash;as
+by a fluttering veil, a delicate arm, or so forth appearing
+at the half-closed window&mdash;so much the better.
+Mr. Tappertit stands on the steps, which are partly down,
+and, hanging on to the window with one hand and extending
+the other with great majesty, addresses a few
+words of encouragement to the driver and attendants.
+Hugh sits upon the bar in front; the driver sitting
+postilion-wise, and turns round to look through the window
+behind him at the little doves within. The gentlemen
+behind are also anxious to catch a glimpse of the ladies.
+One of those who are running at the side may be gently
+rebuked for his curiosity by the cudgel of Hugh. So they
+cut away, sir, as fast as they can.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;John Willet's bar is noble.</p>
+
+<p>We take it for granted that cousin and baby are hearty.
+Our loves to them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Tuesday, August 24th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I must thank you, most heartily and cordially, for
+your kind note relative to poor Overs. I can't tell you
+how glad I am to know that he thoroughly deserves such
+kindness.</p>
+
+<p>What a good fellow Elliotson is. He kept him in his
+room a whole hour, and has gone into his case as if he were
+Prince Albert; laying down all manner of elaborate projects
+and determining to leave his friend Wood in town when
+he himself goes away, on purpose to attend to him. Then
+he writes me four sides of paper about the man, and says he
+can't go back to his old work, for that requires muscular
+exertion (and muscular exertion he mustn't make), what
+are we to do with him? He says: "Here's five pounds for
+the present."</p>
+
+<p>I declare before God that I could almost bear the
+Jones's for five years out of the pleasure I feel in knowing
+such things, and when I think that every dirty speck upon
+the fair face of the Almighty's creation, who writes in a
+filthy, beastly newspaper; every rotten-hearted pander who
+has been beaten, kicked, and rolled in the kennel, yet struts
+it in the editorial "We," once a week; every vagabond that
+an honest man's gorge must rise at; every live emetic in
+that noxious drug-shop the press, can have his fling at such
+men and call them knaves and fools and thieves, I grow so
+vicious that, with bearing hard upon my pen, I break the nib
+down, and, with keeping my teeth set, make my jaws ache.</p>
+
+<p>I have put myself out of sorts for the day, and shall go
+and walk, unless the direction of this sets me up again.
+On second thoughts I think it will.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Sunday, September 12th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Here is a business letter, written in a scramble just
+before post time, whereby I dispose of loves to cousin in a
+line.</p>
+
+<p>Firstly. Will you design, upon a block of wood, Lord
+George Gordon, alone and very solitary, in his prison in
+the Tower? The chamber as ancient as you please, and
+after your own fancy; the time, evening; the season,
+summer.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly. Will you ditto upon a ditto, a sword duel
+between Mr. Haredale and Mr. Chester, in a grove of trees?
+No one close by. Mr. Haredale has just pierced his adversary,
+who has fallen, dying, on the grass. He (that is,
+Chester) tries to staunch the wound in his breast with his
+handkerchief; has his snuffbox on the earth beside him,
+and looks at Mr. Haredale (who stands with his sword in
+his hand, looking down on him) with most supercilious
+hatred, but polite to the last. Mr. Haredale is more sorry
+than triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly. Will you conceive and execute, after your own
+fashion, a frontispiece for "Barnaby"?</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly. Will you also devise a subject representing
+"Master Humphrey's Clock" as stopped; his chair by the
+fireside, empty; his crutch against the wall; his slippers on
+the cold hearth; his hat upon the chair-back; the MSS. of
+"Barnaby" and "The Curiosity Shop" heaped upon the
+table; and the flowers you introduced in the first subject of
+all withered and dead? Master Humphrey being supposed
+to be no more.</p>
+
+<p>I have a fifthly, sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly; for I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+sorely want you, as I approach the close of the tale, but I
+won't frighten you, so we'll take breath.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear Cattermole,</span><br />
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I have been waiting until I got to subjects of this
+nature, thinking you would like them best.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>September 21st, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Will you, before you go on with the other subjects
+I gave you, do one of Hugh, bareheaded, bound, tied on
+a horse, and escorted by horse-soldiers to jail? If you
+can add an indication of old Fleet Market, and bodies of
+foot soldiers firing at people who have taken refuge on the
+tops of stalls, bulk-heads, etc., it will be all the better.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Talfourd.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>December 16th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I should be delighted to come and dine with you
+on your birthday, and to be as merry as I wish you to
+be always; but as I am going, within a very few days afterwards,
+a very long distance from home, and shall not see
+any of my children for six long months, I have made up
+my mind to pass all that week at home for their sakes;
+just as you would like your papa and mamma to spend all
+the time they possibly could spare with you if they were
+about to make a dreary voyage to America; which is what
+I am going to do myself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But although I cannot come to see you on that day,
+you may be sure I shall not forget that it is your birthday,
+and that I shall drink your health and many happy returns,
+in a glass of wine, filled as full as it will hold. And I
+shall dine at half-past five myself, so that we may both
+be drinking our wine at the same time; and I shall tell my
+Mary (for I have got a daughter of that name but she is a
+very small one as yet) to drink your health too; and we
+shall try and make believe that you are here, or that we
+are in Russell Square, which is the best thing we can do,
+I think, under the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>You are growing up so fast that by the time I come
+home again I expect you will be almost a woman; and in
+a very few years we shall be saying to each other:
+"Don't you remember what the birthdays used to be in
+Russell Square?" and "How strange it seems!" and
+"How quickly time passes!" and all that sort of thing,
+you know. But I shall always be very glad to be asked
+on your birthday, and to come if you will let me, and to
+send my love to you, and to wish that you may live to
+be very old and very happy, which I do now with all my
+heart.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Believe me always,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">My dear Mary,</span><br />
+Yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday, Dec. 28th, 1841.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This note is about the saloon. I make it as brief as
+possible. Read it when you have time. As we were the
+first experimentalists last night you will be glad to know
+what it wants.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>First, the refreshments are preposterously dear. A glass
+of wine is a shilling, and it ought to be sixpence.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, they were served out by the wrong sort of
+people&mdash;two most uncomfortable drabs of women, and a
+dirty man with his hat on.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, there ought to be a box-keeper to ring a bell
+or give some other notice of the commencement of the
+overture to the after-piece. The promenaders were in a
+perpetual fret and worry to get back again.</p>
+
+<p>And fourthly, and most important of all&mdash;if the plan is
+ever to succeed&mdash;you must have some notice up to the effect
+that as it is now a place of resort for ladies, gentlemen are
+requested not to lounge there in their hats and greatcoats.
+No ladies will go there, though the conveniences should be
+ten thousand times greater, while the sort of swells who
+have been used to kick their heels there do so in the old
+sort of way. I saw this expressed last night more strongly
+than I can tell you.</p>
+
+<p>Hearty congratulations on the brilliant triumph. I have
+always expected one, as you know, but nobody could have
+imagined the reality.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1842.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> January of this year Charles Dickens went, with his
+wife, to America, the house in Devonshire Terrace being let
+for the term of their absence (six months), and the four
+children left in a furnished house in Osnaburgh Street,
+Regent's Park, under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Macready.
+They returned from America in July, and in August went to
+Broadstairs for the autumn months as usual, and in October<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+Charles Dickens made an expedition to Cornwall, with Mr.
+Forster, Mr. Maclise, and Mr. Stanfield for his companions.</div>
+
+<p>During his stay at Broadstairs he was engaged in
+writing his "American Notes," which book was published
+in October. At the end of the year he had written the
+first number of "Martin Chuzzlewit," which appeared in
+January, 1843.</p>
+
+<p>An extract from a letter, addressed to Messrs. Chapman
+and Hall before his departure for America, is given as a
+testimony of the estimation in which Charles Dickens
+held the firm with whom he was connected for so many
+years.</p>
+
+<p>His letters to Mr. H. P. Smith, for many years actuary
+of the Eagle Insurance Office, are a combination of business
+and friendship. Mr. Smith gives us, as an explanation of
+a note to him, dated 14th July, that he alluded to the
+stamp of the office upon the cheque, which was, as he
+described it, "almost a work of art"&mdash;a truculent-looking
+eagle seated on a rock and scattering rays over the whole
+sheet.</p>
+
+<p>Of letters written by Charles Dickens in America we
+have been able to obtain very few. One, to Dr. F. H.
+Deane, Cincinnati, complying with his request to write him
+an epitaph for the tombstone of his little child, has been
+kindly copied for us from an album, by Mrs. Fields, of
+Boston. Therefore, it is not directly received, but as we
+have no doubt of its authenticity, we give it here; and there
+is one to Mr. Halleck, the American poet.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the voyage to America (a very bad and
+dangerous one), a meeting of the passengers, with Lord
+Mulgrave in the chair, took place, and a piece of plate and
+thanks were voted to the captain of the <i>Britannia</i>, Captain
+Hewett. The vote of thanks, being drawn up by Charles
+Dickens, is given here. We have letters in this year to
+Mr. Thomas Hood, Miss Pardoe, Mrs. Trollope, and Mr.
+W. P. Frith. The last-named artist&mdash;then a very young
+man&mdash;had made great success with several charming
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>pictures of Dolly Varden. One of these was bought by
+Charles Dickens, who ordered a companion picture of Kate
+Nickleby, from the young painter, whose acquaintance he
+made at the same time; and the two letters to Mr. Frith
+have reference to the purchase of the one picture and the
+commission for the other.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. Cattermole is an acknowledgment also
+of a completed commission of two water-colour drawings,
+from the subjects of two of Mr. Cattermole's illustrations
+to "The Old Curiosity Shop."</p>
+
+<p>A note to Mr. Macready, at the close of this year, refers
+to the first representation of Mr. Westland Marston's play,
+"The Patrician's Daughter." Charles Dickens took great
+interest in the production of this work at Drury Lane. It
+was, to a certain extent, an experiment of the effect of a
+tragedy of modern times and in modern dress; and the
+prologue, which Charles Dickens wrote and which we give,
+was intended to show that there need be no incongruity
+between plain clothes of this century and high tragedy.
+The play was quite successful.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Messrs.
+Chapman
+and Hall.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>Having disposed of the business part of this letter, I
+should not feel at ease on leaving England if I did not tell
+you once more with my whole heart that your conduct to
+me on this and all other occasions has been honourable,
+manly, and generous, and that I have felt it a solemn duty,
+in the event of any accident happening to me while I am
+away, to place this testimony upon record. It forms part of
+a will I have made for the security of my children; for I
+wish them to know it when they are capable of understanding
+your worth and my appreciation of it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Always believe me,</span><br />
+Faithfully and truly yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 3rd, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mitton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is a short note, but I will fulfil the adage and
+make it a merry one.</p>
+
+<p>We came down in great comfort. Our luggage is now
+aboard. Anything so utterly and monstrously absurd as
+the size of our cabin, no "gentleman of England who lives
+at home at ease" can for a moment imagine. Neither of the
+portmanteaus would go into it. There!</p>
+
+<p>These Cunard packets are not very big you know
+actually, but the quantity of sleeping-berths makes them
+much smaller, so that the saloon is not nearly as large as in
+one of the Ramsgate boats. The ladies' cabin is so close to
+ours that I could knock the door open without getting
+off something they call my bed, but which I believe to
+be a muffin beaten flat. This is a great comfort, for it
+is an excellent room (the only good one in the ship); and
+if there be only one other lady besides Kate, as the
+stewardess thinks, I hope I shall be able to sit there very
+often.</p>
+
+<p>They talk of seventy passengers, but I can't think there
+will be so many; they talk besides (which is even more to
+the purpose) of a very fine passage, having had a noble one
+this time last year. God send it so! We are in the best
+spirits, and full of hope. I was dashed for a moment
+when I saw our "cabin," but I got over that directly, and
+laughed so much at its ludicrous proportions, that you
+might have heard me all over the ship.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you! Write to me by the first opportunity. I
+will do the like to you. And always believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your old and faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+<h2>NARRATIVE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At a meeting of the passengers on board the <i>Britannia</i>
+steam-ship, travelling from Liverpool to Boston, held in the
+saloon of that vessel, on Friday, the 21st January, 1842, it
+was moved and seconded:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"That the Earl of Mulgrave do take the chair."</p></div>
+
+<p>The motion having been carried unanimously, the Earl
+of Mulgrave took the chair accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>It was also moved and seconded, and carried
+unanimously:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"That Charles Dickens, Esq., be appointed secretary
+and treasurer to the meeting."</p></div>
+
+<p>The three following resolutions were then proposed and
+carried <i>nem. con.</i>:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"First. That, gratefully recognising the blessing of
+Divine Providence by which we are brought nearly to the
+termination of our voyage, we have great pleasure in expressing
+our high appreciation of Captain Hewett's nautical
+skill and of his indefatigable attention to the management
+and safe conduct of the ship, during a more than ordinarily
+tempestuous passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Secondly. That a subscription be opened for the purchase
+of a piece of silver plate, and that Captain Hewett be
+respectfully requested to accept it, as a sincere expression of
+the sentiments embodied in the foregoing resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirdly. That a committee be appointed to carry
+these resolutions into effect; and that the committee be
+composed of the following gentlemen: Charles Dickens,
+Esq., E. Dunbar, Esq., and Solomon Hopkins, Esq."</p></div>
+
+<p>The committee having withdrawn and conferred with
+Captain Hewett, returned, and informed the meeting that
+Captain Hewett desired to attend and express his thanks,
+which he did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The amount of the subscription was reported at fifty
+pounds, and the list was closed. It was then agreed that the
+following inscription should be placed upon the testimonial
+to Captain Hewett:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">This Piece of Plate</span><br />
+was presented to<br />
+<big>CAPTAIN JOHN HEWETT,</big><br />
+of the <span class="smcap">Britannia</span> Steam-ship,<br />
+<br />
+By the Passengers on board that vessel in a voyage from Liverpool<br />
+to Boston, in the month of January, 1842,<br />
+<br />
+As a slight acknowledgment of his great ability and skill<br />
+under circumstances of much difficulty and danger,<br />
+And as a feeble token of their lasting gratitude.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Thanks were then voted to the chairman and to the
+secretary, and the meeting separated.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tremont House, Boston</span>, <i>January 31st, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mitton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am so exhausted with the life I am obliged to
+lead here, that I have had time to write but one letter which
+is at all deserving of the name, as giving any account of
+our movements. Forster has it, in trust, to tell you all its
+news; and he has also some newspapers which I had an
+opportunity of sending him, in which you will find further
+particulars of our progress.</p>
+
+<p>We had a dreadful passage, the worst, the officers all
+concur in saying, that they have ever known. We were
+eighteen days coming; experienced a dreadful storm which
+swept away our paddle-boxes and stove our lifeboats; and
+ran aground besides, near Halifax, among rocks and
+breakers, where we lay at anchor all night. After we left
+the English Channel we had only one fine day. And we
+had the additional discomfort of being eighty-six passengers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+I was ill five days, Kate six; though, indeed, she had a
+swelled face and suffered the utmost terror all the way.</p>
+
+<p>I can give you no conception of my welcome here.
+There never was a king or emperor upon the earth so
+cheered and followed by crowds, and entertained in public
+at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by public
+bodies and deputations of all kinds. I have had one from
+the Far West&mdash;a journey of two thousand miles! If I
+go out in a carriage, the crowd surround it and escort me
+home; if I go to the theatre, the whole house (crowded to
+the roof) rises as one man, and the timbers ring again.
+You cannot imagine what it is. I have five great public
+dinners on hand at this moment, and invitations from every
+town and village and city in the States.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for
+description. I keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to
+have done so to some purpose by the time I come home.</p>
+
+<p>When you write to me again&mdash;I say again, hoping that
+your first letter will be soon upon its way here&mdash;direct to
+me to the care of David Colden, Esq., New York. He will
+forward all communications by the quickest conveyance and
+will be perfectly acquainted with all my movements.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Fitz-Greene
+Halleck.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Carlton House</span>, <i>February 14th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Will you come and breakfast with me on Tuesday,
+the 22nd, at half-past ten? Say yes. I should have been
+truly delighted to have a talk with you to-night (being
+quite alone), but the doctor says that if I talk to man,
+woman, or child this evening I shall be dumb to-morrow.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, with true regard,</span><br />
+Faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Baltimore</span>, <i>March 22nd, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg your pardon, but you were speaking of rash
+leaps at hasty conclusions. Are you quite sure you
+designed that remark for me? Have you not, in the
+hurry of correspondence, slipped a paragraph into my
+letter which belongs of right to somebody else? When
+did you ever find me leap at wrong conclusions? I pause
+for a reply.</p>
+
+<p>Pray, sir, did you ever find me admiring Mr. &mdash;&mdash;?
+On the contrary, did you never hear of my protesting
+through good, better, and best report that he was not an
+open or a candid man, and would one day, beyond all
+doubt, displease you by not being so? I pause again for a
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>Are you quite sure, Mr. Macready&mdash;and I address myself
+to you with the sternness of a man in the pit&mdash;are
+you quite sure, sir, that you do not view America
+through the pleasant mirage which often surrounds a
+thing that has been, but not a thing that is? Are you
+quite sure that when you were here you relished it as well
+as you do now when you look back upon it. The early
+spring birds, Mr. Macready, <i>do</i> sing in the groves that you
+were, very often, not over well pleased with many of the
+new country's social aspects. Are the birds to be trusted?
+Again I pause for a reply.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Macready, I desire to be so honest and
+just to those who have so enthusiastically and earnestly
+welcomed me, that I burned the last letter I wrote to
+you&mdash;even to you to whom I would speak as to myself&mdash;rather
+than let it come with anything that might seem
+like an ill-considered word of disappointment. I preferred
+that you should think me neglectful (if you could imagine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+anything so wild) rather than I should do wrong in this
+respect. Still it is of no use. I <i>am</i> disappointed. This
+is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of
+my imagination. I infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy&mdash;even
+with its sickening accompaniments of court circulars&mdash;to
+such a government as this. The more I think of its youth
+and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand
+aspects it appears in my eyes. In everything of which it
+has made a boast&mdash;excepting its education of the people and
+its care for poor children&mdash;it sinks immeasurably below the
+level I had placed it upon; and England, even England,
+bad and faulty as the old land is, and miserable as millions
+of her people are, rises in the comparison.</p>
+
+<p><i>You</i> live here, Macready, as I have sometimes heard you
+imagining! <i>You!</i> Loving you with all my heart and soul,
+and knowing what your disposition really is, I would not
+condemn you to a year's residence on this side of the
+Atlantic for any money. Freedom of opinion! Where is
+it? I see a press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and
+disgraceful than any country I ever knew. If that is its
+standard, here it is. But I speak of Bancroft, and am
+advised to be silent on that subject, for he is "a black sheep&mdash;a
+Democrat." I speak of Bryant, and am entreated to
+be more careful, for the same reason. I speak of international
+copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright.
+I speak of Miss Martineau, and all parties&mdash;Slave
+Upholders and Abolitionists, Whigs, Tyler Whigs, and
+Democrats, shower down upon me a perfect cataract of
+abuse. "But what has she done? Surely she praised
+America enough!" "Yes, but she told us of some of our
+faults, and Americans can't bear to be told of their faults.
+Don't split on that rock, Mr. Dickens, don't write about
+America; we are so very suspicious."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Freedom of opinion! Macready, if I had been born
+here and had written my books in this country, producing
+them with no stamp of approval from any other land,
+it is my solemn belief that I should have lived and died
+poor, unnoticed, and a "black sheep" to boot. I never
+was more convinced of anything than I am of that.</p>
+
+<p>The people are affectionate, generous, open-hearted,
+hospitable, enthusiastic, good-humoured, polite to women,
+frank and candid to all strangers, anxious to oblige, far
+less prejudiced than they have been described to be,
+frequently polished and refined, very seldom rude or disagreeable.
+I have made a great many friends here, even in
+public conveyances, whom I have been truly sorry to part
+from. In the towns I have formed perfect attachments.
+I have seen none of that greediness and indecorousness
+on which travellers have laid so much emphasis. I have
+returned frankness with frankness; met questions not intended
+to be rude, with answers meant to be satisfactory;
+and have not spoken to one man, woman, or child of any
+degree who has not grown positively affectionate before we
+parted. In the respects of not being left alone, and of
+being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco
+spittle, I have suffered considerably. The sight of slavery
+in Virginia, the hatred of British feeling upon the subject,
+and the miserable hints of the impotent indignation of the
+South, have pained me very much; on the last head, of
+course, I have felt nothing but a mingled pity and amusement;
+on the other, sheer distress. But however much I
+like the ingredients of this great dish, I cannot but come
+back to the point upon which I started, and say that the
+dish itself goes against the grain with me, and that I don't
+like it.</p>
+
+<p>You know that I am truly a Liberal. I believe I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+as little pride as most men, and I am conscious of not the
+smallest annoyance from being "hail fellow well met" with
+everybody. I have not had greater pleasure in the company
+of any set of men among the thousands I have received
+(I hold a regular <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'levee'">lev&eacute;e</ins> every day, you know, which is
+duly heralded and proclaimed in the newspapers) than in
+that of the carmen of Hertford, who presented themselves
+in a body in their blue frocks, among a crowd of well-dressed
+ladies and gentlemen, and bade me welcome through
+their spokesman. They had all read my books, and all
+perfectly understood them. It is not these things I have
+in my mind when I say that the man who comes to this
+country a Radical and goes home again with his opinions
+unchanged, must be a Radical on reason, sympathy, and
+reflection, and one who has so well considered the subject
+that he has no chance of wavering.</p>
+
+<p>We have been to Boston, Worcester, Hertford, New
+Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
+Fredericksburgh, Richmond, and back to Washington
+again. The premature heat of the weather (it was eighty
+yesterday in the shade) and Clay's advice&mdash;how you would
+like Clay!&mdash;have made us determine not to go to Charleston;
+but having got to Richmond, I think I should have turned
+back under any circumstances. We remain at Baltimore
+for two days, of which this is one; then we go to Harrisburgh.
+Then by the canal boat and the railroad over the
+Alleghany Mountains to Pittsburgh, then down the Ohio to
+Cincinnati, then to Louisville, and then to St. Louis. I have
+been invited to a public entertainment in every town I
+have entered, and have refused them; but I have excepted
+St. Louis as the farthest point of my travels. My friends
+there have passed some resolutions which Forster has, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>will show you. From St. Louis we cross to Chicago,
+traversing immense prairies. Thence by the lakes and
+Detroit to Buffalo, and so to Niagara. A run into Canada
+follows of course, and then&mdash;let me write the blessed word
+in capitals&mdash;we turn towards <span class="smcap">home</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Kate has written to Mrs. Macready, and it is useless for
+me to thank you, my dearest friend, or her, for your care
+of our dear children, which is our constant theme of discourse.
+Forster has gladdened our hearts with his account
+of the triumph of "Acis and Galatea," and I am anxiously
+looking for news of the tragedy. Forrest breakfasted
+with us at Richmond last Saturday&mdash;he was acting there,
+and I invited him&mdash;and he spoke very gratefully, and
+very like a man, of your kindness to him when he was in
+London.</p>
+
+<p>David Colden is as good a fellow as ever lived; and
+I am deeply in love with his wife. Indeed we have received
+the greatest and most earnest and zealous kindness from
+the whole family, and quite love them all. Do you
+remember one Greenhow, whom you invited to pass some
+days with you at the hotel on the Kaatskill Mountains?
+He is translator to the State Office at Washington, has a
+very pretty wife, and a little girl of five years old. We
+dined with them, and had a very pleasant day. The
+President invited me to dinner, but I couldn't stay for it. I
+had a private audience, however, and we attended the public
+drawing-room besides.</p>
+
+<p>Now, don't you rush at the quick conclusion that I have
+rushed at a quick conclusion. Pray, be upon your guard.
+If you can by any process estimate the extent of my
+affectionate regard for you, and the rush I shall make when
+I reach London to take you by your true right hand, I
+don't object. But let me entreat you to be very careful
+how you come down upon the sharpsighted individual who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+pens these words, which you seem to me to have done in what
+Willmott would call "one of Mr. Macready's rushes." As my
+pen is getting past its work, I have taken a new one to say that</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">I am ever, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Baltimore, United States</span>, <i>March 22nd, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We have been as far south as Richmond in Virginia
+(where they grow and manufacture tobacco, and where the
+labour is all performed by slaves), but the season in those
+latitudes is so intensely and prematurely hot, that it was
+considered a matter of doubtful expediency to go on to
+Charleston. For this unexpected reason, and because the
+country between Richmond and Charleston is but a desolate
+swamp the whole way, and because slavery is anything but
+a cheerful thing to live amidst, I have altered my route by
+the advice of Mr. Clay (the great political leader in this
+country), and have returned here previous to diving into
+the far West. We start for that part of the country&mdash;which
+includes mountain travelling, and lake travelling,
+and prairie travelling&mdash;the day after to-morrow, at eight
+o'clock in the morning; and shall be in the West, and from
+there going northward again, until the 30th of April or 1st
+of May, when we shall halt for a week at Niagara, before
+going further into Canada. We have taken our passage home
+(God bless the word) in the <i>George Washington</i> packet-ship
+from New York. She sails on the 7th of June.</p>
+
+<p>I have departed from my resolution not to accept any
+more public entertainments; they have been proposed in
+every town I have visited&mdash;in favour of the people of
+St. Louis, my utmost western point. That town is on the
+borders of the Indian territory, a trifling distance from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+this place&mdash;only two thousand miles! At my second
+halting-place I shall be able to write to fix the day; I
+suppose it will be somewhere about the 12th of April.
+Think of my going so far towards the setting sun to dinner!</p>
+
+<p>In every town where we stay, though it be only for a
+day, we hold a regular <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'levee'">lev&eacute;e</ins> or drawing-room, where I
+shake hands on an average with five or six hundred people,
+who pass on from me to Kate, and are shaken again by
+her. Maclise's picture of our darlings stands upon a table
+or sideboard the while; and my travelling secretary, assisted
+very often by a committee belonging to the place, presents
+the people in due form. Think of two hours of this every
+day, and the people coming in by hundreds, all fresh, and
+piping hot, and full of questions, when we are literally
+exhausted and can hardly stand. I really do believe that
+if I had not a lady with me, I should have been obliged to
+leave the country and go back to England. But for her they
+never would leave me alone by day or night, and as it is, a
+slave comes to me now and then in the middle of the night
+with a letter, and waits at the bedroom door for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>It was so hot at Richmond that we could scarcely
+breathe, and the peach and other fruit trees were in full
+blossom; it was so cold at Washington next day that we
+were shivering; but even in the same town you might often
+wear nothing but a shirt and trousers in the morning, and two
+greatcoats at night, the thermometer very frequently taking
+a little trip of thirty degrees between sunrise and sunset.</p>
+
+<p>They do lay it on at the hotels in such style! They
+charge by the day, so that whether one dines out or dines at
+home makes no manner of difference. T'other day I wrote
+to order our rooms at Philadelphia to be ready on a certain
+day, and was detained a week longer than I expected in
+New York. The Philadelphia landlord not only charged me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+half rent for the rooms during the whole of that time, but
+board for myself and Kate and Anne during the whole time
+too, though we were actually boarding at the same expense
+during the same time in New York! What do you say to
+that? If I remonstrated, the whole virtue of the newspapers
+would be aroused directly.</p>
+
+<p>We were at the President's drawing-room while we were
+in Washington. I had a private audience besides, and was
+asked to dinner, but couldn't stay.</p>
+
+<p>Parties&mdash;parties&mdash;parties&mdash;of course, every day and
+night. But it's not all parties. I go into the prisons, the
+police-offices, the watch-houses, the hospitals, the workhouses.
+I was out half the night in New York with two
+of their most famous constables; started at midnight, and
+went into every brothel, thieves' house, murdering hovel,
+sailors' dancing-place, and abode of villany, both black and
+white, in the town. I went <i>incog.</i> behind the scenes to the
+little theatre where Mitchell is making a fortune. He has
+been rearing a little dog for me, and has called him "Boz."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+I am going to bring him home. In a word I go everywhere,
+and a hard life it is. But I am careful to drink hardly
+anything, and not to smoke at all. I have recourse to my
+medicine-chest whenever I feel at all bilious, and am, thank
+God, thoroughly well.</p>
+
+<p>When I next write to you, I shall have begun, I hope, to
+turn my face homeward. I have a great store of oddity
+and whimsicality, and am going now into the oddest and
+most characteristic part of this most queer country.</p>
+
+<p>Always direct to the care of David Colden, Esq.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+28, Laight Street, Hudson Square, New York. I received
+your Caledonia letter with the greatest joy.</p>
+
+<p>Kate sends her best remembrances.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+And I am always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Richmond was my extreme southern point, and I
+turn from the South altogether the day after to-morrow. Will
+you let the Britannia<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> know of this change&mdash;if needful?</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dr. F. H.
+Deane.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Cincinnati, Ohio</span>, <i>April 4th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have not been unmindful of your request for a
+moment, but have not been able to think of it until now.
+I hope my good friends (for whose christian-names I have
+left blanks in the epitaph) may like what I have written,
+and that they will take comfort and be happy again. I sail
+on the 7th of June, and purpose being at the Carlton House,
+New York, about the 1st. It will make me easy to know
+that this letter has reached you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+<b>This is the Grave of a Little Child,</b><br />
+<br />
+<small>WHOM GOD IN HIS GOODNESS CALLED TO A BRIGHT ETERNITY</small><br />
+<small>WHEN HE WAS VERY YOUNG.</small><br />
+<br />
+<small>HARD AS IT IS FOR HUMAN AFFECTION TO RECONCILE ITSELF TO DEATH IN ANY</small><br />
+<small>SHAPE (AND MOST OF ALL, PERHAPS, AT FIRST IN THIS),</small><br />
+<br />
+<small>HIS PARENTS CAN EVEN NOW BELIEVE THAT IT WILL BE A CONSOLATION</small><br />
+<small>TO THEM THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES,</small><br />
+<br />
+<small>AND WHEN THEY SHALL HAVE GROWN OLD AND GRAY,</small><br />
+<br />
+<b>Always to think of him as a Child in Heaven.</b><br />
+<br />
+"<i>And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them.</i>"<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">He was the Son of Q&mdash;&mdash; and M&mdash;&mdash; THORNTON, christened</span><br />
+<br />
+CHARLES JERKING.<br />
+<br />
+<small><span class="smcap">HE WAS BORN ON THE 20TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1841,</span></small><br />
+<small><span class="smcap">AND HE DIED ON THE 12TH DAY OF MARCH, 1842,</span></small><br />
+<span class="smcap">having lived only thirteen months and twenty days.</span><br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Niagara Falls</span> (English Side),</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, May 1st, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Although I date this letter as above, it will not be so
+old a one as at first sight it would appear to be when it
+reaches you. I shall carry it on with me to Montreal, and
+despatch it from there by the steamer which goes to Halifax,
+to meet the Cunard boat at that place, with Canadian letters
+and passengers. Before I finally close it, I will add a short
+postscript, so that it will contain the latest intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>We have had a blessed interval of quiet in this beautiful
+place, of which, as you may suppose, we stood greatly in
+need, not only by reason of our hard travelling for a long
+time, but on account of the incessant persecutions of the
+people, by land and water, on stage coach, railway car, and
+steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to yourself
+by the utmost stretch of your imagination. So far we
+have had this hotel nearly to ourselves. It is a large square
+house, standing on a bold height, with overhanging eaves
+like a Swiss cottage, and a wide handsome gallery outside
+every story. These colonnades make it look so very light,
+that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with a
+pack of cards; and I live in bodily terror lest any man should
+venture to step out of a little observatory on the roof, and
+crush the whole structure with one stamp of his foot.</p>
+
+<p>Our sitting-room (which is large and low like a nursery)
+is on the second floor, and is so close to the Falls that the
+windows are always wet and dim with spray. Two bedrooms
+open out of it&mdash;one our own; one Anne's. The secretary
+slumbers near at hand, but without these sacred precincts.
+From the three chambers, or any part of them, you can see
+the Falls rolling and tumbling, and roaring and leaping,
+all day long, with bright rainbows making fiery arches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+down a hundred feet below us. When the sun is on them,
+they shine and glow like molten gold. When the day is
+gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it seems
+to crumble away like the face of a great chalk cliff, or
+sometimes again to roll along the front of the rock like
+white smoke. But it all seems gay or gloomy, dark or light,
+by sun or moon. From the bottom of both Falls, there is
+always rising up a solemn ghostly cloud, which hides the
+boiling cauldron from human sight, and makes it in its
+mystery a hundred times more grand than if you could see
+all the secrets that lie hidden in its tremendous depth. One
+Fall is as close to us as York Gate is to No. 1, Devonshire
+Terrace. The other (the great Horse-shoe Fall) may be,
+perhaps, about half as far off as "Creedy's."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> One circumstance
+in connection with them is, in all the accounts,
+greatly exaggerated&mdash;I mean the noise. Last night was
+perfectly still. Kate and I could just hear them, at the
+quiet time of sunset, a mile off. Whereas, believing the
+statements I had heard I began putting my ear to the
+ground, like a savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty miles
+off, when we were coming here from Buffalo.</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted to receive your famous letter, and to
+read your account of our darlings, whom we long to see
+with an intensity it is impossible to shadow forth, ever so
+faintly. I do believe, though I say it as shouldn't, that
+they are good 'uns&mdash;both to look at and to go. I roared out
+this morning, as soon as I was awake, "Next month,"
+which we have been longing to be able to say ever since we
+have been here. I really do not know how we shall ever
+knock at the door, when that slowest of all impossibly slow
+hackney-coaches shall pull up&mdash;at home.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+<p>I am glad you exult in the fight I have had about the
+copyright. If you knew how they tried to stop me, you
+would have a still greater interest in it. The greatest men
+in England have sent me out, through Forster, a very manly,
+and becoming, and spirited memorial and address, backing
+me in all I have done. I have despatched it to Boston for
+publication, and am coolly prepared for the storm it will
+raise. But my best rod is in pickle.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers
+should grow rich here from publishing books, the authors of
+which do not reap one farthing from their issue by scores
+of thousands; and that every vile, blackguard, and detestable
+newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no honest man
+would admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat,
+should be able to publish those same writings side by side,
+cheek by jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene companions
+with which they must become connected, in course
+of time, in people's minds? Is it tolerable that besides
+being robbed and rifled an author should be forced to appear
+in any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious company;
+that he should have no choice of his audience, no
+control over his own distorted text, and that he should be
+compelled to jostle out of the course the best men in this
+country who only ask to live by writing? I vow before
+high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that
+when I speak about them I seem to grow twenty feet high,
+and to swell out in proportion. "Robbers that ye are," I
+think to myself when I get upon my legs, "here goes!"</p>
+
+<p>The places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone
+over, the company we have been among, the tobacco-spittle
+we have wallowed in, the strange customs we have
+complied with, the packing-cases in which we have travelled,
+the woods, swamps, rivers, prairies, lakes, and mountains we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+have crossed, are all subjects for legends and tales at home;
+quires, reams, wouldn't hold them. I don't think Anne
+has so much as seen an American tree. She never looks
+at a prospect by any chance, or displays the smallest emotion
+at any sight whatever. She objects to Niagara that "it's
+nothing but water," and considers that "there is too much
+of that."</p>
+
+<p>I suppose you have heard that I am going to act at
+the Montreal theatre with the officers? Farce-books being
+scarce, and the choice consequently limited, I have selected
+Keeley's part in "Two o'Clock in the Morning." I wrote
+yesterday to Mitchell, the actor and manager at New York,
+to get and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small
+whisker halfway down the cheek; over this I mean to wear
+two night-caps, one with a tassel and one of flannel; a
+flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will complete the
+costume.</p>
+
+<p>I am very sorry to hear that business is so flat, but the
+proverb says it never rains but it pours, and it may be remarked
+with equal truth upon the other side, that it never
+<i>don't</i> rain but it holds up very much indeed. You will be
+busy again long before I come home, I have no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>We purpose leaving this on Wednesday morning.
+Give my love to Letitia and to mother, and always
+believe me, my dear Henry,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Montreal, Canada</span>, <i>May 12th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>All well, though (with the exception of one from Fred)
+we have received no letters whatever by the <i>Caledonia</i>.
+We have experienced impossible-to-be-described attentions
+in Canada. Everybody's carriage and horses are at our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+disposal, and everybody's servants; and all the Government
+boats and boats' crews. We shall play, between
+the 20th and the 25th, "A Roland for an Oliver," "Two
+o'Clock in the Morning," and "Deaf as a Post."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Longman.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um</span>, <i>Friday Afternoon.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If I could possibly have attended the meeting yesterday
+I would most gladly have done so. But I have been up
+the whole night, and was too much exhausted even to write
+and say so before the proceedings came on.</p>
+
+<p>I have fought the fight across the Atlantic with the
+utmost energy I could command; have never been turned
+aside by any consideration for an instant; am fresher for
+the fray than ever; will battle it to the death, and die
+game to the last.</p>
+
+<p>I am happy to say that my boy is quite well again.
+From being in perfect health he fell into alarming convulsions
+with the surprise and joy of our return.</p>
+
+<p>I beg my regards to Mrs. Longman,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">And am always,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Pardoe.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>July 19th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg to set you right on one point in reference
+to the American robbers, which perhaps you do not quite
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>The existing law allows them to reprint any English
+book, without any communication whatever with the author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+or anybody else. My books have all been reprinted on these
+agreeable terms.</p>
+
+<p>But sometimes, when expectation is awakened there
+about a book before its publication, one firm of pirates
+will pay a trifle to procure early proofs of it, and get so
+much the start of the rest as they can obtain by the
+time necessarily consumed in printing it. Directly it is
+printed it is common property, and may be reprinted a
+thousand times. My circular only referred to such bargains
+as these.</p>
+
+<p>I should add that I have no hope of the States doing
+justice in this dishonest respect, and therefore do not
+expect to overtake these fellows, but we may cry "Stop
+thief!" nevertheless, especially as they wince and smart
+under it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. H. P.
+Smith.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday, July 14th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Smith</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The cheque safely received. As you say, it would
+be cheap at any money. My devotion to the fine arts
+renders it impossible for me to cash it. I have therefore
+ordered it to be framed and glazed.</p>
+
+<p>I am really grateful to you for the interest you take in
+my proceedings. Next time I come into the City I will
+show you my introductory chapter to the American book.
+It may seem to prepare the reader for a much greater
+amount of slaughter than he will meet with; but it is honest
+and true. Therefore my hand does not shake.</p>
+
+<p>Best love and regards. "Certainly" to the Richmondian
+intentions.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Harrison
+Ainsworth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>September 14th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Ainsworth</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The enclosed has been sent to me by a young gentleman
+in Devonshire (of whom I know no more than that I
+have occasionally, at his request, read and suggested
+amendments in some of his writings), with a special petition
+that I would recommend it to you for insertion in your
+magazine.</p>
+
+<p>I think it very pretty, and I have no doubt you will
+also. But it is poetry, and may be too long.</p>
+
+<p>He is a very modest young fellow, and has decided
+ability.</p>
+
+<p>I hope when I come home at the end of the month,
+we shall foregather more frequently. Of course you are
+working, tooth and nail; and of course I am.</p>
+
+<p>Kate joins me in best regards to yourself and all your
+house (not forgetting, but especially remembering, my old
+friend, Mrs. Touchet), and I am always,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">My dear Ainsworth,</span><br />
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Sunday, September 25th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I enclose you the Niagara letter, with many thanks
+for the loan of it.</p>
+
+<p>Pray tell Mr. Chadwick that I am greatly obliged to
+him for his remembrance of me, and I heartily concur
+with him in the great importance and interest of the
+subject, though I do differ from him, to the death, on his
+crack topic&mdash;the New Poor-Law.</p>
+
+<p>I have been turning my thoughts to this very item
+in the condition of American towns, and had put their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+present aspects strongly before the American people;
+therefore I shall read his report with the greater interest
+and attention.</p>
+
+<p>We return next Saturday night.</p>
+
+<p>If you will dine with us next day or any day in the
+week, we shall be truly glad and delighted to see you.
+Let me know, then, what day you will come.</p>
+
+<p>I need scarcely say that I shall joyfully talk with you
+about the Metropolitan Improvement Society, then or at
+any time; and with love to Letitia, in which Kate and the
+babies join, I am always, my dear Henry,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The children's present names are as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Katey (from a lurking propensity to fieryness), Lucifer
+Box.</p>
+
+<p>Mamey (as generally descriptive of her bearing), Mild
+Glo'ster.</p>
+
+<p>Charley (as a corruption of Master Toby), Flaster Floby.</p>
+
+<p>Walter (suggested by his high cheek-bones), Young
+Skull.</p>
+
+<p>Each is pronounced with a peculiar howl, which I shall
+have great pleasure in illustrating.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+William
+Harness.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>November 8th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Harness</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Some time ago, you sent me a note from a friend of
+yours, a barrister, I think, begging me to forward to him
+any letters I might receive from a deranged nephew of his,
+at Newcastle. In the midst of a most bewildering correspondence
+with unknown people, on every possible and impossible
+subject, I have forgotten this gentleman's name,
+though I have a kind of hazy remembrance that he lived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+near Russell Square. As the Post Office would be rather
+puzzled, perhaps, to identify him by such an address, may
+I ask the favour of you to hand him the enclosed, and to
+say that it is the second I have received since I returned
+from America? The last, I think, was a defiance to mortal
+combat. With best remembrances to your sister, in which
+Mrs. Dickens joins, believe me, my dear Harness,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday, Nov. 12th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You pass this house every day on your way to or from
+the theatre. I wish you would call once as you go by, and
+soon, that you may have plenty of time to deliberate on
+what I wish to suggest to you. The more I think of
+Marston's play, the more sure I feel that a prologue to
+the purpose would help it materially, and almost decide
+the fate of any ticklish point on the first night. Now I
+have an idea (not easily explainable in writing but told
+in five words), that would take the prologue out of the
+conventional dress of prologues, quite. Get the curtain up
+with a dash, and begin the play with a sledge-hammer
+blow. If on consideration, you should think with me, I
+will write the prologue heartily.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />PROLOGUE<br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">To Mr. Marston's Play of "The Patrician's Daughter.</span>"<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright<br />
+Dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night;<br />
+No trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>Breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre;<br />
+Enough for him, if in his lowly strain<br />
+He wakes one household echo not in vain;<br />
+Enough for him, if in his boldest word<br />
+The beating heart of <span class="smcap">man</span> be dimly heard.<br />
+<br />
+Its solemn music which, like strains that sigh<br />
+Through charm&egrave;d gardens, all who hearing die;<br />
+Its solemn music he does not pursue<br />
+To distant ages out of human view;<br />
+Nor listen to its wild and mournful chime<br />
+In the dead caverns on the shore of Time;<br />
+But musing with a calm and steady gaze<br />
+Before the crackling flames of living days,<br />
+He hears it whisper through the busy roar<br />
+Of what shall be and what has been before.<br />
+Awake the Present! shall no scene display<br />
+The tragic passion of the passing day?<br />
+Is it with Man, as with some meaner things,<br />
+That out of death his single purpose springs?<br />
+Can his eventful life no moral teach<br />
+Until he be, for aye, beyond its reach?<br />
+Obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade,<br />
+Dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade?<br />
+Awake the Present! Though the steel-clad age<br />
+Find life alone within the storied page,<br />
+Iron is worn, at heart, by many still&mdash;<br />
+The tyrant Custom binds the serf-like will;<br />
+If the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone,<br />
+These later days have tortures of their own;<br />
+The guiltless writhe, while Guilt is stretched in sleep,<br />
+And Virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep.<br />
+Awake the Present! what the Past has sown<br />
+Be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown!<br />
+How pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong,<br />
+Read in the volume Truth has held so long,<br />
+Assured that where life's flowers freshest blow,<br />
+The sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow,<br />
+How social usage has the pow'r to change<br />
+Good thoughts to evil; in its highest range<br />
+To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth<br />
+The kindling impulse of our glorious youth,<br />
+Crushing the spirit in its house of clay,<br />
+Learn from the lessons of the present day.<br />
+Not light its import and not poor its mien;<br />
+Yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene.<br />.
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Saturday Morning.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>One suggestion, though it be a late one. Do have
+upon the table, in the opening scene of the second act,
+something in a velvet case, or frame, that may look like a
+large miniature of Mabel, such as one of Ross's, and eschew
+that picture. It haunts me with a sense of danger. Even
+a titter at that critical time, with the whole of that act
+before you, would be a fatal thing. The picture is bad in
+itself, bad in its effect upon the beautiful room, bad in all
+its associations with the house. In case of your having
+nothing at hand, I send you by bearer what would be a
+million times better. Always, my dear Macready,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I need not remind you how common it is to have
+such pictures in cases lying about elegant rooms.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. P.
+Frith.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>November 15th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall be very glad if you will do me the favour
+to paint me two little companion pictures; one, a Dolly
+Varden (whom you have so exquisitely done already), the
+other, a Kate Nickleby.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I take it for granted that the original picture
+of Dolly with the bracelet is sold?</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>November 17th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Pray consult your own convenience in the matter of
+my little commission; whatever suits your engagements
+and prospects will best suit me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I saw an unfinished proof of Dolly at Mitchell's some
+two or three months ago; I thought it was proceeding
+excellently well then. It will give me great pleasure to
+see her when completed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Hood.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>November 30th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Hood</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In asking your and Mrs. Hood's leave to bring
+Mrs. D.'s sister (who stays with us) on Tuesday, let me
+add that I should very much like to bring at the same
+time a very unaffected and ardent admirer of your genius,
+who has no small portion of that commodity in his own
+right, and is a very dear friend of mine and a very famous
+fellow; to wit, Maclise, the painter, who would be glad (as
+he has often told me) to know you better, and would be
+much pleased, I know, if I could say to him, "Hood wants
+me to bring you."</p>
+
+<p>I use so little ceremony with you, in the conviction that
+you will use as little with me, and say, "My dear D.&mdash;Convenient;"
+or, "My dear D.&mdash;Ill-convenient," (as the
+popular phrase is), just as the case may be. Of course, I
+have said nothing to him.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always heartily yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boz.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Trollope.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>December 16th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Trollope</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me thank you most cordially for your kind note,
+in reference to my Notes, which has given me true pleasure
+and gratification.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As I never scrupled to say in America, so I can have no
+delicacy in saying to you, that, allowing for the change you
+worked in many social features of American society, and
+for the time that has passed since you wrote of the country,
+I am convinced that there is no writer who has so well and
+accurately (I need not add so entertainingly) described it, in
+many of its aspects, as you have done; and this renders your
+praise the more valuable to me. I do not recollect ever
+to have heard or seen the charge of exaggeration made
+against a feeble performance, though, in its feebleness,
+it may have been most untrue. It seems to me essentially
+natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should
+accuse an uncommon one of this fault, and I have no doubt
+that you were long ago of this opinion; very much to your
+own comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens begs me to thank you for your kind remembrance
+of her, and to convey to you her best regards.
+Always believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>December 20th, 1842.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It is impossible for me to tell you how greatly I
+am charmed with those beautiful pictures, in which the
+whole feeling, and thought, and expression of the little
+story is rendered to the gratification of my inmost heart;
+and on which you have lavished those amazing resources
+of yours with a power at which I fairly wondered when I
+sat down yesterday before them.</p>
+
+<p>I took them to Mac, straightway, in a cab, and it
+would have done you good if you could have seen and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+heard him. You can't think how moved he was by the old
+man in the church, or how pleased I was to have chosen
+it before he saw the drawings.</p>
+
+<p>You are such a queer fellow and hold yourself so much
+aloof, that I am afraid to say half I would say touching
+my grateful admiration; so you shall imagine the rest. I
+enclose a note from Kate, to which I hope you will bring
+the only one acceptable reply. Always, my dear Cattermole,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Book II.</h2>
+
+<h3>1843 TO 1857.</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1843.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>We</span> have, unfortunately, very few letters of interest in this
+year. But we are able to give the commencement of
+Charles Dickens's correspondence with his beloved friends,
+Mr. Douglas Jerrold and Mr. Clarkson Stanfield; with Lord
+Morpeth (afterwards Lord Carlisle), for whom he always
+entertained the highest regard; and with Mr. Charles
+Babbage.</div>
+
+<p>He was at work upon "Martin Chuzzlewit" until the
+end of the year, when he also wrote and published the
+first of his Christmas stories&mdash;"The Christmas Carol."</p>
+
+<p>He was much distressed by the sad fate of Mr. Elton (a
+respected actor), who was lost in the wreck of the <i>Pegasus</i>,
+and was very eager and earnest in his endeavours to raise a
+fund on behalf of Mr. Elton's children.</p>
+
+<p>We are sorry to be unable to give any explanation as to
+the nature of the Cockspur Street Society, mentioned in
+this first letter to Mr. Charles Babbage. But we publish
+it notwithstanding, considering it to be one of general
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>The "Little History of England" was never finished&mdash;not,
+that is to say, the one alluded to in the letter to
+Mr. Jerrold.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. David Dickson kindly furnishes us with an explanation
+of the letter dated 10th May. "It was," he says,
+"in answer to a letter from me, pointing out that the
+'Shepherd' in 'Pickwick' was apparently reflecting on the
+scriptural doctrine of the new birth."</p>
+
+<p>The beginning of the letter to Mr. Jerrold (15th June)
+is, as will be readily understood, an imaginary cast of a
+purely imaginary play. A portion of this letter has already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+been published, in Mr. Blanchard Jerrold's life of his father.
+It originated in a proposal of Mr. Webster's&mdash;the manager
+of the Haymarket Theatre&mdash;to give five hundred pounds
+for a prize comedy by an English author.</p>
+
+<p>The opera referred to in the letter to Mr. R. H. Horne
+was called "The Village Coquettes," and the farce was
+"The Strange Gentleman," already alluded to by us, in
+connection with a letter to Mr. Harley.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Babbage.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>April 27th, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write to you, <i>confidentially</i>, in answer to your note
+of last night, and the tenor of mine will tell you why.</p>
+
+<p>You may suppose, from seeing my name in the printed
+letter you have received, that I am favourable to the proposed
+society. I am decidedly opposed to it. I went there
+on the day I was in the chair, after much solicitation; and
+being put into it, opened the proceedings by telling the
+meeting that I approved of the design in theory, but in
+practice considered it hopeless. I may tell you&mdash;I did not
+tell them&mdash;that the nature of the meeting, and the character
+and position of many of the men attending it, cried
+"Failure" trumpet-tongued in my ears. To quote an expression
+from Tennyson, I may say that if it were the best
+society in the world, the grossness of some natures in it
+would have weight to drag it down.</p>
+
+<p>In the wisdom of all you urge in the notes you have
+sent me, taking them as statements of theory, I entirely
+concur. But in practice, I feel sure that the present publishing
+system cannot be overset until authors are different
+men. The first step to be taken is to move as a body in the
+question of copyright, enforce the existing laws, and try to
+obtain better. For that purpose I hold that the authors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+and publishers must unite, as the wealth, business habits,
+and interest of that latter class are of great importance
+to such an end. The Longmans and Murray have been
+with me proposing such an association. That I shall support.
+But having seen the Cockspur Street Society, I am
+as well convinced of its invincible hopelessness as if I saw
+it written by a celestial penman in the Book of Fate.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">My dear Sir,</span><br />
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Douglas
+Jerrold.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>May 3rd, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Jerrold</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me thank you most cordially for your books,
+not only for their own sakes (and I have read them with
+perfect delight), but also for this hearty and most welcome
+mark of your recollection of the friendship we have
+established; in which light I know I may regard and
+prize them.</p>
+
+<p>I am greatly pleased with your opening paper in the
+Illuminated. It is very wise, and capital; written with the
+finest end of that iron pen of yours; witty, much needed,
+and full of truth. I vow to God that I think the parrots
+of society are more intolerable and mischievous than its
+birds of prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the
+bitterness of hearing those infernal and damnably good old
+times extolled. Once, in a fit of madness, after having
+been to a public dinner which took place just as this
+Ministry came in, I wrote the parody I send you enclosed,
+for Fonblanque. There is nothing in it but wrath; but
+that's wholesome, so I send it you.</p>
+
+<p>I am writing a little history of England for my boy,
+which I will send you when it is printed for him, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+your boys are too old to profit by it. It is curious that I
+have tried to impress upon him (writing, I daresay, at
+the same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper,
+for I don't know what I should do if he were to get hold
+of any Conservative or High Church notions; and the best
+way of guarding against any such horrible result is, I take
+it, to wring the parrots' necks in his very cradle.</p>
+
+<p>Oh Heaven, if you could have been with me at a hospital
+dinner last Monday! There were men there who made
+such speeches and expressed such sentiments as any
+moderately intelligent dustman would have blushed through
+his cindery bloom to have thought of. Sleek, slobbering,
+bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle, and
+the auditory leaping up in their delight! I never saw such
+an illustration of the power of purse, or felt so degraded
+and debased by its contemplation, since I have had eyes
+and ears. The absurdity of the thing was too horrible to
+laugh at. It was perfectly overwhelming. But if I could
+have partaken it with anybody who would have felt it
+as you would have done, it would have had quite another
+aspect; or would at least, like a "classic mask" (oh
+d&mdash;&mdash; that word!) have had one funny side to relieve its
+dismal features.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds
+of North America&mdash;yours, mine, and forty-eight others&mdash;picked
+for their concurrence of opinion on all important
+subjects and for their resolution to found a colony of common-sense,
+how soon would that devil, Cant, present itself
+among them in one shape or other? The day they landed,
+do you say, or the day after?</p>
+
+<p>That is a great mistake (almost the only one I know) in
+the "Arabian Nights," when the princess restores people
+to their original beauty by sprinkling them with the golden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+water. It is quite clear that she must have made monsters
+of them by such a christening as that.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">My dear Jerrold,</span><br />
+Faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. David
+Dickson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>May 10th, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Permit me to say, in reply to your letter, that you
+do not understand the intention (I daresay the fault is
+mine) of that passage in the "Pickwick Papers" which
+has given you offence. The design of "the Shepherd" and
+of this and every other allusion to him is, to show how
+sacred things are degraded, vulgarised, and rendered absurd
+when persons who are utterly incompetent to teach the
+commonest things take upon themselves to expound such
+mysteries, and how, in making mere cant phrases of divine
+words, these persons miss the spirit in which they had their
+origin. I have seen a great deal of this sort of thing in
+many parts of England, and I never knew it lead to charity
+or good deeds.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the great Creator of the world and the
+creature of his hands, moulded in his own image, be
+quite so opposite in character as you believe, is a question
+which it would profit us little to discuss. I like the frankness
+and candour of your letter, and thank you for it. That
+every man who seeks heaven must be born again, in good
+thoughts of his Maker, I sincerely believe. That it is expedient
+for every hound to say so in a certain snuffling form
+of words, to which he attaches no good meaning, I do not
+believe. I take it there is no difference between us.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Douglas
+Jerrold.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>June 13th, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Jerrold</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Yes, you have anticipated my occupation. Chuzzlewit
+be d&mdash;&mdash;d. High comedy and five hundred pounds are the
+only matters I can think of. I call it "The One Thing
+Needful; or, A Part is Better than the Whole." Here are
+the characters:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Cast">
+<tr><td align='left'>Old Febrile</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Farren</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Young Febrile (his Son)</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Howe</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jack Hessians (his Friend)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">W. Lacy</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Chalks (a Landlord)</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gough</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hon. Harry Staggers</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Mellon</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sir Thomas Tip</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Buckstone</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Swig</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Webster</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Duke of Leeds</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Coutts</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sir Smivin Growler</td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Macready</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><br />Servants, Gamblers, Visitors, etc.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mrs. Febrile</td><td align='left'>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Gallot</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lady Tip</td><td align='left'>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Humby</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mrs. Sour</td><td align='left'>Mrs. <span class="smcap">W. Clifford</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fanny</td><td align='left'>Miss <span class="smcap">A. Smith</span>.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>One scene, where Old Febrile tickles Lady Tip in the
+ribs, and afterwards dances out with his hat behind him, his
+stick before, and his eye on the pit, I expect will bring
+the house down. There is also another point, where Old
+Febrile, at the conclusion of his disclosure to Swig, rises
+and says: "And now, Swig, tell me, have I acted well?"
+And Swig says: "Well, Mr. Febrile, have you ever acted
+ill?" which will carry off the piece.</p>
+
+<p>Herne Bay. Hum. I suppose it's no worse than any
+other place in this weather, but it is watery rather&mdash;isn't it?
+In my mind's eye, I have the sea in a perpetual state of
+smallpox; and the chalk running downhill like town milk.
+But I know the comfort of getting to work in a fresh place,
+and proposing pious projects to one's self, and having the
+more substantial advantage of going to bed early and getting
+up ditto, and walking about alone. I should like to deprive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+you of the last-named happiness, and to take a good long
+stroll, terminating in a public-house, and whatever they
+chanced to have in it. But fine days are over, I think.
+The horrible misery of London in this weather, with not
+even a fire to make it cheerful, is hideous.</p>
+
+<p>But I have my comedy to fly to. My only comfort!
+I walk up and down the street at the back of the theatre
+every night, and peep in at the green-room window, thinking
+of the time when "Dick&mdash;ins" will be called for by
+excited hundreds, and won't come till Mr. Webster (half
+Swig and half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room,
+and quelling the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard,
+if he be in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept
+the congratulations of the audience, and indulge them with a
+sight of the man who has got five hundred pounds in money,
+and it's impossible to say how much in laurel. Then I shall
+come forward, and bow once&mdash;twice&mdash;thrice&mdash;roars of approbation&mdash;Brayvo&mdash;brarvo&mdash;hooray&mdash;hoorar&mdash;hooroar&mdash;one
+cheer more; and asking Webster home to supper, shall
+declare eternal friendship for that public-spirited individual.</p>
+
+<p>They have not sent me the "Illustrated Magazine."
+What do they mean by that? You don't say your daughter
+is better, so I hope you mean that she is quite well. My
+wife desires her best regards.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">I am always, my dear Jerrold,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Faithfully your Friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Congreve of the Nineteenth Century</span><br />
+(which I mean to be called in the Sunday papers).<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I shall dedicate it to Webster, beginning:
+"My dear Sir,&mdash;When you first proposed to stimulate the
+slumbering dramatic talent of England, I assure you I had
+not the least idea"&mdash;etc. etc. etc.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>July 26th, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am chairman of a committee, whose object is to
+open a subscription, and arrange a benefit for the relief of
+the seven destitute children of poor Elton the actor, who
+was drowned in the <i>Pegasus</i>. They are exceedingly anxious
+to have the great assistance of your name; and if you will
+allow yourself to be announced as one of the body, I do
+assure you you will help a very melancholy and distressful
+cause.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The committee meet to-night at the Freemasons',
+at eight o'clock.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lord
+Morpeth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>August 3rd, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Lord Morpeth</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In acknowledging the safe receipt of your kind
+donation in behalf of poor Mr. Elton's orphan children, I
+hope you will suffer me to address you with little ceremony,
+as the best proof I can give you of my cordial reciprocation
+of all you say in your most welcome note. I have
+long esteemed you and been your distant but very truthful
+admirer; and trust me that it is a real pleasure and happiness
+to me to anticipate the time when we shall have a
+nearer intercourse.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, with sincere regard,</span><br />
+Faithfully your Servant.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Harrison
+Ainsworth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>October 13th, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Ainsworth</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I want very much to see you, not having had that
+old pleasure for a long time. I am at this moment deaf
+in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in the nose, green in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints, and
+fractious in the temper from a most intolerable and oppressive
+cold, caught the other day, I suspect, at Liverpool,
+where I got exceedingly wet; but I will make prodigious
+efforts to get the better of it to-night by resorting to
+all conceivable remedies, and if I succeed so as to be
+only negatively disgusting to-morrow, I will joyfully
+present myself at six, and bring my womankind along
+with me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. R. H.
+Horne.</div>
+
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>November 13th, 1843.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>Pray tell that besotted &mdash;&mdash; to let the opera sink into
+its native obscurity. I did it in a fit of d&mdash;&mdash;ble good
+nature long ago, for Hullah, who wrote some very pretty
+music to it. I just put down for everybody what everybody
+at the St. James's Theatre wanted to say and do, and that
+they could say and do best, and I have been most sincerely
+repentant ever since. The farce I also did as a sort of
+practical joke, for Harley, whom I have known a long time.
+It was funny&mdash;adapted from one of the published sketches
+called the "Great Winglebury Duel," and was published
+by Chapman and Hall. But I have no copy of it now,
+nor should I think they have. But both these things
+were done without the least consideration or regard to
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>I wouldn't repeat them for a thousand pounds apiece,
+and devoutly wish them to be forgotten. If you will impress
+this on the waxy mind of &mdash;&mdash; I shall be truly and
+unaffectedly obliged to you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1844.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> the summer of this year the house in Devonshire
+Terrace was let, and Charles Dickens started with his family
+for Italy, going first to a villa at Albaro, near Genoa, for
+a few months, and afterwards to the Palazzo Pescheire,
+Genoa. Towards the end of this year he made excursions to
+the many places of interest in this country, and was joined
+at Milan by his wife and sister-in-law, previous to his own
+departure alone on a business visit to England. He had
+written his Christmas story, "The Chimes," and was anxious
+to take it himself to England, and to read it to some of his
+most intimate friends there.</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Macready went to America and returned in the
+autumn, and towards the end of the year he paid a
+professional visit to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens's letter to his wife (26th February)
+treats of a visit to Liverpool, where he went to take the
+chair on the opening of the Mechanics' Institution and to
+make a speech on education. The "Fanny" alluded to
+was his sister, Mrs. Burnett; the <i>Britannia</i>, the ship in
+which he and Mrs. Dickens made their outward trip to
+America; the "Mrs. Bean," the stewardess, and "Hewett,"
+the captain, of that same vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. Charles Knight was in acknowledgment
+of the receipt of a prospectus entitled "Book Clubs
+for all readers." The attempt, which fortunately proved
+completely successful, was to establish a cheap book club.
+The scheme was, that a number of families should combine
+together, each contributing about three halfpennies a week;
+which contribution would enable them, by exchanging the
+volumes among them, to have sufficient reading to last the
+year. The publications, which were to be made as cheap as
+possible, could be purchased by families at the end of the
+year, on consideration of their putting by an extra penny a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+week for that purpose. Charles Dickens, who always had
+the comfort and happiness of the working-classes greatly
+at heart, was much interested in this scheme of Mr. Charles
+Knight's, and highly approved of it. Charles Dickens and this
+new correspondent became subsequently true and fast friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Martin Chuzzlewit" was dramatised in the early
+autumn of this year, at the Lyceum Theatre, which was
+then under the management of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Keeley.
+Charles Dickens superintended some rehearsals, but had left
+England before the play was acted in public.</p>
+
+<p>The man "Roche," alluded to in his letter to
+Mr. Maclise, was the French courier engaged to go with the
+family to Italy. He remained as servant there, and was
+with Charles Dickens through all his foreign travels. His
+many excellent qualities endeared him to the whole family,
+and his master never lost sight of this faithful servant
+until poor Roche's untimely death in 1849.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Edward Tagart was a celebrated Unitarian
+minister, and a very highly esteemed and valued friend.</p>
+
+<p>The "Chickenstalker" (letter to Mrs. Dickens, November
+8th), is an instance of the eccentric names he was
+constantly giving to his children, and these names he
+frequently made use of in his books.</p>
+
+<p>In this year we have our first letter to Mr. (afterwards
+Sir Edwin) Landseer, for whom Charles Dickens had the
+highest admiration and personal regard.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>January 3rd, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My very dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You know all the news, and you know I love you;
+so I no more know why I write than I do why I "come
+round" after the play to shake hands with you in your
+dressing-room. I say come, as if you were at this present
+moment the lessee of Drury Lane, and had &mdash;&mdash; with a
+long face on one hand, &mdash;&mdash; elaborately explaining that
+everything in creation is a joint-stock company on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+other, the inimitable B. by the fire, in conversation with
+&mdash;&mdash;. Well-a-day! I see it all, and smell that extraordinary
+compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre,
+which bursts upon me when I swing open the little door in
+the hall, accompanies me as I meet perspiring supers in
+the narrow passage, goes with me up the two steps, crosses
+the stage, winds round the third entrance P.S. as I wind,
+and escorts me safely into your presence, where I find you
+unwinding something slowly round and round your chest,
+which is so long that no man can see the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>Oh that you had been at Clarence Terrace on Nina's
+birthday! Good God, how we missed you, talked of you,
+drank your health, and wondered what you were doing!
+Perhaps you are Falkland enough (I swear I suspect you
+of it) to feel rather sore&mdash;just a little bit, you know, the
+merest trifle in the world&mdash;on hearing that Mrs. Macready
+looked brilliant, blooming, young, and handsome, and that
+she danced a country dance with the writer hereof (Acres
+to your Falkland) in a thorough spirit of becoming good
+humour and enjoyment. Now you don't like to be told
+that? Nor do you quite like to hear that Forster and I
+conjured bravely; that a plum-pudding was produced from
+an empty saucepan, held over a blazing fire kindled in
+Stanfield's hat without damage to the lining; that a box of
+bran was changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between
+my godchild's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill
+uproar and clapping of hands that you might have heard it
+(and I daresay did) in America; that three half-crowns
+being taken from Major Burns and put into a tumbler-glass
+before his eyes, did then and there give jingling
+answers to the questions asked of them by me, and knew
+where you were and what you were doing, to the unspeakable
+admiration of the whole assembly. Neither do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+you quite like to be told that we are going to do it again
+next Saturday, with the addition of demoniacal dresses
+from the masquerade shop; nor that Mrs. Macready, for
+her gallant bearing always, and her best sort of best
+affection, is the best creature I know. Never mind; no
+man shall gag me, and those are my opinions.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Macready, the lecturing proposition is not to
+be thought of. I have not the slightest doubt or hesitation
+in giving you my most strenuous and decided advice
+against it. Looking only to its effect at home, I am
+immovable in my conviction that the impression it would
+produce would be one of failure, and a reduction of
+yourself to the level of those who do the like here.
+To us who know the Boston names and honour them,
+and who know Boston and like it (Boston is what I would
+have the whole United States to be), the Boston requisition
+would be a valuable document, of which you and your
+friends might be proud. But those names are perfectly
+unknown to the public here, and would produce not the
+least effect. The only thing known to the public here is,
+that they ask (when I say "they" I mean the people)
+everybody to lecture. It is one of the things I have
+ridiculed in "Chuzzlewit." Lecture you, and you fall into
+the roll of Lardners, Vandenhoffs, Eltons, Knowleses,
+Buckinghams. You are off your pedestal, have flung away
+your glass slipper, and changed your triumphal coach into
+a seedy old pumpkin. I am quite sure of it, and cannot
+express my strong conviction in language of sufficient force.</p>
+
+<p>"Puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. The nation is
+a miserable Sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul
+old man upon his back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim
+to the four winds for repetition here, that they don't
+need their ignorant and brutal papers, as if the papers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+could exist if they didn't need them! Let any two of these
+vagabonds, in any town you go to, take it into their heads
+to make you an object of attack, or to direct the general
+attention elsewhere, and what avail those wonderful images
+of passion which you have been all your life perfecting!</p>
+
+<p>I have sent you, to the charge of our trusty and well-beloved
+Colden, a little book I published on the 17th of
+December, and which has been a most prodigious success&mdash;the
+greatest, I think, I have ever achieved. It pleases me
+to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two,
+and I long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning.
+Do they allow you to be quiet, by-the-way? "Some of our
+most fashionable people, sir," denounced me awfully for
+liking to be alone sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>Now that we have turned Christmas, I feel as if your
+face were directed homewards, Macready. The downhill
+part of the road is before us now, and we shall travel on to
+midsummer at a dashing pace; and, please Heaven, I will be
+at Liverpool when you come steaming up the Mersey, with
+that red funnel smoking out unutterable things, and your
+heart much fuller than your trunks, though something
+lighter! If I be not the first Englishman to shake hands
+with you on English ground, the man who gets before me
+will be a brisk and active fellow, and even then need put
+his best leg foremost. So I warn Forster to keep in the
+rear, or he'll be blown.</p>
+
+<p>If you shall have any leisure to project and put on paper
+the outline of a scheme for opening any theatre on your
+return, upon a certain list subscribed, and on certain
+understandings with the actors, it strikes me that it would
+be wise to break ground while you are still away. Of course
+I need not say that I will see anybody or do anything&mdash;even
+to the calling together of the actors&mdash;if you should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+ever deem it desirable. My opinion is that our respected
+and valued friend Mr. &mdash;&mdash; will stagger through another
+season, if he don't rot first. I understand he is in a
+partial state of decomposition at this minute. He was very
+ill, but got better. How is it that &mdash;&mdash; always do get
+better, and strong hearts are so easy to die?</p>
+
+<p>Kate sends her tender love; so does Georgy, so does
+Charlie, so does Mamey, so does Katey, so does Walter, so
+does the other one who is to be born next week. Look
+homeward always, as we look abroad to you. God bless
+you, my dear Macready.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Laman
+Blanchard.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>January 4th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Blanchard</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot thank you enough for the beautiful manner
+and the true spirit of friendship in which you have noticed
+my "Carol." But I <i>must</i> thank you because you have filled
+my heart up to the brim, and it is running over.</p>
+
+<p>You meant to give me great pleasure, my dear fellow,
+and you have done it. The tone of your elegant and
+fervent praise has touched me in the tenderest place. I
+cannot write about it, and as to talking of it, I could no
+more do that than a dumb man. I have derived inexpressible
+gratification from what I know was a labour of
+love on your part. And I can never forget it.</p>
+
+<p>When I think it likely that I may meet you (perhaps at
+Ainsworth's on Friday?) I shall slip a "Carol" into my
+pocket and ask you to put it among your books for
+my sake. You will never like it the less for having made it
+the means of so much happiness to me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear Blanchard,</span><br />
+Faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Liverpool, Radley's Hotel</span>, <i>Monday, Feb. 26th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I got down here last night (after a most intolerably
+wet journey) before seven, and found Thompson sitting by
+my fire. He had ordered dinner, and we ate it pleasantly
+enough, and went to bed in good time. This morning,
+Mr. Yates, the great man connected with the Institution
+(and a brother of Ashton Yates's), called. I went to look
+at it with him. It is an enormous place, and the tickets
+have been selling at two and even three guineas apiece.
+The lecture-room, in which the celebration is held, will
+accommodate over thirteen hundred people. It was being
+fitted with gas after the manner of the ring at Astley's. I
+should think it an easy place to speak in, being a semicircle
+with seats rising one above another to the ceiling,
+and will have eight hundred ladies to-night, in full dress.
+I am rayther shaky just now, but shall pull up, I have no
+doubt. At dinner-time to-morrow you will receive, I hope,
+a facetious document hastily penned after I return to-night,
+telling you how it all went off.</p>
+
+<p>When I came back here, I found Fanny and Hewett had
+picked me up just before. We all went off straight to the
+<i>Britannia</i>, which lay where she did when we went on board.
+We went into the old little cabin and the ladies' cabin, but
+Mrs. Bean had gone to Scotland, as the ship does not sail
+again before May. In the saloon we had some champagne
+and biscuits, and Hewett had set out upon the table a
+block of Boston ice, weighing fifty pounds. Scott, of the
+<i>Caledonia</i>, lunched with us&mdash;a very nice fellow. He saw
+Macready play Macbeth in Boston, and gave me a tremendous
+account of the effect. Poor Burroughs, of the <i>George
+Washington</i>, died on board, on his last passage home. His
+little wife was with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hewett dines with us to-day, and I have procured him
+admission to-night. I am very sorry indeed (and so was
+he), that you didn't see the old ship. It was the strangest
+thing in the world to go on board again.</p>
+
+<p>I had Bacon with me as far as Watford yesterday, and
+very pleasant. Sheil was also in the train, on his way to
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Give my best love to Georgy, and kisses to the darlings.
+Also affectionate regards to Mac and Forster.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />OUT OF THE COMMON&mdash;PLEASE.<br /><br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Dickens</span> <i>against</i> <span class="smcap">The World</span>.</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span>, of No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, York
+Gate, Regent's Park, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman,
+the successful plaintiff in the above cause, maketh oath
+and saith: That on the day and date hereof, to wit at seven
+o'clock in the evening, he, this deponent, took the chair at a
+large assembly of the Mechanics' Institution at Liverpool, and
+that having been received with tremendous and enthusiastic
+plaudits, he, this deponent, did immediately dash into a
+vigorous, brilliant, humorous, pathetic, eloquent, fervid, and
+impassioned speech. That the said speech was enlivened
+by thirteen hundred persons, with frequent, vehement,
+uproarious, and deafening cheers, and to the best of this
+deponent's knowledge and belief, he, this deponent, did
+speak up like a man, and did, to the best of his knowledge
+and belief, considerably distinguish himself. That after the
+proceedings of the opening were over, and a vote of thanks
+was proposed to this deponent, he, this deponent, did again
+distinguish himself, and that the cheering at that time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+accompanied with clapping of hands and stamping of feet,
+was in this deponent's case thundering and awful. And this
+deponent further saith, that his white-and-black or magpie
+waistcoat, did create a strong sensation, and that during the
+hours of promenading, this deponent heard from persons
+surrounding him such exclamations as, "What is it! <i>Is</i>
+it a waistcoat? No, it's a shirt"&mdash;and the like&mdash;all of
+which this deponent believes to have been complimentary
+and gratifying; but this deponent further saith that he is
+now going to supper, and wishes he may have an appetite to
+eat it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span><br />
+</div>
+<div>
+
+<div>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Sworn statement">
+<tr><td align='left'>Sworn before me, at the Adelphi</td><td align='left' rowspan='4'><div class="figcenter" style="width: 10px;">
+<img src="images/largebracketpointright.png" width="10" height="100" alt="Bracket" title="Bracket" />
+</div></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>Hotel, Liverpool, on the 26th</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>of February, 1844.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><span class="smcap">S. Radley.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>April 30th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The Sanatorium, or sick house for students, governesses,
+clerks, young artists, and so forth, who are above
+hospitals, and not rich enough to be well attended in illness
+in their own lodgings (you know its objects), is going to
+have a dinner at the London Tavern, on Tuesday, the 5th
+of June.</p>
+
+<p>The Committee are very anxious to have you for a
+steward, as one of the heads of a large class; and I have
+told them that I have no doubt you will act. There is no
+steward's fee or collection whatever.</p>
+
+<p>They are particularly anxious also to have Mr. Etty and
+Edwin Landseer. As you see them daily at the Academy,
+will you ask them or show them this note? Sir Martin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+became one of the Committee some few years ago, at my
+solicitation, as recommending young artists, struggling alone
+in London, to the better knowledge of this establishment.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner is to comprise the new feature of ladies
+dining at the tables with the gentlemen&mdash;not looking down
+upon them from the gallery. I hope in your reply you will
+not only book yourself, but Mrs. Stanfield and Mary. It
+will be very brilliant and cheerful I hope. Dick in the
+chair. Gentlemen's dinner-tickets a guinea, as usual;
+ladies', twelve shillings. I think this is all I have to say,
+except (which is nonsensical and needless) that I am always,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Edwin
+Landseer.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um</span>, <i>Monday Morning, May 27th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Landseer</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have let my house with such delicious promptitude,
+or, as the Americans would say, "with sich everlass'in
+slickness and al-mity sprydom," that we turn out to-night!
+in favour of a widow lady, who keeps it all the time we
+are away!</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore if you, looking up into the sky this evening
+between five and six (as possibly you may be, in search of
+the spring), should see a speck in the air&mdash;a mere dot&mdash;which,
+growing larger and larger by degrees, appears in
+course of time to be an eagle (chain and all) in a light cart,
+accompanied by a raven of uncommon sagacity, curse that
+good-nature which prompted you to say it&mdash;that you would
+give them house-room. And do it for the love of</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Boz.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The writer hereof may be heerd on by personal
+enquiry at No. 9, Osnaburgh Terrace, New Road.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>June 4th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your proof, and for your truly
+gratifying mention of my name. I think the subject excellently
+chosen, the introduction exactly what it should be,
+the allusion to the International Copyright question most
+honourable and manly, and the whole scheme full of the
+highest interest. I had already seen your prospectus, and
+if I can be of the feeblest use in advancing a project so
+intimately connected with an end on which my heart is set&mdash;the
+liberal education of the people&mdash;I shall be sincerely
+glad. All good wishes and success attend you!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me always,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Dudley
+Costello.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>June 7th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Harris, being in that delicate state (just confined,
+and "made comfortable," in fact), hears some sounds
+below, which she fancies may be the owls (or howls) of the
+husband to whom she is devoted. They ease her mind by
+informing her that these sounds are only organs. By
+"they" I mean the gossips and attendants. By "organs"
+I mean instrumental boxes with barrels in them, which are
+commonly played by foreigners under the windows of people
+of sedentary pursuits, on a speculation of being bribed to
+leave the street. Mrs. Harris, being of a confiding nature,
+believed in this pious fraud, and was fully satisfied "that
+his owls was organs."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Robert
+Keeley.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+9, <span class="smcap">Osnaburgh Terrace</span>, <i>Monday Evening, June 24th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been out yachting for two or three days; and
+consequently could not answer your letter in due course.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot, consistently with the opinion I hold and have
+always held, in reference to the principle of adapting novels
+for the stage, give you a prologue to "Chuzzlewit." But
+believe me to be quite sincere in saying that if I felt I could
+reasonably do such a thing for anyone, I would do it for
+you.</p>
+
+<p>I start for Italy on Monday next, but if you have the
+piece on the stage, and rehearse on Friday, I will gladly
+come down at any time you may appoint on that morning,
+and go through it with you all. If you be not in a sufficiently
+forward state to render this proposal convenient to
+you, or likely to assist your preparations, do not take the
+trouble to answer this note.</p>
+
+<p>I presume Mrs. Keeley will do Ruth Pinch. If so, I feel
+secure about her, and of Mrs. Gamp I am certain. But a
+queer sensation begins in my legs, and comes upward to my
+forehead, when I think of Tom.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Daniel
+Maclise.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Villa Di Bagnarello, Albaro</span>, <i>Monday, July 22nd, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My very dear Mac</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I address you with something of the lofty spirit of an
+exile&mdash;a banished commoner&mdash;a sort of Anglo-Pole. I
+don't exactly know what I have done for my country in
+coming away from it; but I feel it is something&mdash;something
+great&mdash;something virtuous and heroic. Lofty emotions
+rise within me, when I see the sun set on the blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+Mediterranean. I am the limpet on the rock. My father's
+name is Turner and my boots are green.</p>
+
+<p>Apropos of blue. In a certain picture, called "The
+Serenade," you painted a sky. If you ever have occasion to
+paint the Mediterranean, let it be exactly of that colour.
+It lies before me now, as deeply and intensely blue. But
+no such colour is above me. Nothing like it. In the South
+of France&mdash;at Avignon, at Aix, at Marseilles&mdash;I saw deep
+blue skies (not <i>so</i> deep though&mdash;oh Lord, no!), and also in
+America; but the sky above me is familiar to my sight.
+Is it heresy to say that I have seen its twin-brother shining
+through the window of Jack Straw's&mdash;that down in Devonshire
+I have seen a better sky? I daresay it is; but like
+a great many other heresies, it is true.</p>
+
+<p>But such green&mdash;green&mdash;green&mdash;as flutters in the vineyard
+down below the windows, <i>that</i> I never saw; nor yet
+such lilac, and such purple as float between me and the
+distant hills; nor yet&mdash;in anything&mdash;picture, book, or
+verbal boredom&mdash;such awful, solemn, impenetrable blue, as
+is that same sea. It has such an absorbing, silent, deep,
+profound effect, that I can't help thinking it suggested
+the idea of Styx. It looks as if a draught of it&mdash;only so
+much as you could scoop up on the beach, in the hollow of
+your hand&mdash;would wash out everything else, and make a
+great blue blank of your intellect.</p>
+
+<p>When the sun sets clearly, then, by Heaven, it is
+majestic! From any one of eleven windows here, or from
+a terrace overgrown with grapes, you may behold the broad
+sea; villas, houses, mountains, forts, strewn with rose
+leaves&mdash;strewn with thorns&mdash;stifled in thorns! Dyed
+through and through and through. For a moment. No
+more. The sun is impatient and fierce, like everything else
+in these parts, and goes down headlong. Run to fetch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+your hat&mdash;and it's night. Wink at the right time of black
+night&mdash;and it's morning. Everything is in extremes. There
+is an insect here (I forget its name, and Fletcher and
+Roche are both out) that chirps all day. There is one
+outside the window now. The chirp is very loud, something
+like a Brobdingnagian grasshopper. The creature is
+born to chirp&mdash;to progress in chirping&mdash;to chirp louder,
+louder, louder&mdash;till it gives one tremendous chirp, and
+bursts itself. That is its life and death. Everything "is
+in a concatenation accordingly." The day gets brighter,
+brighter, brighter, till it's night. The summer gets
+hotter, hotter, hotter, till it bursts. The fruit gets riper,
+riper, riper, till it tumbles down and rots.</p>
+
+<p>Ask me a question or two about fresco&mdash;will you be so
+good? All the houses are painted in fresco hereabout&mdash;the
+outside walls I mean; the fronts, and backs, and sides&mdash;and
+all the colour has run into damp and green seediness, and
+the very design has struggled away into the component
+atoms of the plaster. Sometimes (but not often) I can
+make out a Virgin with a mildewed glory round her
+head; holding nothing, in an indiscernible lap, with invisible
+arms; and occasionally the leg or arms of a
+cherub, but it is very melancholy and dim. There are
+two old fresco-painted vases outside my own gate&mdash;one
+on either hand&mdash;which are so faint, that I never saw them
+till last night; and only then because I was looking over
+the wall after a lizard, who had come upon me while I
+was smoking a cigar above, and crawled over one of
+these embellishments to his retreat. There is a church
+here&mdash;the Church of the Annunciation&mdash;which they are
+now (by "they" I mean certain noble families) restoring
+at a vast expense, as a work of piety. It is a large church,
+with a great many little chapels in it, and a very high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+dome. Every inch of this edifice is painted, and every
+design is set in a great gold frame or border elaborately
+wrought. You can imagine nothing so splendid. It is
+worth coming the whole distance to see. But every sort of
+splendour is in perpetual enactment through the means of
+these churches. Gorgeous processions in the streets, illuminations
+of windows on festa nights; lighting up of
+lamps and clustering of flowers before the shrines of saints;
+all manner of show and display. The doors of the churches
+stand wide open; and in this hot weather great red curtains
+flutter and wave in their palaces; and if you go and sit in
+one of these to get out of the sun, you see the queerest
+figures kneeling against pillars, and the strangest people
+passing in and out, and vast streams of women in veils (they
+don't wear bonnets), with great fans in their hands, coming
+and going, that you are never tired of looking on. Except
+in the churches, you would suppose the city (at this time of
+year) to be deserted, the people keep so close within doors.
+Indeed it is next to impossible to go out into the heat. I
+have only been into Genoa twice myself. We are deliciously
+cool here, by comparison; being high, and having the sea
+breeze. There is always some shade in the vineyard, too;
+and underneath the rocks on the sea-shore, so if I
+choose to saunter I can do it easily, even in the hot time
+of the day. I am as lazy, however, as&mdash;as you are, and do
+little but eat and drink and read.</p>
+
+<p>As I am going to transmit regular accounts of all sight-seeings
+and journeyings to Forster, who will show them to
+you, I will not bore you with descriptions, however. I
+hardly think you allow enough for the great brightness and
+brilliancy of colour which is commonly achieved on the
+Continent, in that same fresco painting. I saw some&mdash;by a
+French artist and his pupil&mdash;in progress at the cathedral at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+Avignon, which was as bright and airy as anything can be,&mdash;nothing
+dull or dead about it; and I have observed quite
+fierce and glaring colours elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>We have a piano now (there was none in the house), and
+have fallen into a pretty settled easy track. We breakfast
+about half-past nine or ten, dine about four, and go to bed
+about eleven. We are much courted by the visiting people,
+of course, and I very much resort to my old habit of bolting
+from callers, and leaving their reception to Kate. Green
+figs I have already learnt to like. Green almonds (we have
+them at dessert every day) are the most delicious fruit in
+the world. And green lemons, combined with some rare
+hollands that is to be got here, make prodigious punch, I
+assure you. You ought to come over, Mac; but I don't expect
+you, though I am sure it would be a very good move for
+you. I have not the smallest doubt of that. Fletcher has
+made a sketch of the house, and will copy it in pen-and-ink
+for transmission to you in my next letter. I shall look out
+for a place in Genoa, between this and the winter time. In
+the meantime, the people who come out here breathe
+delightedly, as if they had got into another climate. Landing
+in the city, you would hardly suppose it possible that there
+could be such an air within two miles.</p>
+
+<p>Write to me as often as you can, like a dear good
+fellow, and rely upon the punctuality of my correspondence.
+Losing you and Forster is like losing my arms and legs,
+and dull and lame I am without you. But at Broadstairs
+next year, please God, when it is all over, I shall be very
+glad to have laid up such a store of recollections and
+improvement.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what to do with Timber. He is as ill-adapted
+to the climate at this time of year as a suit of fur.
+I have had him made a lion dog; but the fleas flock in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+such crowds into the hair he has left, that they drive him
+nearly frantic, and renders it absolutely necessary that he
+should be kept by himself. Of all the miserable hideous
+little frights you ever saw, you never beheld such a devil.
+Apropos, as we were crossing the Seine within two stages
+of Paris, Roche suddenly said to me, sitting by me on the
+box: "The littel dog 'ave got a great lip!" I was thinking
+of things remote and very different, and couldn't comprehend
+why any peculiarity in this feature on the part of
+the dog should excite a man so much. As I was musing
+upon it, my ears were attracted by shouts of "Helo! hola!
+Hi, hi, hi! Le voil&agrave;! Regardez!" and the like. And
+looking down among the oxen&mdash;we were in the centre of a
+numerous drove&mdash;I saw him, Timber, lying in the road,
+curled up&mdash;you know his way&mdash;like a lobster, only not so
+stiff, yelping dismally in the pain of his "lip" from the
+roof of the carriage; and between the aching of his bones,
+his horror of the oxen, and his dread of me (who he
+evidently took to be the immediate agent in and cause of
+the damage), singing out to an extent which I believe to
+be perfectly unprecedented; while every Frenchman and
+French boy within sight roared for company. He wasn't
+hurt.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgina send their best loves; and the
+children add "theirs." Katey, in particular, desires to be
+commended to "Mr. Teese." She has a sore throat; from
+sitting in constant draughts, I suppose; but with that
+exception, we are all quite well. Ever believe me, my
+dear Mac,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+Edward
+Tagart.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Albaro, Near Genoa</span>, <i>Friday, August 9th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I find that if I wait to write you a long letter (which
+has been the cause of my procrastination in fulfilling my
+part of our agreement), I am likely to wait some time
+longer. And as I am very anxious to hear from you; not
+the less so, because if I hear of you through my brother,
+who usually sees you once a week in my absence; I take
+pen in hand and stop a messenger who is going to Genoa.
+For my main object being to qualify myself for the receipt
+of a letter from you, I don't see why a ten-line qualification
+is not as good as one of a hundred lines.</p>
+
+<p>You told me it was possible that you and Mrs. Tagart
+might wander into these latitudes in the autumn. I wish
+you would carry out that infant intention to the utmost.
+It would afford us the truest delight and pleasure to receive
+you. If you come in October, you will find us in the
+Palazzo Peschiere, in Genoa, which is surrounded by a
+delicious garden, and is a most charming habitation in all
+respects. If you come in September, you will find us less
+splendidly lodged, but on the margin of the sea, and in the
+midst of vineyards. The climate is delightful even now;
+the heat being not at all oppressive, except in the actual
+city, which is what the Americans would call considerable
+fiery, in the middle of the day. But the sea-breezes out
+here are refreshing and cool every day, and the bathing in
+the early morning is something more agreeable than you can
+easily imagine. The orange trees of the Peschiere shall
+give you their most fragrant salutations if you come to us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+at that time, and we have a dozen spare beds in that house
+that I know of; to say nothing of some vast chambers
+here and there with ancient iron chests in them, where
+Mrs. Tagart might enact Ginevra to perfection, and never
+be found out. To prevent which, I will engage to watch
+her closely, if she will only come and see us.</p>
+
+<p>The flies are incredibly numerous just now. The
+unsightly blot a little higher up was occasioned by a
+very fine one who fell into the inkstand, and came out,
+unexpectedly, on the nib of my pen. We are all quite well,
+thank Heaven, and had a very interesting journey here, of
+which, as well as of this place, I will not write a word, lest
+I should take the edge off those agreeable conversations
+with which we will beguile our walks.</p>
+
+<p>Pray tell me about the presentation of the plate, and
+whether &mdash;&mdash; was very slow, or trotted at all, and if so,
+when. He is an excellent creature, and I respect him very
+much, so I don't mind smiling when I think of him as he
+appeared when addressing you and pointing to the plate,
+with his head a little on one side, and one of his eyes turned
+up languidly.</p>
+
+<p>Also let me know exactly how you are travelling, and
+when, and all about it; that I may meet you with open
+arms on the threshold of the city, if happily you bend your
+steps this way. You had better address me, "Poste
+Restante, Genoa," as the Albaro postman gets drunk, and
+when he has lost letters, and is sober, sheds tears&mdash;which is
+affecting, but hardly satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and her sister send their best regards to yourself,
+and Mrs. and Miss Tagart, and all your family. I heartily
+join them in all kind remembrances and good wishes. As
+the messenger has just looked in at the door, and shedding
+on me a balmy gale of onions, has protested against being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+detained any longer, I will only say (which is not at all
+necessary) that I am ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;There is a little to see here, in the church way,
+I assure you.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Albaro</span>, <i>Saturday Night, August 24th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I love you so truly, and have such pride and joy of
+heart in your friendship, that I don't know how to begin
+writing to you. When I think how you are walking up and
+down London in that portly surtout, and can't receive
+proposals from Dick to go to the theatre, I fall into a state
+between laughing and crying, and want some friendly back
+to smite. "Je-im!" "Aye, aye, your honour," is in my
+ears every time I walk upon the sea-shore here; and the
+number of expeditions I make into Cornwall in my sleep,
+the springs of Flys I break, the songs I sing, and the bowls
+of punch I drink, would soften a heart of stone.</p>
+
+<p>We have had weather here, since five o'clock this morning,
+after your own heart. Suppose yourself the Admiral in
+"Black-eyed Susan" after the acquittal of William, and
+when it was possible to be on friendly terms with him. I
+am T. P.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> My trousers are very full at the ankles, my black
+neckerchief is tied in the regular style, the name of my ship
+is painted round my glazed hat, I have a red waistcoat on,
+and the seams of my blue jacket are "paid"&mdash;permit me to
+dig you in the ribs when I make use of this nautical expression&mdash;with
+white. In my hand I hold the very box connected
+with the story of Sandomingerbilly. I lift up my
+eyebrows as far as I can (on the T. P. model), take a quid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+from the box, screw the lid on again (chewing at the same
+time, and looking pleasantly at the pit), brush it with my
+right elbow, take up my right leg, scrape my right foot on
+the ground, hitch up my trousers, and in reply to a question
+of yours, namely, "Indeed, what weather, William?" I
+deliver myself as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Lord love your honour! Weather! Such weather as would set all
+hands to the pumps aboard one of your fresh-water cockboats, and set the
+purser to his wits' ends to stow away, for the use of the ship's company, the
+casks and casks full of blue water as would come powering in over the
+gunnel! The dirtiest night, your honour, as ever you see 'atween Spithead
+at gun-fire and the Bay of Biscay! The wind sou'-west, and your house
+dead in the wind's eye; the breakers running up high upon the rocky
+beads, the light'us no more looking through the fog than Davy Jones's
+sarser eye through the blue sky of heaven in a calm, or the blue toplights
+of your honour's lady cast down in a modest overhauling of her catheads:
+avast! (<i>whistling</i>) my dear eyes; here am I a-goin' head on to the
+breakers (<i>bowing</i>).</p>
+
+<p><i>Admiral</i> (<i>smiling</i>). No, William! I admire plain speaking, as you know,
+and so does old England, William, and old England's Queen. But you were
+saying&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>William.</i> Aye, aye, your honour (<i>scratching his head</i>). I've lost my
+reckoning. Damme!&mdash;I ast pardon&mdash;but won't your honour throw a hencoop
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: this word not in original text">or</ins> any old end of towline to a man as is overboard?</p>
+
+<p><i>Admiral</i> (<i>smiling still</i>). You were saying, William, that the wind&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>William</i> (<i>again cocking his leg, and slapping the thighs very hard</i>). Avast
+heaving, your honour! I see your honour's signal fluttering in the breeze,
+without a glass. As I was a-saying, your honour, the wind was blowin'
+from the sou'-west, due sou'-west, your honour, not a pint to larboard nor a
+pint to starboard; the clouds a-gatherin' in the distance for all the world
+like Beachy Head in a fog, the sea a-rowling in, in heaps of foam, and
+making higher than the mainyard arm, the craft a-scuddin' by all taught
+and under storms'ils for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin' out
+aloft&mdash;aloft, your honour, in the little cherubs' native country&mdash;and the
+spray is flying like the white foam from the Jolly's lips when Poll of Portsea
+took him for a tailor! (<i>laughs.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><i>Admiral</i> (<i>laughing also</i>). You have described it well, William, and I
+thank you. But who are these?</p>
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>Enter Supers in calico jackets to look like cloth, some in brown
+holland petticoat-trousers and big boots, all with very large
+buckles. Last Super rolls on a cask, and pretends to keep it.
+Other Supers apply their mugs to the bunghole and drink,
+previously holding them upside down.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span><i>William</i> (<i>after shaking hands with everybody</i>). Who are these, your
+honour! Messmates as staunch and true as ever broke biscuit. Ain't you,
+my lads?</p>
+
+<p><i>All.</i> Aye, aye, William. That we are! that we are!</p>
+
+<p><i>Admiral</i> (<i>much affected</i>). Oh, England, what wonder that&mdash;&mdash;! But I will
+no longer detain you from your sports, my humble friends (<span class="smcap">Admiral</span>
+<i>speaks very low, and looks hard at the orchestra, this being the cue for the
+dance</i>)&mdash;from your sports, my humble friends. Farewell!</p>
+
+<p><i>All.</i> Hurrah! hurrah! [<i>Exit</i> <span class="smcap">Admiral</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Voice behind.</i> Suppose the dance, Mr. Stanfield. Are you all ready? Go
+then!</p></div>
+
+<p>My dear Stanfield, I wish you would come this way and
+see me in that Palazzo Peschiere! Was ever man so welcome
+as I would make you! What a truly gentlemanly action it
+would be to bring Mrs. Stanfield and the baby. And how
+Kate and her sister would wave pocket-handkerchiefs from
+the wharf in joyful welcome! Ah, what a glorious
+proceeding!</p>
+
+<p>Do you know this place? Of course you do. I won't
+bore you with anything about it, for I know Forster reads
+my letters to you; but what a place it is. The views from
+the hills here, and the immense variety of prospects of the
+sea, are as striking, I think, as such scenery can be. Above
+all, the approach to Genoa, by sea from Marseilles, constitutes
+a picture which you ought to paint, for nobody else
+can ever do it! William, you made that bridge at Avignon
+better than it is. Beautiful as it undoubtedly is, you made
+it fifty times better. And if I were Morrison, or one of that
+school (bless the dear fellows one and all!), I wouldn't stand
+it, but would insist on having another picture gratis, to
+atone for the imposition.</p>
+
+<p>The night is like a seaside night in England towards the
+end of September. They say it is the prelude to clear
+weather. But the wind is roaring now, and the sea is
+raving, and the rain is driving down, as if they had all set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+in for a real hearty picnic, and each had brought its own
+relations to the general festivity. I don't know whether
+you are acquainted with the coastguard and men in these
+parts? They are extremely civil fellows, of a very amiable
+manner and appearance, but the most innocent men in
+matters you would suppose them to be well acquainted with,
+in virtue of their office, that I ever encountered. One of
+them asked me only yesterday, if it would take a year to get
+to England in a ship? Which I thought for a coastguardman
+was rather a tidy question. It would take a long time
+to catch a ship going there if he were on board a pursuing
+cutter though. I think he would scarcely do it in twelve
+months, indeed.</p>
+
+<p>So you were at Astley's t'other night. "Now, Mr.
+Stickney, sir, what can I come for to go for to do for to
+bring for to fetch for to carry for you, sir?" "He, he, he!
+Oh, I say, sir!" "Well, sir?" "Miss Woolford knows
+me, sir. She laughed at me!" I see him run away after
+this; not on his feet, but on his knees and the calves of his
+legs alternately; and that smell of sawdusty horses, which
+was never in any other place in the world, salutes my nose
+with painful distinctness. What do you think of my suddenly
+finding myself a swimmer? But I have really made
+the discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below
+the town here, like a fish in high spirits. I hope to preserve
+my bathing-dress for your inspection and approval, or possibly
+to enrich your collection of Italian costumes on my
+return. Do you recollect Yarnold in "Masaniello"? I
+fear that I, unintentionally, "dress at him," before plunging
+into the sea. I enhanced the likeness very much, last Friday
+morning, by singing a barcarole on the rocks. I was a
+trifle too flesh-coloured (the stage knowing no medium
+between bright salmon and dirty yellow), but apart from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+that defect, not badly made up by any means. When you
+write to me, my dear Stanny, as I hope you will soon,
+address Poste Restante, Genoa. I remain out here until the
+end of September, and send in for my letters daily. There
+is a postman for this place, but he gets drunk and loses the
+letters; after which he calls to say so, and to fall upon his
+knees. About three weeks ago I caught him at a wine-shop
+near here, playing bowls in the garden. It was then
+about five o'clock in the afternoon, and he had been airing
+a newspaper addressed to me, since nine o'clock in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgina unite with me in most cordial remembrances
+to Mrs. and Miss Stanfield, and to all the children.
+They particularise all sorts of messages, but I tell them that
+they had better write themselves if they want to send any.
+Though I don't know that this writing would end in the
+safe deliverance of the commodities after all; for when I
+began this letter, I meant to give utterance to all kinds of
+heartiness, my dear Stanfield; and I come to the end of it
+without having said anything more than that I am&mdash;which
+is new to you&mdash;under every circumstance and everywhere,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your most affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Palazzo Peschiere, Genoa</span>, <i>October 14th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My very dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>My whole heart is with you <i>at home</i>. I have not yet
+felt so far off as I do now, when I think of you there, and
+cannot fold you in my arms. This is only a shake of the
+hand. I couldn't <i>say</i> much to you, if I were home to greet
+you. Nor can I write much, when I think of you, safe and
+sound and happy, after all your wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>My dear fellow, God bless you twenty thousand times.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+Happiness and joy be with you! I hope to see you soon.
+If I should be so unfortunate as to miss you in London, I
+will fall upon you, with a swoop of love, in Paris. Kate says
+all kind things in the language; and means more than are
+in the dictionary capacity of all the descendants of all the
+stonemasons that worked at Babel. Again and again and
+again, my own true friend, God bless you!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Douglas
+Jerrold.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Cremona</span>, <i>Saturday Night, October 16th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Jerrold</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As half a loaf is better than no bread, so I hope that
+half a sheet of paper may be better than none at all, coming
+from one who is anxious to live in your memory and friendship.
+I should have redeemed the pledge I gave you in
+this regard long since, but occupation at one time, and
+absence from pen and ink at another, have prevented me.</p>
+
+<p>Forster has told you, or will tell you, that I very much
+wish you to hear my little Christmas book; and I hope you
+will meet me, at his bidding, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I
+have tried to strike a blow upon that part of the brass
+countenance of wicked Cant, when such a compliment is sorely
+needed at this time, and I trust that the result of my training
+is at least the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a
+staggerer. If <i>you</i> should think at the end of the four
+rounds (there are no more) that the said Cant, in the
+language of <i>Bell's Life</i>, "comes up piping," I shall be very
+much the better for it.</p>
+
+<p>I am now on my way to Milan; and from thence (after
+a day or two's rest) I mean to come to England by the
+grandest Alpine pass that the snow may leave open. You
+know this place as famous of yore for fiddles. I don't see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+any here now. But there is a whole street of coppersmiths
+not far from this inn; and they throb so d&mdash;&mdash;ably and
+fitfully, that I thought I had a palpitation of the heart after
+dinner just now, and seldom was more relieved than when I
+found the noise to be none of mine.</p>
+
+<p>I was rather shocked yesterday (I am not strong in
+geographical details) to find that Romeo was only banished
+twenty-five miles. That is the distance between Mantua
+and Verona. The latter is a quaint old place, with great
+houses in it that are now solitary and shut up&mdash;exactly the
+place it ought to be. The former has a great many apothecaries
+in it at this moment, who could play that part to the
+life. For of all the stagnant ponds I ever beheld, it is the
+greenest and weediest. I went to see the old palace of the
+Capulets, which is still distinguished by their cognizance (a
+hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). It is a miserable
+inn. The court was full of crazy coaches, carts, geese,
+and pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and dung. The
+garden is walled off and built out. There was nothing to
+connect it with its old inhabitants, and a very unsentimental
+lady at the kitchen door. The Montagues used to live some
+two or three miles off in the country. It does not appear
+quite clear whether they ever inhabited Verona itself. But
+there is a village bearing their name to this day, and traditions
+of the quarrels between the two families are still
+as nearly alive as anything can be, in such a drowsy
+neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>It was very hearty and good of you, Jerrold, to
+make that affectionate mention of the "Carol" in <i>Punch</i>,
+and I assure you it was not lost on the distant object of
+your manly regard, but touched him as you wished and
+meant it should. I wish we had not lost so much time in
+improving our personal knowledge of each other. But I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+have so steadily read you, and so selfishly gratified myself
+in always expressing the admiration with which your gallant
+truths inspired me, that I must not call it time lost, either.</p>
+
+<p>You rather entertained a notion, once, of coming to see
+me at Genoa. I shall return straight, on the 9th of
+December, limiting my stay in town to one week. Now
+couldn't you come back with me? The journey, that way,
+is very cheap, costing little more than twelve pounds; and
+I am sure the gratification to you would be high. I am
+lodged in quite a wonderful place, and would put you in a
+painted room, as big as a church and much more comfortable.
+There are pens and ink upon the premises; orange
+trees, gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires
+for evenings, and a welcome worth having.</p>
+
+<p>Come! Letter from a gentleman in Italy to Bradbury
+and Evans in London. Letter from a gentleman in a
+country gone to sleep to a gentleman in a country that
+would go to sleep too, and never wake again, if some people
+had their way. You can work in Genoa. The house is
+used to it. It is exactly a week's post. Have that portmanteau
+looked to, and when we meet, say, "I am coming."</p>
+
+<p>I have never in my life been so struck by any place as
+by Venice. It is <i>the</i> wonder of the world. Dreamy, beautiful,
+inconsistent, impossible, wicked, shadowy, d&mdash;&mdash;able
+old place. I entered it by night, and the sensation of
+that night and the bright morning that followed is a
+part of me for the rest of my existence. And, oh
+God! the cells below the water, underneath the Bridge of
+Sighs; the nook where the monk came at midnight to
+confess the political offender; the bench where he was
+strangled; the deadly little vault in which they tied him in
+a sack, and the stealthy crouching little door through
+which they hurried him into a boat, and bore him away to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+sink him where no fisherman dare cast his net&mdash;all shown
+by torches that blink and wink, as if they were ashamed to
+look upon the gloomy theatre of sad horrors; past and
+gone as they are, these things stir a man's blood, like a
+great wrong or passion of the instant. And with these in
+their minds, and with a museum there, having a chamber
+full of such frightful instruments of torture as the devil
+in a brain fever could scarcely invent, there are hundreds of
+parrots, who will declaim to you in speech and print, by the
+hour together, on the degeneracy of the times in which a
+railroad is building across the water at Venice; instead of
+going down on their knees, the drivellers, and thanking
+Heaven that they live in a time when iron makes roads,
+instead of prison bars and engines for driving screws into
+the skulls of innocent men. Before God, I could almost
+turn bloody-minded, and shoot the parrots of our island
+with as little compunction as Robinson Crusoe shot the
+parrots in his.</p>
+
+<p>I have not been in bed, these ten days, after five in the
+morning, and have been, travelling many hours every day.
+If this be the cause of my inflicting a very stupid and
+sleepy letter on you, my dear Jerrold, I hope it will be a
+kind of signal at the same time, of my wish to hail you
+lovingly even from this sleepy and unpromising state. And
+believe me as I am,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always your Friend and Admirer.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Peschiere, Genoa</span>, <i>Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mitton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The cause of my not having written to you is too
+obvious to need any explanation. I have worn myself to
+death in the month I have been at work. None of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+usual reliefs have been at hand; I have not been able to
+divest myself of the story&mdash;have suffered very much in my
+sleep in consequence&mdash;and am so shaken by such work in
+this trying climate, that I am as nervous as a man who is
+dying of drink, and as haggard as a murderer.</p>
+
+<p>I believe I have written a tremendous book, and
+knocked the "Carol" out of the field. It will make a
+great uproar, I have no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>I leave here to-morrow for Venice and many other
+places; and I shall certainly come to London to see my
+proofs, coming by new ground all the way, cutting through
+the snow in the valleys of Switzerland, and plunging through
+the mountains in the dead of winter. I would accept your
+hearty offer with right goodwill, but my visit being one of
+business and consultation, I see impediments in the way,
+and insurmountable reasons for not doing so. Therefore, I
+shall go to an hotel in Covent Garden, where they know me
+very well, and with the landlord of which I have already
+communicated. My orders are not upon a mighty scale,
+extending no further than a good bedroom and a cold
+shower-bath.</p>
+
+<p>Bradbury and Evans are going at it, ding-dong, and are
+wild with excitement. All news on that subject (and on
+every other) I must defer till I see you. That will be
+immediately after I arrive, of course. Most likely on
+Monday, 2nd December.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and her sister (who send their best regards) and
+all the children are as well as possible. The house is
+<i>perfect</i>; the servants are as quiet and well-behaved as at
+home, which very rarely happens here, and Roche is my
+right hand. There never was such a fellow.</p>
+
+<p>We have now got carpets down&mdash;burn fires at night&mdash;draw
+the curtains, and are quite wintry. We have a box at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+the opera, which, is close by (for nothing), and sit there
+when we please, as in our own drawing-room. There have
+been three fine days in four weeks. On every other the
+water has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it
+has been thundering and lightening every day and night.</p>
+
+<p>My hand shakes in that feverish and horrible manner
+that I can hardly hold a pen. And I have so bad a cold
+that I can't see.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">In haste to save the post,</span><br />
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Charley has a writing-master every day, and a
+French master. He and his sisters are to be waited on
+by a professor of the noble art of dancing, next week.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Parma, Albergo della Posta</span>, <i>Friday, Nov. 8th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>"If missis could see us to-night, what would she
+say?" That was the brave C.'s remark last night at midnight,
+and he had reason. We left Genoa, as you know,
+soon after five on the evening of my departure; and in
+company with the lady whom you saw, and the dog whom I
+don't think you did see, travelled all night at the rate of
+four miles an hour over bad roads, without the least refreshment
+until daybreak, when the brave and myself escaped
+into a miserable caff&eacute; while they were changing horses, and
+got a cup of that drink hot. That same day, a few hours
+afterwards, between ten and eleven, we came to (I hope) the
+d&mdash;&mdash;dest inn in the world, where, in a vast chamber,
+rendered still more desolate by the presence of a most offensive
+specimen of what D'Israeli calls the Mosaic Arab (who
+had a beautiful girl with him), I regaled upon a breakfast,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+almost as cold, and damp, and cheerless, as myself. Then,
+in another coach, much smaller than a small Fly, I was packed
+up with an old padre, a young Jesuit, a provincial avvocato, a
+private gentleman with a very red nose and a very wet brown
+umbrella, and the brave C. and I went on again at the same
+pace through the mud and rain until four in the afternoon,
+when there was a place in the coup&eacute; (two indeed), which I
+took, holding that select compartment in company with a very
+ugly but very agreeable Tuscan "gent," who said "<i>gia</i>"
+instead of "<i>si</i>," and rung some other changes in this
+changing language, but with whom I got on very well, being
+extremely conversational. We were bound, as you know
+perhaps, for Piacenza, but it was discovered that we couldn't
+get to Piacenza, and about ten o'clock at night we halted at
+a place called Stradella, where the inn was a series of queer
+galleries open to the night, with a great courtyard full of
+waggons and horses, and "<i>velociferi</i>," and what not in the
+centre. It was bitter cold and very wet, and we all walked
+into a bare room (mine!) with two immensely broad beds on
+two deal dining-tables, a third great empty table, the usual
+washing-stand tripod, with a slop-basin on it, and two chairs.
+And then we walked up and down for three-quarters of an
+hour or so, while dinner, or supper, or whatever it was, was
+getting ready. This was set forth (by way of variety) in the
+old priest's bedroom, which had two more immensely broad
+beds on two more deal dining-tables in it. The first dish
+was a cabbage boiled in a great quantity of rice and hot
+water, the whole flavoured with cheese. I was so cold that
+I thought it comfortable, and so hungry that a bit of cabbage,
+when I found such a thing floating my way, charmed
+me. After that we had a dish of very little pieces of pork,
+fried with pigs' kidneys; after that a fowl; after that something
+very red and stringy, which I think was veal; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+after that two tiny little new-born-baby-looking turkeys,
+very red and very swollen. Fruit, of course, to wind up,
+and garlic in one shape or another in every course. I made
+three jokes at supper (to the immense delight of the
+company), and retired early. The brave brought in a bush
+or two and made a fire, and after that a glass of screeching
+hot brandy and water; that bottle of his being full of brandy.
+I drank it at my leisure, undressed before the fire, and went
+into one of the beds. The brave reappeared about an hour
+afterwards and went into the other; previously tying a
+pocket-handkerchief round and round his head in a strange
+fashion, and giving utterance to the sentiment with which
+this letter begins. At five this morning we resumed our
+journey, still through mud and rain, and at about eleven
+arrived at Piacenza; where we fellow-passengers took leave
+of one another in the most affectionate manner. As there
+was no coach on till six at night, and as it was a very grim,
+despondent sort of place, and as I had had enough of diligences
+for one while, I posted forward here in the strangest
+carriages ever beheld, which we changed when we changed
+horses. We arrived here before six. The hotel is quite
+French. I have dined very well in my own room on the
+second floor; and it has two beds in it, screened off from
+the room by drapery. I only use one to-night, and that is
+already made.</p>
+
+<p>I purpose posting on to Bologna, if I can arrange it, at
+twelve to-morrow; seeing the sights here first.</p>
+
+<p>It is dull work this travelling alone. My only comfort
+is in motion. I look forward with a sort of shudder to
+Sunday, when I shall have a day to myself in Bologna; and
+I think I must deliver my letters in Venice in sheer desperation.
+Never did anybody want a companion after dinner
+so much as I do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There has been music on the landing outside my door
+to-night. Two violins and a violoncello. One of the violins
+played a solo, and the others struck in as an orchestra does
+now and then, very well. Then he came in with a small tin
+platter. "Bella musica," said I. "Bellissima musica,
+signore. Mi piace moltissimo. Sono felice, signoro," said
+he. I gave him a franc. "O moltissimo generoso. Tanto
+generoso signore!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a joke to laugh at when I was learning, but I
+swear unless I could stagger on, Zoppa-wise, with the people,
+I verily believe I should have turned back this morning.</p>
+
+<p>In all other respects I think the entire change has done
+me undoubted service already. I am free of the book, and
+am red-faced; and feel marvellously disposed to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>So for all the straggling qualities of this straggling
+letter, want of sleep must be responsible. Give my best love
+to Georgy, and my paternal blessing to</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Mamey,<br />
+Katey,<br />
+Charley,<br />
+Wally,<br />
+and<br />
+Chickenstalker.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Get things in their places. I can't bear to picture
+them otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>P.P.S.&mdash;I think I saw Roche sleeping with his head on
+the lady's shoulder, in the coach. I couldn't swear it, and
+the light was deceptive. But I think I did.</p>
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alia sign<sup>a</sup></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Sign<sup>a</sup> Dickens.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Palazzo Peschiere, Genova.</span><br /></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Fribourg</span>, <i>Saturday Night, November 23rd, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>For the first time since I left you I am sitting in a
+room of my own hiring, with a fire and a bed in it. And I
+am happy to say that I have the best and fullest intentions
+of sleeping in the bed, having arrived here at half-past four
+this afternoon, without any cessation of travelling, night or
+day, since I parted from Mr. Bairr's cheap firewood.</p>
+
+<p>The Alps appeared in sight very soon after we left
+Milan&mdash;by eight or nine o'clock in the morning; and the
+brave C. was so far wrong in his calculations that we began
+the ascent of the Simplon that same night, while you were
+travelling (as I would I were) towards the Peschiere. Most
+favourable state of circumstances for journeying up that
+tremendous pass! The brightest moon I ever saw, all
+night, and daybreak on the summit. The glory of which,
+making great wastes of snow a rosy red, exceeds all telling.
+We <i>sledged</i> through the snow on the summit for two hours
+or so. The weather was perfectly fair and bright, and
+there was neither difficulty nor danger&mdash;except the danger
+that there always must be, in such a place, of a horse
+stumbling on the brink of an immeasurable precipice. In
+which case no piece of the unfortunate traveller would be
+left large enough to tell his story in dumb show. You may
+imagine something of the rugged grandeur of such a scene
+as this great passage of these great mountains, and indeed
+Glencoe, well sprinkled with snow, would be very like the
+ascent. But the top itself, so wild, and bleak, and lonely,
+is a thing by itself, and not to be likened to any other
+sight. The cold was piercing; the north wind high and
+boisterous; and when it came driving in our faces, bringing
+a sharp shower of little points of snow and piercing it into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+our very blood, it really was, what it is often said to be,
+"cutting"&mdash;with a very sharp edge too. There are houses
+of refuge here&mdash;bleak, solitary places&mdash;for travellers overtaken
+by the snow to hurry to, as an escape from death;
+and one great house, called the Hospital, kept by monks,
+where wayfarers get supper and bed for nothing. We saw
+some coming out and pursuing their journey. If all monks
+devoted themselves to such uses, I should have little fault
+to find with them.</p>
+
+<p>The cold in Switzerland, since, has been something quite
+indescribable. My eyes are tingling to-night as one may
+suppose cymbals to tingle when they have been lustily
+played. It is positive pain to me to write. The great
+organ which I was to have had "pleasure in hearing"
+don't play on a Sunday, at which the brave is inconsolable.
+But the town is picturesque and quaint, and worth seeing.
+And this inn (with a German bedstead in it about the size
+and shape of a baby's linen-basket) is perfectly clean and
+comfortable. Butter is so cheap hereabouts that they bring
+you a great mass like the squab of a sofa for tea. And of
+honey, which is most delicious, they set before you a proportionate
+allowance. We start to-morrow morning at six
+for Strasburg, and from that town, or the next halting-place
+on the Rhine, I will report progress, if it be only in
+half-a-dozen words.</p>
+
+<p>I am anxious to hear that you reached Genoa quite
+comfortably, and shall look forward with impatience to that
+letter which you are to indite with so much care and pains
+next Monday. My best love to Georgy, and to Charley,
+and Mamey, and Katey, and Wally, and Chickenstalker.
+I have treated myself to a new travelling-cap to-night (my
+old one being too thin), and it is rather a prodigious affair I
+flatter myself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Swiss towns, and mountains, and the Lake of Geneva,
+and the famous suspension bridge at this place, and a great
+many other objects (with a very low thermometer conspicuous
+among them), are dancing up and down me,
+strangely. But I am quite collected enough, notwithstanding,
+to have still a very distinct idea that this hornpipe
+travelling is uncomfortable, and that I would gladly
+start for my palazzo out of hand without any previous rest,
+stupid as I am and much as I want it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever, my dear love,</span><br />
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I hope the dancing lessons will be a success.
+Don't fail to let me know.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Bristol, Paris</span>, <i>Thursday Night,</i></span><br />
+<i>Nov. 28th, 1844, Half-past Ten.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Since I wrote to you what would be called in law
+proceedings the exhibit marked A, I have been round to
+the H&ocirc;tel Brighton, and personally examined and cross-examined
+the attendants. It is painfully clear to me that
+I shall not see you to-night, nor until Tuesday, the 10th
+of December, when, please God, I shall re-arrive here, on
+my way to my Italian bowers. I mean to stay all the
+Wednesday and all the Thursday in Paris. One night to
+see you act (my old delight when you little thought of such
+a being in existence), and one night to read to you and
+Mrs. Macready (if that scamp of Lincoln's Inn Fields has
+not anticipated me) my little Christmas book, in which I
+have endeavoured to plant an indignant right-hander on
+the eye of certain wicked Cant that makes my blood boil,
+which I hope will not only cloud that eye with black and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort.
+God forgive me, but I think there are good things in the
+little story!</p>
+
+<p>I took it for granted you were, as your American friends
+say, "in full blast" here, and meant to have sent a
+card into your dressing-room, with "Mr. G. S. Hancock
+Muggridge, United States," upon it. But Paris looks
+coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being
+able to shake your hand I shake my own head dolefully,
+which is but poor satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>My love to Mrs. Macready. I will swear to the death
+that it is truly hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for
+nothing else, and to you, my dear Macready, I am ever a
+devoted friend.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Bristol, Paris</span>, <i>Thursday Night, Nov. 28th, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>With an intolerable pen and no ink, I am going to
+write a few lines to you to report progress.</p>
+
+<p>I got to Strasburg on Monday night, intending to go
+down the Rhine. But the weather being foggy, and the
+season quite over, they could not insure me getting on for
+certain beyond Mayence, or our not being detained by
+unpropitious weather. Therefore I resolved (the malle
+poste being full) to take the diligence hither next day in
+the afternoon. I arrived here at half-past five to-night,
+after fifty hours of it in a French coach. I was so beastly
+dirty when I got to this house, that I had quite lost all
+sense of my identity, and if anybody had said, "Are you
+Charles Dickens?" I should have unblushingly answered,
+"No; I never heard of him." A good wash, and a good
+dress, and a good dinner have revived me, however; and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+can report of this house, concerning which the brave was so
+anxious when we were here before, that it is the best I ever
+was in. My little apartment, consisting of three rooms and
+other conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness.
+You never saw such a charming little baby-house. It is
+infinitely smaller than those first rooms we had at Meurice's,
+but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and quietude,
+exceeds anything I ever met with at an inn.</p>
+
+<p>The moment I arrived here, I enquired, of course, after
+Macready. They said the English theatre had not begun
+yet, that they thought he was at Meurice's, where they knew
+some members of the company to be. I instantly despatched
+the porter with a note to say that if he were there, I would
+come round and hug him, as soon as I was clean. They
+referred the porter to the H&ocirc;tel Brighton. He came back
+and told me that the answer there was: "M. Macready's
+rooms were engaged, but he had not arrived. He was
+expected to-night!" If we meet to-night, I will add a
+postscript. Wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road
+between this and Boulogne to-morrow?</p>
+
+<p>I mean, as a recompense for my late sufferings, to get a
+hackney-carriage if I can and post that journey, starting
+from here at eight to-morrow morning, getting to Boulogne
+sufficiently early next morning to cross at once, and dining
+with Forster that same day&mdash;to wit, Saturday. I have
+notions of taking you with me on my next journey (if you
+would like to go), and arranging for Georgy to come to us
+by steamer&mdash;under the protection of the English captain,
+for instance&mdash;to Naples; there I would top and cap all our
+walks by taking her up to the crater of Vesuvius with me.
+But this is dependent on her ability to be perfectly happy
+for a fortnight or so in our stately palace with the children,
+and such foreign aid as the Simpsons. For I love her too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+dearly to think of any project which would involve her being
+uncomfortable for that space of time.</p>
+
+<p>You can think this over, and talk it over; and I will join
+you in doing so, please God, when I return to our Italian
+bowers, which I shall be heartily glad to do.</p>
+
+<p>They tell us that the landlord of this house, going to
+London some week or so ago, was detained at Boulogne two
+days by a high sea, in which the packet could not put out.
+So I hope there is the greater chance of no such bedevilment
+happening to me.</p>
+
+<p>Paris is better than ever. Oh dear, how grand it was
+when I came through it in that caravan to-night! I hope
+we shall be very hearty here, and able to say with Wally,
+"Han't it plassant!"</p>
+
+<p>Love to Charley, Mamey, Katey, Wally, and Chickenstalker.
+The last-named, I take it for granted, is indeed
+prodigious.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to Georgy.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">Ever, my dearest Kate,</span><br />
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I have been round to Macready's hotel; it is now
+past ten, and he has not arrived, nor does it seem at all
+certain that he seriously intended to arrive to-night. So I
+shall not see him, I take it for granted, until my return.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Piazza Coffee House, Covent Garden</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Dec. 2nd, 1844.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received, with great delight, your <i>excellent</i> letter
+of this morning. Do not regard this as my answer to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+It is merely to say that I have been at Bradbury and
+Evans's all day, and have barely time to write more than
+that I <i>will</i> write to-morrow. I arrived about seven on
+Saturday evening, and rushed into the arms of Mac and
+Forster. Both of them send their best love to you and
+Georgy, with a heartiness not to be described.</p>
+
+<p>The little book is now, as far as I am concerned, all
+ready. One cut of Doyle's and one of Leech's I found so
+unlike my ideas, that I had them both to breakfast with me
+this morning, and with that winning manner which you
+know of, got them with the highest good humour to do
+both afresh. They are now hard at it. Stanfield's readiness,
+delight, wonder at my being pleased with what he
+has done is delicious. Mac's frontispiece is charming.
+The book is quite splendid; the expenses will be very great,
+I have no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Anybody who has heard it has been moved in the
+most extraordinary manner. Forster read it (for dramatic
+purposes) to A'Beckett. He cried so much and so painfully,
+that Forster didn't know whether to go on or stop;
+and he called next day to say that any expression of his
+feeling was beyond his power. But that he believed it, and
+felt it to be&mdash;I won't say what.</p>
+
+<p>As the reading comes off to-morrow night, I had better
+not despatch my letters to you until <i>Wednesday's</i> post. I
+must close to save this (heartily tired I am, and I dine at
+Gore House to-day), so with love to Georgy, Mamey, Katey,
+Charley, Wally, and Chickenstalker, ever, believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours, with true affection.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;If you had seen Macready last night, undisguisedly
+sobbing and crying on the sofa as I read, you
+would have felt, as I did, what a thing it is to have power.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1845.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>At</span> the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was still
+living at the Palazzo Peschiere, Genoa, with his family. In
+February, he went with his wife to Rome for the Carnival,
+leaving his sister-in-law and children at Genoa; Miss Hogarth
+joining them later on at Naples. They all returned to Rome
+for the Holy Week, and then went to Florence, and so back
+to Genoa. He continued his residence at Genoa until June
+of this year, when he returned to England by Switzerland and
+Belgium, the party being met at Brussels by Mr. Forster,
+Mr. Maclise, and Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and arriving at
+home at the end of June. The autumn months, until the
+1st October, were again spent at Broadstairs. And in
+this September was the first amateur play at Miss Kelly's
+theatre in Dean Street, under the management of Charles
+Dickens, with Messrs. Jerrold, Mark Lemon, John Leech,
+Gilbert A'Beckett, Leigh, Frank Stone, Forster, and others
+as his fellow-actors. The play selected was Ben Jonson's
+"Every Man in his Humour," in which Charles Dickens acted
+Captain Bobadil. The first performance was a private one,
+merely as an entertainment for the actors and their friends,
+but its success speedily led to a repetition of the same performance,
+and afterwards to many other performances for
+public and charitable objects. "Every Man in his Humour"
+was shortly after repeated, at the same little theatre, for a
+useful charity which needed help; and later in the year
+Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Elder Brother" was
+given by the same company, at the same place, for the
+benefit of Miss Kelly. There was a farce played after the
+comedy on each occasion&mdash;not always the same one&mdash;in
+which Charles Dickens and Mark Lemon were the principal
+actors.</div>
+
+<p>The letters which we have for this year, refer, with very
+few exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no
+explanation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was at work at the end of this year on another
+Christmas book, "The Cricket on the Hearth," and was
+also much occupied with the project of <i>The Daily News</i>
+paper, of which he undertook the editorship at its starting,
+which took place in the beginning of the following year,
+1846.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Rome</span>, <i>Tuesday, February 4th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is a very short note, but time is still shorter.
+Come by the first boat by all means. If there be a good
+one a day or two before it, come by that. Don't delay on
+any account. I am very sorry you are not here. The
+Carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. I have
+been regretting the having left you at home all the way
+here.</p>
+
+<p>Kate says, will you take counsel with Charlotte about
+colour (I put in my word, as usual, for brightness), and have
+the darlings' bonnets made at once, by the same artist as
+before? Kate would have written, but is gone with Black
+to a day performance at the opera, to see Cerito dance.
+At two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage,
+with a large sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred
+little nosegays to pelt people with. I should think we
+threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the latter. We had
+the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I wish
+you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose
+with a handful of very large confetti every time we met
+him. It was the best thing I have ever done. "The
+Chimes" are nothing to it.</p>
+
+<p>Anxiously expecting you, I am ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Dear Georgy,</span><br />
+Yours most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Naples</span>, <i>Monday, February 17th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mitton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This will be a hasty letter, for I am as badly off in
+this place as in America&mdash;beset by visitors at all times and
+seasons, and forced to dine out every day. I have found,
+however, an excellent man for me&mdash;an Englishman, who
+has lived here many years, and is well acquainted with
+<i>the people</i>, whom he doctored in the bad time of the
+cholera, when the priests and everybody else fled in
+terror.</p>
+
+<p>Under his auspices, I have got to understand the low
+life of Naples (among the fishermen and idlers) almost as
+well as I understand the do. do. of my own country; always
+excepting the language, which is very peculiar and extremely
+difficult, and would require a year's constant practice at
+least. It is no more like Italian than English is to Welsh.
+And as they don't say half of what they mean, but make a
+wink or a kick stand for a whole sentence, it's a marvel to
+me how they comprehend each other. At Rome they speak
+beautiful Italian (I am pretty strong at that, I believe); but
+they are worse here than in Genoa, which I had previously
+thought impossible.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fine place, but nothing like so beautiful as people
+make it out to be. The famous bay is, to my thinking, as
+a piece of scenery, immeasurably inferior to the Bay of
+Genoa, which is the most lovely thing I have ever
+seen. The city, in like manner, will bear no comparison
+with Genoa. But there is none in Italy that will, except
+Venice. As to houses, there is no palace like the Peschiere
+for architecture, situation, gardens, or rooms. It is a great
+triumph to me, too, to find how cheap it is. At Rome,
+the English people live in dirty little fourth, fifth, and
+sixth floors, with not one room as large as your own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+drawing-room, and pay, commonly, seven or eight pounds
+a week.</p>
+
+<p>I was a week in Rome on my way here, and saw the
+Carnival, which is perfectly delirious, and a great scene for
+a description. All the ancient part of Rome is wonderful
+and impressive in the extreme. Far beyond the possibility
+of exaggeration as to the modern part, it might be anywhere
+or anything&mdash;Paris, Nice, Boulogne, Calais, or one of a
+thousand other places.</p>
+
+<p>The weather is so atrocious (rain, snow, wind, darkness,
+hail, and cold) that I can't get over into Sicily. But I don't
+care very much about it, as I have planned out ten days of
+excursion into the neighbouring country. One thing of
+course&mdash;the ascent of Vesuvius, Herculaneum and Pompeii,
+the two cities which were covered by its melted ashes, and
+dug out in the first instance accidentally, are more full of
+interest and wonder than it is possible to imagine. I have
+heard of some ancient tombs (quite unknown to travellers)
+dug in the bowels of the earth, and extending for some
+miles underground. They are near a place called Viterbo,
+on the way from Rome to Florence. I shall lay in a small
+stock of torches, etc., and explore them when I leave
+Rome. I return there on the 1st of March, and shall stay
+there nearly a month.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, February 22nd.&mdash;Since I left off as above,
+I have been away on an excursion of three days. Yesterday
+evening, at four o'clock, we began (a small party of six) the
+ascent of Mount Vesuvius, with six saddle-horses, an armed
+soldier for a guard, and twenty-two guides. The latter
+rendered necessary by the severity of the weather, which
+is greater than has been known for twenty years, and has
+covered the precipitous part of the mountain with deep
+snow, the surface of which is glazed with one smooth sheet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+of ice from the top of the cone to the bottom. By starting
+at that hour I intended to get the sunset about halfway up,
+and night at the top, where the fire is raging. It was an
+inexpressibly lovely night without a cloud; and when the
+day was quite gone, the moon (within a few hours of the
+full) came proudly up, showing the sea, and the Bay of
+Naples, and the whole country, in such majesty as no words
+can express. We rode to the beginning of the snow and
+then dismounted. Catherine and Georgina were put into
+two litters, just chairs with poles, like those in use in
+England on the 5th of November; and a fat Englishman,
+who was of the party, was hoisted into a third, borne by
+eight men. I was accommodated with a tough stick, and we
+began to plough our way up. The ascent was as steep
+as this line <b><big>/</big></b>&mdash;very nearly perpendicular. We were all
+tumbling at every stop; and looking up and seeing the
+people in advance tumbling over one's very head, and looking
+down and seeing hundreds of feet of smooth ice below, was,
+I must confess, anything but agreeable. However, I knew
+there was little chance of another clear night before I leave
+this, and gave the word to get up, somehow or other. So
+on we went, winding a little now and then, or we should not
+have got on at all. By prodigious exertions we passed the
+region of snow, and came into that of fire&mdash;desolate and
+awful, you may well suppose. It was like working one's
+way through a dry waterfall, with every mass of stone burnt
+and charred into enormous cinders, and smoke and sulphur
+bursting out of every chink and crevice, so that it was difficult
+to breathe. High before us, bursting out of a hill at
+the top of the mountain, shaped like this <img src="images/a.png" width="22" height="19" alt="Handwritten A" title="Handwritten A" />, the fire was
+pouring out, reddening the night with flames, blackening it
+with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders
+that fell down again in showers. At every step everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+fell, now into a hot chink, now into a bed of ashes, now
+over a mass of cindered iron; and the confusion in the darkness
+(for the smoke obscured the moon in this part), and the
+quarrelling and shouting and roaring of the guides, and the
+waiting every now and then for somebody who was not to
+be found, and was supposed to have stumbled into some pit
+or other, made such a scene of it as I can give you no idea
+of. My ladies were now on foot, of course; but we dragged
+them on as well as we could (they were thorough game, and
+didn't make the least complaint), until we got to the foot of
+that topmost hill I have drawn so beautifully. Here we all
+stopped; but the head guide, an English gentleman of the
+name of Le Gros&mdash;who has been here many years, and has
+been up the mountain a hundred times&mdash;and your humble
+servant, resolved (like jackasses) to climb that hill to the
+brink, and look down into the crater itself. You may form
+some notion of what is going on inside it, when I tell you
+that it is a hundred feet higher than it was six weeks ago.
+The sensation of struggling up it, choked with the fire and
+smoke, and feeling at every step as if the crust of ground
+between one's feet and the gulf of fire would crumble in
+and swallow one up (which is the real danger), I shall
+remember for some little time, I think. But we did it. We
+looked down into the flaming bowels of the mountain and
+came back again, alight in half-a-dozen places, and burnt
+from head to foot. You never saw such devils. And <i>I</i>
+never saw anything so awful and terrible.</p>
+
+<p>Roche had been tearing his hair like a madman, and
+crying that we should all three be killed, which made the rest
+of the company very comfortable, as you may suppose. But
+we had some wine in a basket, and all swallowed a little of that
+and a great deal of sulphur before we began to descend. The
+usual way, after the fiery part is past&mdash;you will understand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+that to be all the flat top of the mountain, in the centre of
+which, again, rises the little hill I have drawn&mdash;is to slide
+down the ashes, which, slipping from under you, make a
+gradually increasing ledge under your feet, and prevent your
+going too fast. But when we came to this steep place last
+night, we found nothing there but one smooth solid sheet of
+ice. The only way to get down was for the guides to make
+a chain, holding by each other's hands, and beat a narrow
+track in it into the snow below with their sticks. My two
+unfortunate ladies were taken out of their litters again, with
+half-a-dozen men hanging on to each, to prevent their falling
+forward; and we began to descend this way. It was like a
+tremendous dream. It was impossible to stand, and the
+only way to prevent oneself from going sheer down the
+precipice, every time one fell, was to drive one's stick into
+one of the holes the guides had made, and hold on by that.
+Nobody could pick one up, or stop one, or render one the
+least assistance. Now, conceive my horror, when this
+Mr. Le Gros I have mentioned, being on one side of
+Georgina and I on the other, suddenly staggers away from
+the narrow path on to the smooth ice, gives us a jerk, lets
+go, and plunges headforemost down the smooth ice into the
+black night, five hundred feet below! Almost at the same
+instant, a man far behind, carrying a light basket on his
+head with some of our spare cloaks in it, misses his footing
+and rolls down in another place; and after him, rolling over
+and over like a black bundle, goes a boy, shrieking as
+nobody but an Italian can shriek, until the breath is tumbled
+out of him.</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman is in bed to-day, terribly bruised but
+without any broken bones. He was insensible at first and
+a mere heap of rags; but we got him before the fire, in a
+little hermitage there is halfway down, and he so far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+recovered as to be able to take some supper, which was
+waiting for us there. The boy was brought in with his head
+tied up in a bloody cloth, about half an hour after the rest
+of us were assembled. And the man who had had the
+basket was not found when we left the mountain at midnight.
+What became of the cloaks (mine was among them)
+I know as little. My ladies' clothes were so torn off their
+backs that they would not have been decent, if there could
+have been any thought of such things at such a time. And
+when we got down to the guides' house, we found a French
+surgeon (one of another party who had been up before us)
+lying on a bed in a stable, with God knows what horrible
+breakage about him, but suffering acutely and looking like
+death. A pretty unusual trip for a pleasure expedition, I
+think!</p>
+
+<p>I am rather stiff to-day but am quite unhurt, except a
+slight scrape on my right hand. My clothes are burnt to
+pieces. My ladies are the wonder of Naples, and everybody
+is open-mouthed.</p>
+
+<p>Address me as usual. All letters are forwarded. The
+children well and happy. Best regards.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Albion Hotel, Broadstairs</span>, <i>Sunday, Aug. 17th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been obliged to communicate with the <i>Punch</i>
+men in reference to Saturday, the 20th, as that day of the
+week is usually their business dinner day, and I was not
+quite sure that it could be conveniently altered.</p>
+
+<p>Jerrold now assures me that it can for such a purpose,
+and that it shall, and therefore consider the play as being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+arranged to come off on Saturday, the 20th of next
+month.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know whether I told you that we have
+changed the farce; and now we are to act "Two o'clock
+in the Morning," as performed by the inimitable B. at
+Montreal.</p>
+
+<p>In reference to Bruce Castle school, I think the question
+set at rest most probably by the fact of there being no
+vacancy (it is always full) until Christmas, when Howitt's
+two boys and Jerrold's one go in and fill it up again. But
+after going carefully through the school, a question would
+arise in my mind whether the system&mdash;a perfectly admirable
+one; the only recognition of education as a broad system of
+moral and intellectual philosophy, that I have ever seen in
+practice&mdash;do not require so much preparation and progress
+in the mind of the boy, as that he shall have come there
+younger and less advanced than Willy; or at all events
+without that very different sort of school experience which
+he must have acquired at Brighton. I have no warrant for
+this doubt, beyond a vague uneasiness suggesting a suspicion
+of its great probability. On such slight ground I
+would not hint it to anyone but you, who I know will
+give it its due weight, and no more and no less.</p>
+
+<p>I have the paper setting forth the nature of the higher
+classical studies, and the books they read. It is the usual
+course, and includes the great books in Greek and Latin.
+They have a miscellaneous library, under the management
+of the boys themselves, of some five or six thousand volumes,
+and every means of study and recreation, and every inducement
+to self-reliance and self-exertion that can easily be
+imagined. As there is no room just now, you can turn it
+over in your mind again. And if you would like to see the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+place yourself, when you return to town, I shall be delighted
+to go there with you. I come home on Wednesday. It is
+our rehearsal night; and of course the active and enterprising
+stage-manager must be at his post.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Macready,</span><br />
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>August 27th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write a line to tell you a project we have in view. A
+little party of us have taken Miss Kelly's theatre for the
+night of the 20th of next month, and we are going to act a
+play there, with correct and pretty costume, good orchestra,
+etc. etc. The affair is strictly private. The admission will
+be by cards of invitation; every man will have from thirty to
+thirty-five. Nobody can ask any person without the knowledge
+and sanction of the rest, my objection being final;
+and the expense to each (exclusive of the dress, which every
+man finds for himself) will not exceed two guineas. Forster
+plays, and Stone plays, and I play, and some of the <i>Punch</i>
+people play. Stanfield, having the scenery and carpenters
+to attend to, cannot manage his part also. It is Downright,
+in "Every Man in his Humour," not at all long, but very
+good; he wants you to take it. And so help me. We shall
+have a brilliant audience. The uphill part of the thing is
+already done, our next rehearsal is next Tuesday, and if
+you will come in you will find everything to your hand, and
+all very merry and pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Let me know what you decide, like a Kittenmolian
+Trojan. And with love from all here to all there,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, ever,</span><br />
+Heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday, Sept. 18th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We have a little supper, sir, after the farce, at No. 9,
+Powis Place, Great Ormond Street, in an empty house
+belonging to one of the company. There I am requested
+by my fellows to beg the favour of thy company and that
+of Mrs. Macready. The guests are limited to the actors
+and their ladies&mdash;with the exception of yourselves, and
+D'Orsay, and George Cattermole, "or so"&mdash;that sounds
+like Bobadil a little.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to adopt your reading of the fifth act with
+the worst grace in the world. It seems to me that you
+don't allow enough for Bobadil having been frequently
+beaten before, as I have no doubt he had been. The part
+goes down hideously on this construction, and the end is
+mere lees. But never mind, sir, I intend bringing you up
+with the farce in the most brilliant manner.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>N.B.&mdash;Observe. I think of changing my present mode
+of life, and am open to an engagement.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. No. 2.&mdash;I will undertake not to play tragedy,
+though passion is my strength.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. No. 3.&mdash;I consider myself a chained lion.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>October 2nd, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you the claret jug. But for a mistake, you
+would have received the little remembrance almost immediately
+after my return from abroad.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+<p>I need not say how much I should value another little
+sketch from your extraordinary hand in this year's small
+volume, to which Mac again does the frontispiece. But I
+cannot hear of it, and will not have it (though the gratification
+of such aid, to me, is really beyond all expression),
+unless you will so far consent to make it a matter of
+business as to receive, without asking any questions,
+a cheque in return from the publishers. Do not misunderstand
+me&mdash;though I am not afraid there is much
+danger of your doing so, for between us misunderstanding
+is, I hope, not easy. I know perfectly well that nothing
+can pay you for the devotion of any portion of your time
+to such a use of your art. I know perfectly well that no
+terms would induce you to go out of your way, in such a
+regard, for perhaps anybody else. I cannot, nor do I
+desire to, vanquish the friendly obligation which help from
+you imposes on me. But I am not the sole proprietor of
+those little books; and it would be monstrous in you if you
+were to dream of putting a scratch into a second one without
+some shadowy reference to the other partners, ten thousand
+times more monstrous in me if any consideration on earth
+could induce me to permit it, which nothing will or
+shall.</p>
+
+<p>So, see what it comes to. If you will do me a favour
+on my terms it will be more acceptable to me, my dear
+Stanfield, than I can possibly tell you. If you will not be
+so generous, you deprive me of the satisfaction of receiving
+it at your hands, and shut me out from that possibility
+altogether. What a stony-hearted ruffian you must be in
+such a case!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday Evening, Oct. 17th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You once&mdash;only once&mdash;gave the world assurance of a
+waistcoat. You wore it, sir, I think, in "Money." It was
+a remarkable and precious waistcoat, wherein certain broad
+stripes of blue or purple disported themselves as by a combination
+of extraordinary circumstances, too happy to occur
+again. I have seen it on your manly chest in private life.
+I saw it, sir, I think, the other day in the cold light of
+morning&mdash;with feelings easier to be imagined than described.
+Mr. Macready, sir, are you a father? If so, lend me that
+waistcoat for five minutes. I am bidden to a wedding
+(where fathers are made), and my artist cannot, I find (how
+should he?), imagine such a waistcoat. Let me show it to
+him as a sample of my tastes and wishes; and&mdash;ha, ha, ha,
+ha!&mdash;eclipse the bridegroom!</p>
+
+<p>I will send a trusty messenger at half-past nine precisely,
+in the morning. He is sworn to secrecy. He durst not for
+his life betray us, or swells in ambuscade would have the
+waistcoat at the cost of his heart's blood.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 10em;">Thine,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Unwaistcoated One.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Viscount
+Morpeth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Nov. 28th, 1845.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lord Morpeth</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have delayed writing to you until now, hoping I
+might have been able to tell you of our dramatic plans, and
+of the day on which we purpose playing. But as these
+matters are still in abeyance, I will give you that precious
+information when I come into the receipt of it myself. And
+let me heartily assure you, that I had at least as much pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+in seeing you the other day as you can possibly have
+had in seeing me; and that I shall consider all opportunities
+of becoming better known to you among the most fortunate
+and desirable occasions of my life. And that I am with your
+conviction about the probability of our liking each other,
+and, as Lord Lyndhurst might say, with "something
+more."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1846.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> the spring of this year Charles Dickens gave up the editorship
+of, and finally, all connection with <i>The Daily News</i>, and
+went again abroad with his family; the house in Devonshire
+Terrace being let for twelve months. He made his summer
+residence at Lausanne, taking a villa (Rosemont) there, from
+May till November. Here he wrote "The Battle of Life,"
+and the first number of "Dombey and Son." In November
+he removed to Paris, where he took a house in the Rue de
+Courcelles for the winter, and where he lived and was at
+work upon "Dombey" until March, 1847. Among the
+English residents that summer at Lausanne he made many
+friendships, in proof of which he dedicated the Christmas
+book written there to his "English friends in Lausanne."
+The especially intimate friendships which he formed were
+with M. de Cerjat, who was always a resident of Lausanne
+with his family; Mr. Haldimand, whose name is identified
+with the place, and with the Hon. Richard and Mrs. Watson,
+of Rockingham Castle. He maintained a constant correspondence
+with them, and to Mr. and Mrs. Watson he afterwards
+dedicated his own favourite of all his books, "David<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+Copperfield." M. de Cerjat, from the time of Charles
+Dickens leaving Lausanne, began a custom, which he kept
+up almost without an interval to the time of his own death,
+of writing him a long letter every Christmas, to which he
+returned answers, which will be given in this and the
+following years.</div>
+
+<p>In this year we have the commencement of his association
+and correspondence with Mr. W. H. Wills. Their
+connection began in the short term of his editorship of <i>The
+Daily News</i>, when he at once fully appreciated Mr. Wills's
+invaluable business qualities. And when, some time later,
+he started his own periodical, "Household Words," he
+thought himself very fortunate in being able to secure
+Mr. Wills's co-operation as editor of that journal, and afterwards
+of "All the Year Round," with which "Household
+Words" was incorporated. They worked together on
+terms of the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence,
+and affectionate regard, until Mr. Wills's health
+made it necessary for him to retire from the work in 1868.
+Besides his first notes to Mr. Wills in this year, we have
+our first letters to his dear friends, the Rev. James White,
+Walter Savage Landor, and Miss Marion Ely, the niece of
+Lady Talfourd.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>February 18th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Do look at the enclosed from Mrs. What's-her-name.
+For a surprising audacity it is remarkable even to me,
+who am positively bullied, and all but beaten, by these
+people. I wish you would do me the favour to write to her
+(in your own name and from your own address), stating that
+you answered her letter as you did, because if I were
+the wealthiest nobleman in England I could not keep pace
+with one-twentieth part of the demands upon me, and
+because you saw no internal evidence in her application to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+induce you to single it out for any especial notice. That
+the tone of this letter renders you exceedingly glad you did
+so; and that you decline, from me, holding any correspondence
+with her. Something to that effect, after what flourish
+your nature will.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>February 24th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I cannot help telling you, my dear White, for I can
+think of no formal use of Mister to such a writer as you,
+that I have just now read your tragedy, "The Earl of
+Gowrie," with a delight which I should in vain endeavour
+to express to you. Considered with reference to its story,
+or its characters, or its noble poetry, I honestly regard it as
+a work of most remarkable genius. It has impressed me
+powerfully and enduringly. I am proud to have received it
+from your hand. And if I have to tell you what complete
+possession it has taken of me&mdash;that is, if I <i>could</i> tell you&mdash;I
+do believe you would be glad to know it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Monday Morning, March 2nd, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I really don't know what to say about the New
+Brunswicker. The idea will obtrude itself on my mind, that
+he had no business to come here on such an expedition; and
+that it is a piece of the wild conceit for which his countrymen
+are so remarkable, and that I can hardly afford to be
+steward to such adventurers. On the other hand, your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+description of him pleases me. Then that purse which I
+could never keep shut in my life makes mouths at me,
+saying, "See how empty I am." Then I fill it, and it
+looks very rich indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I think the best way is to say, that if you think you can
+do him any <i>permanent</i> good with five pounds (that is, get
+him home again) I will give you the money. But I should
+be very much indisposed to give it him, merely to linger
+on here about town for a little time and then be hard up
+again.</p>
+
+<p>As to employment, I do in my soul believe that if
+I were Lord Chancellor of England, I should have been
+aground long ago, for the patronage of a messenger's
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Say all that is civil for me to the proprietor of <i>The
+Illustrated London News</i>, who really seems to be very
+liberal. "Other engagements," etc. etc., "prevent me from
+entertaining," etc. etc.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>March 4th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I assure you I am very truly and unaffectedly sensible
+of your earnest friendliness, and in proof of my feeling its
+worth I shall unhesitatingly trouble you sometimes, in
+the fullest reliance on your meaning what you say. The
+letter from Nelson Square is a very manly and touching
+one. But I am more helpless in such a case as that than in
+any other, having really fewer means of helping such a
+gentleman to employment than I have of firing off the guns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+in the Tower. Such, appeals come to me here in scores
+upon scores.</p>
+
+<p>The letter from Little White Lion Street does not
+impress me favourably. It is not written in a simple or
+truthful manner, I am afraid, and is <i>not</i> a good reference.
+Moreover, I think it probable that the writer may have
+deserted some pursuit for which he is qualified, for vague
+and laborious strivings which he has no pretensions to
+make. However, I will certainly act on your impression of
+him, whatever it may be. And if you could explain to
+the gentleman in Nelson Square, that I am not evading
+his request, but that I do not know of anything to
+which I can recommend him, it would be a great relief
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>I trust this new printer <i>is</i> a Tartar; and I hope to God
+he will so proclaim and assert his Tartar breeding, as to
+excommunicate &mdash;&mdash; from the "chapel" over which he
+presides.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Powell (with my regards) that he needn't "deal
+with" the American notices of the "Cricket." I never
+read one word of their abuse, and I should think it base to
+read their praises. It is something to know that one is
+righted so soon; and knowing that, I can afford to know no
+more.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>March 6th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In reference to the damage of the candlesticks,
+I beg to quote (from "The Cricket on the Hearth,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+by the highly popular and deservedly so Dick) this
+reply:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll damage you if you enquire."</p>
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+<span style="margin-left: 22em;">Ever yours,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">My block-reeving,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Main-brace splicing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Lead-heaving,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Ship-conning,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Stun'sail-bending,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Deck-swabbing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Son of a sea-cook,</span><br /></div>
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Henry Bluff</span>,</span><br />
+H.M.S. <i>Timber.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday, April 13th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Do you recollect sending me your biography of
+Shakespeare last autumn, and my not acknowledging its
+receipt? I do, with remorse.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, that I took it out of town with me, read it
+with great pleasure as a charming piece of honest enthusiasm
+and perseverance, kept it by me, came home, meant to
+say all manner of things to you, suffered the time to go by,
+got ashamed, thought of speaking to you, never saw you,
+felt it heavy on my mind, and now fling off the load by
+thanking you heartily, and hoping you will not think it too
+late.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always believe me,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Ely.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Sunday, April 19th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Ely</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A mysterious emissary brought me a note in your
+always welcome handwriting at the Athen&aelig;um last night.
+I enquired of the servant in attendance whether the bearer
+of this letter was of my vast establishment. To which he
+replied "Yezzir." "Then," said I, "tell him not to wait."</p>
+
+<p>Maclise was with me. It was then half-past seven. We
+had been walking, and were splashed to the eyes. We
+debated upon the possibility of getting to Russell Square in
+reasonable time&mdash;decided that it would be in the worst taste
+to appear when the performance would be half over&mdash;and
+very reluctantly decided not to come. You may suppose
+how dirty and dismal we were when we went to the Thames
+Tunnel, of all places in the world, instead!</p>
+
+<p>When I came home here at midnight I found another
+letter from you (I left off in this place to press it dutifully
+to my lips). Then my mind misgave me that <i>you</i> must have
+sent to the Athen&aelig;um. At the apparent rudeness of my
+reply, my face, as Hadji Baba says, was turned upside down,
+and fifty donkeys sat upon my father's grave&mdash;or would
+have done so, but for his not being dead yet.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I send this humble explanation&mdash;protesting,
+however, which I do most solemnly, against being invited
+under such untoward circumstances; and claiming as your
+old friend and no less old admirer to be instantly invited to
+the next performance, if such a thing is ever contemplated.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Miss Ely,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Douglas
+Jerrold.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday, May 26th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Jerrold</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you herewith some books belonging to you.
+A thousand thanks for the "Hermit." He took my fancy
+mightily when I first saw him in the "Illuminated;" and I
+have stowed him away in the left-hand breast pocket of
+my travelling coat, that we may hold pleasant converse
+together on the Rhine. You see what confidence I have
+in him!</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would seriously consider the expediency and
+feasibility of coming to Lausanne in the summer or early
+autumn. I must be at work myself during a certain part of
+every day almost, and you could do twice as much there as
+here. It is a wonderful place to see&mdash;and what sort of
+welcome you would find I will say nothing about, for I have
+vanity enough to believe that you would be willing to feel
+yourself as much at home in my household as in any man's.</p>
+
+<p>Do think it over. I could send you the minutest particular
+of the journey. It is really all railroad and steamboat,
+and the easiest in the world.</p>
+
+<p>At Macready's on Thursday, we shall meet, please God!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear Jerrold,</span><br />
+Cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Geneva</span>, <i>Saturday, October 24th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The welcome sight of your handwriting moves me
+(though I have nothing to say) to show you mine, and if I
+could recollect the passage in Virginius I would paraphrase
+it, and say, "Does it seem to tremble, boy? Is it a loving
+autograph? Does it beam with friendship and affection?"
+all of which I say, as I write, with&mdash;oh Heaven!&mdash;such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+splendid imitation of you, and finally give you one of those
+grasps and shakes with which I have seen you make the
+young Icilius stagger again.</p>
+
+<p>Here I am, running away from a bad headache as
+Tristram Shandy ran away from death, and lodging for a
+week in the H&ocirc;tel de l'&Eacute;cu de Gen&egrave;ve, wherein there is a
+large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late revolution.
+A revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free
+spirits, nobly generous and moderate, even in the first
+transports of victory, elevated by a splendid popular education,
+and bent on freedom from all tyrants, whether
+their crowns be shaven or golden. The newspapers may
+tell you what they please. I believe there is no country on
+earth but Switzerland in which a violent change could have
+been effected in the Christian spirit shown in this place, or
+in the same proud, independent, gallant style. Not one
+halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or strayed.
+Not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of
+the last gun. Nothing is expressed in the Government
+addresses to the citizens but a regard for the general happiness,
+and injunctions to forget all animosities; which
+they are practically obeying at every turn, though the late
+Government (of whose spirit I had some previous knowledge)
+did load the guns with such material as should
+occasion gangrene in the wounds, and though the wounded
+<i>do</i> die, consequently, every day, in the hospital, of sores
+that in themselves were nothing.</p>
+
+<p><i>You</i> a mountaineer! <i>You</i> examine (I have seen you do
+it) the point of your young son's b&acirc;ton de montagne before
+he went up into the snow! And <i>you</i> talk of coming to
+Lausanne in March! Why, Lord love your heart, William
+Tell, times are changed since you lived at Altorf. There is
+not a mountain pass open until June. The snow is closing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+in on all the panorama already. I was at the Great St.
+Bernard two months ago, and it was bitter cold and frosty
+then. Do you think I could let you hazard your life by
+going up any pass worth seeing in bleak March? Never
+shall it be said that Dickens sacrificed his friend upon the
+altar of his hospitality! Onward! To Paris! (Cue for
+band. Dickens points off with truncheon, first entrance
+P.S. Page delivers gauntlets on one knee. Dickens puts
+'em on and gradually falls into a fit of musing. Mrs.
+Dickens lays her hand upon his shoulder. Business. Procession.
+Curtain.)</p>
+
+<p>It is a great pleasure to me, my dear Macready, to hear
+from yourself, as I had previously heard from Forster, that
+you are so well pleased with "Dombey," which is evidently
+a great success and a great hit, thank God! I felt that
+Mrs. Brown was strong, but I was not at all afraid of
+giving as heavy a blow as I could to a piece of hot iron
+that lay ready at my hand. For that is my principle
+always, and I hope to come down with some heavier sledge-hammers
+than that.</p>
+
+<p>I know the lady of whom you write. &mdash;&mdash; left there
+only yesterday. The story may arise only in her manner,
+which is extraordinarily free and careless. He was visiting
+her here, when I was here last, three weeks ago. I knew
+her in Italy. It is not her fault if scandal ever leaves her
+alone, for such a braver of all conventionalities never wore
+petticoats. But I should be sorry to hear there was anything
+guilty in her conduct. She is very clever, really
+learned, very pretty, much neglected by her husband, and
+only four-and-twenty years of age.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgy send their best loves to Mrs. and Miss
+Macready and all your house.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your most affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Haldimand.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>November, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>Talking of which<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> reminds me to say, that I have written
+to my printers, and told them to prefix to "The Battle of
+Life" a dedication that is printed in illuminated capitals on
+my heart. It is only this:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"This Christmas book is cordially inscribed to my English
+friends in Switzerland."</p></div>
+
+<p>I shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or four
+copies to distribute to those whose names will be found
+written in them, as soon as they can be made ready, and
+believe me, that there is no success or approval in the great
+world beyond the Jura that will be more precious and
+delightful to me, than the hope that I shall be remembered
+of an evening in the coming winter time, at one or two
+friends' I could mention near the Lake of Geneva. It runs
+with a spring tide, that will always flow and never ebb,
+through my memory; and nothing less than the waters of
+Lethe shall confuse the music of its running, until it loses
+itself in that great sea, for which all the currents of our life
+are desperately bent.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Savage
+Landor.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Sunday, November 22nd, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Young Man</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will not go there if I can help it. I have not the
+least confidence in the value of your introduction to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+Devil. I can't help thinking that it would be of better use
+"the other way, the other way," but I won't try it there,
+either, at present, if I can help it. Your godson says is
+that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly
+blushed for you.</p>
+
+<p>As to writing, I have written to you twenty times and
+twenty more to that, if you only knew it. I have been
+writing a little Christmas book, besides, expressly for you.
+And if you don't like it, I shall go to the font of Marylebone
+Church as soon as I conveniently can and renounce
+you: I am not to be trifled with. I write from Paris. I am
+getting up some French steam. I intend to proceed upon
+the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle, and if you
+<i>do</i> offend me, look to it.</p>
+
+<p>We are all well and happy, and they send loves to you
+by the bushel. We are in the agonies of house-hunting.
+The people are frightfully civil, and grotesquely extortionate.
+One man (with a house to let) told me yesterday that he
+loved the Duke of Wellington like a brother. The same
+gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand,
+and pick my pocket with the other.</p>
+
+<p>Don't be hard upon the Swiss. They are a thorn in the
+sides of European despots, and a good wholesome people to
+live near Jesuit-ridden kings on the brighter side of the
+mountains. My hat shall ever be ready to be thrown up,
+and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for Switzerland.
+If you were the man I took you for, when I took you (as a
+godfather) for better and for worse, you would come to
+Paris and amaze the weak walls of the house I haven't found
+yet with that steady snore of yours, which I once heard
+piercing the door of your bedroom in Devonshire Terrace,
+reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+outside into the street, playing Eolian harps among the area
+railings, and going down the New Road like the blast of a
+trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>I forgive you your reviling of me: there's a shovelful of
+live coals for your head&mdash;does it burn? And am, with true
+affection&mdash;does it burn now?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Richard
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Paris, 48, Rue de Courcelles, St. Honor&eacute;</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We were housed only yesterday. I lose no time
+in despatching this memorandum of our whereabouts, in
+order that you may not fail to write me a line before you
+come to Paris on your way towards England, letting me
+know on what day we are to expect you to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived here quite happily and well. I don't mean
+here, but at the H&ocirc;tel Brighton, in Paris, on Friday
+evening, between six and seven o'clock. The agonies of
+house-hunting were frightfully severe. It was one paroxysm
+for four mortal days. I am proud to express my belief,
+that we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in
+the world. The like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge
+goes does not, exist in any other part of the globe.
+The bedrooms are like opera-boxes. The dining-rooms,
+staircases, and passages, quite inexplicable. The dining-room
+is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent
+a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking
+in among the branches of the trees. There is a gleam of
+reason in the drawing-room. But it is approached through
+a series of small chambers, like the joints in a telescope,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+which are hung with inscrutable drapery. The maddest
+man in Bedlam, having the materials given him, would be
+likely to devise such a suite, supposing his case to be
+hopeless and quite incurable.</p>
+
+<p>Pray tell Mrs. Watson, with my best regards, that the
+dance of the two sisters in the little Christmas book is being
+done as an illustration by Maclise; and that Stanfield is
+doing the battle-ground and the outside of the Nutmeg
+Grater Inn. Maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects
+for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will
+be very pretty, and they think that I shall like it. I shall
+have been in London before I see you, probably, and I hope
+the book itself will then be on its road to Lausanne to speak
+for itself, and to speak a word for me too. I have never
+left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in any place;
+and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be
+very eloquent and affectionate indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Well, if I don't turn up again next summer it shall not
+be my fault. In the meanwhile, I shall often and often look
+that way with my mind's eye, and hear the sweet, clear,
+bell-like voice of &mdash;&mdash; with the ear of my imagination.
+In the event of there being any change&mdash;but it is not likely&mdash;in
+the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up
+into his head, I mean, and frets against his wig&mdash;I hope
+some one of my English friends will apprise me of it, for the
+love of the great Saint Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>I have not seen Lord Normanby yet. I have not seen
+anything up to this time but houses and lodgings. There
+seems to be immense excitement here on the subject of &mdash;&mdash;
+however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation getting up.
+I saw the king the other day coming into Paris. His
+carriage was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he
+sat very far back in it, I thought, and drove at a great pace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+It was strange to see the pr&eacute;fet of police on horseback some
+hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the right and left
+as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every
+tree in the long avenue.</p>
+
+<p>The English relations look anything but promising,
+though I understand that the Count St. Aulaire is to
+remain in London, notwithstanding the newspaper alarms
+to the contrary. If there be anything like the sensation in
+England about &mdash;&mdash; that there is here, there will be a
+bitter resentment indeed. The democratic society of Paris
+have announced, this morning, their intention of printing
+and circulating fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every
+European language. It is a base business beyond question,
+and comes at an ill time.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and her sister desire their best regards to
+be sent to you and their best loves to Mrs. Watson, in
+which I join, as nearly as I may. Believe me, with great
+truth,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very sincerely yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Mrs. Dickens is going to write to Mrs. Watson
+next week, she says.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Paris, 48, Rue de Courcelles, St. Honor&eacute;</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>When we turned out of your view on that disconsolate
+Monday, when you so kindly took horse and rode
+forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very dull and
+drowsy manner, I can assure you. I could have borne a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+world of punch in the rumble and been none the worse for
+it. There was an uncommonly cool inn that night, and
+quite a monstrous establishment at Auxonne the next
+night, full of flatulent passages and banging doors. The
+next night we passed at Montbard, where there is one of
+the very best little inns in all France. The next at Sens,
+and so we got here. The roads were bad, but not very
+for French roads. There was no deficiency of horses anywhere;
+and after Pontarlier the weather was really not too
+cold for comfort. They weighed our plate at the frontier
+custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we
+lingered about there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for
+three long hours and a half, during which the officials committed
+all manner of absurdities, and got into all sorts of
+disputes with my brave courier. This was the only misery
+we encountered&mdash;except leaving Lausanne, and that was
+enough to last us and <i>did</i> last us all the way here. We are
+living on it now. I felt, myself, much as I should think
+the murderer felt on that fair morning when, with his gray-haired
+victim (those unconscious gray hairs, soon to be
+bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as
+the top of that mountain of St. Bernard without one touch
+of remorse. A weight is on my breast. The only difference
+between me and the murderer is, that his weight
+was guilt and mine is regret.</p>
+
+<p>I haven't a word of news to tell you. I shouldn't write
+at all if I were not the vainest man in the world, impelled
+by a belief that you will be glad to hear from me, even
+though you hear no more than that I have nothing to say.
+"Dombey" is doing wonders. It went up, after the publication
+of the second number, over the thirty thousand.
+This is such a very large sale, so early in the story, that I
+begin to think it will beat all the rest. Keeley and his wife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+are making great preparations for producing the Christmas
+story, and I have made them (as an old stage manager)
+carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about
+scenery and so forth&mdash;in particular a sudden change from
+the inside of the doctor's house in the midst of the ball to
+the orchard in the snow&mdash;which ought to tell very well.
+But actors are so bad, in general, and the best are spread
+over so many theatres, that the "cast" is black despair and
+moody madness. There is no one to be got for Marion but a
+certain Miss &mdash;&mdash;, I am afraid&mdash;a pupil of Miss Kelly's,
+who acted in the private theatricals I got up a year ago.
+Macready took her afterwards to play Virginia to his
+Virginius, but she made nothing of it, great as the
+chance was. I have promised to show her what I mean, as
+near as I can, and if you will look into the English Opera
+House on the morning of the 17th, 18th, or 19th of next
+month, between the hours of eleven and four, you will find
+me in a very hot and dusty condition, playing all the parts
+of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the actors,
+actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus
+people, tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general
+ragamuffins of the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>Moore, the poet, is very ill&mdash;I fear dying. The last
+time I saw him was immediately before I left London, and
+I thought him sadly changed and tamed, but not much
+more so than such a man might be under the heavy hand
+of time. I believe he suffered severe grief in the death of
+a son some time ago. The first man I met in Paris was
+&mdash;&mdash;, who took hold of me as I was getting into a
+coach at the door of the hotel. He hadn't a button on his
+shirt (but I don't think he ever has), and you might
+have sown what boys call "mustard and cress" in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>dust on his coat. I have not seen Lord Normanby yet,
+as we have only just got a house (the queerest house in
+Europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason to
+fear that the growing dissensions between England and
+France, and the irritation of the French king, may lead
+to the withdrawal of the minister on each side of the
+Channel.</p>
+
+<p>Have you cut down any more trees, played any more
+rubbers, propounded any more teasers to the players at the
+game of Yes and No? How is the old horse? How is the
+gray mare? How is Crab (to whom my respectful compliments)?
+Have you tried the punch yet; if yes,
+did it succeed; if no, why not? Is Mrs. Cerjat as happy
+and as well as I would have her, and all your house
+ditto ditto? Does Haldimand play whist with any science
+yet? Ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying <i>I</i> hadn't any!
+And are those damask-cheeked virgins, the Miss &mdash;&mdash;,
+still sleeping on dewy rose leaves near the English
+church?</p>
+
+<p>Remember me to all your house, and most of all to its
+other head, with all the regard and earnestness that a
+"numble individual" (as they always call it in the House
+of Commons) who once travelled with her in a car over a
+smooth country may charge you with. I have added two
+lines to the little Christmas book, that I hope both you and
+she may not dislike. Haldimand will tell you what they
+are. Kate and Georgy send their kindest loves, and Kate
+is "going" to write "next week." Believe me always, my
+dear Cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this
+past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of
+them,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+58, <span class="smcap">Lincoln's Inn Fields</span>, <i>Saturday, Dec. 19th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I really am bothered to death by this confounded
+<i>dramatization</i> of the Christmas book. They were in a state
+so horrible at Keeley's yesterday (as perhaps Forster told
+you when he wrote), that I was obliged to engage to
+read the book to them this morning. It struck me that
+Mrs. Leigh Murray, Miss Daly, and Vining seemed to
+understand it best. Certainly Miss Daly knew best what
+she was about yesterday. At eight to-night we have
+a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but
+dresses. I see no possibility of escaping from it before
+one or two o'clock in the morning. And I was at the
+theatre all day yesterday. Unless I had come to London,
+I do not think there would have been much hope of
+the version being more than just tolerated, even that
+doubtful. All the actors bad, all the business frightfully
+behindhand. The very words of the book confused in the
+copying into the densest and most insufferable nonsense.
+I must exempt, however, from the general slackness both
+the Keeleys. I hope they will be very good. I have
+never seen anything of its kind better than the manner
+in which they played the little supper scene between
+Clemency and Britain, yesterday. It was quite perfect,
+even to me.</p>
+
+<p>The small manager, Forster, Talfourd, Stanny, and
+Mac dine with me at the Piazza to-day, before the rehearsal.
+I have already one or two uncommonly good stories of Mac.
+I reserve them for narration. I have also a dreadful cold,
+which I would not reserve if I could help it. I can hardly
+hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but
+had serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Christmas book published to-day&mdash;twenty-three thousand
+copies already gone!!! Browne's plates for next "Dombey"
+much better than usual.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen nobody yet, of course. But I sent Roche
+up to your mother this morning, to say I am in town and
+will come shortly. There is a great thaw here to-day, and
+it is raining hard. I hope you have the advantage (if it be
+one, which I am not sure of) of a similar change in Paris.
+Of course I start again on Thursday. We are expecting
+(Roche and I) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom
+we have applied for places. The journey here was long and
+cold&mdash;twenty-four hours from Paris to Boulogne. Passage
+not very bad, and made in two hours.</p>
+
+<p>I find I can't write at all, so I had best leave off. I am
+looking impatiently for your letter on Monday morning.
+Give my best love to Georgy, and kisses to all the dear
+children. And believe me, my love,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Piazza Coffee-house, Covent Garden</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Dec. 21st, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In a quiet interval of half an hour before going to
+dine at Macready's, I sit down to write you a few words.
+But I shall reserve my letter for to-morrow's post, in order
+that you may hear what <i>I</i> hear of the "going" of the play
+to-night. Think of my being there on Saturday, with a
+really frightful cold, and working harder than ever I did at
+the amateur plays, until two in the morning. There was
+no supper to be got, either here or anywhere else, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+coming out; and I was as hungry and thirsty as need be.
+The scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and they
+have spent money on it <i>liberally</i>. The great change from
+the ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both
+the departure and the return will tell, I think, strongly on
+an audience. I have made them very quick and excited in
+the passionate scenes, and so have infused some appearance
+of life into those parts of the play. But I can't make a
+Marion, and Miss &mdash;&mdash; is awfully bad. She is a mere
+nothing all through. I put Mr. Leigh Murray into such
+a state, by making him tear about, that the perspiration
+ran streaming down his face. They have a great let.
+I believe every place in the house is taken. Roche is
+going.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday Morning.</i>&mdash;The play went, as well as I can
+make out&mdash;I hoped to have had Stanny's report of it, but
+he is ill&mdash;with great effect. There was immense enthusiasm
+at its close, and great uproar and shouting for me. Forster
+will go on Wednesday, and write you his account of it. I
+saw the Keeleys on the stage at eleven o'clock or so, and
+they were in prodigious spirits and delight.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">48, <span class="smcap">Rue de Courcelles, Paris</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday Night, Dec. 27th, 1846.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My very dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Amen, amen. Many merry Christmases, many
+happy new years, unbroken friendship, great accumulation
+of cheerful recollections, affection on earth, and heaven at
+last, for all of us.</p>
+
+<p>I enclose you a letter from Jeffrey, which you may like
+to read. <i>Bring it to me back when you come over.</i> I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+told him all he wants to know. Is it not a strange example
+of the hazards of writing in numbers that a man like him
+should form his notion of Dombey and Miss Tox on
+three months' knowledge? I have asked him the same
+question, and advised him to keep his eye on both of them
+as time rolls on.</p>
+
+<p>We had a cold journey here from Boulogne, but the
+roads were not very bad. The malle poste, however, now
+takes the trains at Amiens. We missed it by ten minutes,
+and had to wait three hours&mdash;from twelve o'clock until
+three, in which interval I drank brandy and water, and
+slept like a top. It is delightful travelling for its speed,
+that malle poste, and really for its comfort too. But on
+this occasion it was not remarkable for the last-named
+quality. The director of the post at Boulogne told me a
+lamentable story of his son at Paris being ill, and implored
+me to bring him on. The brave doubted the representations
+altogether, but I couldn't find it in my heart to say no; so
+we brought the director, bodkinwise, and being a large
+man, in a great number of greatcoats, he crushed us
+dismally until we got to the railroad. For two passengers
+(and it never carries more) it is capital. For three,
+excruciating.</p>
+
+<p>Write to &mdash;&mdash; what you have said to me. You need
+write no more. He is full of vicious fancies and wrong suspicions,
+even of Hardwick, and I would rather he heard it
+from you than from me, whom he is not likely to love much
+in his heart. I doubt it may be but a rusty instrument for
+want of use, the &mdash;&mdash;ish heart.</p>
+
+<p>My most important present news is that I am going to
+take a jorum of hot rum and egg in bed immediately,
+and to cover myself up with all the blankets in the
+house. Love from all. I have a sensation in my head,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+as if it were "on edge." It is still very cold here,
+but the snow had disappeared on my return, both here
+and on the road, except within ten miles or so of
+Boulogne.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1847.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>At</span> the beginning of the year Charles Dickens was still
+living in Paris&mdash;Rue de Courcelles. His stay was cut
+shorter than he intended it to have been, by the illness
+from scarlet fever of his eldest son, who was at school
+in London. Consequent upon this, he and his wife went
+to London at the end of February, taking up their abode
+at the Victoria Hotel, Euston Square, the Devonshire
+Terrace house being still occupied by its tenant, Sir
+James Duke, and the sick boy under the care of his
+grandmother, Mrs. Hogarth, in Albany Street. The
+children, with their aunt, remained in Paris, until a
+temporary house had been taken for the family in
+Chester Place, Regent's Park; and Roche was then
+sent back to take <i>all</i> home. In Chester Place another
+son was born&mdash;Sydney Smith Haldimand&mdash;his godfathers
+being Mr. Haldimand, of Lausanne, and Mr. H. P. Smith,
+of the Eagle Life Assurance office. He was christened
+at the same time as a daughter of Mr. Macready's, and
+the letters to Mr. Smith have reference to the postponement
+of the christening on Mr. Smith's account.
+In May, Charles Dickens had lodgings in Brighton for
+some weeks, for the recovery of Mrs. Dickens's health;
+going there first with his wife and sister-in-law and the
+eldest boy&mdash;now recovered from his fever&mdash;and being joined
+at the latter part of the time by his two little daughters,
+to whom there are some letters among those which follow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+here. He removed earlier than usual this summer to Broadstairs,
+which remained his head-quarters until October, with
+intervals of absence for amateur theatrical tours (which
+Mr. Forster calls "splendid strolling"), in which he was
+usually accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law. Several
+new recruits had been added to the theatrical company,
+from among distinguished literary men and artists, and it
+now included, besides those previously named, Mr. George
+Cruikshank, Mr. George Henry Lewes, and Mr. Augustus
+Egg; the supreme management and arrangement of everything
+being always left to Charles Dickens. "Every Man
+in his Humour" and farces were again played at Manchester
+and Liverpool, for the benefit of Mr. Leigh Hunt, and the
+dramatic author, Mr. John Poole.</div>
+
+<p>By the end of the Broadstairs holiday, the house in
+Devonshire Terrace was vacant, and the family returned
+to it in October. All this year Charles Dickens had been
+at work upon the monthly numbers of "Dombey and Son,"
+in spite of these many interruptions. He began at Broadstairs
+a Christmas book. But he found that the engrossing
+interest of his novel approaching completion made it impossible
+for him to finish the other work in time. So he
+decided to let this Christmas pass without a story, and
+postponed the publication of "The Haunted Man" until
+the following year.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the year he went to Leeds, to take
+the chair at a meeting of the Mechanics' Institute, and
+on the 28th December he presided at the opening of the
+Glasgow Athen&aelig;um; he and his wife being the guests of
+the historian&mdash;<i>then</i> Mr. Sheriff, afterwards Sir Archibald
+Alison. From a letter to his sister-in-law, written from
+Edinburgh, it will be seen that Mrs. Dickens was prevented
+by sudden illness from being present at the "demonstration."
+At the end of that letter there is another illustration
+of the odd names he was in the habit of giving to his
+children, the last of the three, the "Hoshen Peck," being
+a corruption of "Ocean Spectre"&mdash;a name which had, afterwards,
+a sad significance, as the boy (Sydney Smith)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+became a sailor, and died and was buried at sea two years
+after his father's death.</p>
+
+<p>The letters in this year need very little explanation. In
+the first letter to Mrs. Watson, he alludes to a sketch which
+she had made from "The Battle of Life," and had sent to
+Charles Dickens, as a remembrance, when her husband paid
+a short visit to Paris in this winter.</p>
+
+<p>And there are two letters to Miss Marguerite Power,
+the niece of the Countess of Blessington&mdash;a lady for whom
+he had then, and until her death, a most affectionate friendship
+and respect, for the sake of her own admirable
+qualities, and in remembrance of her delightful association
+with Gore House, where he was a frequent visitor. For
+Lady Blessington he had a high admiration and great
+regard, and she was one of his earliest appreciators; and
+Alfred, Comte D'Orsay, was also a much-loved friend. His
+"own marchioness," alluded to in the second letter to Miss
+Power, was the younger and very charming sister of his
+correspondent.</p>
+
+<p>We much regret having been unable to procure any
+letters addressed to Mr. Egg. His intimacy with him
+began first in the plays of this year; but he became,
+almost immediately, one of the friends for whom he had
+an especial affection; and Mr. Egg was a regular visitor
+at his house and at his seaside places of resort for many
+years after this date.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. William Sandys has reference to an
+intention which Charles Dickens <i>had</i> entertained, of laying
+the scene of a story in Cornwall; Mr. Sandys, himself a
+Cornishman, having proposed to send him some books to
+help him as to the dialect.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris, 48, Rue de Courcelles</span>, <i>Jan. 25th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot allow your wandering lord to return to
+your&mdash;I suppose "arms" is not improper&mdash;arms, then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+without thanking you in half-a-dozen words for your letter,
+and assuring you that I had great interest and pleasure in
+its receipt, and that I say Amen to all <i>you</i> say of our happy
+past and hopeful future. There is a picture of Lausanne&mdash;St.
+Bernard&mdash;the tavern by the little lake between
+Lausanne and Vevay, which is kept by that drunken dog
+whom Haldimand believes to be so sober&mdash;and of many
+other such scenes, within doors and without&mdash;that rises up
+to my mind very often, and in the quiet pleasure of its
+aspect rather daunts me, as compared with the reality of a
+stirring life; but, please God, we will have some more
+pleasant days, and go up some more mountains, somewhere,
+and laugh together, at somebody, and form the
+same delightful little circle again, somehow.</p>
+
+<p>I quite agree with you about the illustrations to the
+little Christmas book. I was delighted with yours. Your
+good lord before-mentioned will inform you that it hangs
+up over my chair in the drawing-room here; and when you
+come to England (after I have seen you again in Lausanne)
+I will show it you in my little study at home, quietly
+thanking you on the bookcase. Then we will go and see
+some of Turner's recent pictures, and decide that question
+to Haldimand's utmost confusion.</p>
+
+<p>You will find Watson looking wonderfully well, I think.
+When he was first here, on his way to England, he took an
+extraordinary bath, in which he was rubbed all over with
+chemical compounds, and had everything done to him that
+could be invented for seven francs. It <i>may</i> be the influence
+of this treatment that I see in his face, but I think it's the
+prospect of coming back to Elys&eacute;e. All I can say is, that
+when <i>I</i> come that way, and find myself among those
+friends again, I expect to be perfectly lovely&mdash;a kind of
+Glorious Apollo, radiant and shining with joy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Kate and her sister send all kinds of love in this hasty
+packet, and I am always, my dear Mrs. Watson,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+Edward
+Tagart.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Paris, 48, Rue de Courcelles, St. Honor&eacute;</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Jan. 28th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Before you read any more, I wish you would take
+those tablets out of your drawer, in which you have put a
+black mark against my name, and erase it neatly. I don't
+deserve it, on my word I don't, though appearances are
+against me, I unwillingly confess.</p>
+
+<p>I had gone to Geneva, to recover from an uncommon
+depression of spirits consequent on too much sitting over
+"Dombey" and the little Christmas book, when I received
+your letter as I was going out walking, one sunshiny, windy
+day. I read it on the banks of the Rhone, where it runs,
+very blue and swift, between two high green hills, with
+ranges of snowy mountains filling up the distance. Its
+cordial and unaffected tone gave me the greatest pleasure&mdash;did
+me a world of good&mdash;set me up for the afternoon, and
+gave me an evening's subject of discourse. For I talked to
+"them" (that is, Kate and Georgy) about those bright
+mornings at the Peschiere, until bedtime, and threatened to
+write you such a letter next day as would&mdash;I don't exactly
+know what it was to do, but it was to be a great letter,
+expressive of all kinds of pleasant things, and, perhaps the
+most genial letter that ever was written.</p>
+
+<p>From that hour to this, I have again and again and
+again said, "I'll write to-morrow," and here I am to-day
+full of penitence&mdash;really sorry and ashamed, and with no
+excuse but my writing-life, which makes me get up and go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+out, when my morning work is done, and look at pen and
+ink no more until I begin again.</p>
+
+<p>Besides which, I have been seeing Paris&mdash;wandering
+into hospitals, prisons, dead-houses, operas, theatres, concert-rooms,
+burial-grounds, palaces, and wine-shops. In my
+unoccupied fortnight of each month, every description of
+gaudy and ghastly sight has been passing before me in a
+rapid panorama. Before that, I had to come here from
+Switzerland, over frosty mountains in dense fogs, and
+through towns with walls and drawbridges, and without
+population, or anything else in particular but soldiers and
+mud. I took a flight to London for four days, and went
+and came back over one sheet of snow, sea excepted; and I
+wish that had been snow too. Then Forster (who is here
+now, and begs me to send his kindest regards) came to see
+Paris for himself, and in showing it to him, away I was
+borne again, like an enchanted rider. In short, I have had
+no rest in my play; and on Monday I am going to work
+again. A fortnight hence the play will begin once more; a
+fortnight after that the work will follow round, and so the
+letters that I care for go unwritten.</p>
+
+<p>Do you care for French news? I hope not, because I
+don't know any. There is a melodrama, called "The
+French Revolution," now playing at the Cirque, in the first
+act of which there is the most tremendous representation of
+<i>a people</i> that can well be imagined. There are wonderful
+battles and so forth in the piece, but there is a power and
+massiveness in the mob which is positively awful. At
+another theatre, "Clarissa Harlowe" is still the rage.
+There are some things in it rather calculated to astonish
+the ghost of Richardson, but Clarissa is very admirably
+played, and dies better than the original to my thinking;
+but Richardson is no great favourite of mine, and never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+seems to me to take his top-boots off, whatever he does.
+Several pieces are in course of representation, involving
+rare portraits of the English. In one, a servant, called
+"Tom Bob," who wears a particularly English waistcoat,
+trimmed with gold lace and concealing his ankles, does very
+good things indeed. In another, a Prime Minister of
+England, who has ruined himself by railway speculations,
+hits off some of our national characteristics very happily,
+frequently making incidental mention of "Vishmingster,"
+"Regeenstreet," and other places with which you are well
+acquainted. "Sir Fakson" is one of the characters in
+another play&mdash;"English to the Core;" and I saw a Lord
+Mayor of London at one of the small theatres the other
+night, looking uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's
+waistcoat, the order of the Garter, and a very low-crowned
+broad-brimmed hat, not unlike a dustman.</p>
+
+<p>I was at Geneva at the time of the revolution. The
+moderation and mildness of the successful party were beyond
+all praise. Their appeals to the people of all parties&mdash;printed
+and pasted on the walls&mdash;have no parallel that I
+know of, in history, for their real good sterling Christianity
+and tendency to promote the happiness of mankind. My
+sympathy is strongly with the Swiss radicals. They know
+what Catholicity is; they see, in some of their own valleys,
+the poverty, ignorance, misery, and bigotry it always
+brings in its train wherever it is triumphant; and they
+would root it out of their children's way at any price. I
+fear the end of the struggle will be, that some Catholic
+power will step in to crush the dangerously well-educated
+republics (very dangerous to such neighbours); but there is
+a spirit in the people, or I very much mistake them, that
+will trouble the Jesuits there many years, and shake their
+altar steps for them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is a poor return (I look down and see the end of
+the paper) for your letter, but in its cordial spirit of
+reciprocal friendship, it is not so bad a one if you could
+read it as I do, and it eases my mind and discharges my
+conscience. We are coming home, please God, at the end
+of March. Kate and Georgy send their best regards to you,
+and their loves to Mrs. and Miss Tagart and the children.
+<i>Our</i> children wish to live too in <i>your</i> children's remembrance.
+You will be glad, I know, to hear that "Dombey"
+is doing wonders, and that the Christmas book shot far
+ahead of its predecessors. I hope you will like <i>the last
+chapter of No. 5</i>. If you can spare me a scrap of your handwriting
+in token of forgiveness, do; if not, I'll come and
+beg your pardon on the 31st of March.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever believe me,</span><br />
+Cordially and truly yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Victoria Hotel, Euston Square</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, March 4th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Mamey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have not got much to say, and that's the truth;
+but I cannot let this letter go into the post without wishing
+you many many happy returns of your birthday, and sending
+my love to Auntey and to Katey, and to all of them.
+We were at Mrs. Macready's last night, where there was a
+little party in honour of Mr. Macready's birthday. We
+had some dancing, and they wished very much that you
+and Katey had been there; so did I and your mamma. We
+have not got back to Devonshire Terrace yet, but are living
+at an hotel until Sir James Duke returns from Scotland,
+which will be on Saturday or Monday. I hope when he
+comes home and finds us here he will go out of Devonshire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+Terrace, and let us get it ready for you. Roche is coming
+back to you very soon. He will leave here on Saturday
+morning. He says he hopes you will have a very happy
+birthday, and he means to drink your health on the road to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Chester Place</span>, <i>Tuesday Night.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>So far from having "got through my agonies," as
+you benevolently hope, I have not yet begun them. No,
+on this <i>ninth of the month</i> I have not yet written a single
+slip. What could I do; house-hunting at first, and beleaguered
+all day to-day and yesterday by furniture that
+must be altered, and things that must be put away? My
+wretchedness, just now, is inconceivable. Tell Anne, by-the-bye
+(not with reference to my wretchedness, but in
+connection with the arrangements generally), that I can't
+get on at all without her.</p>
+
+<p>If Kate has not mentioned it, get Katey and Mamey to
+write and send a letter to Charley; of course not hinting at
+our being here. He wants to hear from them.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Hall is dead, as you will have seen, I dare
+say, in the paper. This house is very cheerful on the
+drawing-room floor and above, looking into the park on
+one side and Albany Street on the other. Forster is mild.
+Maclise, exceedingly bald on the crown of his head. Roche
+has just come in to know if he may "blow datter light."
+Love to all the darlings. Regards to everybody else.
+Love to yourself.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens
+and Miss
+Katey
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+148, <span class="smcap">King's Road, Brighton</span>, <i>Monday, May 24, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mamey and Katey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was very glad to receive your nice letter. I am
+going to tell you something that I hope will please you.
+It is this: I am coming to London Thursday, and I mean to
+bring you both back here with me, to stay until we all come
+home together on the Saturday. I hope you like this.</p>
+
+<p>Tell John to come with the carriage to the London
+Bridge Station, on Thursday morning at ten o'clock, and to
+wait there for me. I will then come home and fetch you.</p>
+
+<p>Mamma and Auntey and Charley send their loves. I
+send mine too, to Walley, Spim, and Alfred, and Sydney.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Always, my dears,</span><br />
+Your affectionate Papa.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Sandys.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>June 13th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your kind note. I shall hope to see
+you when we return to town, from which we shall now be
+absent (with a short interval in next month) until October.
+Your account of the Cornishmen gave me great pleasure;
+and if I were not sunk in engagements so far, that the
+crown of my head is invisible to my nearest friends, I
+should have asked you to make me known to them. The
+new dialogue I will ask you by-and-by to let me see. I
+have, for the present, abandoned the idea of sinking a shaft
+in Cornwall.</p>
+
+<p>I have sent your Shakesperian extracts to Collier. It is
+a great comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning
+the poet. It is a fine mystery; and I tremble every
+day lest something should come out. If he had had a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+Boswell, society wouldn't have respected his grave, but
+would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological shop-windows.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Believe me,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. H. P.
+Smith.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Chester Place</span>, <i>June 14th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Smith</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Haldimand stayed at No. 7, Connaught Place, Hyde
+Park, when I saw him yesterday. But he was going to cross
+to Boulogne to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The young Pariah seems pretty comfortable. He is of
+a cosmopolitan spirit I hope, and stares with a kind of
+leaden satisfaction at his spoons, without afflicting himself
+much about the established church.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I think of bringing an action against you for a
+new sort of breach of promise, and calling all the bishops to
+estimate the damage of having our christening postponed
+for a fortnight. It appears to me that I shall get a good
+deal of money in this way. If you have any compromise to
+offer, my solicitors are Dodson and Fogg.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Power.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>July 2nd, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Power</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me thank you, very sincerely, for your kind
+note and for the little book. I read the latter on my way
+down here with the greatest pleasure. It is a charming
+story gracefully told, and very gracefully and worthily
+translated. I have not been better pleased with a book for
+a long time.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot say I take very kindly to the illustrations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+They are a long way behind the tale to my thinking. The
+artist understands it very well, I dare say, but does not
+express his understanding of it, in the least degree, to any
+sense of mine.</p>
+
+<p>Ah Rosherville! That fated Rosherville, when shall we
+see it! Perhaps in one of those intervals when I am up
+to town from here, and suddenly appear at Gore House,
+somebody will propose an excursion there, next day. If
+anybody does, somebody else will be ready to go. So this
+deponent maketh oath and saith.</p>
+
+<p>I am looking out upon a dark gray sea, with a keen
+north-east wind blowing it in shore. It is more like late
+autumn than midsummer, and there is a howling in the
+air as if the latter were in a very hopeless state indeed.
+The very Banshee of Midsummer is rattling the windows
+drearily while I write. There are no visitors in the place
+but children, and they (my own included) have all got the
+hooping-cough, and go about the beach choking incessantly.
+A miserable wanderer lectured in a library last night about
+astronomy; but being in utter solitude he snuffed out the
+transparent planets he had brought with him in a box and
+fled in disgust. A white mouse and a little tinkling box of
+music that stops at "come," in the melody of the Buffalo
+Gals, and can't play "out to-night," are the only amusements
+left.</p>
+
+<p>I beg from my solitude to send my love to Lady
+Blessington, and your sister, and Count D'Orsay. I think
+of taming spiders, as Baron Trenck did. There is one in
+my cell (with a speckled body and twenty-two very decided
+knees) who seems to know me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Dear Miss Power,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. H. P.
+Smith.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>July 9th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Smith</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am really more obliged to you for your kindness
+about "The Eagle" (as I always call your house) than I
+can say. But when I come to town to-morrow week, for
+the Liverpool and Manchester plays, I shall have Kate and
+Georgy with me. Moreover I shall be continually going
+out and coming in at unholy hours. Item, the timid will
+come at impossible seasons to "go over" their parts with
+the manager. Item, two Jews with musty sacks of dresses
+will be constantly coming backwards and forwards. Item,
+sounds as of "groans" will be heard while the inimitable
+Boz is "getting" his words&mdash;which happens all day.
+Item, Forster will incessantly deliver an address by Bulwer.
+Item, one hundred letters per diem will arrive from
+Manchester and Liverpool; and five actresses, in very limp
+bonnets, with extraordinary veils attached to them, will be
+always calling, protected by five mothers.</p>
+
+<p>No, no, my actuary. Some congenial tavern is the
+fitting scene for these things, if I don't get into Devonshire
+Terrace, whereof I have some spark of hope. Eagles
+couldn't look the sun in the face and have such enormities
+going on in their nests.</p>
+
+<p>I am, for the time, that obscene thing, in short, now
+chronicled in the Marylebone Register of Births&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">A <span class="smcap">Player</span>,</span><br />
+Though still yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Power.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>Tuesday, July 14th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Power</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Though I am hopeless of Rosherville until after the
+28th&mdash;for am I not beckoned, by angels of charity and by
+local committees, to Manchester and Liverpool, and to all
+sorts of bedevilments (if I may be allowed the expression)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+in the way of managerial miseries in the meantime&mdash;here I
+find myself falling into parenthesis within parenthesis, like
+Lord Brougham&mdash;yet will I joyfully come up to London on
+Friday, to dine at your house and meet the Dane, whose
+Books I honour, and whose&mdash;to make the sentiment complete,
+I want something that would sound like "Bones, I love!"
+but I can't get anything that unites reason with beauty.
+You, who have genius and beauty in your own person, will
+supply the gap in your kindness.</p>
+
+<p>An advertisement in the newspapers mentioning the
+dinner-time, will be esteemed a favour.</p>
+
+<p>Some wild beasts (in cages) have come down here, and
+involved us in a whirl of dissipation. A young lady in
+complete armour&mdash;at least, in something that shines very
+much, and is exceedingly scaley&mdash;goes into the den of
+ferocious lions, tigers, leopards, etc., and pretends to go to
+sleep upon the principal lion, upon which a rustic keeper,
+who speaks through his nose, exclaims, "Behold the abazid
+power of woobad!" and we all applaud tumultuously.</p>
+
+<p>Seriously, she beats Van Amburgh. And I think the
+Duke of Wellington must have her painted by Landseer.</p>
+
+<p>My penitent regards to Lady Blessington, Count
+D'Orsay, and my own Marchioness.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, dear Miss Power,</span><br />
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Wednesday, August 4th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Mamey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am delighted to hear that you are going to improve
+in your spelling, because nobody can write properly without
+spelling well. But I know you will learn whatever you
+are taught, because you are always good, industrious, and
+attentive. That is what I always say of my Mamey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The note you sent me this morning is a very nice one,
+and the spelling is beautiful.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Always, my dear Mamey,</span><br />
+Your affectionate Papa.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday Morning, Nov. 23rd, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am in the whirlwind of finishing a number with a
+crisis in it; but I can't fall to work without saying, in so
+many words, that I feel all words insufficient to tell you
+what I think of you after a night like last night. The
+multitudes of new tokens by which I know you for a great
+man, the swelling within me of my love for you, the pride I
+have in you, the majestic reflection I see in you of all the
+passions and affections that make up our mystery, throw
+me into a strange kind of transport that has no expression
+but in a mute sense of an attachment, which, in truth and
+fervency, is worthy of its subject.</p>
+
+<p>What is this to say! Nothing, God knows, and yet I
+cannot leave it unsaid.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I never saw you more gallant and free than
+in the gallant and free scenes last night. It was perfectly
+captivating to behold you. However, it shall not interfere
+with my determination to address you as Old Parr in
+all future time.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, <i>Thursday, December 13th, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I "take up my pen," as the young ladies write, to
+let you know how we are getting on; and as I shall be
+obliged to put it down again very soon, here goes. We
+lived with very hospitable people in a very splendid house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+near Glasgow, and were perfectly comfortable. The meeting
+was the most stupendous thing as to numbers, and the most
+beautiful as to colours and decorations I ever saw. The
+inimitable did wonders. His grace, elegance, and eloquence,
+enchanted all beholders. <i>Kate didn't go!</i> having been
+taken ill on the railroad between here and Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>It has been snowing, sleeting, thawing, and freezing,
+sometimes by turns and sometimes all together, since the
+night before last. Lord Jeffrey's household are in town
+here, not at Craigcrook, and jogging on in a cosy, old-fashioned,
+comfortable sort of way. We have some idea of
+going to York on Sunday, passing that night at Alfred's,
+and coming home on Monday; but of this, Kate will advise
+you when she writes, which she will do to-morrow, after I
+shall have seen the list of railway trains.</p>
+
+<p>She sends her best love. She is a little poorly still, but
+nothing to speak of. She is frightfully anxious that her
+not having been to the great demonstration should be kept
+a secret. But I say that, like murder, it will out, and that
+to hope to veil such a tremendous disgrace from the general
+intelligence is out of the question. In one of the Glasgow
+papers she is elaborately described. I rather think Miss
+Alison, who is seventeen, was taken for her, and sat for the
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>Best love from both of us, to Charley, Mamey, Katey,
+Wally, Chickenstalker, Skittles, and the Hoshen Peck; last,
+and not least, to you. We talked of you at the Macreadys'
+party on Monday night. I hope &mdash;&mdash; came out lively, also
+that &mdash;&mdash; was truly amiable. Finally, that &mdash;&mdash; took everybody
+to their carriages, and that &mdash;&mdash; wept a good deal
+during the festivities? God bless you. Take care of
+yourself, for the sake of mankind in general.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately, dear Georgy.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+<h2>>1848.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> March of this year Charles Dickens went with his wife
+for two or three weeks to Brighton, accompanied by
+Mrs. Macready, who was in delicate health, and we give
+a letter to Mr. Macready from Brighton. Early in the
+year, "Dombey and Son" was finished, and he was again
+busy with an amateur play, with the same associates and
+some new adherents; the proceeds being, at first, intended
+to go towards the curatorship of Shakespeare's house,
+which post was to be given to Mr. Sheridan Knowles. The
+endowment was abandoned, upon the town and council
+of Stratford-on-Avon taking charge of the house; the
+large sum realised by the performances being handed over
+to Mr. Sheridan Knowles. The play selected was "The
+Merry Wives of Windsor;" the farce, "Love, Law, and
+Physic." There were two performances at the Haymarket
+in April, at one of which her Majesty and the Prince
+Consort were present; and in July there were performances
+at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and
+Glasgow. Some ladies accompanied the "strollers" on
+this theatrical provincial tour, and Mrs. Dickens and her
+sister were of the party. Many of the following letters bear
+reference to these plays.</div>
+
+<p>In this summer, his eldest sister Fanny (Mrs. Burnett)
+died, and there are sorrowful allusions to her illness in
+several of the letters.</p>
+
+<p>The autumn months were again spent at Broadstairs,
+where he wrote "The Haunted Man," which was illustrated
+by Mr. Frank Stone, Mr. Leech, and others. At the end of
+the year and at the end of his work, he took another short
+holiday at Brighton with his wife and sister-in-law; and the
+letters to Mr. Stone on the subject of his illustrations to
+"The Haunted Man" are written from Brighton. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+first letters which we have to Mr. Mark Lemon come here.
+We regret to have been unable to procure any letters
+addressed to Mr. Leech, with whom, as with Mr. Lemon,
+Charles Dickens was very intimately associated for many
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Also, we have the beginning of his correspondence with
+Mr. Charles Kent. He wrote (an unusual thing for him to
+do) to the editor of <i>The Sun</i> newspaper, begging him to
+thank the writer of a particularly sympathetic and earnest
+review of "Dombey and Son," which appeared in <i>The Sun</i>
+at the close of the book. Mr. Charles Kent replied in his
+proper person, and from that time dates a close friendship
+and constant correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>With the letter to Mr. Forster we give, as a note, a
+letter which Baron Ta&uuml;chnitz published in his edition of
+Mr. Forster's "Life of Oliver Goldsmith."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peter Cunningham, as an important member of
+the "Shakespeare's House" committee, managed the <i>un</i>-theatrical
+part of this Amateur Provincial Tour, and was
+always pleasantly connected with the plays.</p>
+
+<p>The book alluded to in the last letter for this year, to be
+dedicated to Charles Dickens's daughters by Mr. Mark
+Lemon, was called "The Enchanted Doll."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Babbage.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>February 26th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Pray let me thank you for your pamphlet.</p>
+
+<p>I confess that I am one of the unconvinced grumblers,
+and that I doubt the present or future existence of any
+government in England, strong enough to convert the
+people to your income-tax principles. But I do not the
+less appreciate the ability with which you advocate them,
+nor am I the less gratified by any mark of your remembrance.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Junction House, Brighton</span>, <i>March 2nd, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We have migrated from the Bedford and come here,
+where we are very comfortably (not to say gorgeously)
+accommodated. Mrs. Macready is certainly better already,
+and I really have very great hopes that she will come back
+in a condition so blooming, as to necessitate the presentation
+of a piece of plate to the undersigned trainer.</p>
+
+<p>You mean to come down on Sunday and on Sunday
+week. If you don't, I shall immediately take the Victoria,
+and start Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, as a
+smashing tragedian. Pray don't impose upon me this cruel
+necessity.</p>
+
+<p>I think Lamartine, so far, one of the best fellows in the
+world; and I have lively hopes of that great people establishing
+a noble republic. Our court had best be careful not
+to overdo it in respect of sympathy with ex-royalty and
+ex-nobility. Those are not times for such displays, as, it
+strikes me, the people in some of our great towns would be
+apt to express pretty plainly.</p>
+
+<p>However, we'll talk of all this on these Sundays, and
+Mr. &mdash;&mdash; shall <i>not</i> be raised to the pinnacle of fame.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever affectionately yours,</span><br />
+My dear Macready.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Editor of
+<i>The Sun</i>.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, April 14th, 1848.</i><br /></div>
+<div class='center'>
+<i>Private.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to the
+Editor of <i>The Sun</i>, and begs that gentleman will have the
+goodness to convey to the writer of the notice of "Dombey
+and Son," in last evening's paper, Mr. Dickens's warmest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+acknowledgments and thanks. The sympathy expressed in
+it is so very earnestly and unaffectedly stated, that it is
+particularly welcome and gratifying to Mr. Dickens, and he
+feels very desirous indeed to convey that assurance to the
+writer of that frank and genial farewell.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Charles M.
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>April 18th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Pray let me repeat to you personally what I expressed
+in my former note, and allow me to assure you, as an illustration
+of my sincerity, that I have never addressed a similar
+communication to anybody except on one occasion.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday, April 22nd, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">My dear Forster</span>,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></div>
+
+<p>I finished Goldsmith yesterday, after dinner, having
+read it from the first page to the last with the greatest care
+and attention.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+<p>As a picture of the time, I really think it impossible to
+give it too much praise. It seems to me to be the very
+essence of all about the time that I have ever seen in
+biography or fiction, presented in most wise and humane
+lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. I have
+never liked Johnson half so well. Nobody's contempt for
+Boswell ought to be capable of increase, but I have never
+seen him in my mind's eye half so plainly. The introduction
+of him is quite a masterpiece. I should point to that,
+if I didn't know the author, as being done by somebody
+with a remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated,
+and a most admirable and fanciful power of communicating
+it to another. All about Reynolds is charming; and the
+first account of the Literary Club and of Beauclerc as
+excellent a piece of description as ever I read in my life.
+But to read the book is to be in the time. It lives again in
+as fresh and lively a manner as if it were presented on an
+impossibly good stage by the very best actors that ever lived,
+or by the real actors come out of their graves on purpose.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Goldsmith himself, and <i>his</i> life, and the
+tracing of it out in his own writings, and the manful and
+dignified assertion of him without any sobs, whines, or
+convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a noble achievement,
+of which, apart from any private and personal affection
+for you, I think (and really believe) I should feel
+proud, as one who had no indifferent perception of these
+books of his&mdash;to the best of my remembrance&mdash;when little
+more than a child. I was a little afraid in the beginning,
+when he committed those very discouraging imprudences,
+that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately;
+but I very soon got over that fear, and found
+reason in every page to admire the sense, calmness, and
+moderation with which you make the love and admiration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+of the reader cluster about him from his youth, and
+strengthen with his strength&mdash;and weakness too, which is
+better still.</p>
+
+<p>I don't quite agree with you in two small respects.
+First, I question very much whether it would have been a
+good thing for every great man to have had his Boswell,
+inasmuch as I think that two Boswells, or three at most,
+would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would
+have set them on always playing a part, and would have
+made distinguished people about them for ever restless
+and distrustful. I can imagine a succession of Boswells
+bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in society,
+and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship.
+Secondly, I cannot help objecting to that practice (begun,
+I think, or greatly enlarged by Hunt) of italicising lines
+and words and whole passages in extracts, without some
+very special reason indeed. It does appear to be a kind of
+assertion of the editor over the reader&mdash;almost over the
+author himself&mdash;which grates upon me. The author might
+almost as well do it himself to my thinking, as a disagreeable
+thing; and it is such a strong contrast to the modest,
+quiet, tranquil beauty of "The Deserted Village," for
+instance, that I would almost as soon hear "the town crier"
+speak the lines. The practice always reminds me of a man
+seeing a beautiful view, and not thinking how beautiful it is
+half so much as what he shall say about it.</p>
+
+<p>In that picture at the close of the third book (a most
+beautiful one) of Goldsmith sitting looking out of window
+at the Temple trees, you speak of the "gray-eyed" rooks.
+Are you sure they are "gray-eyed"? The raven's eye is
+a deep lustrous black, and so, I suspect, is the rook's,
+except when the light shines full into it.</p>
+
+<p>I have reserved for a closing word&mdash;though I <i>don't</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+mean to be eloquent about it, being far too much in earnest&mdash;the
+admirable manner in which the case of the literary
+man is stated throughout this book. It is splendid. I
+don't believe that any book was ever written, or anything
+ever done or said, half so conducive to the dignity and
+honour of literature as "The Life and Adventures of Oliver
+Goldsmith," by J. F., of the Inner Temple. The gratitude
+of every man who is content to rest his station and claims
+quietly on literature, and to make no feint of living by anything
+else, is your due for evermore. I have often said,
+here and there, when you have been at work upon the
+book, that I was sure it would be; and I shall insist on
+that debt being due to you (though there will be no need
+for insisting about it) as long as I have any tediousness
+and obstinacy to bestow on anybody. Lastly, I never will
+hear the biography compared with Boswell's except under
+vigorous protest. For I do say that it is mere folly to put
+into opposite scales a book, however amusing and curious,
+written by an unconscious coxcomb like that, and one
+which surveys and grandly understands the characters of
+all the illustrious company that move in it.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Forster, I cannot sufficiently say how proud I
+am of what you have done, or how sensible I am of being
+so tenderly connected with it. When I look over this note,
+I feel as if I had said no part of what I think; and yet if I
+were to write another I should say no more, for I can't get
+it out. I desire no better for my fame, when my personal
+dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order,
+than such a biographer and such a critic. And again I say,
+most solemnly, that literature in England has never had,
+and probably never will have, such a champion as you are,
+in right of this book.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Wednesday, May 3rd, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lemon</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Do you think you could manage, before we meet to-morrow,
+to get from the musical director of the Haymarket
+(whom I don't know) a note of the overtures he purposes
+playing on our two nights? I am obliged to correct and
+send back the bill proofs to-morrow (they are to be
+brought to Miss Kelly's)&mdash;and should like, for completeness'
+sake, to put the music in. Before "The Merry Wives,"
+it must be something Shakespearian. Before "Animal
+Magnetism," something very telling and light&mdash;like "Fra
+Diavolo."</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday night's music in a concatenation accordingly,
+and jolly little polkas and quadrilles between the pieces,
+always beginning the moment the act-drop is down. If any
+little additional strength should be really required in the
+orchestra, so be it.</p>
+
+<p>Can you come to Miss Kelly's by <i>three</i>? I should like
+to show you bills, tickets, and so forth, before they are
+worked. In order that they may not interfere with or
+confuse the rehearsal, I have appointed Peter Cunningham
+to meet me there at three, instead of half-past.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;If you should be disposed to chop together early,
+send me a line to the Athen&aelig;um. I have engaged to be
+with Barry at ten, to go over the Houses of Parliament.
+When I have done so, I will go to the club on the chance of
+a note from you, and would meet you where you chose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um</span>, <i>Thursday, May 4th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have not been able to write to you until now. I
+have lived in hope that Kate and I might be able to run
+down to see you and yours for a day, before our design for
+enforcing the Government to make Knowles the first custodian
+of the Shakespeare house should come off. But I
+am so perpetually engaged in drilling the forces, that I see
+no hope of making a pleasant expedition to the Isle of
+Wight until about the twentieth. Then I shall hope to do
+so for one day. But of this I will advise you further, in
+due course.</p>
+
+<p>My doubts about the house you speak of are twofold,
+First, I could not leave town so soon as May, having affairs
+to arrange for a sick sister. And secondly, I fear Bonchurch
+is not sufficiently bracing for my chickens, who thrive best
+in breezy and cool places. This has set me thinking, sometimes
+of the Yorkshire coast, sometimes of Dover. I would
+not have the house at Bonchurch reserved for me, therefore.
+But if it should be empty, we will go and look at it in a
+body. I reserve the more serious part of my letter until the
+last, my dear White, because it comes from the bottom of
+my heart. None of your friends have thought and spoken
+oftener of you and Mrs. White than we have these many
+weeks past. I should have written to you, but was timid of
+intruding on your sorrow. What you say, and the manner
+in which you tell me I am connected with it in your recollection
+of your dear child, now among the angels of God,
+gives me courage to approach your grief&mdash;to say what
+sympathy we have felt with it, and how we have not been
+unimaginative of these deep sources of consolation to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+you have had recourse. The traveller who journeyed in
+fancy from this world to the next was struck to the heart
+to find the child he had lost, many years before, building
+him a tower in heaven. Our blessed Christian hopes do
+not shut out the belief of love and remembrance still
+enduring there, but irradiate it and make it sacred. Who
+should know that better than you, or who more deeply
+feel the touching truths and comfort of that story in
+the older book, where, when the bereaved mother is
+asked, "Is it well with the child?" she answers, "It <i>is</i>
+well."</p>
+
+<p>God be with you. Kate and her sister desire their
+kindest love to yourself and Mrs. White, in which I heartily
+join.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Being ever, my dear White,</span><br />
+Your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Wednesday, May 10th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are rehearsing at the Haymarket now, and Lemon
+mentioned to me yesterday that Webster had asked him if
+he would sound Forster or me as to your intention of having
+a farewell benefit before going to America, and whether
+you would like to have it at the Haymarket, and also as to
+its being preceded by a short engagement there. I don't
+know what your feelings may be on this latter head, but
+thinking it well that you may know how the land lies in
+these seas, send you this; the rather (excuse Elizabethan
+phrase, but you know how indispensable it is to me under
+existing circumstances)&mdash;the rather that I am thereto
+encouraged by thy consort, who has just come a-visiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+here, with thy fair daughters, Mistress Nina and the little
+Kate. Wherefore, most selected friend, perpend at thy
+leisure, and so God speed thee!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">And no more at present from,</span><br />
+Thine ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>From my tent in my garden.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ANOTHER "BOBADIL" NOTE.</div>
+
+<p>I must tell you this, sir, I am no general man; but for
+William Shakespeare's sake (you may embrace it at what
+height of favour you please) I will communicate with you
+on the twenty-first, and do esteem you to be a gentleman of
+some parts&mdash;of a good many parts in truth. I love few
+words.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/4signature.png" width="400" height="197" alt="Signature: Bobadil" title="Signature: Bobadil" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><br /><br />
+At Cobb's, a water-bearer,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>October 11th.</i></span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Peter
+Cunningham.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday Morning, June 22nd, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cunningham</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will be at Miss Kelly's to-morrow evening, from
+seven to eight, and shall hope to see you there, for a little
+conversation, touching the railroad arrangements.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All preparations completed in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
+There will be a great deal of money taken, especially at the
+latter place.</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could persuade you, seriously, to come into
+training for Nym, in "The Merry Wives." He is never
+on by himself, and all he has to do is good, without being
+difficult. If you could screw yourself up to the doing of
+that part in Scotland, it would prevent our taking some
+new man, and would cover you (all over) with glory.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I am fully persuaded that an amateur manager
+has more correspondence than the Home Secretary.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>July 27th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I thought to have been at Rockingham long ago!
+It seems a century since I, standing in big boots on the
+Haymarket stage, saw you come into a box upstairs and
+look down on the humbled Bobadil, since then I have
+had the kindest of notes from you, since then the finest
+of venison, and yet I have not seen the Rockingham flowers,
+and they are withering I daresay.</p>
+
+<p>But we have acted at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham,
+Edinburgh, and Glasgow; and the business of all this&mdash;and
+graver and heavier daily occupation in going to see a
+dying sister at Hornsey&mdash;has so worried me that I have
+hardly had an hour, far less a week. I shall never be
+quite happy, in a theatrical point of view, until you have
+seen me play in an English version of the French piece,
+"L'Homme Blas&eacute;," which fairly turned the head of Glasgow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+last Thursday night as ever was; neither shall I be quite
+happy, in a social point of view, until I have been to
+Rockingham again. When the first event will come about
+Heaven knows. The latter will happen about the end of
+the November fogs and wet weather. For am I not going
+to Broadstairs now, to walk about on the sea-shore (why
+don't you bring your rosy children there?) and think what
+is to be done for Christmas! An idea occurs to me all at once.
+I must come down and read you that book before it's published.
+Shall it be a bargain? Were you all in Switzerland?
+I don't believe <i>I</i> ever was. It is such a dream
+now. I wonder sometimes whether I ever disputed with a
+Haldimand; whether I ever drank mulled wine on the top
+of the Great St. Bernard, or was jovial at the bottom with
+company that have stolen into my affection; whether I
+ever was merry and happy in that valley on the Lake of
+Geneva, or saw you one evening (when I didn't know you)
+walking down among the green trees outside Elys&eacute;e, arm-in-arm
+with a gentleman in a white hat. I am quite clear
+that there is no foundation for these visions. But I should
+like to go somewhere, too, and try it all over again. I
+don't know how it is, but the ideal world in which my lot is
+cast has an odd effect on the real one, and makes it chiefly
+precious for such remembrances. I get quite melancholy
+over them sometimes, especially when, as now, those great
+piled-up semicircles of bright faces, at which I have lately
+been looking&mdash;all laughing, earnest and intent&mdash;have faded
+away like dead people. They seem a ghostly moral of
+everything in life to me.</p>
+
+<p>Kate sends her best love, in which Georgy would as
+heartily unite, I know, but that she is already gone to
+Broadstairs with the children. We think of following on
+Saturday morning, but that depends on my poor sister.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+Pray give my most cordial remembrances to Watson, and
+tell him they include a great deal. I meant to have written
+you a letter. I don't know what this is. There is no word
+for it. So, if you will still let me owe you one, I will pay
+my debt, on the smallest encouragement, from the seaside.
+Here, there, and elsewhere, I am, with perfect truth,
+believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>Saturday, August 26th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was about to write to you when I received your
+welcome letter. You knew I should come from a somewhat
+longer distance than this to give you a hearty God-speed
+and farewell on the eve of your journey. What do you say
+to Monday, the fourth, or Saturday, the second? Fix either
+day, let me know which suits you best&mdash;at what hour you
+expect the Inimitable, and the Inimitable will come up
+to the scratch like a man and a brother.</p>
+
+<p>Permit me, in conclusion, to nail my colours to the
+mast. Stars and stripes are so-so&mdash;showy, perhaps; but my
+colours is <span class="smcap">the union jack</span>, which I am told has the remarkable
+property of having braved a thousand years the battle
+<span class="smcap">and</span> the breeze. Likewise, it is the flag of Albion&mdash;the
+standard of Britain; and Britons, as I am informed, never,
+never, never&mdash;will&mdash;be&mdash;slaves!</p>
+
+<p>My sentiment is: Success to the United States as a
+golden campaigning ground, but blow the United States
+to 'tarnal smash as an Englishman's place of residence.
+Gentlemen, are you all charged?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday, Sept. 8th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Mamey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We shall be very glad to see you all again, and we
+hope you will be very glad to see us. Give my best love to
+dear Katey, also to Frankey, Alley, and the Peck.</p>
+
+<p>I have had a nice note from Charley just now. He says
+it is expected at school that when Walter puts on his jacket,
+all the Miss Kings will fall in love with him to desperation
+and faint away.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever, my dear Mamey,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Effingham
+William
+Wilson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">1, <span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Nov. 7th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"A NATIONAL THEATRE."<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg you to accept my best thanks for your pamphlet
+and your obliging note. That such a theatre as you
+describe would be but worthy of this nation, and would not
+stand low upon the list of its instructors, I have no kind of
+doubt. I wish I could cherish a stronger faith than I have
+in the probability of its establishment on a rational footing
+within fifty years.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday, Nov. 21st, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you herewith the second part of the book,
+which I hope may interest you. If you should prefer to
+have it read to you by the Inimitable rather than to read it,
+I shall be at home this evening (loin of mutton at half-past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+five), and happy to do it. The proofs are full of printers'
+errors, but with the few corrections I have scrawled upon it,
+you will be able to make out what they mean.</p>
+
+<p>I send you, on the opposite side, a list of the subjects
+already in hand from this second part. If you should see
+no other in it that you like (I think it important that you
+should keep Milly, as you have begun with her), I will, in a
+day or two, describe you an unwritten subject for the third
+part of the book.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />SUBJECTS IN HAND FOR THE SECOND PART.</div>
+
+<p>1. Illuminated page. Tenniel. Representing Redlaw
+going upstairs, and the Tetterby family below.</p>
+
+<p>2. The Tetterby supper. Leech.</p>
+
+<p>3. The boy in Redlaw's room, munching his food and
+staring at the fire.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Brighton</span>, <i>Thursday Night, Nov. 23rd, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are unanimous.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing of Milly on the chair is <span class="smcap">charming</span>. I
+cannot tell you how much the little composition and expression
+please me. Do that, by all means.</p>
+
+<p>I fear she must have a little cap on. There is something
+coming in the last part, about her having had a dead child,
+which makes it yet more desirable than the existing text
+does that she should have that little matronly sign about
+her. Unless the artist is obdurate indeed, and then he'll do
+as he likes.</p>
+
+<p>I am delighted to hear that you have your eye on her in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+the students' room. You will really, pictorially, make the
+little woman whom I love.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgy send their kindest remembrances. I
+write hastily to save the post.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Stone,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bedford Hotel, Brighton</span>, <i>Monday Night, Nov. 27th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You are a <span class="smcap">trump</span>, emphatically a TRUMP, and such
+are my feelings towards you at this moment that I think
+(but I am not sure) that if I saw you about to place a card
+on a wrong pack at Bibeck (?), I wouldn't breathe a word
+of objection.</p>
+
+<p>Sir, there is a subject I have written to-day for the
+third part, that I think and hope will just suit you. Scene,
+Tetterby's. Time, morning. The power of bringing back
+people's memories of sorrow, wrong and trouble, has been
+given by the ghost to Milly, though she don't know it herself.
+As she comes along the street, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby
+recover themselves, and are mutually affectionate again,
+and embrace, closing <i>rather</i> a good scene of quarrel and
+discontent. The moment they do so, Johnny (who has seen
+her in the distance and announced her before, from which
+moment they begin to recover) cries "Here she is!" and
+she comes in, surrounded by the little Tetterbys, the very
+spirit of morning, gladness, innocence, hope, love, domesticity,
+etc. etc. etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>I would limit the illustration to her and the children,
+which will make a fitness between it and your other illustrations,
+and give them all a character of their own. The
+exact words of the passage I endorsed on another slip of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+paper. Note. There are six boy Tetterbys present (young
+'Dolphus is not there), including Johnny; and in Johnny's
+arms is Moloch, the baby, who is a girl. I hope to be back
+in town next Monday, and will lose no time in reporting
+myself to you. Don't wait to send me the drawing of this.
+I know how pretty she will be with the children in your
+hands, and should be a stupendous jackass if I had any
+distrust of it.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Cambridge is staying in this house, and
+they are driving me mad by having Life Guards bands
+under our windows, playing <i>our</i> overtures! I have been
+at work all day, and am going to wander into the theatre,
+where (for the comic man's benefit) "two gentlemen of
+Brighton" are performing two counts in a melodrama. I
+was quite addle-headed for the time being, and think an
+amateur or so would revive me. No 'Tone! I don't in the
+abstract approve of Brighton. I couldn't pass an autumn
+here; but it is a gay place for a week or so; and when
+one laughs and cries, and suffers the agitation that some
+men experience over their books, it's a bright change to
+look out of window, and see the gilt little toys on horseback
+going up and down before the mighty sea, and thinking
+nothing of it.</p>
+
+<p>Kate's love and Georgy's. They say you'll contradict
+every word of this letter.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />[<small>SLIP OF PAPER ENCLOSED.</small>]</div>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! here's Mrs. Williams!" cried Johnny.</p>
+
+<p>So she was, and all the Tetterby children with her; and
+as she came in, they kissed her and kissed one another, and
+kissed the baby and kissed their father and mother, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+then ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping
+on with her in triumph.</p>
+
+<p>(After which, she is going to say: "What, are <i>you</i> all
+glad to see me too! Oh, how happy it makes me to find
+everyone so glad to see me this bright morning!")</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bedford Hotel, Brighton</span>, <i>Nov. 28th, 1848.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mark</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I assure you, most unaffectedly and cordially, that
+the dedication of that book to Mary and <i>Kate</i> (not Catherine)
+will be a real delight to me, and to all of us. I know well
+that you propose it in "affectionate regard," and value
+and esteem it, therefore, in a way not easy of expression.</p>
+
+<p>You were talking of "coming" down, and now, in a
+mean and dodging way, you write about "sending" the
+second act! I have a propogician to make. Come down
+on Friday. There is a train leaves London Bridge at two&mdash;gets
+here at four. By that time I shall be ready to
+strike work. We can take a little walk, dine, discuss, and
+you can go back in good time next morning. I really
+think this ought to be done, and indeed <span class="smcap">must</span> be done.
+Write and say it shall be done.</p>
+
+<p>A little management will be required in dramatising the
+third part, where there are some things I <i>describe</i> (for
+effect's sake, and as a matter of art) which must be <i>said</i> on
+the stage. Redlaw is in a new condition of mind, which
+fact must be shot point-blank at the audience, I suppose,
+"as from the deadly level of a gun." By anybody who
+knew how to play Milly, I think it might be made very
+good. Its effect is very pleasant upon me. I have also
+given Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby another innings.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the play last night&mdash;fifth act of Richard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+Third. Richmond by a stout <i>lady</i>, with a particularly well-developed
+bust, who finished all the speeches with the
+soubrette simper. Also, at the end of the tragedy she
+came forward (still being Richmond) and said, "Ladies and
+gentlemen, on Wednesday next the entertainments will be
+for <i>My</i> benefit, when I hope to meet your approbation and
+support." Then, having bowed herself into the stage-door,
+she looked out of it, and said, winningly, "Won't you
+come?" which was enormously applauded.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1849.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>This</span>, as far as correspondence is concerned, was an uneventful
+year. In the spring Charles Dickens took one
+of his holidays at Brighton, accompanied by his wife and
+sister-in-law and two daughters, and they were joined in
+their lodgings by Mr. and Mrs. Leech. From Brighton he
+writes the letter&mdash;as a song&mdash;which we give, to Mr. Mark
+Lemon, who had been ill, asking him to pay them a visit.</div>
+
+<p>In the summer, Charles Dickens went with his family,
+for the first time, to Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, having
+hired for six months the charming villa, Winterbourne,
+belonging to the Rev. James White. And now began that
+close and loving intimacy which for the future was to exist
+between these two families. Mr. Leech also took a house
+at Bonchurch. All through this year Charles Dickens was
+at work upon "David Copperfield."</p>
+
+<p>As well as giving eccentric names to his children and
+friends, he was also in the habit of giving such names to himself&mdash;that
+of "Sparkler" being one frequently used by him.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Joll herself gives us the explanation of the letter
+to her on capital punishment: "Soon after the appearance
+of his 'Household Words,' some friends were discussing an
+article in it on 'Private Executions.' They contended that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+it went to prove Mr. Dickens was an advocate of capital
+punishment. I, however, took a different view of the
+matter, and ventured to write and inquire his views on
+the subject, and to my letter he sent me a courteous reply."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Dudley
+Costello.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday Night, Jan. 26th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Costello</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am desperate! Engaged in links of adamant to a
+"monster in human form"&mdash;a remarkable expression I
+think I remember to have once met with in a newspaper&mdash;whom
+I encountered at Franconi's, whence I have just
+returned, otherwise I would have done all three things
+right heartily and with my accustomed sweetness. Think
+of me another time when chops are on the carpet (figuratively
+speaking), and see if I won't come and eat 'em!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I find myself too despondent for the flourish.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday Night, Feb. 27th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Mamey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am not engaged on the evening of your birthday.
+But even if I had an engagement of the most particular
+kind, I should excuse myself from keeping it, so that I
+might have the pleasure of celebrating at home, and among
+my children, the day that gave me such a dear and good
+daughter as you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>May 25th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>No&mdash;no&mdash;no! Murder, murder! Madness and misconception!
+Any <i>one</i> of the subjects&mdash;not the whole. Oh,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+blessed star of early morning, what do you think I am
+made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such
+a pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request!</p>
+
+<p>Says my friend to me, "Will you ask <i>your</i> friend,
+Mr. Stanfield, what the damage of a little picture of that
+size would be, that I may treat myself with the same, if I
+can afford it?" Says I, "I will." Says he, "Will you
+suggest that I should like it to be <i>one</i> of those subjects?"
+Says I, "I will."</p>
+
+<p>I am beating my head against the door with grief and
+frenzy, and I shall continue to do so, until I receive your
+answer.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever heartily yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Misconceived One</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Monday, June 4th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Leech and Sparkler having promised their ladies to
+take them to Ascot, and having failed in their truths,
+propoge to take them to Greenwich instead, next Wednesday.
+Will that alteration in the usual arrangements be
+agreeable to Gaffin, S.? If so, the place of meeting is the
+Sparkler's Bower, and the hour, one exactly.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Shanklin, Isle of Wight</span>, <i>Monday Night, June 16th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have but a moment. Just got back and post going
+out. I have taken a most delightful and beautiful house,
+belonging to White, at Bonchurch; cool, airy, private
+bathing, everything delicious. I think it is the prettiest
+place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad. Anne may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+begin to dismantle Devonshire Terrace. I have arranged
+for carriages, luggage, and everything.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the post-bag is swearing in the passage.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;A waterfall on the grounds, which I have arranged
+with a carpenter to convert into a perpetual shower-bath.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Monday, June 25th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lemon</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very unwilling to deny Charley the pleasure
+you so kindly offer him. But as it is just the close of the
+half-year when they are getting together all the half-year's
+work&mdash;and as that day's pleasure would weaken the next
+day's duty, I think I must be "more like an ancient Roman
+than a &mdash;&mdash;" Sparkler, and that it will be wisest in me to
+say nothing about it.</p>
+
+<p>Get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of
+"Copperfield" No. 3; "simple and quiet, but very natural
+and touching."&mdash;<i>Evening Bore.</i></p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'>NEW SONG.<br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tune</span>&mdash;"Lesbia hath a beaming eye."<br />
+
+<br />1.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Lemon is a little hipped,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And this is Lemon's true position;</span><br />
+He is not pale, he's not white-lipped,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet wants a little fresh condition.</span><br />
+Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Old ocean's rising, falling billows,</span><br />
+Than on the houses every one,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That form the street called Saint Anne's Willers.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Oh, my Lemon, round and fat,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Oh, my bright, my right, my tight 'un,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Think a little what you're at&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Don't stay at home, but come to Brighton!</span><br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'><br />2.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Lemon has a coat of frieze,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But all so seldom Lemon wears it,</span><br />
+That it is a prey to fleas,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ev'ry moth that's hungry tears it.</span><br />
+Oh, that coat's the coat for me,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That braves the railway sparks and breezes,</span><br />
+Leaving every engine free<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To smoke it, till its owner sneezes!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Then my Lemon, round and fat,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">L., my bright, my right, my tight 'un,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Think a little what you're at&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">On Tuesday first, come down to Brighton!</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">T. Sparkler.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>Also signed,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Catherine Dickens</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Annie Leech</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Georgina Hogarth</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Mary Dickens</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Katie Dickens</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">John Leech</span>.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Winterbourne</span>, <i>Sunday Evening, Sept. 23rd, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have a hundred times at least wanted to say to you
+how good I thought those papers in "Blackwood"&mdash;how
+excellent their purpose, and how delicately and charmingly
+worked out. Their subtle and delightful humour, and their
+grasp of the whole question, were something more pleasant
+to me than I can possibly express.</p>
+
+<p>"How comes this lumbering Inimitable to say this, on
+this Sunday night of all nights in the year?" you naturally
+ask. Now hear the Inimitable's honest avowal! I make
+so bold because I heard that Morning Service better read
+this morning than ever I have heard it read in my life.
+And because&mdash;for the soul of me&mdash;I cannot separate the
+two things, or help identifying the wise and genial man
+out of church with the earnest and unaffected man in it.
+Midsummer madness, perhaps, but a madness I hope that
+will hold us true friends for many and many a year to come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+The madness is over as soon as you have burned this letter
+(see the history of the Gunpowder Plot), but let us be
+friends much longer for these reasons and many included
+in them not herein expressed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Joll.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Rockingham Castle, Northamptonshire</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Nov. 27th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to Miss
+Joll. He is, on principle, opposed to capital punishment,
+but believing that many earnest and sincere people who are
+favourable to its retention in extreme cases would unite in
+any temperate effort to abolish the evils of public executions,
+and that the consequences of public executions are
+disgraceful and horrible, he has taken the course with
+which Miss Joll is acquainted as the most hopeful, and as
+one undoubtedly calculated to benefit society at large.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday Night, Nov. 30th, 1849.</i><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><i>A Quarter-past Ten.</i></span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Plunged in the deepest gloom, I write these few
+words to let you know that, just now, when the bell was
+striking ten, I drank to</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"><span class="caption">H. E. R.!</span>
+<img src="images/5valentine.png" width="350" height="176" alt="H. E. R.!" title="H. E. R.!" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>and to all the rest of Rockingham; as the wine went down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+my throat, I felt distinctly that it was "changing those
+thoughts to madness."</div>
+
+<p>On the way here I was a terror to my companions, and
+I am at present a blight and mildew on my home.</p>
+
+<p>Think of me sometimes, as I shall long think of our
+glorious dance last night. Give my most affectionate
+regards to Watson, and my kind remembrances to all who
+remember me, and believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I am in such an incapable state, that after executing
+the foregoing usual flourish I swooned, and remained
+for some time insensible. Ha, ha, ha! Why was I ever
+restored to consciousness!!!</p>
+
+<p>P.P.S.&mdash;"Changing" those thoughts ought to be
+"driving." But my recollection is incoherent and my
+mind wanders.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday, Dec. 29th, 1849.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter at breakfast-time this morning
+with a pleasure my eloquence is unable to express and your
+modesty unable to conceive. It is so delightful to be remembered
+at this time of the year in your house where we
+have been so happy, and in dear old Lausanne, that we
+always hope to see again, that I can't help pushing away
+the first page of "Copperfield" No. 10, now staring at me
+with what I may literally call a blank aspect, and plunging
+energetically into this reply.</p>
+
+<p>What a strange coincidence that is about Blunderstone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+House! Of all the odd things I have ever heard (and their
+name is Legion), I think it is the oddest. I went down
+into that part of the country on the 7th of January last
+year, when I was meditating the story, and chose Blunderstone
+for the sound of its name. I had previously observed
+much of what you say about the poor girls. In all you
+suggest with so much feeling about their return to virtue
+being cruelly cut off, I concur with a sore heart. I have been
+turning it over in my mind for some time, and hope, in the
+history of Little Em'ly (who <i>must</i> fall&mdash;there is no hope for
+her), to put it before the thoughts of people in a new and
+pathetic way, and perhaps to do some good. You will be
+glad to hear, I know, that "Copperfield" is a great success.
+I think it is better liked than any of my other books.</p>
+
+<p>We had a most delightful time at Watsons' (for both of
+them we have preserved and strengthened a real affection),
+and were the gayest of the gay. There was a Miss Boyle
+staying in the house, who is an excellent amateur actress,
+and she and I got up some scenes from "The School for
+Scandal" and from "Nickleby," with immense success.
+We played in the old hall, with the audience filled up and
+running over with servants. The entertainments concluded
+with feats of legerdemain (for the performance of which I
+have a pretty good apparatus, collected at divers times and
+in divers places), and we then fell to country dances of a
+most frantic description, and danced all night. We often
+spoke of you and Mrs. Cerjat and of Haldimand, and wished
+you were all there. Watson and I have some fifty times
+"registered a vow" (like O'Connell) to come to Lausanne
+together, and have even settled in what month and week.
+Something or other has always interposed to prevent us;
+but I hope, please God, most certainly to see it again, when
+my labours-Copperfieldian shall have terminated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You have no idea what that hanging of the Mannings
+really was. The conduct of the people was so indescribably
+frightful, that I felt for some time afterwards almost as if I
+were living in a city of devils. I feel, at this hour, as if I
+never could go near the place again. My letters have made
+a great to-do, and led to a great agitation of the subject;
+but I have not a confident belief in any change being made,
+mainly because the total abolitionists are utterly reckless
+and dishonest (generally speaking), and would play the
+deuce with any such proposition in Parliament, unless it
+were strongly supported by the Government, which it would
+certainly not be, the Whig motto (in office) being "<i>laissez
+aller</i>." I think Peel might do it if he came in. Two
+points have occurred to me as being a good commentary to
+the objections to my idea. The first is that a most terrific
+uproar was made when the hanging processions were
+abolished, and the ceremony shrunk from Tyburn to the
+prison door. The second is that, at this very time, under
+the British Government in New South Wales, executions
+take place <i>within the prison walls</i>, with decidedly improved
+results. (I am waiting to explode this fact on the first
+man of mark who gives me the opportunity.)</p>
+
+<p>Unlike you, we have had no marriages or giving in
+marriage here. We might have had, but a certain young
+lady, whom you know, is hard to please. The children are
+all well, thank God! Charley is going to Eton the week
+after next, and has passed a first-rate examination. Kate
+is quite well, and unites with me and Georgina in love to
+you and Mrs. Cerjat and Haldimand, whom I would give
+a good deal (tell him) to have several hours' contradiction
+of at his own table. Good heavens, how obstinate
+we would both be! I see him leaning back in his
+chair, with his right forefinger out, and saying, "Good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+God!" in reply to some proposition of mine, and then
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>All in a moment a feeling comes over me, as if you and
+I have been still talking, smoking cigars outside the inn at
+Martigny, the piano sounding inside, and Lady Mary Taylour
+singing. I look into my garden (which is covered with
+snow) rather dolefully, but take heart again, and look
+brightly forward to another expedition to the Great St.
+Bernard, when Mrs. Cerjat and I shall laugh as I fancy I
+have never laughed since, in one of those one-sided cars;
+and when we shall again learn from Haldimand, in a little
+dingy cabaret, at lunch-time, how to secure a door in
+travelling (do you remember?) by balancing a chair against
+it on its two hind-legs.</p>
+
+<p>I do hope that we may all come together again once
+more, while there is a head of hair left among us; and in
+this hope remain, my dear Cerjat,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1850.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> the spring Charles Dickens took a short holiday again,
+with his wife and sister-in-law, at Brighton, from whence he
+wrote to Mr. Wills, on "Household Words" business. The
+first number of this journal appeared on the 30th March.</div>
+
+<p>This autumn he succeeded, for the first time, in getting
+possession of the "Fort House," Broadstairs, on which he
+had always set his affections. He was hard at work on the
+closing numbers of "David Copperfield" during all the
+summer and autumn. The family moved to Broadstairs
+in July, but as a third daughter was born in August, they
+were not joined by Mrs. Dickens until the end of September.
+"David Copperfield" was finished in October.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The beginning of his correspondence with Mrs. Gaskell is
+in his asking her to contribute to "Household Words," which
+she did from the first number, and very frequently afterwards
+both to "Household Words" and "All the Year Round."</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. David Roberts, R.A., is one thanking
+him for a remembrance of his (Mr. Roberts's) travels in the
+East&mdash;a picture of a "Simoom in the Desert," which was
+one of Charles Dickens's most highly prized possessions.</p>
+
+<p>A letter to Mr. Sheridan Knowles contains allusions
+which we have no means of explaining, but we publish it,
+as it is characteristic, and addressed to a literary celebrity.
+Its being inscribed to "Daddy" Knowles illustrates a habit
+of Charles Dickens&mdash;as does a letter later in this year to Mr.
+Stone, beginning, "My dear P."&mdash;of giving nicknames to
+the friends with whom he was on the most affectionate and
+intimate terms. Mr. Stone&mdash;especially included in this category&mdash;was
+the subject of many such names; "Pump," or
+"Pumpion," being one by which he was frequently addressed&mdash;a
+joke as good-humouredly and gladly received as
+it was kindly and pleasantly intended.</p>
+
+<p>There were no public amateur theatricals this year; but
+in November, the greater part of the amateur company
+played for three nights at Knebworth Park, as the guests of
+Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (afterwards Lord Lytton), who
+entertained all his county neighbours to witness the performances.
+The play was "Every Man in his Humour,"
+and farces, varied each night.</p>
+
+<p>This year we have our first letter to Miss Mary Boyle, a
+cousin of Mrs. Watson, well known as an amateur actress and
+an accomplished lady. Miss Boyle was to have acted with
+the amateur company at Knebworth, but was prevented by
+domestic affliction. Early in the following year there was a
+private play at Rockingham Castle, when Miss Boyle acted
+with Charles Dickens, the play being "Used Up," in which
+Mrs. Dickens also acted; and the farce, "Animal Magnetism,"
+in which Miss Boyle and Miss Hogarth played.
+The letters to Mrs. Watson in this year refer chiefly to the
+preparations for the play in her house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The accident mentioned in the letter addressed to Mr.
+Henry Bicknell (son-in-law of Mr. David Roberts, R.A.,
+and a much-esteemed friend of Charles Dickens) was an
+accident which happened to Mrs. Dickens, while rehearsing
+at a theatre. She fell through a trap-door, spraining her
+ankle so badly as to be incapacitated from taking her part
+in the theatricals at Knebworth.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. David
+Roberts,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>January 3rd, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Roberts</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am more obliged to you than I can tell you for
+the beautiful mark of your friendly remembrance which
+you have sent me this morning. I shall set it up among
+my household gods with pride. It gives me the highest
+gratification, and I beg you to accept my most cordial and
+sincere thanks. A little bit of the tissue paper was sticking
+to the surface of the picture, and has slightly marked it. It
+requires but a touch, as one would dot an "i" or cross a "t,"
+to remove the blemish; but as I cannot think of a recollection
+so full of poetry being touched by any hand but
+yours, I have told Green the framer, whenever he shall be
+on his way with it, to call on you by the road. I enclose a
+note from Mrs. Dickens, which I hope will impress you into
+a country dance, with which we hope to dismiss Christmas
+merrily.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Roberts,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. James
+Sheridan
+Knowles.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>January 3rd, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear good Knowles</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many happy New Years to you, and to all who are
+near and dear to you. Your generous heart unconsciously
+exaggerates, I am sure, my merit in respect of that most
+honourable gentleman who has been the occasion of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+recent correspondence. I cannot sufficiently admire the
+dignity of his conduct, and I really feel indebted to you for
+giving me the gratification of observing it.</p>
+
+<p>As to that "cross note," which, rightly considered, was
+nothing of the sort, if ever you refer to it again, I'll do&mdash;I
+don't exactly know what, but something perfectly desperate
+and ferocious. If I have ever thought of it, it has only
+been to remember with delight how soon we came to a
+better understanding, and how heartily we confirmed it
+with a most expressive shake of the hand, one evening
+down in that mouldy little den of Miss Kelly's.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Heartily and faithfully yours.<br /></div>
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Daddy" Knowles.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>January 31st, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You may perhaps have seen an announcement in the
+papers of my intention to start a new cheap weekly journal
+of general literature.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know what your literary vows of temperance or
+abstinence may be, but as I do honestly know that there is
+no living English writer whose aid I would desire to enlist
+in preference to the authoress of "Mary Barton" (a book
+that most profoundly affected and impressed me), I venture
+to ask you whether you can give me any hope that you will
+write a short tale, or any number of tales, for the projected
+pages.</p>
+
+<p>No writer's name will be used, neither my own nor any
+other; every paper will be published without any signature,
+and all will seem to express the general mind and purpose
+of the journal, which is the raising up of those that are
+down, and the general improvement of our social condition.
+I should set a value on your help which your modesty can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+hardly imagine; and I am perfectly sure that the least
+result of your reflection or observation in respect of the life
+around you, would attract attention and do good.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I regard your time as valuable, and consider it
+so when I ask you if you could devote any of it to this
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>If you could and would prefer to speak to me on the
+subject, I should be very glad indeed to come to Manchester
+for a few hours and explain anything you might wish to
+know. My unaffected and great admiration of your book
+makes me very earnest in all relating to you. Forgive my
+troubling you for this reason, and believe me ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Mrs. Dickens and her sister send their love.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been going to write to you for a long time,
+but have always had in my mind that you might come here
+with Lotty any day. As Lotty has come without you, however
+(witness a tremendous rampaging and ravaging now
+going on upstairs!), I despatch this note to say that I
+suppose you have seen the announcement of "the" new
+weekly thing, and that if you would ever write anything
+for it, you would please me better than I can tell you. We
+hope to do some solid good, and we mean to be as cheery
+and pleasant as we can. (And, putting our hands in our
+breeches pockets, we say complacently, that our money is
+as good as Blackwood's any day in the week.)</p>
+
+<p>Now the murder's out!</p>
+
+<p>Are you never coming to town any more? Must I come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+to Bonchurch? Am I born (for the eight-and-thirtieth
+time) next Thursday, at half-past five, and do you mean
+to say you are <i>not</i> coming to dinner? Well, well, I can
+always go over to Puseyism to spite my friends, and that's
+some comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Poor dear Jeffrey! I had heard from him but a few
+days, and the unopened proof of No. 10 was lying on his
+table when he died. I believe I have lost as affectionate a
+friend as I ever had, or ever shall have, in this world.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever heartily yours, my dear White.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>February 8th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me thank you in the heartiest manner for your
+most kind and gratifying mention of me in your able
+pamphlet. It gives me great pleasure, and I sincerely
+feel it.</p>
+
+<p>I quite agree with you in all you say so well of the
+injustice and impolicy of this excessive taxation. But when
+I think of the condition of the great mass of the people, I
+fear that I could hardly find the heart to press for justice in
+this respect, before the window-duty is removed. They
+cannot read without light. They cannot have an average
+chance of life and health without it. Much as we feel our
+wrong, I fear that they feel their wrong more, and that the
+things just done in this wise must bear a new physical
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>I never see you, and begin to think we must have
+another play&mdash;say in Cornwall&mdash;expressly to bring us
+together.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'>SUGGESTIONS FOR TITLES OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS."<br /><br />
+
+THE FORGE:<br />
+<br />
+A Weekly Journal,<br />
+<br />
+Conducted by <span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class='poem2'>
+"Thus at the glowing Forge of Life our actions must be wrought,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Thus on its sounding anvil shaped</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Each burning deed and thought."&mdash;<i>Longfellow.</i></span><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Titles">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Hearth.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Home-Music.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Forge.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Change.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Crucible.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Time and Tide.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Anvil of the Time.</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Twopence.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Charles Dickens's Own.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">English Bells.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Seasonable Leaves.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Weekly Bells.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Evergreen Leaves.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Rocket.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Home.</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Good Humour.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">148, <span class="smcap">King's Road, Brighton</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday Night, March 12th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have made a correction or two in my part of the
+post-office article. I still observe the top-heavy "Household
+Words" in the title. The title of "The Amusements of the
+People" has to be altered as I have marked it. I would
+as soon have my hair cut off as an intolerable Scotch shortness
+put into my titles by the elision of little words.
+"The Seasons" wants a little punctuation. Will the
+"Incident in the Life of Mademoiselle Clairon" go into
+those two pages? I fear not, but one article would be
+infinitely better, I am quite certain, than two or three short
+ones. If it will go in, in with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I shall be back, please God, by dinner-time to-morrow
+week. I will be ready for Smithfield either on the following
+Monday morning at four, or any other morning you
+may arrange for.</p>
+
+<p>Would it do to make up No. 2 on Wednesday, the 20th,
+instead of Saturday? If so, it would be an immense convenience
+to me. But if it be distinctly necessary to make
+it up on Saturday, say by return, and I am to be relied
+upon. Don't fail in this.</p>
+
+<p>I really <i>can't</i> promise to be comic. Indeed, your
+note put me out a little, for I had just sat down to begin,
+"It will last my time." I will shake my head a little, and
+see if I can shake a more comic substitute out of it.</p>
+
+<p>As to <i>two</i> comic articles, or two any sort of articles, out
+of me, that's the intensest extreme of no-goism.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>July 13th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Being obliged (sorely against my will) to leave my
+work this morning and go out, and having a few spare
+minutes before I go, I write a hasty note, to hint how glad
+I am to have received yours, and how happy and tranquil
+we feel it to be for you all, that the end of that long illness
+has come.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Kate and Georgy send best loves to Mrs. White,
+and we hope she will take all needful rest and relief after
+those arduous, sad, and weary weeks. I have taken a house
+at Broadstairs, from early in August until the end of
+October, as I don't want to come back to London until I
+shall have finished "Copperfield." I am rejoiced at the
+idea of your going there. You will find it the healthiest
+and freshest of places; and there are Canterbury, and all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+varieties of what Leigh Hunt calls "greenery," within a few
+minutes' railroad ride. It is not very picturesque ashore,
+but extremely so seaward; all manner of ships continually
+passing close inshore. So come, and we'll have no end of
+sports, please God.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to say, as I know you will be to hear, that
+there seems a bright unanimity about "Copperfield." I
+am very much interested in it and pleased with it myself. I
+have carefully planned out the story, for some time past, to
+the end, and am making out my purposes with great care.
+I should like to know what you see from that tower of
+yours. I have little doubt you see the real objects in the
+prospect.</p>
+
+<p>"Household Words" goes on <i>thoroughly well</i>. It is
+expensive, of course, and demands a large circulation; but
+it is taking a great and steady stand, and I have no doubt
+already yields a good round profit.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow week I shall expect you. You shall have a
+bottle of the "Twenty." I have kept a few last lingering
+caskets with the gem enshrined therein, expressly for you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear White,</span><br />
+Cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Windsor, Paris</span>, <i>Thursday, July 27th, 1850.</i><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><i>After post-time.</i></span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have had much ado to get to work; the heat here
+being so intense that I can do nothing but lie on the bare
+floor all day. I never felt it anything like so hot in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing doing in the theatres, and the atmosphere
+is so horribly oppressive there that one can hardly
+endure it. I came out of the Fran&ccedil;ais last night half
+dead. I am writing at this moment with nothing on but a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+shirt and pair of white trousers, and have been sitting four
+hours at this paper, but am as faint with the heat as if I
+had been at some tremendous gymnastics; and yet we had
+a thunderstorm last night.</p>
+
+<p>I hope we are doing pretty well in Wellington Street.
+My anxiety makes me feel as if I had been away a year. I
+hope to be home on Tuesday evening, or night at latest. I
+have picked up a very curious book of French statistics
+that will suit us, and an odd proposal for a company connected
+with the gambling in California, of which you will
+also be able to make something.</p>
+
+<p>I saw a certain "Lord Spleen" mentioned in a playbill
+yesterday, and will look after that distinguished English
+nobleman to-night, if possible. Rachel played last night
+for the last time before going to London, and has not so
+much in her as some of our friends suppose.</p>
+
+<p>The English people are perpetually squeezing themselves
+into courtyards, blind alleys, closed edifices, and other
+places where they have no sort of business. The French
+people, as usual, are making as much noise as possible
+about everything that is of no importance, but seem (as far as
+one can judge) pretty quiet and good-humoured. They made
+a mighty hullabaloo at the theatre last night, when Brutus
+(the play was "Lucretia") declaimed about liberty.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>August 9th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall be obliged to you if you will write to this
+man, and tell him that what he asks I never do&mdash;firstly,
+because I have no kind of connection with any manager or
+theatre; secondly, because I am asked to read so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+manuscripts, that compliance is impossible, or I should have
+no other occupation or relaxation in the world.</p>
+
+
+<p><img src="images/rightindex.png" width="78" height="39" alt="left hand" title="left hand" />
+ A foreign gentleman, with a beard, name unknown,
+but signing himself "A Fellow Man," and dating from
+nowhere, declined, twice yesterday, to leave this house for
+any less consideration than the insignificant one of "twenty
+pounds." I have had a policeman waiting for him all day.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I enclose a few lines from Georgy, and write these
+to say that I purpose going home at some time on Thursday,
+but I cannot say precisely when, as it depends on what
+work I do to-morrow. Yesterday Charles Knight, White,
+Forster, Charley, and I walked to Richborough Castle and
+back. Knight dined with us afterwards; and the Whites,
+the Bicknells, and Mrs. Gibson came in in the evening and
+played vingt-et-un.</p>
+
+<p>Having no news I must tell you a story of Sydney.
+The children, Georgy, and I were out in the garden on
+Sunday evening (by-the-bye, I made a beautiful passage
+down, and got to Margate a few minutes after one), when I
+asked Sydney if he would go to the railroad and see if Forster
+was coming. As he answered very boldly "Yes," I opened
+the garden-gate, upon which he set off alone as fast as his
+legs would carry him; and being pursued, was not overtaken
+until he was through the Lawn House Archway, when he
+was still going on at full speed&mdash;I can't conceive where.
+Being brought back in triumph, he made a number of
+fictitious starts, for the sake of being overtaken again, and
+we made a regular game of it. At last, when he and Ally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+had run away, instead of running after them, we came into
+the garden, shut the gate, and crouched down on the ground.
+Presently we heard them come back and say to each other
+with some alarm, "Why, the gate's shut, and they're all
+gone!" Ally began in a dismayed way to cry out, but the
+Phenomenon shouting, "Open the gate!" sent an enormous
+stone flying into the garden (among our heads) by way of
+alarming the establishment. I thought it a wonderful piece
+of character, showing great readiness of resource. He would
+have fired a perfect battery of stones, or very likely have
+broken the pantry window, I think, if we hadn't let him in.</p>
+
+<p>They are all in great force, and send their loves. They
+are all much excited with the expectation of receiving you
+on Friday, and would start me off to fetch you now if I
+would go.</p>
+
+<p>Our train on Friday will be half-past twelve. I have
+spoken to Georgy about the partridges, and hope we may
+find some.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Kate,</span><br />
+Most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>Monday Night, Sept. 16th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Boyle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your letter having arrived in time for me to write a
+line by the evening post, I came out of a paroxysm of
+"Copperfield," to say that I am <i>perfectly delighted</i> to read
+it, and to know that we are going to act together in that
+merry party. We dress "Every Man" in Queen Elizabeth's
+time. The acting copy is much altered from the old play,
+but we still smooth down phrases when needful. I don't
+remember anyone that is changed. Georgina says she can't
+describe the dress Mrs. Kitely used to wear. I shall be in
+town on Saturday, and will then get Maclise to make me a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+little sketch, of it, carefully explained, which I will post to
+you. At the same time I will send you the book. After
+consideration of forces, it has occurred to me (old Ben being,
+I daresay, rare; but I <i>do</i> know rather heavy here and there)
+that Mrs. Inchbald's "Animal Magnetism," which we have
+often played, will "go" with a greater laugh than anything
+else. That book I will send you on Saturday too. You
+will find your part (Lisette, I think it is called, but it is
+a waiting-maid) a most admirable one; and I have seen
+people laugh at the piece until they have hung over the
+front of the boxes like ripe fruit. You may dress the part
+to please yourself after reading it. We wear powder. I will
+take care (bringing a theatrical hairdresser for the company)
+of your wig! We will rehearse the two pieces when we go
+down, or at least anything with which you have to do, over
+and over again. You will find my company so well used to
+it, and so accustomed to consider it a grave matter of business,
+as to make it easy. I am now awaiting the French
+books with a view to "Rockingham," and I hope to report
+of that too, when I write to you on Saturday.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Miss Boyle, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday, Sept. 20th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Boyle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I enclose you the book of "Animal Magnetism,"
+and the book of "Every Man in his Humour;" also a
+sketch by Mr. Maclise of a correct and picturesque Mrs.
+Kitely. Mr. Forster is Kitely; Mr. Lemon, Brainworm;
+Mr. Leech, Master Matthew; Mr. Jerrold, Master Stephen;
+Mr. Stone, Downright. Kitely's dress is a very plain
+purple gown, like a Bluecoat-boy's. Downright's dress is
+also very sober, chiefly brown and gray. All the rest of us
+are very bright. I am flaming red. Georgina will write<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+you about your colour and hers in "Animal Magnetism;"
+the gayer the better. I am the Doctor, in black, with red
+stockings. Mr. Lemon (an excellent actor), the valet, as
+far as I can remember, in blue and yellow, and a chintz
+waistcoat. Mr. Leech is the Marquis, and Mr. Egg the
+one-eyed servant.</p>
+
+<p>What do you think of doing "Animal Magnetism" as
+the last piece (we may play three in all, I think) at
+Rockingham? If so, we might make Quin the one-eyed
+servant, and beat up with Mrs. Watson for a Marquis. Will
+you tell me what you think of this, addressed to Broadstairs?
+I have not heard from Bulwer again. I daresay I have crossed
+a letter from him by coming up to-day; but I have every
+reason to believe that the last week in October is the time.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;This is quite a managerial letter, which I write
+with all manner of appointments and business discussions
+going on about me, having my pen on the paper and my
+eye on "Household Words," my head on "Copperfield"
+and my ear nowhere particularly.</p>
+
+<p>I will let you know about "A Day after the Wedding."
+I have sent for the book on Monday.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>September 24th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Coming out of "Copperfield" into a condition of
+temporary and partial consciousness, I plunge into histrionic
+duties, and hold enormous correspondence with Miss Boyle,
+between whom and myself the most portentous packets are
+continually passing. I send you a piece we purpose playing
+last at Rockingham, which "my company" played in
+London, Scotland, Manchester, Liverpool, and I don't know
+where else. It is one of the most ridiculous things ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+done. We purpose, as I have said, playing it last. Why
+do I send it to you? Because there is an excellent part
+(played in my troupe by George Cruikshank) for your
+brother in it&mdash;Jeffrey; with a black patch on his eye, and
+a lame leg, he would be charming&mdash;noble! If he is come
+home, give him my love and tell him so. If he is not come
+home, do me that favour when he does come. And add
+that I have a wig for him belonging to the part, which I
+have an idea of sending to the Exposition of '51, as a
+triumph of human ingenuity.</p>
+
+<p>I am the Doctor; Miss Boyle, Lisette; Georgy, the other
+little woman. We have nearly arranged our "bill" for
+Rockingham. We shall want one more reasonably good
+actor, besides your brother and Miss Boyle's, to play the
+Marquis in this piece. Do you know a being endowed by
+nature with the requisite qualities?</p>
+
+<p>There are some things in the next "Copperfield" that I
+think better than any that have gone before. After I have
+been believing such things with all my heart and soul, two
+results always ensue: first, I can't write plainly to the eye;
+secondly, I can't write sensibly to the mind. So "Copperfield"
+is to blame, and I am not, for this wandering note;
+and if you like it, you'll forgive me. With my affectionate
+remembrances to Watson,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I find I am not equal to the flourish.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Wednesday, Oct 30th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Boyle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are all extremely concerned and distressed to
+lose you. But we feel that it cannot be otherwise, and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+do not, in our own expectation of amusement, forget the
+sad cause of your absence.</p>
+
+<p>Bulwer was here yesterday; and if I were to tell you
+how earnestly he and all the other friends whom you don't
+know have looked forward to the projected association with
+you, and in what a friendly spirit they all express their
+disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, I think.
+Pray don't give yourself the least uneasiness on account of
+the blank in our arrangements. I did not write to you
+yesterday, in the hope that I might be able to tell you
+to-day that I had replaced you, in however poor a way. I
+cannot do that yet, but I am busily making out some means
+of filling the parts before we rehearse to-morrow night,
+and I trust to be able to do so in some out-of-the-way
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and Bridget send you their kindest remembrances.
+They are bitterly disappointed at not seeing
+you to-day, but we all hope for a better time.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Dear Miss Boyle,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday Evening, Nov. 23rd, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Being well home from Knebworth, where everything
+has gone off in a whirl of triumph and fired the whole
+length and breadth of the county of Hertfordshire, I write
+a short note to say that we are yours any time after Twelfth-night,
+and that we look forward to seeing you with the
+greatest pleasure. I should have made this reply to your
+last note sooner, but that I have been waiting to send you
+"Copperfield" in a new waistcoat. His tailor is so slow
+that it has not yet appeared; but when the resplendent
+garment comes home it shall be forwarded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have not your note at hand, but I think you said "any
+time after Christmas." At all events, and whatever you
+said, we will conclude a treaty on any terms you may
+propose. And if it should include any of Charley's holidays,
+perhaps you would allow us to put a brass collar round
+his neck, and chain him up in the stable.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgina (who has covered herself with glory)
+join me in best remembrances and regards to Watson and
+you and all the house. I have stupendous proposals to make
+concerning Switzerland in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>I promised Bulwer to make enquiry of you about "Miss
+Watson," whom he once knew and greatly wished to hear
+of. He associated her (but was not clear how) with Lady
+Palmer.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">My dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Bicknell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>November 28th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Bicknell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If I ever did such a thing, believe me I would do it
+at your request. But I don't, and if you could see the
+ramparts of letters from similar institutions with which my
+desk bristles every now and then, you would feel that nothing
+lies between total abstinence (in this regard) and utter
+bewilderment and lecturation.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and her sister unite with me in kind
+regards to you and Mrs. Bicknell. The consequences of the
+accident are fast fading, I am happy to say. We all hope
+to hear shortly that Mrs. Bicknell has recovered that other
+little accident, which (as you and I know) will occasionally
+happen in well-regulated families.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Savage
+Landor.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>,"</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Landor</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been (a strange thing for me) so very unwell
+since Sunday, that I have hardly been able to hold up my
+head&mdash;a bilious attack, I believe, and a very miserable sort
+of business. This, my dear friend, is the reason why I have
+not sooner written to you in reference to your noble letter,
+which I read in <i>The Examiner</i>, and for which&mdash;as it exalts
+me&mdash;I cannot, cannot thank you in words.</p>
+
+<p>We had been following up the blow in Kinkel's<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> favour,
+and I was growing sanguine, in the hope of getting him out
+(having enlisted strong and active sympathy in his behalf),
+when the news came of his escape. Since then we have
+heard nothing of him. I rather incline to the opinion that
+the damnable powers that be connived at his escape, but
+know nothing. Whether he be retaken or whether he
+appear (as I am not without hope he may) in the streets of
+London, I shall be a party to no step whatever without
+consulting you; and if any scrap of intelligence concerning
+him shall reach me, it shall be yours immediately.</p>
+
+<p>Horne wrote the article. I shall see him here to-night,
+and know how he will feel your sympathy and support.
+But I do not wait to see him before writing, lest you should
+think me slow to feel your generosity. We said at home
+when we read your letter, that it was like the opening of
+your whole munificent and bare heart.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever most affectionately yours,</span><br />
+My dear Landor.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 78px;">
+<img src="images/rightindex.png" width="78" height="39" alt="left hand" title="left hand" />
+</div>
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">This is No. 2</span>.<br /></div>
+<div class='date'>
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Monday Morning, Dec. 9th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your note to me of Saturday has crossed mine to
+you, I find. If you open both of mine together, please to
+observe <i>this is No. 2</i>.</p>
+
+<p>You may rely on Mr. Tucker's doing his work thoroughly
+well and charging a fair price. It is not possible for him to
+say aforehand, in such a case, what it will cost, I imagine,
+as he will have to adapt his work to the place. Nathan's
+stage knowledge may be stated in the following figures:
+00000000000. Therefore, I think you had best refer
+Mr. Tucker to <i>me</i>, and I will apply all needful screws and
+tortures to him.</p>
+
+<p>I have thought of one or two very ingenious (hem!)
+little contrivances for adapting the difficulties of "Used Up"
+to the small stage. They will require to be so exactly
+explained to your carpenter (though very easy little things
+in themselves), that I think I had better, before Christmas,
+send my servant down for an hour&mdash;he is quite an old stager
+now&mdash;to show him precisely what I mean. It is not a day's
+work, but it would be extremely difficult to explain in
+writing. I developed these wonderful ideas to the master
+carpenter at one of the theatres, and he shook his head
+with an intensely mournful air, and said, "Ah, sir, it's a
+universal observation in the profession, sir, that it was a
+great loss to the public when you took to writing books!"
+which I thought complimentary to "Copperfield."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Saturday, Dec. 14th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall be delighted to come on the seventh instead of
+the eighth. We consider it an engagement. Over and above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+the pleasure of a quiet day with you, I think I can greatly
+facilitate the preparations (that's the way, you see, in which
+we cheat ourselves into making duties of pleasures) by
+being at Rockingham a day earlier. So that's settled.</p>
+
+<p>I was quite certain when that Child of Israel mentioned
+those dimensions, that he must be wrong. For which
+wooden-headedness the Child shall be taken to task on
+Monday morning, when I am going to look at his preparations,
+by appointment, about the door. Don't you
+observe, that the scenery not being made expressly for the
+room, it may be impossible to use it as you propose? There
+is a scene before that wall, and unless the door in the scene
+(supposing there to be one, which I am not sure of) should
+come exactly into the place of the door of the room, the
+door of the room might as well be in Africa. If it could be
+used it would still require to be backed (excuse professional
+technicality) by another scene in the passage. And if it be
+rather in the side of the bottom of the room (as I seem to
+remember it), it would be shut out of sight, or partially, by
+the side scenes. Do you comprehend these stage managerial
+sagacities? That piece of additional room in so
+small a stage would be of immense service, if we could
+avail ourselves of it. If we can't, I have another means (I
+think) of discovering Leech, Saville, and Coldstream at
+table. I am constantly turning over in my mind the
+capacities of the place, and hope by one means or other to
+make something more than the best of it. As to the fireplace,
+you will never be able to use that. The heat of the
+lamp will be very great, and ventilation will be the thing
+wanted. Thirteen feet and a half of depth, diminished by
+stage fittings and furniture, is a small space. I think the
+doorway could be used in the last scene, with the castle
+steps and platform for the staircase running straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+through it toward the hall. <i>Nous verrons.</i> I will write
+again about my visit of inspection, probably on Monday.</p>
+
+<p>Will you let them know that Messrs. Nathan, of Titchborne
+Street, Haymarket, will dress them, please, and that
+I will engage for their doing it thoroughly well; also that
+Mr. Wilson, theatrical hairdresser, Strand, near St. Clement's
+Churchyard, will come down with wigs, etc., to "make up"
+everybody; that he has a list of the pieces from me, and
+that he will be glad to measure the heads and consult the
+tastes of all concerned, if they will give him the opportunity
+beforehand? I should like to see Sir Adonis Leech and the
+Hon. T. Saville if I can. For they ought to be wonderfully
+made up, and to be as unlike themselves as possible,
+and to contrast well with each other and with me. I rather
+grudge <i>caro sposo</i> coming into the company. I should like
+him so much to see the play. If we do it all well together it
+ought to be so very pleasant. I never saw a great mass of
+people so charmed with a little story as when we acted it
+at the Glasgow Theatre. But I have no other reason for
+faltering when I take him to my arms. I feel that he is the
+man for the part.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> I see him with a blue bag, a flaxen wig,
+and green spectacles. I know what it will be. I foresee
+how all that sessional experience will come out. I reconcile
+myself to it, in spite of the selfish consideration of wanting
+him elsewhere; and while I have a heavy sense of a light
+being snuffed out in the audience, perceive a new luminary
+shining on the stage!</p>
+
+<p>Your brother<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> would make a capital tiger, too! Very
+short tight surtout, doeskins, bright top-boots, white cravat,
+bouquet in button-hole, close wig&mdash;very good, ve&mdash;ry good.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+It clearly must be so. The thing is done. I told you we
+were opening a tremendous correspondence when we first
+began to write on such a long subject. But do let me tell
+you, once and for all, that I am in the business heart and
+soul, and that you cannot trouble me respecting it, and that
+I wouldn't willingly or knowingly leave the minutest detail
+unprovided for. It cannot possibly be a success if the
+smallest peppercorn of arrangement be omitted. And
+a success it must be! I couldn't go into such a thing,
+or help to bring you poorly out of it, for any earthly consideration.
+Talking of forgetting, isn't it odd? I doubt
+if I could forget words I had learned, so long as I wanted
+them. But the moment the necessity goes, they go. I
+know my place and everybody's place in this identical piece
+of "Used Up" perfectly, and could put every little object
+on its own square inches of room exactly where it ought to
+be. But I have no more recollection of my words now (I
+took the book up yesterday) than if I had only seen the play
+as one of the audience at a theatre. Perhaps not so much.
+With cordial remembrances,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>December 19th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am sorry to say that business ("Household Words"
+business) will keep me in town to-morrow. But on Monday
+I propose coming down and returning the same day. The
+train for my money appears to be the half-past six <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>
+(horrible initials!), and to that invention for promoting early
+rising I design to commit myself.</p>
+
+<p>I am shocked if I also made the mistake of confounding
+those two (and too) similar names.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> But I think Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+<span class="smcap">S-t-a-f-f-o-r-d</span> had better do the Marquis. I am glad to
+find that we agree, but we always do.</p>
+
+<p>I have closely overhauled the little theatre, and the
+carpenter and painter. The whole has been entirely
+repainted (I mean the proscenium and scenery) for this
+especial purpose, and is extremely pretty. I don't think,
+the scale considered, that anything better <i>could</i> be done. It
+is very elegant. I have brought "the Child" to this. For the
+hire of the theatre, fifteen pounds. The carriage to be extra.
+The Child's fares and expenses (which will be very moderate)
+to be extra. The stage carpenter's wages to be extra&mdash;seven
+shillings a day. I don't think, when you see the
+things, that you will consider this too much. It is as good
+as the Queen's little theatre at Windsor, raised stage
+excepted. I have had an extraction made, which will enable
+us to use the door. I am at present breaking my man's
+heart, by teaching him how to imitate the sounds of the
+smashing of the windows and the breaking of the balcony
+in "Used Up." In the event of his death from grief, I
+have promised to do something for his mother. Thinking
+it possible that you might not see the enclosed until next
+month, and hoping that it is seasonable for Christmas, I
+send it. Being, with cordial regards and all seasonable
+good wishes,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;This [blot] is a tear over the devotion of Captain
+Boyle, who (as I learned from the Child of Israel this
+morning) would not decide upon Farmer Wurzel's coat,
+without referring the question of buttons to managerial
+approval.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Poole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday Night, Christmas Eve, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Poole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On the Sunday when I last saw you, I went straight
+to Lord John's with the letter you read. He was out of
+town, and I left it with my card.</p>
+
+<p>On the following Wednesday I received a note from him,
+saying that he did not bear in mind exactly what I had told
+him of you before, and asking me to tell it again. I immediately
+replied, of course, and gave him an exact description
+of you and your condition, and your way of life in Paris
+and everything else; a perfect diorama in little, with you
+pervading it. To-day I got a letter from him, announcing
+that you have a pension of <i>a hundred a year</i>! of which I
+heartily wish you joy.</p>
+
+<p>He says: "I am happy to say that the Queen has
+approved of a pension of one hundred pounds a year to
+Mr. Poole.</p>
+
+<p>"The Queen, in her gracious answer, informs me that
+she meant to have mentioned Mr. Poole to me, and that she
+had wished to place him in the Charter House, but found
+the society there was not such as he could associate with.</p>
+
+<p>"Be so good as to inform Mr. Poole that directions are
+given for his pension, which will date from the end of June
+last."</p>
+
+<p>I have lost no time in answering this, but you must
+brace up your energies to write him a short note too, and
+another for the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>If you are in Paris, shall I ascertain what authority I
+shall need from you to receive the half-year, which I suppose
+will be shortly due? I can receive it as usual.</p>
+
+<p>With all good wishes and congratulations, seasonable
+and unseasonable,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Monday Morning, Dec. 30th, 1850.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As your letter is <i>decided</i>, the scaffolding shall be re-erected
+round Charley's boots (it has been taken down, and
+the workmen had retired to their respective homes in various
+parts of England and Wales) and his dressing proceeded
+with. I have been very much pleased with him in the
+matter, as he has never made the least demonstration of
+disappointment or mortification, and was perfectly contented
+to give in. (<i>Here I break off to go to Boxall.</i>) (<i>Here I
+return much exhausted.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Your time shall be stated in the bills for both nights. I
+propose to rehearse on the day, on Thursday and Friday,
+and in the evening on Saturday, that we may try our lights.
+Therefore:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="workers schedule on stage">
+<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Nathan<br />and<br />Stage Carpenter</span></td><td align='left'><div class="figcenter" style="width: 10px;">
+<img src="images/largebracketpointleft.png" width="10" height="100" alt="Bracket" title="Bracket" />
+</div></td><td align='left'>will come on Tuesday, 7th January, as there must be a responsible person to anathematise, and as the company seem so slow about their dresses, that I foresee the strong probability of Nathan having a good deal to do at Rockingham without respect.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Wilson</span></td><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>will come on Saturday, 11th January.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tucker</span></td><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>will come on Saturday, 11th January.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>I shall be delighted to see your brother, and so no more
+at present from</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 5em;">Yours ever,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Coldstream Freelove Doctor Dickens</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;As Boxall (with his head very much on one side
+and his spectacles on) danced backward from the canvas
+incessantly with great nimbleness, and returned, and made
+little digs at it with his pencil, with a horrible grin on his
+countenance, I augur that he pleased himself this morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tag" added by Mr. Dickens to "Animal Magnetism,"
+played at Rockingham Castle.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+ANIMAL MAGNETISM.&mdash;TAG.<br />
+<br />
+[After <span class="smcap">La Fleur</span> says to the Marquis: "Sir, return him the wand; and<br />
+the ladies, I daresay, will fall in love with him again."]<br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>
+<span class="smcap">Doctor</span>. I'm cheated, robbed! I don't believe! I hate<br />
+Wand, Marquis, Doctor, Ward, Lisette, and Fate!</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">La Fleur</span>. Not me?</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Doctor</span>. <i>You</i> worse, you rascal, than the rest.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">La Fleur</span>. (<i>bowing</i>). To merit it, good sir, I've done my best.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lisette</span>. (<i>sharply</i>). And I.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Constance</span>. <span style="margin-left: 2em;">I fear that I too have a claim</span><br />
+Upon your anger.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lisette</span>.        <span style="margin-left: 6em;">Anger, madam? Shame!</span><br />
+He's justly treated, as he might have known.<br />
+And if the wand were a divining one<br />
+It would have turn'd, within his very hands,<br />
+Point-blank to where your handsome husband stands.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Constance</span> (<i>glancing at</i> <span class="smcap">Doctor</span>). I would it were the wand of Harlequin,<br />
+To change his temper and his favour win.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Jeffrey</span> (<i>peeping in</i>). In that case, mistress, you might be so kind<br />
+As wave me back the eye of which I'm blind.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marquis</span> (<i>laughing and examining it</i>). 'Tis nothing but a piece of senseless wood,<br />
+And has no influence for harm or good.<br />
+Yet stay! It surely draws me towards those<br />
+Indulgent, pleasant, smiling, beaming rows!<br />
+It surely charms me.</div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">All</span>.        <span style="margin-left: 8em;">And us too.</span></div>
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marquis</span>.          <span style="margin-left: 10em;">To bend</span><br />
+Before their gen'rous efforts to commend;<br />
+To cheer us on, through these few happy hours,<br />
+And strew our mimic way with real flowers.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 14em;">[<i>All make obeisance.</i></span><br />
+Stay yet again. Among us all, I feel<br />
+One subtle, all-pervading influence steal,<br />
+Stirring one wish within one heart and head,<br />
+Bright be the path our host and hostess tread!<br />
+Blest be their children, happy be their race,<br />
+Long may they live, this ancient hall to grace<br />
+Long bear of English virtues noble fruit&mdash;<br />
+Green-hearted <span class="smcap">Rockingham</span>! strike deep thy root<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1851.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> February this year, Charles Dickens made a short bachelor
+excursion with Mr. Leech and the Hon. Spencer Lyttelton
+to Paris, from whence we give a letter to his wife. She
+was at this time in very bad health, and the little infant
+Dora had a serious illness during the winter. The child
+rallied for the time, but Mrs. Dickens continued so ill that
+she was advised to try the air&mdash;and water&mdash;of Malvern.
+And early in March, she and her sister were established in
+lodgings there, the children being left in London, and
+Charles Dickens dividing his time between Devonshire
+Terrace and Malvern. He was busily occupied before this
+time in superintending the arrangements for Mr. Macready's
+last appearance on the stage at Drury Lane, and for a great
+dinner which was given to Mr. Macready after it on the 1st
+March, at which the chair was taken by Sir Edward Bulwer
+Lytton. With him Charles Dickens was then engaged in
+maturing a scheme, which had been projected at the time
+of the amateur play at Knebworth, of a Guild of Literature
+and Art, which was to found a provident fund for literary
+men and artists; and to start which, a series of dramatic
+performances by the amateur company was proposed. Sir
+E. B. Lytton wrote a comedy, "Not so Bad as We Seem,"
+for the purpose, to be played in London and the provinces;
+and the Duke of Devonshire turned one of the splendid
+rooms in Devonshire House into a theatre, for the first
+occasion of its performance. It was played early in May
+before her Majesty and the Prince Consort, and a large
+audience. Later in the season, there were several representations
+of the comedy (with a farce, "Mr. Nightingale's
+Diary," written by Charles Dickens for himself and Mr.
+Mark Lemon) in the Hanover Square Rooms.</div>
+
+<p>But in the interval between the Macready banquet and
+the play at Devonshire House, Charles Dickens underwent
+great family trouble and sorrow. His father, whose health
+had been declining for some time, became seriously ill, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+Charles Dickens was summoned from Malvern to attend upon
+him. Mr. John Dickens died on the 31st March. On the 14th
+April, Charles Dickens had gone from Malvern to preside
+at the annual dinner of the General Theatrical Fund, and
+found his children all well at Devonshire Terrace. He was
+playing with his baby, Dora, before he went to the dinner;
+soon after he left the house the child died suddenly in her
+nurse's arms. The sad news was communicated to the
+father after his duties at the dinner were over. The next
+day, Mr. Forster went to Malvern to break the news to
+Mrs. Dickens, and she and her sister returned with him
+to London, and the Malvern lodgings were given up. But
+Mrs. Dickens being still out of health, and London being
+more than usually full (this being the year of the Great
+Exhibition), Charles Dickens decided to let the town house
+again for a few months, and engaged the Fort House,
+Broadstairs, from the beginning of May until November.
+This, which was his longest sojourn at Broadstairs, was also
+the last, as the following summer he changed his seaside resort,
+and never returned to that pretty little watering-place,
+although he always retained an affectionate interest in it.</p>
+
+<p>The lease of the Devonshire Terrace house was to expire
+this year. It was now too small for his family, so he could
+not renew it, although he left it with regret. From the
+beginning of the year, he had been in negotiation for a house
+in Tavistock Square, in which his friend Mr. Frank Stone had
+lived for some years. Many letters which follow are on
+the subject of this house and the improvements Charles
+Dickens made in it. His brother-in-law, Henry Austin&mdash;himself
+an architect&mdash;superintended the "works" at Tavistock
+House, as he did afterwards those at Gad's Hill&mdash;and
+there are many characteristic letters to Mr. Austin while these
+works were in progress. In the autumn, as a letter written
+in August to Mr. Stone will show, an exchange of houses
+was made&mdash;Mr. Stone removing with his family to Devonshire
+Terrace until his own new house was ready&mdash;while
+the alterations in Tavistock House went on, and Charles
+Dickens removed into it from Broadstairs, in November.</p>
+
+<p>His eldest son was now an Eton boy. He had been one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+of the party and had played a small part in the play at
+Rockingham Castle, in the Christmas holidays, and his
+father's letters to Mrs. Watson at the beginning of this year
+have reference to this play.</p>
+
+<p>This year he wrote and published the "Haunted Man,"
+which he had found himself unable to finish for the previous
+Christmas. It was the last of the Christmas <i>books</i>. He
+abandoned them in favour of a Christmas number of "Household
+Words," which he continued annually for many years
+in "Household Words" and "All the Year Round," and
+in which he had the collaboration of other writers. The
+"Haunted Man" was dramatised and produced at the
+Adelphi Theatre, under the management of Mr. Benjamin
+Webster. Charles Dickens read the book himself, at
+Tavistock House, to a party of actors and actresses.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the year he wrote the first number of
+"Bleak House," although it was not published until March
+of the following year. With the close attention and the
+hard work he gave, from the time of its starting, to his
+weekly periodical, he found it to be most desirable, now, in
+beginning a new monthly serial, that he should be ready
+with some numbers in advance before the appearance of the
+first number.</p>
+
+<p>A provincial tour for the "Guild" took place at the end
+of the year. A letter to his wife, from Clifton, in November,
+gives a notion of the general success and enthusiasm with
+which the plays were attended. The "new Hardman," to
+whom he alludes as taking that part in Sir E. B. Lytton's
+comedy in the place of Mr. Forster, was Mr. John Tenniel,
+who was a new addition, and a very valuable and pleasant
+one, to the company. Mr. Topham, the delightful water-colour
+painter, Mr. Dudley Costello, and Mr. Wilkie Collins
+were also new recruits to the company of "splendid strollers"
+about this time. A letter to Mr. Wills, asking him to take
+a part in the comedy, is given here. He never did <i>act</i> with
+the company, but he complied with Charles Dickens's desire
+that he should be "in the scheme" by giving it all sorts of
+assistance, and almost invariably being one of the party in
+the provincial tours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>January 24th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Kate will have told you, I daresay, that my despondency
+on coming to town was relieved by a talk with Lady
+John Russell, of which you were the subject, and in which she
+spoke of you with an earnestness of old affection and regard
+that did me good. I date my recovery (which has been
+slow) from that hour. I am still feeble, and liable to sudden
+outbursts of causeless rage and demoniacal gloom, but I
+shall be better presently. What a thing it is, that we can't
+be always innocently merry and happy with those we like
+best without looking out at the back windows of life!
+Well, one day perhaps&mdash;after a long night&mdash;the blinds on
+that side of the house will be down for ever, and nothing
+left but the bright prospect in front.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning supper-toast (of which I feel bound to make
+some mention), you did, as you always do, right, and exactly
+what was most agreeable to me.</p>
+
+<p>My love to your excellent husband (I wonder whether
+he and the dining-room have got to rights yet!), and to the
+jolly little boys and the calm little girl. Somehow, I shall
+always think of Lord Spencer as eternally walking up and
+down the platform at Rugby, in a high chill wind, with no
+apparent hope of a train&mdash;as I left him; and somehow I
+always think of Rockingham, after coming away, as if I
+belonged to it and had left a bit of my heart behind, which
+it is so very odd to find wanting twenty times a day.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, faithfully yours, and his.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Tuesday Night, Jan. 28th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear, dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I presume you mean Mr. Stafford and Mr. Stopford
+to pay Wilson (as I have instructed him) a guinea each?
+Am I right? In that just case I still owe you a guinea for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+<i>my</i> part. I was going to send you a post-office order for
+that amount, when a faint sense of absurdity mantled my
+ingenuous visage with a blush, and I thought it better to
+owe you the money until we met. I hope it may be soon!</p>
+
+<p>I believe I may lay claim to the mysterious inkstand,
+also to a volume lettered on the back, "Shipwrecks and
+Disasters at Sea, II.," which I left when I came down at
+Christmas. Will you take care of them as hostages until
+we effect an exchange?</p>
+
+<p>Charley went back in great spirits, threatening to write
+to George. It was a very wet night, and John took him to
+the railway. He said, on his return: "Mas'r Charles went
+off very gay, sir. He found some young gen'lemen as was
+his friends in the train, sir." "Come," said I, "I am glad
+of that. How many were there? Two or three?" "Oh
+dear, sir, there was a matter of forty, sir! All with their
+heads out o' the coach-windows, sir, a-hallooing 'Dickens!'
+all over the station!"</p>
+
+<p>Her ladyship and the ward of the <span class="smcap">Fiz-zish-un</span> send their
+best loves, in which I heartily join. If you and your dear
+husband come to town before we bring out Bulwer's comedy,
+I think we must have a snug reading of it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday, Jan. 31st, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lemon</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are deeply sorry to receive the mournful intelligence
+of your calamity. But we know you will both
+have found comfort in that blessed belief, from which the
+sacred figure with the child upon His knee is, in all stages
+of our lives, inseparable, for of such is the kingdom of God!</p>
+
+<p>We join in affectionate loves to you and your dear wife.
+She well deserves your praise, I am sure.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Monday, Feb. 10th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>There is a small part in Bulwer's comedy, but very
+good what there is&mdash;not much&mdash;my servant, who opens the
+play, which I should be very glad if you would like to do.</p>
+
+<p>Pray understand that there is no end of men who would
+do it, and that if you have the least objection to the trouble,
+I don't make this the expression of a wish even. Otherwise,
+I would like you to be in the scheme, which is a very great
+and important one, and which cannot have too many men
+who are steadily&mdash;not flightily, like some of our friends&mdash;in
+earnest, and who are not to be lightly discouraged.</p>
+
+<p>If you do the part, I would like to have a talk with you
+about the secretarial duties. They must be performed by
+someone I clearly see, and will require good business
+direction. I should like to put some young fellow, to whom
+such work and its remuneration would be an object, under
+your eye, if we could find one entire and perfect chrysolite
+anywhere. Let me know whether I am to rate you on the
+ship's books or not. If yes, consider yourself "called" to
+the reading (by Macready) at Forster's rooms, on Wednesday,
+the 19th, at three.</p>
+
+<p>And in the meantime you shall have a proof of the plan.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Wagram, Paris</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 12th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter this morning (on returning
+from an expedition to a market thirteen miles away, which
+involved the necessity of getting up at five), and am
+delighted to have such good accounts of all at home.</p>
+
+<p>We had D'Orsay to dinner yesterday, and I am hurried
+to dress now, in order to pay a promised visit to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+<i>atelier</i>. He was very happy with us, and is much improved
+both in spirits and looks. Lord and Lady Castlereagh live
+downstairs here, and we went to them in the evening, and
+afterwards brought him upstairs to smoke. To-night we
+are going to see Lema&icirc;tre in the renowned "Belph&eacute;gor"
+piece. To-morrow at noon we leave Paris for Calais (the
+Boulogne boat does not serve our turn), and unless the
+weather for crossing should be absurd, I shall be at home,
+please God, early on the evening of Saturday. It continues
+to be delightful weather here&mdash;gusty, but very clear and
+fine. Leech and I had a charming country walk before
+breakfast this morning at Poissy and enjoyed it very much.
+The rime was on the grass and trees, and the country
+most delicious.</p>
+
+<p>Spencer Lyttelton is a capital companion on a trip, and
+a great addition to the party. We have got on famously
+and been very facetious. With best love to Georgina and
+the darlings,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Friday Night, late, Feb. 21st, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Boyle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have devoted a couple of hours this evening to
+going very carefully over your paper (which I had read
+before) and to endeavouring to bring it closer, and to
+lighten it, and to give it that sort of compactness which a
+habit of composition, and of disciplining one's thoughts like
+a regiment, and of studying the art of putting each soldier
+into his right place, may have gradually taught me to think
+necessary. I hope, when you see it in print, you will not be
+alarmed by my use of the pruning-knife. I have tried to
+exercise it with the utmost delicacy and discretion, and to
+suggest to you, especially towards the end, how this sort of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+writing (regard being had to the size of the journal in which
+it appears) requires to be compressed, and is made pleasanter
+by compression. This all reads very solemnly, but only
+because I want you to read it (I mean the article) with as
+loving an eye as I have truly tried to touch it with a loving
+and gentle hand. I propose to call it "My Mahogany Friend."
+The other name is too long, and I think not attractive.
+Until I go to the office to-morrow and see what is actually
+in hand, I am not certain of the number in which it will
+appear, but Georgy shall write on Monday and tell you. We
+are always a fortnight in advance of the public or the
+mechanical work could not be done. I think there are many
+things in it that are <i>very pretty</i>. The Katie part is particularly
+well done. If I don't say more, it is because I have a
+heavy sense, in all cases, of the responsibility of encouraging
+anyone to enter on that thorny track, where the prizes are
+so few and the blanks so many; where&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But I won't write you a sermon. With the fire going
+out, and the first shadows of a new story hovering in a
+ghostly way about me (as they usually begin to do, when I
+have finished an old one), I am in danger of doing the heavy
+business, and becoming a heavy guardian, or something of
+that sort, instead of the light and airy Joe.</p>
+
+<p>So good-night, and believe that you may always trust
+me, and never find a grim expression (towards you) in any
+that I wear.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. David
+Roberts,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>February 21st, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Oh my dear Roberts, if you knew the trouble we have
+had and the money we pay for Drury Lane for one night
+for the benefit, you would never dream of it for the dinner.
+<i>There isn't possibility of getting a theatre.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I will do all I can for your charming little daughter, and
+hope to squeeze in half-a-dozen ladies at the last; but we
+must not breathe the idea or we shall not dare to execute
+it, there will be such an outcry.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>February 27th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Forster told me to-day that you wish Tennyson's
+sonnet to be read after your health is given on Saturday.
+I am perfectly certain that it would not do at that time. I
+am quite convinced that the audience would not receive
+it, under these exciting circumstances, as it ought to be
+received. If I had to read it, I would on no account undertake
+to do so at that period, in a great room crowded with
+a dense company. I have an instinctive assurance that it
+would fail. Being with Bulwer this morning, I communicated
+your wish to him, and he immediately felt as I do. I
+could enter into many reasons which induce me to form this
+opinion. But I believe that you have that confidence in me
+that I may spare you the statement of them.</p>
+
+<p>I want to know one thing from you. As I shall be
+obliged to be at the London Tavern in the afternoon of
+to-morrow, Friday (I write, observe, on Thursday night), I
+shall be much helped in the arrangements if you will send
+me your answer by a messenger (addressed here) on the
+receipt of this. Which would you prefer&mdash;that "Auld
+Lang Syne" should be sung after your health is given and
+before you return thanks, or after you have spoken?</p>
+
+<p>I cannot forbear a word about last night. I think I
+have told you sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when
+I was a mere boy, I was one of your faithful and devoted
+adherents in the pit; I believe as true a member of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+true host of followers as it has ever boasted. As I improved
+myself and was improved by favouring circumstances in
+mind and fortune, I only became the more earnest (if it
+were possible) in my study of you. No light portion of my
+life arose before me when the quiet vision to which I am
+beholden, in I don't know how great a decree, or for how
+much&mdash;who does?&mdash;faded so nobly from my bodily eyes
+last night. And if I were to try to tell you what I felt&mdash;of
+regret for its being past for ever, and of joy in the thought
+that you could have taken your leave of <i>me</i> but in God's
+own time&mdash;I should only blot this paper with some drops
+that would certainly not be of ink, and give very faint
+expression to very strong emotions.</p>
+
+<p>What is all this in writing! It is only some sort of
+relief to my full heart, and shows very little of it to you;
+but that's something, so I let it go.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;My very flourish departs from me for the moment.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. David
+Roberts,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Knutsford Lodge, Great Malvern</span>, <i>March 20th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Roberts</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens has been unwell, and I am here with
+her. I want you to give a quarter of an hour to the
+perusal of the enclosed prospectus; to consider the immense
+value of the design, if it be successful, to artists young and
+old; and then to bestow your favourable consideration on
+the assistance I am going to ask of you for the sake and in
+the name of the cause.</p>
+
+<p>For the representation of the new comedy Bulwer has
+written for us, to start this scheme, I am having an ingenious
+theatre made by Webster's people, for erection on
+certain nights in the Hanover Square Rooms. But it will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+first be put up in the Duke of Devonshire's house, where
+the first representation will take place before a brilliant
+company, including (I believe) the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>Now, will you paint us a scene&mdash;the scene of which I
+enclose Bulwer's description from the prompter's book? It
+will be a cloth with a set-piece. It should be sent to your
+studio or put up in a theatre painting-room, as you would
+prefer. I have asked Stanny to do another scene, Edwin
+Landseer, and Louis Haghe. The Devonshire House performance
+will probably be on Monday, the 28th of April.
+I should want to have the scenery complete by the 20th, as
+it would require to be elaborately worked and rehearsed.
+<i>You</i> could do it in no time after sending in your pictures,
+and will you?</p>
+
+<p>What the value of such aid would be I need not say.
+I say no more of the reasons that induce me to ask it,
+because if they are not in the prospectus they are nowhere.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday and Tuesday nights I shall be in town for
+rehearsal, but until then I shall be here. Will you let me
+have a line from you in reply?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Roberts, ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class='center'><br />
+<i>Description of the Scene proposed:</i><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Streets of London in the time of George I</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>In perspective, an alley inscribed <span class="smcap">Deadman's Lane</span>; a large, old-fashioned,
+gloomy, mysterious house in the corner, marked No. 1. (<i>This
+No. 1, Deadman's Lane, has been constantly referred to in the play as the abode
+of a mysterious female figure, who enters masked, and passes into this house
+on the scene being disclosed.</i>) It is night, and there are moonlight mediums.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. W. Office</span>, <i>Monday, March 26th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I reserve all news of the play until I come down.
+The Queen appoints the 30th of April. There is no end of
+trouble.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My father slept well last night, and is as well this
+morning (they send word) as anyone in such a state, so cut
+and slashed, can be. I have been waiting at home for
+Bulwer all the morning (it is now two), and am now waiting
+for Lemon before I go up there. I will not close this note
+until I have been.</p>
+
+<p>It is raining here incessantly. The streets are in a most
+miserable state. A van, containing the goods of some
+unfortunate family moving, has broken down close outside,
+and the whole scene is a picture of dreariness.</p>
+
+<p>The children are quite well and very happy. I had
+Dora down this morning, who was quite charmed to see me.
+That Miss Ketteridge appointed two to-day for seeing the
+house, and probably she is at this moment disparaging it.</p>
+
+<p>My father is very weak and low, but not worse, I hope,
+than might be expected. I am going home to dine with the
+children. By working here late to-night (coming back
+after dinner) I can finish what I have to do for the play.
+Therefore I hope to be with you to-morrow, in good time
+for dinner.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Love to Georgy.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <i>Thursday Morning, April 3rd, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I took my threatened walk last night, but it yielded
+little but generalities.</p>
+
+<p>However, I thought of something for <i>to-night</i>, that I
+think will make a splendid paper. I have an idea that it
+might be connected with the gas paper (making gas a great
+agent in an effective police), and made one of the articles.
+This is it: "A Night in a Station-house." If you would
+go down to our friend Mr. Yardley, at Scotland Yard, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+get a letter or order to the acting chief authority at that
+station-house in Bow Street, to enable us to hear the
+charges, observe the internal economy of the station-house
+all night, go round to the cells with the visiting policeman,
+etc., I would stay there, say from twelve to-night to four or
+five in the morning. We might have a "night-cap," a fire,
+and some tea at the office hard by. If you could conveniently
+borrow an hour or two from the night we could
+both go. If not, I would go alone. It would make a wonderful
+good paper at a most appropriate time, when the
+back slums of London are going to be invaded by all sorts
+of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>You needn't exactly say that <i>I</i> was going <i>in propri&acirc;</i>
+(unless it were necessary), and, of course, you wouldn't say
+that I propose to-night, because I am so worn by the sad
+arrangements in which I am engaged, and by what led to
+them, that I cannot take my natural rest. But to-morrow
+night we go to the gas-works. I might not be so disposed
+for this station-house observation as I shall be to-night for
+a long time, and I see a most singular and admirable chance
+for us in the descriptive way, not to be lost.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, if you will arrange the thing before I come
+down at four this afternoon, any of the Scotland Yard people
+will do it, I should think; if our friend by any accident
+should not be there, I will go into it.</p>
+
+<p>If they should recommend any other station-house as
+better for the purpose, or would think it better for us to go
+to more than one under the guidance of some trustworthy
+man, of course we will pay any man and do as they
+recommend. But I think one topping station-house would
+be best.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I write from my bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Saturday, May 24th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are getting in a good heap of money for the
+Guild. The comedy has been very much improved, in many
+respects, since you read it. The scene to which you refer is
+certainly one of the most telling in the play. And there <i>is</i>
+a farce to be produced on Tuesday next, wherein a distinguished
+amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts,
+and in particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of
+which I say no more. I am pining for Broadstairs, where
+the children are at present. I lurk from the sun, during
+the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness,
+canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a
+vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But
+I hope to get down on Wednesday or Thursday.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease,
+how little do you think of us among the London fleas! But
+they tell me you are coming in for Dorsetshire. You must
+be very careful, when you come to town to attend to your
+parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in the
+streets. They will misdirect you for what the vulgar call
+"a lark," meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense.
+Always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman.
+You will know him by his being dressed in blue, with
+very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his hat being
+made of sticking-plaster. You may perhaps see in some
+odd place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little
+wooden table before him and three thimbles on it. He will
+want you to bet, but don't do it. He really desires to cheat
+you. And don't buy at auctions where the best plated
+goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These,
+too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real
+good acting (though a little more subdued than perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+tragedy should be), I would recommend you to see &mdash;&mdash;
+at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody will show
+it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it
+by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab
+fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is
+half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is twopence per
+pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological
+Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission
+is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to
+see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly,
+Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please
+you after a time, though the tumult and bustle will at first
+bewilder you. If I can serve you in any way, pray command
+me. And with my best regards to your happy family, so
+remote from this Babel,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, my dear Friend,</span><br />
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I forgot to mention just now that the black
+equestrian figure you will see at Charing Cross, as you go
+down to the House, is a statue of <i>King Charles the First</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Earl of
+Carlisle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>July 8th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lord Carlisle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We shall be delighted to see you, if you will come
+down on Saturday. Mr. Lemon may perhaps be here, with
+his wife, but no one else. And we can give you a bed that
+may be surpassed, with a welcome that certainly cannot be.</p>
+
+<p>The general character of Broadstairs as to size and
+accommodation was happily expressed by Miss Eden, when
+she wrote to the Duke of Devonshire (as he told me), saying
+how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who asked leave to
+see her garden, for not plucking it bodily up, and sticking
+it in his button-hole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As we think of putting mignonette-boxes outside the
+windows, for the younger children to sleep in by-and-by, I
+am afraid we should give your servant the cramp if we
+hardily undertook to lodge him. But in case you should
+decide to bring one, he is easily disposable hard by.</p>
+
+<p>Don't come by the boat. It is rather tedious, and both
+departs and arrives at inconvenient hours. There is a railway
+train from the Dover terminus to Ramsgate, at half-past
+twelve in the day, which will bring you in three hours.
+Another at half-past four in the afternoon. If you will tell
+me by which you come (I hope the former), I will await you
+at the terminus with my little brougham.</p>
+
+<p>You will have for a night-light in the room we shall
+give you, the North Foreland lighthouse. That and the sea
+and air are our only lions. It is a very rough little place,
+but a very pleasant one, and you will make it pleasanter
+than ever to me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>July 11th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am so desperately indignant with you for writing
+me that short apology for a note, and pretending to suppose
+that under any circumstances I could fail to read with
+interest anything <i>you</i> wrote to me, that I have more than
+half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. If I were
+not the gentlest of men I should do it!</p>
+
+<p>Poor dear Haldimand, I have thought of him so often.
+That kind of decay is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous
+to me, that I have no words to express my compassion and
+sorrow. When I was at Abbotsford, I saw in a vile glass case
+the last clothes Scott wore. Among them an old white hat,
+which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+uneasy, purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his
+heavy head. It so embodied Lockhart's pathetic description
+of him when he tried to write, and laid down his pen and
+cried, that it associated itself in my mind with broken
+powers and mental weakness from that hour. I fancy
+Haldimand in such another, going listlessly about that
+beautiful place, and remembering the happy hours we have
+passed with him, and his goodness and truth. I think what
+a dream we live in, until it seems for the moment the saddest
+dream that ever was dreamed. Pray tell us if you hear
+more of him. We really loved him.</p>
+
+<p>To go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a
+week or so ago I took Charley and three of his schoolfellows
+down the river gipsying. I secured the services of Charley's
+godfather (an old friend of mine, and a noble fellow with
+boys), and went down to Slough, accompanied by two
+immense hampers from Fortnum and Mason, on (I believe)
+the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics.</p>
+
+<p>It cleared before we got to Slough; but the boys, who
+had got up at four (we being due at eleven), had horrible
+misgivings that we might not come, in consequence of which
+we saw them looking into the carriages before us, all face.
+They seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be all face;
+their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent.
+When they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were upon
+strong springs, and their waistcoats developed themselves
+in the usual places. When the first hamper came out of the
+luggage-van, I was conscious of their dancing behind the
+guard; when the second came out with bottles in it, they all
+stood wildly on one leg. We then got a couple of flys to
+drive to the boat-house. I put them in the first, but they
+couldn't sit still a moment, and were perpetually flying up
+and down like the toy figures in the sham snuff-boxes. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+this order we went on to "Tom Brown's, the tailor's," where
+they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the boat-house,
+where they all cried in shrill chorus for "Mahogany"&mdash;a
+gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion,
+a waterman by profession. (He was likewise
+called during the day "Hog" and "Hogany," and seemed
+to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) We
+embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped
+awning, which I had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing
+hard, went down the river. We dined in a field; what I
+suffered for fear those boys should get drunk, the struggles
+I underwent in a contest of feeling between hospitality and
+prudence, must ever remain untold. I feel, even now, old
+with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. They were very
+good, however. The speech of one became thick, and his
+eyes too like lobsters' to be comfortable, but only temporarily.
+He recovered, and I suppose outlived the salad
+he took. I have heard nothing to the contrary, and I
+imagine I should have been implicated on the inquest if
+there had been one. We had tea and rashers of bacon at a
+public-house, and came home, the last five or six miles in a
+prodigious thunderstorm. This was the great success of the
+day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else.
+The dinner had been great, and Mahogany had informed
+them, after a bottle of light champagne, that he never would
+come up the river "with ginger company" any more. But
+the getting so completely wet through was the culminating
+part of the entertainment. You never in your life saw such
+objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that
+it was at all advisable to go home and change, or that there
+was anything to prevent their standing at the station two
+mortal hours to see me off, was wonderful. As to getting
+them to their dames with any sort of sense that they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+damp, I abandoned the idea. I thought it a success when
+they went down the street as civilly as if they were just up
+and newly dressed, though they really looked as if you could
+have rubbed them to rags with a touch, like saturated
+curl-paper.</p>
+
+<p>I am sorry you have not been able to see our play, which
+I suppose you won't now, for I take it you are not going on
+Monday, the 21st, our last night in town? It is worth
+seeing, not for the getting up (which modesty forbids me to
+approve), but for the little bijou it is, in the scenery, dresses,
+and appointments. They are such as never can be got together
+again, because such men as Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve,
+Haghe, Egg, and others, never can be again combined in
+such a work. Everything has been done at its best from all
+sorts of authorities, and it is really very beautiful to look at.</p>
+
+<p>I find I am "used up" by the Exhibition. I don't say
+"there is nothing in it"&mdash;there's too much. I have only
+been twice; so many things bewildered me. I have a natural
+horror of sights, and the fusion of so many sights in one has
+not decreased it. I am not sure that I have seen anything
+but the fountain and perhaps the Amazon. It is a dreadful
+thing to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says,
+"Have you seen &mdash;&mdash;?" I say, "Yes," because if I don't,
+I know he'll explain it, and I can't bear that. &mdash;&mdash; took
+all the school one day. The school was composed of a
+hundred "infants," who got among the horses' legs in
+crossing to the main entrance from the Kensington Gate,
+and came reeling out from between the wheels of coaches
+undisturbed in mind. They were clinging to horses, I am
+told, all over the park.</p>
+
+<p>When they were collected and added up by the frantic
+monitors, they were all right. They were then regaled with
+cake, etc., and went tottering and staring all over the place;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+the greater part wetting their forefingers and drawing a
+wavy pattern on every accessible object. One infant strayed.
+He was not missed. Ninety and nine were taken home,
+supposed to be the whole collection, but this particular
+infant went to Hammersmith. He was found by the police
+at night, going round and round the turnpike, which he
+still supposed to be a part of the Exhibition. He had the
+same opinion of the police, also of Hammersmith workhouse,
+where he passed the night. When his mother came
+for him in the morning, he asked when it would be over?
+It was a great Exhibition, he said, but he thought it
+long.</p>
+
+<p>As I begin to have a foreboding that you will think the
+same of this act of vengeance of mine, this present letter, I
+shall make an end of it, with my heartiest and most loving
+remembrances to Watson. I should have liked him of all
+things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him, and to
+have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung
+in the thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends,
+describing the career of a booby who was plucked at
+college, every verse ending:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+I don't care a fig what the people may think,<br />
+But what <span class="smcap">will</span> the governor say!<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>which was shouted with a deferential jollity towards myself,
+as a governor who had that day done a creditable
+action, and proved himself worthy of all confidence.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">With love to the boys and girls,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Most sincerely yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Household Words</span>," <i>Sunday, July 20th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been considering the great house question
+since you kindly called yesterday evening, and come to the
+conclusion that I had better not let it go. I am convinced
+it is the prudent thing for me to do, and that I am very
+unlikely to find the same comforts for the rising generation
+elsewhere, for the same money. Therefore, as Robins no
+doubt understands that you would come to me yesterday&mdash;passing
+his life as he does amidst every possible phase of
+such negotiations&mdash;I think it hardly worth while to wait for
+the receipt of his coming letter. If you will take the trouble
+to call on him in the morning, and offer the &pound;1,450, I shall
+be very much obliged to you. If you will receive from me
+full power to conclude the purchase (subject of course to
+my solicitor's approval of the lease), pray do. I give you
+<i>carte blanche</i> to &pound;1,500, but I think the &pound;1,450 ought to
+win the day.</p>
+
+<p>I don't make any apologies for thrusting this honour
+upon you, knowing what a thorough-going old pump you are.
+Lemon and his wife are coming here, after the rehearsal, to
+a gipsy sort of cold dinner. Time, half-past three. Viands,
+pickled salmon and cold pigeon-pie. Occupation afterwards,
+lying on the carpet as a preparation for histrionic strength.
+Will you come with us from the Hanover Square Rooms?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>Sunday, July 27th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A most excellent Shadow!<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> I have sent it up to the
+printer, and Wills is to send you a proof. Will you look
+carefully at all the earlier part, where the use of the past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+tense instead of the present a little hurts the picturesque
+effect? I understand each phase of the thing to be <i>always
+a thing present before the mind's eye</i>&mdash;a shadow passing
+before it. Whatever is done, must be <i>doing</i>. Is it not so?
+For example, if I did the Shadow of Robinson Crusoe, I
+should not say he <i>was</i> a boy at Hull, when his father lectured
+him about going to sea, and so forth; but he <i>is</i> a boy at
+Hull. There he is, in that particular Shadow, eternally a
+boy at Hull; his life to me is a series of shadows, but there
+is no "was" in the case. If I choose to go to his manhood,
+I can. These shadows don't change as realities do. No
+phase of his existence passes away, if I choose to bring it
+to this unsubstantial and delightful life, the only death of
+which, to me, is <i>my</i> death, and thus he is immortal to
+unnumbered thousands. If I am right, will you look at the
+proof through the first third or half of the papers, and see
+whether the Factor comes before us in that way? If not,
+it is merely the alteration of the verb here and there that is
+requisite.</p>
+
+<p>You say you are coming down to look for a place next
+week. Now, Jerrold says he is coming on Thursday, by the
+cheap express at half-past twelve, to return with me for
+the play early on Monday morning. Can't you make that
+holiday too? I have promised him our only spare bed, but
+we'll find you a bed hard by, and shall be delighted "to
+eat and drink you," as an American once wrote to me.
+We will make expeditions to Herne Bay, Canterbury, where
+not? and drink deep draughts of fresh air. Come! They
+are beginning to cut the corn. You will never see the
+country so pretty. If you stay in town these days, you'll
+do nothing. I feel convinced you'll not buy the "Memoirs
+of a Man of Quality." Say you'll come!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>Saturday, August 23rd, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A "dim vision" occurs to me, arising out of your
+note; also presents itself to the brains of my other
+half.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing you should find, on looking onward, a possibility
+of your being houseless at Michaelmas, what do you
+say to using Devonshire Terrace as a temporary encampment?
+It will not be in its usual order, but we would take
+care that there should be as much useful furniture of all
+sorts there, as to render it unnecessary for you to move a
+stick. If you should think this a convenience, then I should
+propose to you to pile your furniture in the middle of the
+rooms at Tavistock House, and go out to Devonshire Terrace
+two or three weeks <i>before</i> Michaelmas, to enable my workmen
+to commence their operations. This might be to our
+mutual convenience, and therefore I suggest it. Certainly
+the sooner I can begin on Tavistock House the better.
+And possibly your going into Devonshire Terrace might
+relieve you from a difficulty that would otherwise be
+perplexing.</p>
+
+<p>I make this suggestion (I need not say to <i>you</i>) solely on
+the chance of its being useful to both of us. If it were
+merely convenient to me, you know I shouldn't dream
+of it. Such an arrangement, while it would cost you
+nothing, would perhaps enable you to get your new house
+into order comfortably, and do exactly the same thing
+for me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I anticipated your suggestion some weeks ago,
+when I found I couldn't build a stable. I said I ought to
+have permission to take the piece of ground into my garden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+which was conceded. Loaden writes me this morning that
+he thinks he can get permission to build a stable one storey
+high, without a chimney. I reply that on the whole I would
+rather enlarge the garden than build a stable with those
+restrictions.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Sunday, September 7th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am in that state of mind which you may (once) have
+seen described in the newspapers as "bordering on distraction;"
+the house given up to me, the fine weather going on
+(soon to break, I daresay), the painting season oozing away,
+my new book waiting to be born, and</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">no workmen on the premises</span>,<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>along of my not hearing from you!! I have torn all my
+hair off, and constantly beat my unoffending family. Wild
+notions have occurred to me of sending in my own plumber
+to do the drains. Then I remember that you have probably
+written to prepare <i>your</i> man, and restrain my audacious
+hand. Then Stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly
+mysterious visage, and says that a rat has appeared
+in the kitchen, and it's his opinion (Stone's, not the rat's)
+that the drains want "compo-ing;" for the use of which
+explicit language I could fell him without remorse. In my
+horrible desire to "compo" everything, the very postman
+becomes my enemy because he brings no letter from you;
+and, in short, I don't see what's to become of me unless I
+hear from you to-morrow, which I have not the least expectation
+of doing.</p>
+
+<p>Going over the house again, I have materially altered
+the plans&mdash;abandoned conservatory and front balcony&mdash;decided
+to make Stone's painting-room the drawing-room (it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+is nearly six inches higher than the room below), to carry
+the entrance passage right through the house to a back door
+leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended
+drawing-room&mdash;now school-room&mdash;to a manageable size,
+making a door of communication between the new drawing-room
+and the study. Curtains and carpets, on a scale of
+awful splendour and magnitude, are already in preparation,
+and still&mdash;still&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">no workmen on the premises</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>To pursue this theme is madness. Where are you?
+When are you coming home? Where is the man who is to
+do the work? Does he know that an army of artificers
+must be turned in at once, and the whole thing finished out
+of hand? O rescue me from my present condition. Come
+up to the scratch, I entreat and implore you!</p>
+
+<p>I send this to L&aelig;titia to forward,</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Being, as you well know why,<br />
+Completely floored by N. W., I<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><i>Sleep</i>.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I hope you may be able to read this. My state of mind
+does not admit of coherence.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;<span class="smcap">No workmen on the premises</span>!</p>
+
+<p>Ha! ha! ha! (I am laughing demoniacally.)</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs</span>, <i>Sunday, September 21st, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It is quite clear we could do nothing else with the
+drains than what you have done. Will it be at all a heavy
+item in the estimate?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If there be the <i>least</i> chance of a necessity for the pillar,
+let us have it. Let us dance in peace, whatever we do, and
+only go into the kitchen by the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>Have they cut the door between the drawing-room and
+the study yet? The foreman will let Shoolbred know when
+the feat is accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>O! and did you tell him of another brass ventilator
+in the dining-room, opening into the dining-room flue?</p>
+
+<p>I don't think I shall come to town until you want to
+show the progress, whenever that may be. I shall look
+forward to another dinner, and I think we must encourage
+the Oriental, for the goodness of its wine.</p>
+
+<p>I am getting a complete set of a certain distinguished
+author's works prepared for a certain distinguished architect,
+which I hope he will accept, as a slight, though very inadequate,
+etc. etc.; affectionate, etc.; so heartily and kindly
+taking so much interest, etc. etc.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Love to L&aelig;titia.</span><br />
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>October 7th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'>O! O! O! D&mdash;&mdash; the Pantechnicon. O!</div>
+
+<p>I will be at Tavistock House at twelve on Saturday, and
+then will wait for you until I see you. If we return together&mdash;as
+I hope we shall&mdash;our express will start at half-past
+four, and we ought to dine (somewhere about Temple Bar)
+at three.</p>
+
+<p>The infamous &mdash;&mdash; says the stoves shall be fixed to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>O! if this were to last long; the distraction of the new
+book, the whirling of the story through one's mind, escorted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
+by workmen, the imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning
+to write, the not being able to do so, the, O! I should
+go&mdash;&mdash; O!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;None. I have torn it off.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Broadstairs, Kent</span>, <i>October 10th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><span class="smcap">on the death of her mother</span>.</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Boyle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your remembrance at such a time&mdash;not thrown away
+upon me, trust me&mdash;is a sufficient assurance that you know
+how truly I feel towards you, and with what an earnest
+sympathy I must think of you now.</p>
+
+<p>God be with you! There is indeed nothing terrible in
+such a death, nothing that we would undo, nothing that we
+may remember otherwise than with deeply thankful, though
+with softened hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Kate sends you her affectionate love. I enclose a note
+from Georgina. Pray give my kindest remembrances to
+your brother Cavendish, and believe me now and ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Eeles.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">"<span class="smcap">Household Words" Office</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday Evening, Oct. 22nd, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Eeles</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you the list I have made for the book-backs.
+I should like the "History of a Short Chancery Suit" to
+come at the bottom of one recess, and the "Catalogue of
+Statues of the Duke of Wellington" at the bottom of the
+other. If you should want more titles, and will let me know
+how many, I will send them to you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p>
+<div class='center'><br />
+LIST OF IMITATION BOOK-BACKS.<br />
+<br />
+<i>Tavistock House</i>, 1851.<br />
+<br />
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Books at Tavistock">
+<tr><td align='left'>Five Minutes in China. 3 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Forty Winks at the Pyramids. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Abernethy on the Constitution. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Green's Overland Mail. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Captain Cook's Life of Savage. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A Carpenter's Bench of Bishops. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Toot's Universal Letter-Writer. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Orson's Art of Etiquette.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Downeaster's Complete Calculator.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>History of the Middling Ages. 6 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jonah's Account of the Whale.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Captain Parry's Virtues of Cold Tar.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kant's Ancient Humbugs. 10 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Bowwowdom. A Poem.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Quarrelly Review. 4 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Gunpowder Magazine. 4 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Steele. By the Author of "Ion."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Art of Cutting the Teeth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Matthew's Nursery Songs. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Paxton's Bloomers. 5 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>On the Use of Mercury by the Ancient Poets.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Drowsy's Recollections of Nothing. 3 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Heavyside's Conversations with Nobody. 3 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Commonplace Book of the Oldest Inhabitant. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Growler's Gruffiology, with Appendix. 4 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Books of Moses and Sons. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Burke (of Edinburgh) on the Sublime and Beautiful. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Teazer's Commentaries.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>King Henry the Eighth's Evidences of Christianity. 5 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Miss Biffin on Deportment.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Morrison's Pills Progress. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lady Godiva on the Horse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Munchausen's Modern Miracles. 4 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Richardson's Show of Dramatic Literature. 12 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hansard's Guide to Refreshing Sleep. As many volumes as possible.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Oct. 25th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On the day of our departure, I thought we were going&mdash;backward&mdash;at
+a most triumphant pace; but yesterday we
+rather recovered. The painters still mislaid their brushes every
+five minutes, and chiefly whistled in the intervals; and the
+carpenters (especially the Pantechnicon) continued to look
+sideways with one eye down pieces of wood, as if they were
+absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the
+Thames Tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities
+of this transitory world; but still there was an improvement,
+and it is confirmed to-day. White lime is to be seen
+in kitchens, the bath-room is gradually resolving itself from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+an abstract idea into a fact&mdash;youthful, extremely youthful,
+but a fact. The drawing-room encourages no hope whatever,
+nor the study. Staircase painted. Irish labourers
+howling in the school-room, but I don't know why. I see
+nothing. Gardener vigorously lopping the trees, and really
+letting in the light and air. Foreman sweet-tempered but
+uneasy. Inimitable hovering gloomily through the premises
+all day, with an idea that a little more work is done when he
+flits, bat-like, through the rooms, than when there is no one
+looking on. Catherine all over paint. Mister McCann,
+encountering Inimitable in doorways, fades obsequiously
+into areas, and there encounters him again, and swoons with
+confusion. Several reams of blank paper constantly spread
+on the drawing-room walls, and sliced off again, which looks
+like insanity. Two men still clinking at the new stair-rails.
+I think they must be learning a tune; I cannot make out
+any other object in their proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>Since writing the above, I have been up there again,
+and found the young paper-hanger putting on his slippers,
+and looking hard at the walls of the servants' room at the
+top of the house, as if he meant to paper it one of these
+days. May Heaven prosper his intentions!</p>
+
+<p>When do you come back? I hope soon.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Clifton</span>, <i>November 13th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Kate</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have just received your second letter, and am quite
+delighted to find that all is going on so vigorously, and that
+you are in such a methodical, business-like, and energetic
+state. I shall come home by the express on Saturday
+morning, and shall hope to be at home between eleven and
+twelve.</p>
+
+<p>We had a noble night last night. The room (which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+the largest but one in England) was crammed in every part.
+The effect of from thirteen to fourteen hundred people, all
+well dressed, and all seated in one unbroken chamber, except
+that the floor rose high towards the end of the hall, was
+most splendid, and we never played to a better audience.
+The enthusiasm was prodigious; the place delightful for
+speaking in; no end of gas; another hall for a dressing-room;
+an immense stage; and every possible convenience.
+We were all thoroughly pleased, I think, with the whole
+thing, and it was a very great and striking success. To-morrow-night,
+having the new Hardman, I am going to try
+the play with all kinds of cuts, taking out, among other
+things, some half-dozen printed pages of "Wills's Coffee
+House."</p>
+
+<p>We are very pleasant and cheerful. They are all going
+to Matthew Davenport Hill's to lunch this morning, and to
+see some woods about six or seven miles off. I prefer being
+quiet, and shall go out at my leisure and call on Elliot. We
+are very well lodged and boarded, and, living high up on
+the Downs, are quite out of the filth of Bristol.</p>
+
+<p>I saw old Landor at Bath, who has bronchitis. When
+he was last in town, "Kenyon drove him about, by God,
+half the morning, under a most damnable pretence of
+taking him to where Walter was at school, and they never
+found the confounded house!" He had in his pocket on
+that occasion a souvenir for Walter in the form of a Union
+shirt-pin, which is now in my possession, and shall be duly
+brought home.</p>
+
+<p>I am tired enough, and shall be glad when to-morrow
+night is over. We expect a very good house. Forster
+came up to town after the performance last night, and promised
+to report to you that all was well. Jerrold is in
+extraordinary force. I don't think I ever knew him so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+humorous. And this is all my news, which is quite enough.
+I am continually thinking of the house in the midst of all
+the bustle, but I trust it with such confidence to you that I
+am quite at my ease about it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">With best love to Georgy and the girls,</span><br />
+Ever, my dearest Kate, most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I forgot to say that Topham has suddenly come out
+as a juggler, and swallows candles, and does wonderful things
+with the poker very well indeed, but with a bashfulness and
+embarrassment extraordinarily ludicrous.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Eeles.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square</span>, <i>Nov. 17th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Eeles</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I must thank you for the admirable manner in which
+you have done the book-backs in my room. I feel personally
+obliged to you, I assure you, for the interest you have
+taken in my whim, and the promptitude with which you
+have completely carried it out.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday Afternoon, Dec. 5th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write in great haste to tell you that Mr. Wills, in
+the utmost consternation, has brought me your letter, just
+received (four o'clock), and that it is <i>too late</i> to recall your
+tale. I was so delighted with it that I put it first in the
+number (not hearing of any objection to my proposed
+alteration by return of post), and the number is now made
+up and in the printer's hands. I cannot possibly take the
+tale out&mdash;it has departed from me.</p>
+
+<p>I am truly concerned for this, but I hope you will not
+blame me for what I have done in perfect good faith. Any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
+recollection of me from your pen cannot (as I think you
+know) be otherwise than truly gratifying to me; but with
+my name on every page of "Household Words," there
+would be&mdash;or at least I should feel&mdash;an impropriety in so
+mentioning myself. I was particular, in changing the
+author, to make it "Hood's <i>Poems</i>" in the most important
+place&mdash;I mean where the captain is killed&mdash;and I hope and
+trust that the substitution will not be any serious drawback
+to the paper in any eyes but yours. I would do anything
+rather than cause you a minute's vexation arising out of
+what has given me so much pleasure, and I sincerely
+beseech you to think better of it, and not to fancy that any
+shade has been thrown on your charming writing, by</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+The unfortunate but innocent.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I write at a gallop, not to lose another post.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, December 21st, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If you were not the most suspicious of women, always
+looking for soft sawder in the purest metal of praise, I should
+call your paper delightful, and touched in the tenderest and
+most delicate manner. Being what you are, I confine myself
+to the observation that I have called it "A Love Affair at
+Cranford," and sent it off to the printer.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Peter
+Cunningham.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>December 26th, 1851.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cunningham</span>,</div>
+
+<p>About the three papers.</p>
+
+<p>1st. With Mr. Plowman of Oxford, Wills will communicate.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. (Now returned.) I have seen, in nearly the same
+form, before. The list of names is overwhelming.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>3rd. I am not at all earnest in the Savage matter;
+firstly, because I think so tremendous a vagabond never
+could have obtained an honest living in any station of existence
+or at any period of time; and secondly, because I think
+it of the highest importance that such an association as our
+Guild should not appear to resent upon society the faults of
+individuals who were flagrantly impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>At its best, it is liable to that suspicion, as all such efforts
+have been on the part of many jealous persons, to whom it
+<i>must</i> look for aid. And any stop that in the least encourages
+it is one of a fatal kind.</p>
+
+<p>I do <i>not</i> think myself, but this is merely an individual
+opinion, that Savage <i>was</i> a man of genius, or that anything
+of his writing would have attracted much notice but for
+the bastard's reference to his mother. For these reasons
+combined, I should not be inclined to add my subscription
+of two guineas to yours, unless the inscription were altered
+as I have altered it in pencil. But in that case I should be
+very glad to respond to your suggestion, and to snuff out all
+my smaller disinclination.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1852.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> the summer of this year, Charles Dickens hired a house
+at Dover for three months, whither he went with his family.
+At the end of this time he sent his children and servants
+back to Tavistock House, and crossed over to Boulogne, with
+his wife and sister-in-law, to inspect that town and its neighbourhood,
+with a view of making it his summer quarters in
+the following year. Many amateur performances were given
+in the provinces in aid of the fund for the Guild of Literature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+and Art; Charles Dickens, as usual, taking the whole management
+on his own shoulders.</div>
+
+<p>In March, the first number of "Bleak House" appeared,
+and he was at work on this book all through the year, as
+well as being constantly occupied with his editorship of
+"Household Words."</p>
+
+<p>We have, in the letters for this year, Charles Dickens's
+first to Lord John Russell (afterwards the Earl Russell); a
+friend whom he held in the highest estimation, and to whom
+he was always grateful for many personal kindnesses. We
+have also his first letter to Mr. Wilkie Collins, with whom
+he became most intimately associated in literary work. The
+affectionate friendship he had for him, the high value in which
+he held him as a brother-artist, are constantly expressed in
+Charles Dickens's own letters to Mr. Collins, and in his letters
+to other friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Those gallant men" (in the letter to Mr. J. Crofton
+Croker) had reference to an antiquarian club, called the
+Noviomagians, who were about to give a dinner in honour
+of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain Kellett, the officers in
+command of the Arctic Exploring Expedition, to which
+Charles Dickens was also invited. Mr. Crofton Croker was
+the president of this club, and to denote his office it was
+customary to put on a cocked hat after dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The "lost character" he writes of in a letter to Mrs.
+Watson, refers to two different decipherings of his handwriting;
+this sort of study being in fashion then, and he
+and his friends at Rockingham Castle deriving much
+amusement from it.</p>
+
+<p>The letter dated July 9th was in answer to an anonymous
+correspondent, who wrote to him as follows: "I
+venture to trespass on your attention with one serious
+query, touching a sentence in the last number of 'Bleak
+House.' Do the supporters of Christian missions to the
+heathen really deserve the attack that is conveyed in the
+sentence about Jo' seated in his anguish on the door-step of
+the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
+Parts? The allusion is severe, but is it just? Are such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+boys as Jo' neglected? What are ragged schools, town
+missions, and many of those societies I regret to see sneered
+at in the last number of 'Household Words'?"</p>
+
+<p>The "Duke of Middlesex," in the letter we have here to
+Mr. Charles Knight, was the name of the character played
+by Mr. F. Stone, in Sir E. B. Lytton's comedy of "Not so
+Bad as we Seem."</p>
+
+<p>Our last letter in this year, to Mr. G. Linn&aelig;us Banks, was
+in acknowledgment of one from him on the subject of a
+proposed public dinner to Charles Dickens, to be given by
+the people of Birmingham, when they were also to present
+him with a salver and a diamond ring. The dinner was given
+in the following year, and the ring and salver (the latter an
+artistic specimen of Birmingham ware) were duly presented
+by Mr. Banks, who acted as honorary secretary, in the names
+of the subscribers, at the rooms of the Birmingham Fine
+Arts Association. Mr. Banks, and the artist, Mr. J. C.
+Walker, were the originators of this demonstration.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 31st, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If the "taxes on knowledge" mean the stamp duty,
+the paper duty, and the advertisement duty, they seem to
+me to be unnecessarily confounded, and unfairly too.</p>
+
+<p>I have already declined to sign a petition for the removal
+of the stamp duty on newspapers. I think the reduced
+duty is some protection to the public against the rash and
+hasty launching of blackguard newspapers. I think the
+newspapers are made extremely accessible to the poor man
+at present, and that he would not derive the least benefit
+from the abolition of the stamp. It is not at all clear to
+me, supposing he wants <i>The Times</i> a penny cheaper, that
+he would get it a penny cheaper if the tax were taken off.
+If he supposes he would get in competition two or three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+new journals as good to choose from, he is mistaken; not
+knowing the immense resources and the gradually perfective
+machinery necessary to the production of such a journal. It
+appears to me to be a fair tax enough, very little in the way
+of individuals, not embarrassing to the public in its mode of
+being levied, and requiring some small consideration and
+pauses from the American kind of newspaper projectors.
+Further, a committee has reported in favour of the repeal,
+and the subject may be held to need no present
+launching.</p>
+
+<p>The repeal of the paper duty would benefit the producers
+of periodicals immensely. It would make a very large difference
+to me, in the case of such a journal as "Household
+Words." But the gain to the public would be very small.
+It would not make the difference of enabling me, for
+example, to reduce the price of "Household Words," by
+its fractional effect upon a copy, or to increase the quantity
+of matter. I might, in putting the difference into my
+pocket, improve the quality of the paper a little, but not
+one man in a thousand would notice it. It <i>might</i> (though I
+am not sure even of this) remove the difficulties in the way
+of a deserving periodical with a small sale. Charles Knight
+holds that it would. But the case, on the whole, appeared
+to me so slight, when I went to Downing Street with a
+deputation on the subject, that I said (in addressing the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer) I could not honestly maintain
+it for a moment as against the soap duty, or any other
+pressing on the mass of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>The advertisement duty has this preposterous anomaly,
+that a footman in want of a place pays as much in the way
+of tax for the expression of his want, as Professor Holloway
+pays for the whole list of his miraculous cures.</p>
+
+<p>But I think, at this time especially, there is so much to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+be considered in the necessity the country will be under of
+having money, and the necessity of justice it is always
+under, to consider the physical and moral wants of the poor
+man's home, as to justify a man in saying: "I must wait a
+little, all taxes are more or less objectionable, and so no
+doubt are these, but we must have some; and I have not
+made up my mind that all these things that are mixed up
+together <i>are</i> taxes on knowledge in reality."</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest
+love to dear Mrs. Macready. We are always with you in
+spirit, and always talking about you. I am obliged to
+conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with business
+engagements. Saw the lecture and was delighted; thought
+the idea admirable. Again, loves upon loves to dear Mrs.
+Macready and to Miss Macready also, and Kate and all the
+house. I saw &mdash;&mdash; play (O Heaven!) "Macbeth," the
+other night, in three hours and fifty minutes, which is quick,
+I think.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever and always affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. J.
+Crofton
+Croker.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>March 6th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have the greatest interest in those gallant men, and
+should have been delighted to dine in their company. I feel
+truly obliged to you for your kind remembrance on such an
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>But I am engaged to Lord Lansdowne on Wednesday,
+and can only drink to them in the spirit, which I have often
+done when they have been farther off.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you will find occasion to put on your cocked hat,
+that they may see how terrific and imposing "a fore-and-after"
+can be made on shore.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>April 6th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>My "lost character" was one of those awful documents
+occasionally to be met with, which <span class="smcap">will</span> be everywhere.
+It glared upon me from every drawer I had, fell out of
+books, lurked under keys, hid in empty inkstands, got into
+portfolios, frightened me by inscrutably passing into locked
+despatch-boxes, and was not one character, but a thousand.
+This was when I didn't want it. I look for it this morning,
+and it is nowhere! Probably will never be beheld
+again.</p>
+
+<p>But it was very unlike this one; and there is no doubt
+that when these ventures come out good, it is only by lucky
+chance and coincidence. She never mentioned my love of
+order before, and it is so remarkable (being almost a <i>dis</i>order),
+that she ought to have fainted with surprise when
+my handwriting was first revealed to her.</p>
+
+<p>I was very sorry to leave Rockingham the other day,
+and came away in quite a melancholy state. The Birmingham
+people were very active; and the Shrewsbury gentry
+quite transcendent. I hope we shall have a very successful
+and dazzling trip. It is delightful to me to think of your
+coming to Birmingham; and, by-the-bye, if you will tell me
+in the previous week what hotel accommodation you want,
+Mr. Wills will look to it with the greatest pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Your bookseller ought to be cashiered. I suppose "he"
+(as Rogers calls everybody's husband) went out hunting with
+the idea of diverting his mind from dwelling on its loss.
+Abortive effort!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 8em;">Charley brings this with himself.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">With kindest regards and remembrances,</span><br />
+Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, most faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>June 29th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A thousand thanks for the Shadow, which, is charming.
+May you often go (out of town) and do likewise!</p>
+
+<p>I dined with Charles Kemble, yesterday, to meet Emil
+Devrient, the German actor. He said (Devrient is my antecedent)
+that Ophelia <i>spoke</i> the snatches of ballads in their
+German version of "Hamlet," because they didn't know the
+airs. Tom Taylor said that you had published the airs in
+your "Shakespeare." I said that if it were so, I knew you
+would be happy to place them at the German's service. If
+you have got them and will send them to me, I will write to
+Devrient (who knows no English) a French explanation and
+reminder of the circumstance, and will tell him that you
+responded like a man and a&mdash;I was going to say publisher,
+but you are nothing of the sort, except as Tonson. Then
+indeed you are every inch a pub.!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Lord John
+Russell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday, June 30th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lord</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am most truly obliged to you for your kind note,
+and for your so generously thinking of me in the midst of
+your many occupations. I do assure you that your ever
+ready consideration had already attached me to you in the
+warmest manner, and made me very much your debtor.
+I thank you unaffectedly and very earnestly, and am proud
+to be held in your remembrance.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me always, yours faithfully and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Anonymous
+Correspondent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square</span>, <i>July 9th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have received your letter of yesterday's date, and
+shall content myself with a brief reply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a long time during which benevolent societies
+were spending immense sums on missions abroad, when there
+was no such thing as a ragged school in England, or any
+kind of associated endeavour to penetrate to those horrible
+domestic depths in which such schools are now to be found,
+and where they were, to my most certain knowledge, neither
+placed nor discovered by the Society for the Propagation of
+the Gospel in Foreign Parts.</p>
+
+<p>If you think the balance between the home mission and
+the foreign mission justly held in the present time, I do not.
+I abstain from drawing the strange comparison that might
+be drawn between the sums even now expended in endeavours
+to remove the darkest ignorance and degradation from our
+very doors, because I have some respect for mistakes that
+may be founded in a sincere wish to do good. But I present
+a general suggestion of the still-existing anomaly (in such a
+paragraph as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing
+some people to reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance
+more correctly. I am decidedly of opinion that the two
+works, the home and the foreign, are <i>not</i> conducted with an
+equal hand, and that the home claim is by far the stronger
+and the more pressing of the two.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I have very grave doubts whether a great commercial
+country, holding communication with all parts of the
+world, can better Christianise the benighted portions of it
+than by the bestowal of its wealth and energy on the making
+of good Christians at home, and on the utter removal of
+neglected and untaught childhood from its streets, before it
+wanders elsewhere. For, if it steadily persist in this work,
+working downward to the lowest, the travellers of all grades
+whom it sends abroad will be good, exemplary, practical
+missionaries, instead of undoers of what the best professed
+missionaries can do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These are my opinions, founded, I believe, on some
+knowledge of facts and some observation. If I could be
+scared out of them, let me add in all good humour, by such
+easily-impressed words as "antichristian" or "irreligious,"
+I should think that I deserved them in their real
+signification.</p>
+
+<p>I have referred in vain to page 312 of "Household
+Words" for the sneer to which you call my attention. Nor
+have I, I assure you, the least idea where else it is to be
+found.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+10, <span class="smcap">Camden Crescent, Dover</span>, <i>July 22nd, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is indeed a noble letter. The description of the
+family is quite amazing. I <i>must</i> return it myself to say that
+I <span class="smcap">have</span> appreciated it.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to do "Used Up" at Manchester on the 2nd
+of September. O, think of that! With another Mary!!!
+How can I ever say, "<i>Dear</i> Joe, if you like!" The voice
+may fully frame the falsehood, but the heart&mdash;the heart,
+Mr. Wurzel&mdash;will have no part in it.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Mary, you do scant justice to Dover. It is not
+quite a place to my taste, being too bandy (I mean musical,
+no reference to its legs), and infinitely too genteel. But the
+sea is very fine, and the walks are quite remarkable. There
+are two ways of going to Folkestone, both lovely and striking
+in the highest degree; and there are heights, and downs,
+and country roads, and I don't know what, everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>To let you into a secret, I am not quite sure that I
+ever did like, or ever shall like, anything quite so well
+as "Copperfield." But I foresee, I think, some very
+good things in "Bleak House." I shouldn't wonder if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+were the identical things that D'Israeli sees looming in the
+distance. I behold them in the months ahead and weep.</p>
+
+<p>Watson seemed, when I saw him last, to be holding on
+as by a sheet-anchor to theatricals at Christmas. Then,
+O rapture! but be still, my fluttering heart.</p>
+
+<p>This is one of what I call my wandering days before I
+fall to work. I seem to be always looking at such times for
+something I have not found in life, but may possibly come
+to a few thousands of years hence, in some other part of
+some other system. God knows. At all events I won't put
+your pastoral little pipe out of tune by talking about it. I'll
+go and look for it on the Canterbury road among the hop-gardens
+and orchards.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever faithfully your Friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+10, <span class="smcap">Camden Crescent, Dover</span>, <i>Sunday, Aug. 1st, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I don't see why you should go to the Ship, and I
+won't stand it. The state apartment will be occupied by
+the Duke of Middlesex (whom I think you know), but we
+can easily get a bed for you hard by. Therefore you will
+please to drive here next Saturday evening. Our regular
+dinner hour is half-past five. If you are later, you will find
+something ready for you.</p>
+
+<p>If you go on in that way about your part, I shall think
+you want to play Mr. Gabblewig. Your r&ocirc;le, though a
+small one on the stage, is a large one off it; and no man is
+more important to the Guild, both on and off.</p>
+
+<p>My dear friend Watson! Dead after an illness of four
+days. He dined with us this day three weeks. I loved
+him as my heart, and cannot think of him without tears.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Dover</span>, <i>August 5th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mark</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Poor dear Watson was dead when the paragraph in
+the paper appeared. He was buried in his own church
+yesterday. Last Sunday three weeks (the day before he
+went abroad) he dined with us, and was quite well and
+happy. She has come home, is at Rockingham with the
+children, and does not weakly desert his grave, but sets up
+her rest by it from the first. He had been wandering in
+his mind a little before his death, but recovered consciousness,
+and fell asleep (she says) quite gently and peacefully
+in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>I loved him very much, and God knows he deserved it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Earl of
+Carlisle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+10, <span class="smcap">Camden Crescent, Dover</span>, <i>Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lord Carlisle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>'Peared to me (as Uncle Tom would say) until within
+these last few days, that I should be able to write to
+you, joyfully accepting your Saturday's invitation after
+Newcastle, in behalf of all whom it concerned. But the
+Sunderland people rushed into the field to propose our
+acting there on that Saturday, the only possible night.
+And as it is the concluding Guild expedition, and the Guild
+has a paramount claim on us, I have been obliged to knock
+my own inclinations on the head, cut the throat of my own
+wishes, and bind the Company hand and foot to the
+Sunderland lieges. I don't mean to tell them now of your
+invitation until we shall have got out of that country.
+There might be rebellion. We are staying here for the
+autumn.</p>
+
+<p>Is there any hope of your repeating your visit to these
+coasts?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+10, <span class="smcap">Camden Crescent, Dover</span>, <i>August 5th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+ON THE DEATH OF MR. WATSON.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear, dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot bear to be silent longer, though I know full
+well&mdash;no one better I think&mdash;how your love for him, and
+your trust in God, and your love for your children will have
+come to the help of such a nature as yours, and whispered
+better things than any friendship can, however faithful and
+affectionate.</p>
+
+<p>We held him so close in our hearts&mdash;all of us here&mdash;and
+have been so happy with him, and so used to say how good
+he was, and what a gentle, generous, noble spirit he had,
+and how he shone out among commoner men as something
+so real and genuine, and full of every kind of worthiness,
+that it has often brought the tears into my eyes to talk of
+him; we have been so accustomed to do this when we
+looked forward to years of unchanged intercourse, that now,
+when everything but truth goes down into the dust, those
+recollections which make the sword so sharp pour balm into
+the wound. And if it be a consolation to us to know the
+virtues of his character, and the reasons that we had for
+loving him, O how much greater is your comfort who were
+so devoted to him, and were the happiness of his life!</p>
+
+<p>We have thought of you every day and every hour; we
+think of you now in the dear old house, and know how right
+it is, for his dear children's sake, that you should have
+bravely set up your rest in the place consecrated by their
+father's memory, and within the same summer shadows that
+fall upon his grave. We try to look on, through a few years,
+and to see the children brightening it, and George a comfort
+and a pride and an honour to you; and although it <i>is</i> hard
+to think of what we have lost, we know how something of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+it will be restored by your example and endeavours, and the
+blessing that will descend upon them. We know how the
+time will come when some reflection of that cordial, unaffected,
+most affectionate presence, which we can never
+forget, and never would forget if we could&mdash;such is God's
+great mercy&mdash;will shine out of your boy's eyes upon you,
+his best friend and his last consoler, and fill the void there
+is now.</p>
+
+<p>May God, who has received into His rest through this
+affliction as good a man as ever I can know and love and
+mourn for on this earth, be good to you, dear friends,
+through these coming years! May all those compassionate
+and hopeful lessons of the great Teacher who shed divine
+tears for the dead bring their full comfort to you! I have
+no fear of that, my confidence is certainty.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot write what I wish; I had so many things to
+say, I seem to have said none. It is so with the remembrances
+we send. I cannot put them into words.</p>
+
+<p>If you should ever set up a record in the little church, I
+would try to word it myself, and God knows out of the
+fulness of my heart, if you should think it well.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 12em;">My dear Friend,</span><br />
+Yours, with the truest affection and sympathy.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Des Bains, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday Night, Oct. 5th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />ON THE DEATH OF MRS. MACREADY.</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your melancholy letter while we were
+staying at Dover, a few days after it was written; but I
+thought it best not to write to you until you were at home
+again, among your dear children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Its tidings were not unexpected to us, had been
+anticipated in many conversations, often thought of under
+many circumstances; but the shock was scarcely lessened
+by this preparation. The many happy days we have passed
+together came crowding back; all the old cheerful times
+arose before us; and the remembrance of what we had
+loved so dearly and seen under so many aspects&mdash;all natural
+and delightful and affectionate and ever to be cherished&mdash;was,
+how pathetic and touching you know best!</p>
+
+<p>But my dear, dear Macready, this is not the first time
+you have felt that the recollection of great love and
+happiness associated with the dead soothes while it wounds.
+And while I can imagine that the blank beside you may
+grow wider every day for many days to come, I <i>know</i>&mdash;I
+think&mdash;that from its depths such comfort will arise as only
+comes to great hearts like yours, when they can think upon
+their trials with a steady trust in God.</p>
+
+<p>My dear friend, I have known her so well, have been
+so happy in her regard, have been so light-hearted with
+her, have interchanged so many tender remembrances of
+you with her when you were far away, and have seen her
+ever so simply and truly anxious to be worthy of you, that
+I cannot write as I would and as I know I ought. As I
+would press your hand in your distress, I let this note go
+from me. I understand your grief, I deeply feel the reason
+that there is for it, yet in that very feeling find a softening
+consolation that must spring up a hundred-thousandfold for
+you. May Heaven prosper it in your breast, and the
+spirits that have gone before, from the regions of mercy to
+which they have been called, smooth the path you have to
+tread alone! Children are left you. Your good sister (God
+bless her!) is by your side. You have devoted friends, and
+more reasons than most men to be self-reliant and stedfast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+Something is gone that never in this world can be replaced,
+but much is left, and it is a part of her life, her death, her
+immortality.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine and Georgina, who are with me here, send you
+their overflowing love and sympathy. We hope that in a
+little while, and for a little while at least, you will come
+among us, who have known the happiness of being in this
+bond with you, and will not exclude us from participation in
+your past and future.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Macready, with unchangeable affection,</span><br />
+Yours in all love and truth.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Des Bains, Boulogne</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 12th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+H. W.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I have thought of the Christmas number, but not very
+successfully, because I have been (and still am) constantly
+occupied with "Bleak House." I purpose returning home
+either on Sunday or Monday, as my work permits, and we
+will, immediately thereafter, dine at the office and talk it
+over, so that you may get all the men to their work.</p>
+
+<p>The fault of &mdash;&mdash;'s poem, besides its intrinsic meanness
+as a composition, is that it goes too glibly with the comfortable
+ideas (of which we have had a great deal too much in
+England since the Continental commotions) that a man is to
+sit down and make himself domestic and meek, no matter
+what is done to him. It wants a stronger appeal to rulers
+in general to let men do this, fairly, by governing them well.
+As it stands, it is at about the tract-mark ("Dairyman's
+Daughter," etc.) of political morality, and don't think that
+it is necessary to write <i>down</i> to any part of our audience. I
+always hold that to be as great a mistake as can be made.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would mention to Thomas, that I think the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+paper on hops <i>extremely well done</i>. He has quite caught
+the idea we want, and caught it in the best way. In
+pursuing the bridge subject, I think it would be advisable
+to look up the <i>Thames police</i>. I have a misty notion of some
+capital papers coming out of it. Will you see to this branch
+of the tree among the other branches?</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Myself</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>To Chapman I will write. My impression is that I shall
+not subscribe to the Hood monument, as I am not at all
+favourable to such posthumous honours.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel des Bains, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday Night, Oct. 13th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The number coming in after dinner, since my letter
+was written and posted, I have gone over it.</p>
+
+<p>I am grievously depressed by it; it is so exceedingly
+bad. If you have anything else to put first, don't put &mdash;&mdash;'s
+paper first. (There is nothing better for a beginning in the
+number as it stands, but this is very bad.) It is a mistake
+to think of it as a first article. The article itself is in the
+main a mistake. Firstly, the subject requires the greatest
+discretion and nicety of touch. And secondly, it is all wrong
+and self-contradictory. Nobody can for a moment suppose
+that "sporting" amusements are the sports of the <span class="smcap">people</span>;
+the whole gist of the best part of the description is to show
+that they are the amusements of a peculiar and limited class.
+The greater part of them are at a miserable discount (horse-racing
+excepted, which has been already sufficiently done in
+H. W.), and there is no reason for running amuck at them
+at all. I have endeavoured to remove much of my objection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+(and I think have done so), but, both in purpose and in any
+general address, it is as wide of a first article as anything
+can well be. It would do best in the opening of the number.</p>
+
+<p>About Sunday in Paris there is no kind of doubt. Take
+it out. Such a thing as that crucifixion, unless it were done
+in a masterly manner, we have no business to stagger families
+with. Besides, the name is a comprehensive one, and should
+include a quantity of fine matter. Lord bless me, what I
+could write under that head!</p>
+
+<p>Strengthen the number, pray, by anything good you
+may have. It is a very dreary business as it stands.</p>
+
+<p>The proofs want a thorough revision.</p>
+
+<p>In haste, going to bed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I want a name for Miss Martineau's paper.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Triumphant Carriages</span> (or <span class="smcap">Triumphal</span>).<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Dublin Stoutheartedness</span>.<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Patience and Prejudice</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Take which you like best.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Watkins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Monday</span>, <i>October 18th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On my return to town I find the letter awaiting me
+which you did me the favour to address to me, I believe&mdash;for
+it has no date&mdash;some days ago.</p>
+
+<p>I have the greatest tenderness for the memory of Hood,
+as I had for himself. But I am not very favourable to
+posthumous memorials in the monument way, and I should
+exceedingly regret to see any such appeal as you contemplate
+made public, remembering another public appeal that
+was made and responded to after Hood's death. I think
+that I best discharge my duty to my deceased friend, and
+best consult the respect and love with which I remember
+him, by declining to join in any such public endeavours as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+that which you (in all generosity and singleness of purpose,
+I am sure) advance. I shall have a melancholy gratification
+in privately assisting to place a simple and plain record
+over the remains of a great writer that should be as modest
+as he was himself, but I regard any other monument in
+connection with his mortal resting-place as a mistake.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>," <i>Tuesday, Oct. 19th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are now getting our Christmas extra number
+together, and I think you are the boy to do, if you will, one
+of the stories.</p>
+
+<p>I propose to give the number some fireside name, and to
+make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to be told
+by a family sitting round the fire. <i>I don't care about their
+referring to Christmas at all</i>; nor do I design to connect
+them together, otherwise than by their names, as:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Names of Story">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Grandfather's Story.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Father's Story.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Daughter's Story.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Schoolboy's Story.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Child's Story.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Guest's Story.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Old Nurse's Story</span>.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The grandfather might very well be old enough to have
+lived in the days of the highwaymen. Do you feel disposed,
+from fact, fancy, or both, to do a good winter-hearth story
+of a highwayman? If you do, I embrace you (per post),
+and throw up a cap I have purchased for the purpose into
+mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>Think of it and write me a line in reply. We are all
+well and blooming.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Are you never coming to town any more? Never going
+to drink port again, metropolitaneously, but <i>always</i> with
+Fielden?</p>
+
+<p>Love to Mrs. White and the children, if Lotty be not out
+of the list long ago.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully, my dear White.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um</span>, <i>Monday, November 22nd, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Having just now finished my work for the time being,
+I turn in here in the course of a rainy walk, to have the
+gratification of writing a few lines to you. If my occupations
+with this same right hand were less numerous, you
+would soon be tired of me, I should write to you so often.</p>
+
+<p>You asked Catherine a question about "Bleak House."
+Its circulation is half as large again as "Copperfield"! I
+have just now come to the point I have been patiently
+working up to in the writing, and I hope it will suggest to
+you a pretty and affecting thing. In the matter of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin," I partly though not entirely agree with
+Mr. James. No doubt a much lower art will serve for the
+handling of such a subject in fiction, than for a launch
+on the sea of imagination without such a powerful bark;
+but there are many points in the book very admirably
+done. There is a certain St. Clair, a New Orleans gentleman,
+who seems to me to be conceived with great power
+and originality. If he had not "a Grecian outline of face,"
+which I began to be a little tired of in my earliest infancy,
+I should think him unexceptionable. He has a sister too,
+a maiden lady from New England, in whose person the
+besetting weaknesses and prejudices of the Abolitionists
+themselves, on the subject of the blacks, are set forth in the
+liveliest and truest colours and with the greatest boldness.</p>
+
+<p>I have written for "Household Words" of this next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+publication-day an article on the State funeral,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> showing
+why I consider it altogether a mistake, to be temperately
+but firmly objected to; which I daresay will make a good
+many of the admirers of such things highly indignant. It
+may have right and reason on its side, however, none the less.</p>
+
+<p>Charley and I had a great talk at Dover about his going
+into the army, when I thought it right to set before him
+fairly and faithfully the objections to that career, no less
+than its advantages. The result was that he asked in a
+very manly way for time to consider. So I appointed to go
+down to Eton on a certain day at the beginning of this
+month, and resume the subject. We resumed it accordingly
+at the White Hart, at Windsor, and he came to the conclusion
+that he would rather be a merchant, and try to
+establish some good house of business, where he might find
+a path perhaps for his younger brothers, and stay at home,
+and make himself the head of that long, small procession.
+I was very much pleased with him indeed; he showed a fine
+sense and a fine feeling in the whole matter. We have
+arranged, therefore, that he shall leave Eton at Christmas,
+and go to Germany after the holidays, to become well
+acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a
+walk of life as he will probably tread.</p>
+
+<p>And I think this is the whole of my news. We are
+always talking of you at home. Mary Boyle dined with us
+a little while ago. You look out, I imagine, on a waste of
+water. When I came from Windsor, I thought I must have
+made a mistake and got into a boat (in the dark) instead of
+a railway-carriage. Catherine and Georgina send their
+kindest loves. I am ever, with the best and truest wishes
+of my heart, my dear Mrs. Watson,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your most affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>," <i>Monday, Nov. 22nd, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First and foremost, there is no doubt whatever of
+your story suiting "Household Words." It is a very good
+story indeed, and would be serviceable at any time. I am
+not quite so clear of its suiting the Christmas number, for
+this reason. You know what the spirit of the Christmas
+number is. When I suggested the stories being about a
+highwayman, I got hold of that idea as being an adventurous
+one, including various kinds of wrong, expressing a state of
+society no longer existing among us, and pleasant to hear
+(therefore) from an old man. Now, your highwayman not
+being a real highwayman after all, the kind of suitable
+Christmas interest I meant to awaken in the story is not in
+it. Do you understand? For an ordinary number it is
+quite unobjectionable. If you should think of any other
+idea, narratable by an old man, which you think would
+strike the chord of the season; and if you should find time
+to work it out during the short remainder of this month, I
+should be greatly pleased to have it. In any case, this
+story goes straightway into type.</p>
+
+<p>What tremendous weather it is! Our best loves to all
+at home. (I have just bought thirty bottles of the most
+stunning port on earth, which Ellis of the Star and Garter,
+Richmond, wrote to me of.)</p>
+
+<p>I think you will find some good going in the next
+"Bleak House." I write shortly, having been working my
+head off.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>," <i>Wednesday, Dec. 1st, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you the proof of "The Old Nurse's Story," with
+my proposed alteration. I shall be glad to know whether
+you approve of it. To assist you in your decision, I send
+you, also enclosed, the original ending. And I have made a
+line with ink across the last slip but one, where the alteration
+begins. Of course if you wish to enlarge, explain, or
+re-alter, you will do it. Do not keep the proof longer than
+you can help, as I want to get to press with all despatch.</p>
+
+<p>I hope I address this letter correctly. I am far from
+sure. In haste.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday, December 9th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am driven mad by dogs, who have taken it into
+their accursed heads to assemble every morning in the piece
+of ground opposite, and who have barked this morning <i>for
+five hours without intermission</i>; positively rendering it impossible
+for me to work, and so making what is really
+ridiculous quite serious to me. I wish, between this and
+dinner, you would send John to see if he can hire a gun,
+with a few caps, some powder, and a few charges of small
+shot. If you duly commission him with a card, he can
+easily do it. And if I get those implements up here to-night,
+I'll be the death of some of them to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday Evening, Dec. 9th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I hear you are not going to poor Macready's. Now,
+don't you think it would do you good to come here instead?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+<i>I</i> say it would, and I ought to know! We can give you
+everything but a bed (all ours are occupied in consequence
+of the boys being at home), and shall all be delighted to see
+you. Leave the bed to us, and we'll find one hard by. I
+say nothing of the last day of the old year, and the dancing
+out of that good old worthy that will take place here (for
+you might like to hear the bells at home); but after the
+twentieth, I shall be comparatively at leisure, and good for
+anything or nothing. Don't you consider it your duty to
+your family to come? <i>I</i> do, and I again say that I ought
+to know.</p>
+
+<p>Our best love to Mrs. White and Lotty&mdash;happily so much
+better, we rejoice to hear&mdash;and all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">So no more at present from</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Inimitable B</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Friday, Dec. 17th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your kind note yesterday morning with
+the truest gratification, for I <i>am</i> the writer of "The Child's
+Story" as well as of "The Poor Relation's." I assure you,
+you have given me the liveliest and heartiest pleasure by
+what you say of it.</p>
+
+<p>I don't claim for my ending of "The Nurse's Story" that
+it would have made it a bit better. All I can urge in its
+behalf is, that it is what I should have done myself. But
+there is no doubt of the story being admirable as it stands,
+and there <i>is</i> some doubt (I think) whether Forster would
+have found anything wrong in it, if he had not known of my
+hammering over the proofs in making up the number, with
+all the three endings before me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">With kindest regards to Mr. Gaskell,</span><br />
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, Dec. 20th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If I did not know that you are likely to have a forbearing
+remembrance of my occupation, I should be full of
+remorse for not having sooner thanked you for "Basil."</p>
+
+<p>Not to play the sage or the critic (neither of which parts,
+I hope, is at all in my line), but to say what is the friendly
+truth, I may assure you that I have read the book with
+very great interest, and with a very thorough conviction that
+you have a call to this same art of fiction. I think the probabilities
+here and there require a little more respect than you
+are disposed to show them, and I have no doubt that the
+prefatory letter would have been better away, on the ground
+that a book (of all things) should speak for and explain
+itself. But the story contains admirable writing, and many
+clear evidences of a very delicate discrimination of character.
+It is delightful to find throughout that you have taken great
+pains with it besides, and have "gone at it" with a perfect
+knowledge of the jolter-headedness of the conceited idiots
+who suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes,
+and that any writing can be done without the utmost application,
+the greatest patience, and the steadiest energy of
+which the writer is capable.</p>
+
+<p>For all these reasons, I have made "Basil's" acquaintance
+with great gratification, and entertain a high respect
+for him. And I hope that I shall become intimate with
+many worthy descendants of his, who are yet in the limbo
+of creatures waiting to be born.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I am open to any proposal to go anywhere any
+day or days this week. Fresh air and change in any
+amount I am ready for. If I could only find an idle man
+(this is a general observation), he would find the warmest
+recognition in this direction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday Evening, Dec. 20th, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Every appearance of brightness! Shall I expect you
+to-morrow morning? If so, at what hour?</p>
+
+<p>I think of taking train afterwards, and going down for
+a walk on Chatham lines. If you can spare the day for
+fresh air and an impromptu bit of fish and chop, I can
+recommend you one of the most delightful of men for a
+companion. O, he is indeed refreshing!!!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>," <i>Christmas Eve, 1852.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have gone carefully through the number&mdash;an
+awful one for the amount of correction required&mdash;and have
+made everything right. If my mind could have been
+materialised, and drawn along the tops of all the spikes on
+the outside of the Queen's Bench prison, it could not have
+been more agonised than by the &mdash;&mdash;, which, for imbecility,
+carelessness, slovenly composition, relatives without antecedents,
+universal chaos, and one absorbing whirlpool of
+jolter-headedness, beats anything in print and paper I have
+ever "gone at" in my life.</p>
+
+<p>I shall come and see how you are to-morrow. Meantime
+everything is in perfect trim in these parts, and I have
+sent down to Stacey to come here and top up with a final
+interview before I go.</p>
+
+<p>Just after I had sent the messenger off to you, yesterday,
+concerning the toll-taker memoranda, the other idea came
+into my head, and in the most obliging manner came out
+of it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Here is &mdash;&mdash; perpetually flitting about Brydges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+Street, and hovering in the neighbourhood, with a veil of
+secrecy drawn down over his chin, so ludicrously transparent,
+that I can't help laughing while he looks at me.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. G.
+Linn&aelig;us
+Banks.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 26th, 1852</i>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will not attempt to tell you how affected and gratified
+I am by the intelligence your kind letter conveys to me.
+Nothing would be more welcome to me than such a mark of
+confidence and approval from such a source, nothing more
+precious, or that I could set a higher worth upon.</p>
+
+<p>I hasten to return the gauges, of which I have marked
+one as the size of the finger, from which this token will never
+more be absent as long as I live.</p>
+
+<p>With feelings of the liveliest gratitude and cordiality
+towards the many friends who so honour me, and with many
+thanks to you for the genial earnestness with which you
+represent them,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Will you do me the favour to inform the dinner
+committee that a friend of mine, Mr. Clement, of Shrewsbury,
+is very anxious to purchase a ticket for the dinner,
+and that if they will be so good as to forward one for him
+to me I shall feel much obliged.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1853.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> this year, Charles Dickens was still writing "Bleak
+House," and went to Brighton for a short time in the
+spring. In May he had an attack of illness, a return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+of an old trouble of an inflammatory pain in the side,
+which was short but very severe while it lasted. Immediately
+on his recovery, early in June, a departure from
+London for the summer was resolved upon. He had
+decided upon trying Boulogne this year for his holiday
+sojourn, and as soon as he was strong enough to travel,
+he, his wife, and sister-in-law went there in advance of
+the family, taking up their quarters at the H&ocirc;tel des Bains,
+to find a house, which was speedily done. The pretty little
+Villa des Moulineaux, and its excellent landlord, at once
+took his fancy, and in that house, and in another on the
+same ground, also belonging to M. Beaucourt, he passed
+three very happy summers. And he became as much
+attached to "Our French Watering Place" as to "Our
+English" one. Having written a sketch of Broadstairs
+under that name in "Household Words," he did the same
+of Boulogne under the former title.</div>
+
+<p>During the summer, besides his other work, he was
+employed in dictating "The Child's History of England,"
+which he published in "Household Words," and which
+was the only book he ever wrote by dictation. But, as at
+Broadstairs and other seaside homes, he had always plenty
+of relaxation and enjoyment in the visits of his friends.
+In September he finished "Bleak House," and in October
+he started with Mr. Wilkie Collins and Mr. Egg from
+Boulogne, on an excursion through parts of Switzerland
+and Italy; his wife and family going home at the same
+time, and he himself returning to Tavistock House early in
+December. His eldest son, Charles, had left Eton some
+time before this, and had gone for the completion of his
+education to Leipsic. He was to leave Germany at the end
+of the year, therefore it was arranged that he should meet
+the travellers in Paris on their homeward journey, and they
+all returned together.</p>
+
+<p>Just before Christmas he went to Birmingham in fulfilment
+of an offer which he had made at the dinner given to
+him at Birmingham on the 6th of January (of which he
+writes to Mr. Macready in the first letter that follows here),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
+to give two readings from his own books for the benefit of
+the New Midland Institute. They were his first public
+readings. He read "The Christmas Carol" on one evening,
+and "The Cricket on the Hearth" on the next, before
+enormous audiences. The success was so great, and the
+sum of money realised for the institute so large, that he
+consented to give a second reading of "The Christmas
+Carol," remaining another night in Birmingham for the
+purpose, on the condition that seats were reserved, at
+prices within their means, for the working men. And to
+his great satisfaction they formed a large proportion, and
+were among the most enthusiastic and appreciative of his
+audience. He was accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law,
+and on this occasion a breakfast was given to him
+after his last reading, at which a silver flower-basket, duly
+inscribed, was very gracefully presented to <i>Mrs.</i> Charles
+Dickens.</p>
+
+<p>The letters in this year require little explanation. Those
+to his wife and sister-in-law and Mr. Wills give a little
+history of his Italian journey. At Naples he found his
+excellent friend Sir James Emerson Tennent, with his wife
+and daughter, with whom he joined company in the ascent
+of Vesuvius.</p>
+
+<p>The two letters to M. Regnier, the distinguished actor
+of the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre Fran&ccedil;ais&mdash;with whom Charles Dickens had
+formed a sincere friendship during his first residence in
+Paris&mdash;on the subject of a projected benefit to Miss Kelly,
+need no further explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. John Delane, editor of <i>The Times</i>, and always a
+highly-esteemed friend of Charles Dickens, had given him
+an introduction to a school at Boulogne, kept by two English
+gentlemen, one a clergyman and the other a former Eton
+master, the Rev. W. Bewsher and Mr. Gibson. He had at
+various times four boys at this school, and very frequently
+afterwards he expressed his gratitude to Mr. Delane for
+having given him the introduction, which turned out so
+satisfactory in every respect.</p>
+
+<p>The letter of grateful acknowledgment from Mr. Poole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+and Charles Dickens to Lord Russell was for the pension
+for which the old dramatic author was indebted to that
+nobleman, and which enabled him to live comfortably until
+the end of his life.</p>
+
+<p>A note to Mr. Marcus Stone was sent with a copy of "The
+Child's History of England." The sketch referred to was
+one of "Jo'," in "Bleak House," which showed great feeling
+and artistic promise, since fully fulfilled by the young
+painter, but very remarkable in a boy so young as he was
+at that time. The letter to Mr. Stanfield, in seafaring
+language, is a specimen of a playful way in which he
+frequently addressed that dear friend.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+<small>"A curiosity from <i>him</i>. No date. No signature."&mdash;W. H. H.</small><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have not a shadow of a doubt about Miss Martineau's
+story. It is certain to tell. I think it very effectively,
+admirably done; a fine plain purpose in it; quite
+a singular novelty. For the last story in the Christmas
+number it will be great. I couldn't wish for a better.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaskell's ghost story I have got this morning;
+have not yet read. It is long.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+H.M.S. <i>Tavistock, January 2nd, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Yoho, old salt! Neptun' ahoy! You don't forget,
+messmet, as you was to meet Dick Sparkler and Mark
+Porpuss on the fok'sle of the good ship <i>Owssel Words</i>,
+Wednesday next, half-past four? Not you; for when did
+Stanfell ever pass his word to go anywheers and not come!
+Well. Belay, my heart of oak, belay! Come alongside the
+<i>Tavistock</i> same day and hour, 'stead of <i>Owssel Words</i>.
+Hail your shipmets, and they'll drop over the side and join<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+you, like two new shillings a-droppin' into the purser's
+pocket. Damn all lubberly boys and swabs, and give me
+the lad with the tarry trousers, which shines to me like
+di'mings bright!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Friday Night, Jan. 14th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been much affected by the receipt of your
+kindest and best of letters; for I know out of the midst of
+what anxieties it comes to me, and I appreciate such remembrance
+from my heart. You and yours are always with us,
+however. It is no new thing for you to have a part in any
+scene of my life. It very rarely happens that a day passes
+without our thoughts and conversation travelling to Sherborne.
+We are so much there that I cannot tell you how
+plainly I see you as I write.</p>
+
+<p>I know you would have been full of sympathy and
+approval if you had been present at Birmingham, and that
+you would have concurred in the tone I tried to take about
+the eternal duties of the arts to the people. I took the
+liberty of putting the court and that kind of thing out of
+the question, and recognising nothing <i>but</i> the arts and the
+people. The more we see of life and its brevity, and the
+world and its varieties, the more we know that no exercise
+of our abilities in any art, but the addressing of it to the
+great ocean of humanity in which we are drops, and not to
+bye-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever
+will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect. Is it
+not so? <i>You</i> should have as much practical information on
+this subject, now, my dear friend, as any man.</p>
+
+<p>My dearest Macready, I cannot forbear this closing word.
+I still look forward to our meeting as we used to do in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+happy times we have known together, so far as your old
+hopefulness and energy are concerned. And I think I
+never in my life have been more glad to receive a sign,
+than I have been to hail that which I find in your
+handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>Some of your old friends at Birmingham are full of
+interest and enquiry. Kate and Georgina send their dearest
+loves to you, and to Miss Macready, and to all the children.
+I am ever, and no matter where I am&mdash;and quite as much in
+a crowd as alone&mdash;my dearest Macready,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate and most attached Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>May 3rd, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The subject is certainly not too serious, so sensibly
+treated. I have no doubt that you may do a great deal of
+good by pursuing it in "Household Words." I thoroughly
+agree in all you say in your note, have similar reasons for
+giving it some anxious consideration, and shall be greatly
+interested in it. Pray decide to do it. Send the papers, as
+you write them, to me. Meanwhile I will think of a name
+for them, and bring it to bear upon yours, if I think yours
+improvable. I am sure you may rely on being widely understood
+and sympathised with.</p>
+
+<p>Forget that I called those two women my dear friends!
+Why, if I told you a fiftieth part of what I have thought
+about them, you would write me the most suspicious of notes,
+refusing to receive the fiftieth part of that. So I don't write,
+particularly as you laid your injunctions on me concerning
+Ruth. In revenge, I will now mention one word that I wish
+you would take out whenever you reprint that book. She
+would never&mdash;I am ready to make affidavit before any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+authority in the land&mdash;have called her seducer "Sir," when
+they were living at that hotel in Wales. A girl pretending
+to be what she really was would have done it, but she&mdash;never!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, May 9th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I meant to have spoken to you last night about a
+matter in which I hope you can assist me, but I forgot it.
+I think I must have been quite <i>boulevers&eacute;</i> by your supposing
+(as you pretended to do, when you went away) that it was
+not a great pleasure and delight to me to see you act!</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain Miss Kelly, now sixty-two years old,
+who was once one of the very best of English actresses, in
+the greater and better days of the English theatre. She
+has much need of a benefit, and I am exerting myself to
+arrange one for her, on about the 9th of June, if possible,
+at the St. James's Theatre. The first piece will be an
+entertainment of her own, and she will act in the last.
+Between these two (and at the best time of the night), it
+would be a great attraction to the public, and a great proof
+of friendship to me, if you would act. If we could manage,
+through your influence and with your assistance, to present
+a little French vaudeville, such as "<i>Le bon Homme jadis</i>,"
+it would make the night a grand success.</p>
+
+<p>Mitchell's permission, I suppose, would be required.
+That I will undertake to apply for, if you will tell me that
+you are willing to help us, and that you could answer for
+the other necessary actors in the little French piece, whatever
+the piece might be, that you would choose for the
+purpose. Pray write me a short note in answer, on this
+point.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p><p>I ought to tell you that the benefit will be "under distinguished
+patronage." The Duke of Devonshire, the Duke
+of Leinster, the Duke of Beaufort, etc. etc., are members of
+the committee with me, and I have no doubt that the
+audience will be of the <i>&eacute;lite</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have asked Mr. Chapman to come to me to-morrow, to
+arrange for the hiring of the theatre. Mr. Harley (a favourite
+English comedian whom you may know) is our secretary.
+And if I could assure the committee to-morrow afternoon of
+your co-operation, I am sure they would be overjoyed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<i>Votre tout d&eacute;vou&eacute;.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>May 20th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am heartily obliged to you for your kind letter
+respecting Miss Kelly's benefit. It is to take place <i>on
+Thursday, the 16th June</i>; Thursday the 9th (the day originally
+proposed) being the day of Ascot Races, and therefore
+a bad one for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Mitchell, like a brave <i>gar&ccedil;on</i> as he is, most willingly
+consents to your acting for us. Will you think what little
+French piece it will be best to do, in order that I may have
+it ready for the bills?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours, my dear Regnier.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Monday, June 13th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will be glad, I know, to hear that we had a
+delightful passage yesterday, and that I made a perfect
+phenomenon of a dinner. It is raining hard to-day, and my
+back feels the draught; but I am otherwise still mending.</p>
+
+<p>I have signed, sealed, and delivered a contract for a
+house (once occupied for two years by a man I knew in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+Switzerland), which is not a large one, but stands in the
+middle of a great garden, with what the landlord calls a
+"forest" at the back, and is now surrounded by flowers,
+vegetables, and all manner of growth. A queer, odd,
+French place, but extremely well supplied with all table and
+other conveniences, and strongly recommended.</p>
+
+<p>The address is:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Ch&acirc;teau des Moulineaux,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rue Beaurepaire, Boulogne.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>There is a coach-house, stabling for half-a-dozen horses,
+and I don't know what.</p>
+
+<p>We take possession this afternoon, and I am now laying
+in a good stock of creature comforts. So no more at
+present from</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Mrs. Dickens and her sister unite in kindest
+regards.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap"><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Chateau'">Ch&acirc;teau</ins> des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Night, June 18th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"<span class="smcap">Bleak House</span>."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Thank God, I have done half the number with great
+care, and hope to finish on Thursday or Friday next. O
+how thankful I feel to be able to have done it, and what a
+relief to get the number out!</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">General Movements of Inimitable</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><i>I don't think</i> (I am not sure) I shall come to London
+until after the completion of "Bleak House," No. 18&mdash;the
+number after this now in hand&mdash;for it strikes me
+that I am better here at present. I have picked up in
+the most extraordinary manner, and I believe you would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+never suppose to look at me that I had had that week or
+barely an hour of it. If there should be any occasion for
+our meeting in the meantime, a run over here would do you
+no harm, and we should be delighted to see you at any
+time. If you suppose this place to be in a street, you are
+much mistaken. It is in the country, though not more
+than ten minutes' walk from the post-office, and is the best
+doll's-house of many rooms, in the prettiest French grounds,
+in the most charming situation I have ever seen; the best
+place I have ever lived in abroad, except at Genoa. You
+can scarcely imagine the beauty of the air in this richly-wooded
+hill-side. As to comforts in the house, there are
+all sorts of things, beginning with no end of the coldest
+water and running through the most beautiful flowers down
+to English foot-baths and a Parisian liqueur-stand. Your
+parcel (frantic enclosures and all) arrived quite safely last
+night. This will leave by steamer to-morrow, Sunday
+evening. There is a boat in the morning, but having no
+one to send to-night I can't reach it, and to-morrow being
+Sunday it will come to much the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>I think that's all at present.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap"><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Chateau'">Ch&acirc;teau</ins> des Moulineaux, Rue Beaurepaire, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, June 23rd, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Pumpion</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I take the earliest opportunity, after finishing my
+number&mdash;ahem!&mdash;to write you a line, and to report myself
+(thank God) brown, well, robust, vigorous, open to fight
+any man in England of my weight, and growing a moustache.
+Any person of undoubted pluck, in want of a customer, may
+hear of me at the bar of Bleak House, where my money is
+down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I think there is an abundance of places here that would
+suit you well enough; and Georgina is ready to launch on
+voyages of discovery and observation with you. But it is
+necessary that you should consider for how long a time you
+want it, as the folks here let much more advantageously
+for the tenant when they know the term&mdash;don't like to let
+without. It seems to me that the best thing you can do is
+to get a paper of the South Eastern tidal trains, fix your
+day for coming over here in five hours (when you will pay
+through to Boulogne at London Bridge), let me know the
+day, and come and see how you like the place. <i>I</i> like it
+better than ever. We can give you a bed (two to spare, at
+a pinch three), and show you a garden and a view or so.
+The town is not so cheap as places farther off, but you get a
+great deal for your money, and by far the best wine at tenpence
+a bottle that I have ever drank anywhere. I really
+desire no better.</p>
+
+<p>I may mention for your guidance (for I count upon your
+coming to overhaul the general aspect of things), that you
+have nothing on earth to do with your luggage when it is
+once in the boat, <i>until after you have walked ashore</i>. That
+you will be filtered with the rest of the passengers through
+a hideous, whitewashed, quarantine-looking custom-house,
+where a stern man of a military aspect will demand your
+passport. That you will have nothing of the sort, but will
+produce your card with this addition: "Restant &agrave; Boulogne,
+chez M. Charles Dickens, Ch&acirc;teau des Moulineaux." That
+you will then be passed out at a little door, like one of the
+ill-starred prisoners on the bloody September night, into a
+yelling and shrieking crowd, cleaving the air with the
+names of the different hotels, exactly seven thousand six
+hundred and fifty-four in number. And that your heart
+will be on the point of sinking with dread, then you will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+find yourself in the arms of the Sparkler of Albion. All
+unite in kindest regards.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I thought you might like to see the flourish again.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Wednesday, July 27th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have thought of another article to be called "Frauds
+upon the Fairies," <i>&agrave; propos</i> of George Cruikshank's editing.
+Half playfully and half seriously, I mean to protest most
+strongly against alteration, for any purpose, of the beautiful
+little stories which are so tenderly and humanly useful to
+us in these times, when the world is too much with us, early
+and late; and then to re-write "Cinderella" according to
+Total Abstinence, Peace Society, and Bloomer principles,
+and expressly for their propagation.</p>
+
+<p>I shall want his book of "Hop o' my Thumb" (Forster
+noticed it in the last <i>Examiner</i>), and the most simple and
+popular version of "Cinderella" you can get me. I shall
+not be able to do it until after finishing "Bleak House," but
+I shall do it the more easily for having the books by me.
+So send them, if convenient, in your next parcel.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap"><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Chateau'">Ch&acirc;teau</ins> des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Aug. 24th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Some unaccountable delay in the transmission here
+of the parcel which contained your letter, caused me to come
+into the receipt of it a whole week after its date. I immediately
+wrote to Miss Coutts, who has written to you, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+hope some good may come of it. I know it will not be her
+fault if none does. I was very much concerned to read your
+account of poor Mrs. Warner, and to read her own plain and
+unaffected account of herself. Pray assure her of my cordial
+sympathy and remembrance, and of my earnest desire to do
+anything in my power to help to put her mind at ease.</p>
+
+<p>We are living in a beautiful little country place here,
+where I have been hard at work ever since I came, and am
+now (after an interval of a week's rest) going to work again
+to finish "Bleak House." Kate and Georgina send their
+kindest loves to you, and Miss Macready, and all the rest.
+They look forward, I assure you, to their Sherborne visit,
+when I&mdash;a mere forlorn wanderer&mdash;shall be roaming over
+the Alps into Italy. I saw "The Midsummer Night's Dream"
+of the Op&eacute;ra Comique, done here (very well) last night. The
+way in which a poet named Willyim Shay Kes Peer gets
+drunk in company with Sir John Foll Stayffe, fights with a
+noble 'night, Lor Latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of-honour
+you may have read of in history, called Mees Oleevia),
+and promises not to do so any more on observing symptoms
+of love for him in the Queen of England, is very remarkable.
+Queen Elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable disguise
+of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three broad,
+following him into taverns and worse places, and enquiring
+of persons of doubtful reputation for "the sublime Williams,"
+was inexpressibly ridiculous. And yet the nonsense was
+done with a sense quite admirable.</p>
+
+<p>I have been very much struck by the book you sent me.
+It is one of the wisest, the manliest, and most serviceable I
+ever read. I am reading it again with the greatest pleasure
+and admiration.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever most affectionately yours,</span><br />
+My dear Macready.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Aug. 27th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter&mdash;most welcome and full of
+interest to me&mdash;when I was hard at work finishing "Bleak
+House." We are always talking of you; and I had said
+but the day before, that one of the first things I would do
+on my release would be to write to you. To finish the topic
+of "Bleak House" at once, I will only add that I like the
+conclusion very much and think it <i>very pretty indeed</i>. The
+story has taken extraordinarily, especially during the last
+five or six months, when its purpose has been gradually
+working itself out. It has retained its immense circulation
+from the first, beating dear old "Copperfield" by a round
+ten thousand or more. I have never had so many readers.
+We had a little reading of the final double number here the
+night before last, and it made a great impression I assure
+you.</p>
+
+<p>We are all extremely well, and like Boulogne very much
+indeed. I laid down the rule before we came, that we
+would know nobody here, and we <i>do</i> know nobody here. We
+evaded callers as politely as we could, and gradually came
+to be understood and left to ourselves. It is a fine bracing
+air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of
+town and country. We live on a green hill-side out of the
+town, but are in the town (on foot) in ten minutes. Things
+are tolerably cheap, and exceedingly good; the people very
+cheerful, good-looking, and obliging; the houses very
+clean; the distance to London short, and easily traversed.
+I think if you came to know the place (which I never did
+myself until last October, often as I have been through it),
+you could be but in one mind about it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Charley is still at Leipzig. I shall take him up somewhere
+on the Rhine, to bring him home for Christmas, as I
+come back on my own little tour. He has been in the Hartz
+Mountains on a walking tour, and has written a journal
+thereof, which he has sent home in portions. It has cost
+about as much in postage as would have bought a pair of
+ponies.</p>
+
+<p>I contemplate starting from here on Monday, the 10th of
+October; Catherine, Georgina, and the rest of them will
+then go home. I shall go first by Paris and Geneva to
+Lausanne, for it has a separate place in my memory. If
+the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a
+summer), I shall then go by Chamonix and Martigny, over
+the Simplon to Milan, thence to Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and
+Naples, thence, I hope, to Sicily. Back by Bologna,
+Florence, Rome, Verona, Mantua, etc., to Venice, and home
+by Germany, arriving in good time for Christmas Day.
+Three nights in Christmas week, I have promised to read in
+the Town Hall at Birmingham, for the benefit of a new and
+admirable institution for working men projected there.
+The Friday will be the last night, and I shall read the
+"Carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that
+they shall have that night entirely to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It just occurs to me that I mean to engage, for the two
+months odd, a travelling servant. I have not yet got one.
+If you should happen to be interested in any good foreigner,
+well acquainted with the countries and the languages, who
+would like such a master, how delighted I should be to like
+<i>him</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Ever since I have been here, I have been very hard at
+work, often getting up at daybreak to write through many
+hours. I have never had the least return of illness, thank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+God, though I was so altered (in a week) when I came here,
+that I doubt if you would have known me. I am redder
+and browner than ever at the present writing, with the
+addition of a rather formidable and fierce moustache.
+Lowestoft I know, by walking over there from Yarmouth,
+when I went down on an exploring expedition, previous to
+"Copperfield." It is a fine place. I saw the name "Blunderstone"
+on a direction-post between it and Yarmouth, and
+took it from the said direction-post for the book. We
+imagined the Captain's ecstasies when we saw the birth of
+his child in the papers. In some of the descriptions of
+Chesney Wold, I have taken many bits, chiefly about trees
+and shadows, from observations made at Rockingham. I
+wonder whether you have ever thought so! I shall hope to
+hear from you again soon, and shall not fail to write again
+before I go away. There seems to be nothing but "I" in
+this letter; but "I" know, my dear friend, that you will
+be more interested in that letter in the present connection,
+than in any other I could take from the alphabet.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves, and
+more messages than this little sheet would hold. If I were
+to give you a hint of what we feel at the sight of your handwriting,
+and at the receipt of a word from yourself about
+yourself, and the dear boys, and the precious little girls, I
+should begin to be sorrowful, which is rather the tendency
+of my mind at the close of another long book. I heard from
+Cerjat two or three days since. Goff, by-the-bye, lived in
+this house two years.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Yours, with true affection and regard.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Peter
+Cunningham.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap"><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Chateau'">Ch&acirc;teau</ins> des Moulineaux, Rue Beaurepaire, Boulogne</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+<span class="smcap">My dear Cunningham</span>,<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A note&mdash;Cerberus-like&mdash;of three heads.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>First. I know you will be glad to hear that the manager
+is himself again. Vigorous, brown, energetic, muscular;
+the pride of Albion and the admiration of Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly. I told Wills when I left home, that I was
+quite pained to see the end of your excellent "Bowl of Punch"
+altered. I was unaffectedly touched and gratified by the
+heartiness of the original; and saw no earthly, celestial, or
+subterranean objection to its remaining, as it did not so
+unmistakably apply to me as to necessitate the observance
+of my usual precaution in the case of such references, by
+any means.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly. If you ever have a holiday that you don't know
+what to do with, <i>do</i> come and pass a little time here. We
+live in a charming garden in a very pleasant country, and
+should be delighted to receive you. Excellent light wines
+on the premises, French cookery, millions of roses, two
+cows (for milk punch), vegetables cut for the pot, and handed
+in at the kitchen window; five summer-houses, fifteen
+fountains (with no water in 'em), and thirty-seven clocks
+(keeping, as I conceive, Australian time; having no reference
+whatever to the hours on this side of the globe).</p>
+
+<p>I know, my dear Cunningham, that the British nation
+can ill afford to lose you; and that when the Audit Office
+mice are away, the cats of that great public establishment
+will play. But pray consider that the bow may be sometimes
+bent too long, and that ever-arduous application, even
+in patriotic service, is to be avoided. No one can more
+highly estimate your devotion to the best interests of Britain
+than I. But I wish to see it tempered with a wise consideration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+for your own amusement, recreation, and pastime.
+All work and no play may make Peter a dull boy as well as
+Jack. And (if I may claim the privilege of friendship to
+remonstrate) I would say that you do not take enough time
+for your meals. Dinner, for instance, you habitually neglect.
+Believe me, this rustic repose will do you good. Winkles
+also are to be obtained in these parts, and it is well remarked
+by Poor Richard, that a bird in the handbook is worth two
+in the bush.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Savage
+Landor.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House, London</span>, <i>Sept. 8th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Landor</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am in town for a day or two, and Forster tells me
+I may now write to thank you for the happiness you have
+given me by honouring my name with such generous
+mention, on such a noble place, in your great book. I
+believe he has told you already that I wrote to him from
+Boulogne, not knowing what to do, as I had not received
+the precious volume, and feared you might have some plan
+of sending it to me, with which my premature writing would
+interfere.</p>
+
+<p>You know how heartily and inexpressibly I prize what
+you have written to me, or you never would have selected
+me for such a distinction. I could never thank you enough,
+my dear Landor, and I will not thank you in words any
+more. Believe me, I receive the dedication like a great
+dignity, the worth of which I hope I thoroughly know. The
+Queen could give me none in exchange that I wouldn't
+laughingly snap my fingers at.</p>
+
+<p>We are staying at Boulogne until the 10th of October,
+when I go into Italy until Christmas, and the rest come
+home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgina would send you their best loves if
+they were here, and would never leave off talking about it
+if I went back and told them I had written to you without
+such mention of them. Walter is a very good boy, and
+comes home from school with honourable commendation.
+He passed last Sunday in solitary confinement (in a bath-room)
+on bread and water, for terminating a dispute with
+the nurse by throwing a chair in her direction. It is the
+very first occasion of his ever having got into trouble, for
+he is a great favourite with the whole house, and one of the
+most amiable boys in the boy world. (He comes out on
+birthdays in a blaze of shirt-pin).</p>
+
+<p>If I go and look at your old house, as I shall if I go to
+Florence, I shall bring you back another leaf from the same
+tree as I plucked the last from.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dear Landor,</span><br />
+Heartily and affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Delane.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa Des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Sept. 12th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Delane</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very much obliged to you, I assure you, for
+your frank and full reply to my note. Nothing could be
+more satisfactory, and I have to-day seen Mr. Gibson and
+placed my two small representatives under his charge. His
+manner is exactly what you describe him. I was greatly
+pleased with his genuineness altogether.</p>
+
+<p>We remain here until the tenth of next month, when I
+am going to desert my wife and family and run about Italy
+until Christmas. If I can execute any little commission for
+you or Mrs. Delane&mdash;in the Genoa street of silversmiths, or
+anywhere else&mdash;I shall be delighted to do so. I have been
+in the receipt of several letters from Macready lately, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+rejoice to find him quite himself again, though I have great
+misgivings that he will lose his eldest boy before he can be
+got to India.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and her sister are proud of your message,
+and beg their kind regards to be forwarded in return; my
+other half being particularly comforted and encouraged by
+your account of Mr. Gibson. In this charge I am to include
+Mrs. Delane, who, I hope, will make an exchange of
+remembrances, and give me hers for mine.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw anything so ridiculous as this place at present.
+They expected the Emperor ten or twelve days ago,
+and put up all manner of triumphal arches made of evergreens,
+which look like tea-leaves now, and will take a
+withered and weird appearance hardly to be foreseen, long
+before the twenty-fifth, when the visit is vaguely expected
+to come off. In addition to these faded garlands all over
+the leading streets, there are painted eagles hoisted over
+gateways and sprawling across a hundred ways, which have
+been washed out by the rain and are now being blistered by
+the sun, until they look horribly ludicrous. And a number
+of our benighted compatriots who came over to see a perfect
+blaze of <i>f&ecirc;tes</i>, go wandering among these shrivelled preparations
+and staring at ten thousand flag-poles without any
+flags upon them, with a kind of indignant curiosity and
+personal injury quite irresistible. With many thanks,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Sunday, Sept. 18th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Courier</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Edward Kaub will bring this. He turned up yesterday,
+accounting for his delay by waiting for a written
+recommendation, and having at the last moment (as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+foreigner, not being an Englishman) a passport to get. I
+quite agree with you as to his appearance and manner, and
+have engaged him. It strikes me that it would be an
+excellent beginning if you would deliver him a neat and
+appropriate address, telling him what in your conscience you
+can find to tell of me favourably as a master, and particularly
+impressing upon him <i>readiness and punctuality</i> on
+his part as the great things to be observed. I think it
+would have a much better effect than anything I could say
+in this stage, if said from yourself. But I shall be much
+obliged to you if you will act upon this hint forthwith.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">W. H. Wills</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>No letter having arrived from the popular author of
+"The Larboard Fin,"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> by this morning's post, I rather
+think one must be on the way in the pocket of Gordon's
+son. If Kaub calls for this before young Scotland arrives,
+you will understand if I do not herein refer to an unreceived
+letter. But I shall leave this open, until Kaub comes for it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Lord John
+Russell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Lord</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your note having been forwarded to me here, I
+cannot forbear thanking you with all my heart for your
+great kindness. Mr. Forster had previously sent me a
+copy of your letter to him, together with the expression of
+the high and lasting gratification he had in your handsome
+response. I know he feels it most sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>I became the prey of a perfect spasm of sensitive twinges,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+when I found that the close of "Bleak House" had not
+penetrated to "the wilds of the North" when your letter
+left those parts. I was so very much interested in it myself
+when I wrote it here last month, that I have a fond sort of
+faith in its interesting its readers. But for the hope that
+you may have got it by this time, I should refuse comfort.
+That supports me.</p>
+
+<p>The book has been a wonderful success. Its audience
+enormous.</p>
+
+<p>I fear there is not much chance of my being able to
+execute any little commission for Lady John anywhere in
+Italy. But I am going across the Alps, leaving here on the
+tenth of next month, and returning home to London for
+Christmas Day, and should indeed be happy if I could do
+her any dwarf service.</p>
+
+<p>You will be interested, I think, to hear that Poole lives
+happily on his pension, and lives within it. He is quite
+incapable of any mental exertion, and what he would have
+done without it I cannot imagine. I send it to him at Paris
+every quarter. It is something, even amid the estimation
+in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what
+shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully
+remembered as he, with the best reason, remembers
+you. Forgive my saying this. But the manner of that
+transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh in my
+memory in association with your name, and I cannot help it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 9em;">My dear Lord,</span><br />
+Yours very faithfully and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The courier was unfortunately engaged. He offered
+to recommend another, but I had several applicants, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+begged Mr. Wills to hold a grand review at the "Household
+Words" office, and select the man who is to bring me down
+as his victim. I am extremely sorry the man you recommend
+was not to be had. I should have been so delighted
+to take him.</p>
+
+<p>I am finishing "The Child's History," and clearing the
+way through "Household Words," in general, before I go
+on my trip. I forget whether I told you that Mr. Egg
+the painter and Mr. Collins are going with me. The other
+day I was in town. In case you should not have heard of
+the condition of that deserted village, I think it worth
+mentioning. All the streets of any note were unpaved,
+mountains high, and all the omnibuses were sliding down
+alleys, and looking into the upper windows of small houses.
+At eleven o'clock one morning I was positively <i>alone</i> in
+Bond Street. I went to one of my tailors, and he was at
+Brighton. A smutty-faced woman among some gorgeous
+regimentals, half finished, had not the least idea when he
+would be back. I went to another of my tailors, and he
+was in an upper room, with open windows and surrounded
+by mignonette boxes, playing the piano in the bosom of
+his family. I went to my hosier's, and two of the least
+presentable of "the young men" of that elegant establishment
+were playing at draughts in the back shop. (Likewise
+I beheld a porter-pot hastily concealed under a Turkish
+dressing-gown of a golden pattern.) I then went wandering
+about to look for some ingenious portmanteau, and near the
+corner of St. James's Street saw a solitary being sitting in
+a trunk-shop, absorbed in a book which, on a close inspection,
+I found to be "Bleak House." I thought this looked
+well, and went in. And he really was more interested in
+seeing me, when he knew who I was, than any face I had
+seen in any house, every house I knew being occupied by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
+painters, including my own. I went to the Athen&aelig;um that
+same night, to get my dinner, and it was shut up for repairs.
+I went home late, and had forgotten the key and was
+locked out.</p>
+
+<p>Preparations were made here, about six weeks ago, to
+receive the Emperor, who is not come yet. Meanwhile our
+countrymen (deluded in the first excitement) go about
+staring at these arrangements, with a personal injury upon
+them which is most ridiculous. And they <i>will</i> persist in
+speaking an unknown tongue to the French people, who <i>will</i>
+speak English to them.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgina send their kindest loves. We are all
+quite well. Going to drop two small boys here, at school
+with a former Eton tutor highly recommended to me.
+Charley was heard of a day or two ago. He says his
+professor "is very short-sighted, always in green spectacles,
+always drinking weak beer, always smoking a pipe, and
+always at work." The last qualification seems to appear to
+Charley the most astonishing one.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Hotel de la Villa, Milan</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have walked to that extent in Switzerland (walked
+over the Simplon on Sunday, as an addition to the other
+feats) that one pair of the new strong shoes has gone to be
+mended this morning, and the other is in but a poor way;
+the snow having played the mischief with them.</p>
+
+<p>On the Swiss side of the Simplon, we slept at the
+beastliest little town, in the wildest kind of house, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+some fifty cats tumbled into the corridor outside our bedrooms
+all at once in the middle of the night&mdash;whether
+through the roof or not, I don't know; for it was dark
+when we got up&mdash;and made such a horrible and terrific
+noise that we started out of our beds in a panic. I strongly
+objected to opening the door lest they should get into the
+room and tear at us; but Edward opened his, and laid about
+him until he dispersed them. At Domo D'Ossola we had
+three immense bedrooms (Egg's bed twelve feet wide!), and
+a sala of imperceptible extent in the dim light of two
+candles and a wood fire; but were very well and very
+cheaply entertained. Here, we are, as you know, housed in
+the greatest comfort.</p>
+
+<p>We continue to get on very well together. We really do
+admirably. I lose no opportunity of inculcating the lesson
+that it is of no use to be out of temper in travelling, and it
+is very seldom wanted for any of us. Egg is an excellent
+fellow, and full of good qualities; I am sure a generous
+and staunch man at heart, and a good and honourable
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>I shall send Catherine from Genoa a list of the places
+where letters will find me. I shall hope to hear from you
+too, and shall be very glad indeed to do so. No more at
+present.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Croce di Malta, Genoa</span>, <i>Saturday, Oct. 29th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We had thirty-one hours consecutively on the road
+between this and Milan, and arrived here in a rather
+damaged condition. We live at the top of this immense
+house, overlooking the port and sea, pleasantly and airily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+enough, though it is no joke to get so high, and though the
+apartment is rather vast and faded.</p>
+
+<p>The old walks are pretty much the same as ever, except
+that they have built behind the Peschiere on the San
+Bartolomeo hill, and changed the whole town towards San
+Pietro d'Arena, where we seldom went. The Bisagno looks
+just the same, strong just now, and with very little water in
+it. Vicoli stink exactly as they used to, and are fragrant with
+the same old flavour of very rotten cheese kept in very hot
+blankets. The Mezzaro pervades them as before. The
+old Jesuit college in the Strada Nuova is under the present
+government the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, and a very splendid caff&eacute;
+with a terrace garden has arisen between it and Palavicini's
+old palace. Another new and handsome caff&eacute; has been
+built in the Piazza Carlo Felice, between the old caff&eacute; of the
+Bei Arti (where Fletcher stopped for the bouquets in the
+green times, when we went to the &mdash;&mdash;'s party), and the
+Strada Carlo Felice. The old beastly gate and guardhouse
+on the Albaro road are still in their dear old beastly
+state, and the whole of that road is just as it was. The
+man without legs is still in the Strada Nuova; but the
+beggars in general are all cleared off, and our old one-armed
+Belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two
+ago. I am going to the Peschiere to-day. The puppets
+are here, and the opera is open, but only with a buffo
+company, and without a buffet. We went to the Scala,
+where they did an opera of Verdi's, called "Il Trovatore,"
+and a poor enough ballet. The whole performance miserable
+indeed. I wish you were here to take some of the old
+walks. It is quite strange to walk about alone. Good-bye,
+my dear Georgy. Pray tell me how Kate is. I rather
+fancy from her letter, though I scarcely know why, that
+she is not quite as well as she was at Boulogne. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+charmed with your account of the Plornishghenter and
+everything and everybody else. Kiss them all for me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel des &Eacute;trangers, Naples</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday Night, Nov. 4th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Instead of embarking on Monday at Genoa, we were
+delayed (in consequence of the boat's being a day later
+when there are thirty-one days in the month) until Tuesday.
+Going aboard that morning at half-past nine, we found the
+steamer more than full of passengers from Marseilles, and
+in a state of confusion not to be described. We could get
+no places at the table, got our dinners how we could on
+deck, had no berths or sleeping accommodation of any kind,
+and had paid heavy first-class fares! To add to this, we
+got to Leghorn too late to steam away again that night,
+getting the ship's papers examined first&mdash;as the authorities
+said so, not being favourable to the new express English
+ship, English officered&mdash;and we lay off the lighthouse all
+night long. The scene on board beggars description.
+Ladies on the tables, gentlemen under the tables, and
+ladies and gentlemen lying indiscriminately on the open
+deck, arrayed like spoons on a sideboard. No mattresses,
+no blankets, nothing. Towards midnight, attempts were
+made by means of an awning and flags to make this latter
+scene remotely approach an Australian encampment; and
+we three lay together on the bare planks covered with overcoats.
+We were all gradually dozing off when a perfectly
+tropical rain fell, and in a moment drowned the whole ship.
+The rest of the night was passed upon the stairs, with an
+immense jumble of men and women. When anybody came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>
+up for any purpose we all fell down; and when anybody
+came down we all fell up again. Still, the good-humour in
+the English part of the passengers was quite extraordinary.
+There were excellent officers aboard, and the first mate lent
+me his cabin to wash in in the morning, which I afterwards
+lent to Egg and Collins. Then we and the Emerson
+Tennents (who were aboard) and the captain, the doctor,
+and the second officer went off on a jaunt together to Pisa,
+as the ship was to lie at Leghorn all day.</p>
+
+<p>The captain was a capital fellow, but I led him, facetiously,
+such a life all day, that I got almost everything altered
+at night. Emerson Tennent, with the greatest kindness,
+turned his son out of his state room (who, indeed, volunteered
+to go in the most amiable manner), and I got a good
+bed there. The store-room down by the hold was opened
+for Egg and Collins, and they slept with the moist sugar, the
+cheese in cut, the spices, the cruets, the apples and pears&mdash;in
+a perfect chandler's shop; in company with what the
+&mdash;&mdash;'s would call a "hold gent"&mdash;who had been so horribly
+wet through overnight that his condition frightened the
+authorities&mdash;a cat, and the steward&mdash;who dozed in an arm-chair,
+and all night long fell headforemost, once in every five
+minutes, on Egg, who slept on the counter or dresser. Last
+night I had the steward's own cabin, opening on deck, all to
+myself. It had been previously occupied by some desolate
+lady, who went ashore at Civita Vecchia. There was little
+or no sea, thank Heaven, all the trip; but the rain was
+heavier than any I have ever seen, and the lightning very
+constant and vivid. We were, with the crew, some two
+hundred people; with boats, at the utmost stretch, for one
+hundred, perhaps. I could not help thinking what would
+happen if we met with any accident; the crew being chiefly
+Maltese, and evidently fellows who would cut off alone in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+the largest boat on the least alarm. The speed (it being the
+crack express ship for the India mail) very high; also the
+running through all the narrow rocky channels. Thank
+God, however, here we are. Though the more sensible and
+experienced part of the passengers agreed with me this
+morning that it was not a thing to try often. We had an
+excellent table after the first day, the best wines and so
+forth, and the captain and I swore eternal friendship. Ditto
+the first officer and the majority of the passengers. We got
+into the bay about seven this morning, but could not land
+until noon. We towed from Civita Vecchia the entire Greek
+navy, I believe, consisting of a little brig-of-war, with great
+guns, fitted as a steamer, but disabled by having burst the
+bottom of her boiler in her first run. She was just big
+enough to carry the captain and a crew of six or so, but the
+captain was so covered with buttons and gold that there
+never would have been room for him on board to put these
+valuables away if he hadn't worn them, which he consequently
+did, all night.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever anything was wanted to be done, as slackening
+the tow-rope or anything of that sort, our officers roared at
+this miserable potentate, in violent English, through a
+speaking-trumpet, of which he couldn't have understood a
+word under the most favourable circumstances, so he did all
+the wrong things first, and the right things always last.
+The absence of any knowledge of anything not English on
+the part of the officers and stewards was most ridiculous.
+I met an Italian gentleman on the cabin steps, yesterday
+morning, vainly endeavouring to explain that he wanted a
+cup of tea for his sick wife. And when we were coming
+out of the harbour at Genoa, and it was necessary to order
+away that boat of music you remember, the chief officer
+(called aft for the purpose, as "knowing something of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
+Italian,") delivered himself in this explicit and clear manner
+to the principal performer: "Now, signora, if you don't
+sheer off, you'll be run down; so you had better trice up
+that guitar of yours, and put about."</p>
+
+<p>We get on as well as possible, and it is extremely
+pleasant and interesting, and I feel that the change is doing
+me great and real service, after a long continuous strain
+upon the mind; but I am pleased to think that we are at
+our farthest point, and I look forward with joy to coming
+home again, to my old room, and the old walks, and all the
+old pleasant things.</p>
+
+<p>I wish I had arranged, or could have done so&mdash;for it
+would not have been easy&mdash;to find some letters here. It is
+a blank to stay for five days in a place without any.</p>
+
+<p>I don't think Edward knows fifty Italian words; but
+much more French is spoken in Italy now than when we
+were here, and he stumbles along somehow.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid this is a dull letter, for I am very tired.
+You must take the will for the deed, my dear, and good
+night.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">
+Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Rome</span>, <i>Sunday Night, Nov. 13th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We arrived here yesterday afternoon, at between
+three and four. On sending to the post-office this morning,
+I received your pleasant little letter, and one from Miss
+Coutts, who is still at Paris. But to my amazement there
+was none from Catherine! You mention her writing, and
+I cannot but suppose that your two letters must have been
+posted together. However, I received none from her, and
+I have all manner of doubts respecting the plainness of its
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>direction. They will not produce the letters here as at
+Genoa, but persist in looking them out at the post-office for
+you. I shall send again to-morrow, and every day until
+Friday, when we leave here. If I find no letter from her
+<i>to-morrow</i>, I shall write to her nevertheless by that post
+which brings this, so that you may both hear from me
+together.</p>
+
+<p>One night, at Naples, Edward came in, open-mouthed,
+to the table d'h&ocirc;te where we were dining with the Tennents,
+to announce "The Marchese Garofalo." I at first thought it
+must be the little parrot-marquess who was once your escort
+from Genoa; but I found him to be a man (married to an
+Englishwoman) whom we used to meet at Ridgway's. He was
+very glad to see me, and I afterwards met him at dinner at
+Mr. Lowther's, our charg&eacute; d'affaires. Mr. Lowther was at the
+Rockingham play, and is a very agreeable fellow. We had an
+exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight, preparatory to which I
+was near having the ridiculous adventure of not being able
+to find the house and coming back dinnerless. I went in an
+open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman,
+to my surprise, pulled up at the end of the Chiaja. "Behold
+the house," says he, "of Il Signor Larthoor!"&mdash;at the same
+time pointing with his whip into the seventh heaven, where
+the early stars were shining. "But the Signor Larthoor,"
+returns the Inimitable darling, "lives at Pausilippo." "It
+is true," says the coachman (still pointing to the evening
+star), "but he lives high up the Salita Sant' Antonio, where
+no carriage ever yet ascended, and that is the house" (evening
+star as aforesaid), "and one must go on foot. Behold the
+Salita Sant' Antonio!" I went up it, a mile and a half I
+should think. I got into the strangest places, among the
+wildest Neapolitans&mdash;kitchens, washing-places, archways,
+stables, vineyards&mdash;was baited by dogs, answered in profoundly
+unintelligible Neapolitan, from behind lonely locked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>
+doors, in cracked female voices, quaking with fear; could
+hear of no such Englishman or any Englishman. By-and-by
+I came upon a Polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old
+Frenchman, with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it
+had not rained for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all,
+with a snuff-box in his hand. To him I appealed concerning
+the Signor Larthoor. "Sir," said he, with the sweetest
+politeness, "can you speak French?" "Sir," said I, "a
+little." "Sir," said he, "I presume the Signor Loothere"&mdash;you
+will observe that he changed the name according to
+the custom of his country&mdash;"is an Englishman." I admitted
+that he was the victim of circumstances and had that misfortune.
+"Sir," said he, "one word more. <i>Has</i> he a servant
+with a wooden leg?" "Great Heaven, sir," said I, "how
+do I know! I should think not, but it is possible." "It
+is always," said the Frenchman, "possible. Almost all the
+things of the world are always possible." "Sir," said I&mdash;you
+may imagine my condition and dismal sense of my own
+absurdity, by this time&mdash;"that is true." He then took an
+immense pinch of snuff, wiped the dust off his umbrella,
+led me to an arch commanding a wonderful view of the bay
+of Naples, and pointed deep into the earth from which I
+had mounted. "Below there, near the lamp, one finds an
+Englishman, with a servant with a wooden leg. It is always
+possible that he is the Signor Loothere." I had been asked
+at six, and it was now getting on for seven. I went down
+again in a state of perspiration and misery not to be
+described, and without the faintest hope of finding the
+place. But as I was going down to the lamp, I saw the
+strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a white-waistcoat
+(evidently hired) standing on the top of it, fuming.
+I dashed in at a venture, found it was the place, made the
+most of the whole story, and was indescribably popular.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+The best of it was, that as nobody ever did find the place,
+he had put a servant at the bottom of the Salita, to "wait
+for an English gentleman." The servant (as he presently
+pleaded), deceived by the moustache, had allowed the
+English gentleman to pass unchallenged.</p>
+
+<p>The night before we left Naples we were at the San
+Carlo, where, with the Verdi rage of our old Genoa time,
+they were again doing the "Trovatore." It seemed rubbish
+on the whole to me, but was very fairly done. I think
+"La Tenco," the prima donna, will soon be a great hit in
+London. She is a very remarkable singer and a fine actress,
+to the best of my judgment on such premises. There seems
+to be no opera here, at present. There was a Festa in
+St. Peter's to-day, and the Pope passed to the Cathedral in
+state. We were all there.</p>
+
+<p>We leave here, please God, on Friday morning, and post
+to Florence in three days and a half. We came here by
+Vetturino. Upon the whole, the roadside inns are greatly
+improved since our time. Half-past three and half-past
+four have been, however, our usual times of rising on the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>I was in my old place at the Coliseum this morning,
+and it was as grand as ever. With that exception the
+ruined part of Rome&mdash;the real original Rome&mdash;looks smaller
+than my remembrance made it. It is the only place on
+which I have yet found that effect. We are in the old
+hotel.</p>
+
+<p>You are going to Bonchurch I suppose? will be there,
+perhaps, when this letter reaches you? I shall be pleased
+to think of you as at home again, and making the commodious
+family mansion look natural and home-like. I
+don't like to think of my room without anybody to peep
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>into it now and then. Here is a world of travelling
+arrangements for me to settle, and here are Collins and Egg
+looking sideways at me with an occasional imploring glance
+as beseeching me to settle it. So I leave off. Good-night.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Georgy,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sir James
+Emerson
+Tennent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel des &Icirc;les Britanniques, Piazza del Popolo, Rome</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Nov. 14th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Tennent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As I never made a good bargain in my life&mdash;except
+once, when, on going abroad, I let my house on excellent
+terms to an admirable tenant, who never paid anything&mdash;I
+sent Edward into the Casa Dies yesterday morning, while
+I invested the premises from the outside, and carefully
+surveyed them. It is a very clean, large, bright-looking
+house at the corner of the Via Gregoriana; not exactly in a
+part of Rome I should pick out for living in, and on what I
+should be disposed to call the wrong side of the street.
+However, this is not to the purpose. Signor Dies has no
+idea of letting an apartment for a short time&mdash;scouted the
+idea of a month&mdash;signified that he could not be brought to
+the contemplation of two months&mdash;was by no means clear
+that he could come down to the consideration of three.
+This of course settled the business speedily.</p>
+
+<p>This hotel is no longer kept by the Melloni I spoke of,
+but is even better kept than in his time, and is a very
+admirable house. I have engaged a small apartment for
+you to be ready on Thursday afternoon (at two piastres
+and a half&mdash;two-and-a-half per day&mdash;sitting-room and three
+bedrooms, one double-bedded and two not). If you would
+like to change to ours, which is a very good one, on Friday
+morning, you can of course do so. As our dining-room is
+large, and there is no table d'h&ocirc;te here, I will order dinner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>
+in it for our united parties at six on Thursday. You
+will be able to decide how to arrange for the remainder of
+your stay, after being here and looking about you&mdash;two
+really necessary considerations in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Pray make my kind regards to Lady Tennent, and Miss
+Tennent, and your good son, who became homeless for
+my sake. Mr. Egg and Mr. Collins desire to be also
+remembered.</p>
+
+<p>It has been beautiful weather since we left Naples,
+until to-day, when it rains in a very dogged, sullen, downcast,
+and determined manner. We have been speculating
+at breakfast on the possibility of its raining in a similar
+manner at Naples, and of your wandering about the hotel,
+refusing consolation.</p>
+
+<p>I grieve to report the Orvieto considerably damaged by
+the general vine failure, but still far from despicable.
+Montefiascone (the Est wine you know) is to be had here;
+and we have had one bottle in the very finest condition, and
+one in a second-rate state.</p>
+
+<p>The Coliseum, in its magnificent old decay, is as grand
+as ever; and with the electric telegraph darting through
+one of its ruined arches like a sunbeam and piercing direct
+through its cruel old heart, is even grander.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me always, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Rome</span>, <i>Monday, Nov. 14th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Catherine</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As I have mentioned in my letter to Georgy (written
+last night but posted with this), I received her letter without
+yours, to my unbounded astonishment. This morning,
+on sending again to the post-office, I at last got yours, and
+most welcome it is with all its contents.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I found Layard at Naples, who went up Vesuvius with
+us, and was very merry and agreeable. He is travelling
+with Lord and Lady Somers, and Lord Somers being laid
+up with an attack of malaria fever, Layard had a day to
+spare. Craven, who was Lord Normanby's Secretary of
+Legation in Paris, now lives at Naples, and is married to a
+French lady. He is very hospitable and hearty, and seemed
+to have vague ideas that something might be done in a
+pretty little private theatre he has in his house. He told
+me of Fanny Kemble and the Sartoris's being here. I have
+also heard of Thackeray's being here&mdash;I don't know how
+truly. Lockhart is here, and, I fear, very ill. I mean to
+go and see him.</p>
+
+<p>We are living in the old hotel, which is not now kept by
+Meloni, who has retired. I don't know whether you recollect
+an apartment at the top of the house, to which we once ran
+up with poor Roche to see the horses start in the race at
+the Carnival time? That is ours, in which I at present
+write. We have a large back dining-room, a handsome
+front drawing-room, looking into the Piazza del Popolo,
+and three front bedrooms, all on a floor. The whole costs us
+about four shillings a day each. The hotel is better kept
+than ever. There is a little kitchen to each apartment
+where the dinner is kept hot. There is no house comparable
+to it in Paris, and it is better than Mivart's. We
+start for Florence, post, on Friday morning, and I am
+bargaining for a carriage to take us on to Venice.</p>
+
+<p>Edward is an excellent servant, and always cheerful and
+ready for his work. He knows no Italian, except the names
+of a few things, but French is far more widely known here
+now than in our time. Neither is he an experienced courier
+as to roads and so forth; but he picks up all that I want to
+know, here and there, somehow or other. I am perfectly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>
+pleased with him, and would rather have him than an older
+hand. Poor dear Roche comes back to my mind though,
+often.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to engage the courier from Turin into
+France, from <i>Tuesday, the 6th December</i>. This will bring us
+home some two days after the tenth, probably. I wrote to
+Charley from Naples, giving him his choice of meeting me
+at Lyons, in Paris, or at Boulogne. I gave him full
+instructions what to do if he arrived before me, and he will
+write to me at Turin saying where I shall find him. I shall
+be a day or so later than I supposed as the nearest calculation
+I could make when I wrote to him; but his waiting for
+me at an hotel will not matter.</p>
+
+<p>We have had delightful weather, with one day's exception,
+until to-day, when it rained very heavily and suddenly.
+Egg and Collins have gone to the Vatican, and I am
+"going" to try whether I can hit out anything for the
+Christmas number. Give my love to Forster, and tell him
+I won't write to him until I hear from him.</p>
+
+<p>I have not come across any English whom I know except
+Layard and the Emerson Tennents, who will be here on
+Thursday from Civita Vecchia, and are to dine with us.
+The losses up to this point have been two pairs of shoes
+(one mine and one Egg's), Collins's snuff-box, and Egg's
+dressing-gown.</p>
+
+<p>We observe the managerial punctuality in all our arrangements,
+and have not had any difference whatever.</p>
+
+<p>I have been reserving this side all through my letter, in
+the conviction that I had something else to tell you. If I
+had, I cannot remember what it is. I introduced myself to
+Salvatore at Vesuvius, and reminded him of the night when
+poor Le Gros fell down the mountains. He was full of
+interest directly, remembered the very hole, put on his gold-banded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
+cap, and went up with us himself. He did not
+know that Le Gros was dead, and was very sorry to hear it.
+He asked after the ladies, and hoped they were very happy,
+to which I answered, "Very." The cone is completely
+changed since our visit, is not at all recognisable as the
+same place; and there is no fire from the mountain, though
+there is a great deal of smoke. Its last demonstration was
+in 1850.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be glad to think of your all being at home again,
+as I suppose you will be soon after the receipt of this.
+Will you see to the invitations for Christmas Day, and write
+to L&aelig;titia? I shall be very happy to be at home again
+myself, and to embrace you; for of course I miss you <i>very
+much</i>, though I feel that I could not have done a better
+thing to clear my mind and freshen it up again, than make
+this expedition. If I find Charley much ahead of me, I
+shall start on through a night or so to meet him, and leave
+the others to catch us up. I look upon the journey as almost
+closed at Turin. My best love to Mamey, and Katey, and
+Sydney, and Harry, and the darling Plornishghenter. We
+often talk about them, and both my companions do so with
+interest. They always send all sorts of messages to you,
+which I never deliver. God bless you! Take care of
+yourself.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Rome</span>, <i>Thursday Afternoon, Nov. 17th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Just as I wrote the last words of the enclosed little
+story for the Christmas number just now, Edward brought
+in your letter. Also one from Forster (tell him) which I
+have not yet opened. I will write again&mdash;and write to him&mdash;from
+Florence. I am delighted to have news of you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The enclosed little paper for the Christmas number is in
+a character that nobody else is likely to hit, and which is
+pretty sure to be considered pleasant. Let Forster have
+the MS. with the proof, and I know he will correct it to the
+minutest point. I have a notion of another little story, also
+for the Christmas number. If I can do it at Venice, I will,
+and send it straight on. But it is not easy to work under
+these circumstances. In travelling we generally get up
+about three; and in resting we are perpetually roaming
+about in all manner of places. Not to mention my being
+laid hold of by all manner of people.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Keep "Household Words" Imaginative</span>! is the solemn
+and continual Conductorial Injunction. Delighted to hear
+of Mrs. Gaskell's contributions.</p>
+
+<p>Yes by all manner of means to Lady Holland. Will you
+ask her whether she has Sydney Smith's letters to me,
+which I placed (at Mrs. Smith's request) either in Mrs.
+Smith's own hands or in Mrs. Austin's? I cannot remember
+which, but I think the latter.</p>
+
+<p>In making up the Christmas number, don't consider my
+paper or papers, with any reference saving to where they
+will fall best. I have no liking, in the case, for any
+particular place.</p>
+
+<p>All perfectly well. Companion moustaches (particularly
+Egg's) dismal in the extreme. Kindest regards to Mrs.
+Wills.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Florence</span>, <i>Monday, Nov. 21st, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+H. W.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sent you by post from Rome, on Wednesday last, a
+little story for the Christmas number, called "The Schoolboy's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
+Story." I have an idea of another short one, to be
+called "Nobody's Story," which I hope to be able to
+do at Venice, and to send you straight home before
+this month is out. I trust you have received the first
+safely.</p>
+
+<p>Edward continues to do extremely well. He is always,
+early and late, what you have seen him. He is a very steady
+fellow, a little too bashful for a courier even; settles prices
+of everything now, as soon as we come into an hotel; and
+improves fast. His knowledge of Italian is painfully defective,
+and, in the midst of a howling crowd at a post-house
+or railway station, this deficiency perfectly stuns him. I
+was obliged last night to get out of the carriage, and pluck
+him from a crowd of porters who were putting our baggage
+into wrong conveyances&mdash;by cursing and ordering about in
+all directions. I should think about ten substantives, the
+names of ten common objects, form his whole Italian stock.
+It matters very little at the hotels, where a great deal of
+French is spoken now; but, on the road, if none of his
+party knew Italian, it would be a very serious inconvenience
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Will you write to Ryland if you have not heard from
+him, and ask him what the Birmingham reading-nights
+are really to be? For it is ridiculous enough that I
+positively don't know. Can't a Saturday Night in a Truck
+District, or a Sunday Morning among the Ironworkers (a
+fine subject) be knocked out in the course of the same
+visit?</p>
+
+<p>If you should see any managing man you know in the
+Oriental and Peninsular Company, I wish you would very
+gravely mention to him from me that if they are not careful
+what they are about with their steamship <i>Valetta</i>, between
+Marseilles and Naples, they will suddenly find that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+will receive a blow one fine day in <i>The Times</i>, which it
+will be a very hard matter for them ever to recover. When
+I sailed in her from Genoa, there had been taken on board,
+<i>with no caution in most cases from the agent, or hint of
+discomfort</i>, at least forty people of both sexes for whom
+there was no room whatever. I am a pretty old traveller
+as you know, but I never saw anything like the manner in
+which pretty women were compelled to lie among the men
+in the great cabin and on the bare decks. The good humour
+was beyond all praise, but the natural indignation very
+great; and I was repeatedly urged to stand up for the
+public in "Household Words," and to write a plain description
+of the facts to <i>The Times</i>. If I had done either, and
+merely mentioned that all these people paid heavy first-class
+fares, I will answer for it that they would have been beaten
+off the station in a couple of months. I did neither,
+because I was the best of friends with the captain and all
+the officers, and never saw such a fine set of men; so admirable
+in the discharge of their duty, and so zealous to do
+their best by everybody. It is impossible to praise them too
+highly. But there is a strong desire at all the ports along
+the coast to throw impediments in the way of the English
+service, and to favour the French and Italian boats. In
+those boats (which I know very well) great care is taken of
+the passengers, and the accommodation is very good. If the
+Peninsula and Oriental add to all this the risk of such an
+exposure as they are <i>certain</i> to get (if they go on so) in <i>The
+Times</i>, they are dead sure to get a blow from the public
+which will make them stagger again. I say nothing of the
+number of the passengers and the room in the ship's boats,
+though the frightful consideration the contrast presented
+must have been in more minds than mine. I speak only of
+the taking people for whom there is no sort of accommodation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>
+as the most decided swindle, and the coolest, I ever did with
+my eyes behold.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Kindest regards from fellow-travellers.</span><br />
+Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Venice</span>, <i>Friday, November 25th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We found an English carriage from Padua at Florence,
+and hired it to bring it back again. We travelled post with
+four horses all the way (from Padua to this place there is a
+railroad) and travelled all night. We left Florence at half-past
+six in the morning, and got to Padua at eleven next day&mdash;yesterday.
+The cold at night was most intense. I don't
+think I have ever felt it colder. But our carriage was very
+comfortable, and we had some wine and some rum to keep
+us warm. We came by Bologna (where we had tea) and
+Ferrara. You may imagine the delays in the night when I
+tell you that each of our passports, after receiving <i>six vis&eacute;s</i>
+at Florence, received in the course of the one night, <i>nine
+more</i>, every one of which was written and sealed; somebody
+being slowly knocked out of bed to do it every time! It
+really was excruciating.</p>
+
+<p>Landor had sent me a letter to his son, and on the day
+before we left Florence I thought I would go out to Fiesoli
+and leave it. So I got a little one-horse open carriage and
+drove off alone. We were within half a mile of the Villa
+Landoro, and were driving down a very narrow lane like one
+of those at Albaro, when I saw an elderly lady coming
+towards us, very well dressed in silk of the Queen's blue,
+and walking freshly and briskly against the wind at a good
+round pace. It was a bright, cloudless, very cold day, and
+I thought she walked with great spirit, as if she enjoyed it.
+I also thought (perhaps that was having him in my mind)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>
+that her ruddy face was shaped like Landor's. All of a
+sudden the coachman pulls up, and looks enquiringly at
+me. "What's the matter?" says I. "Ecco la Signora
+Landoro?" says he. "For the love of Heaven, don't stop,"
+says I. "<i>I</i> don't know her, I am only going to the house to
+leave a letter&mdash;go on!" Meanwhile she (still coming on)
+looked at me, and I looked at her, and we were both a good
+deal confused, and so went our several ways. Altogether, I
+think it was as disconcerting a meeting as I ever took part
+in, and as odd a one. Under any other circumstances I
+should have introduced myself, but the separation made the
+circumstances so peculiar that "I didn't like."</p>
+
+<p>The Plornishghenter is evidently the greatest, noblest,
+finest, cleverest, brightest, and most brilliant of boys.
+Your account of him is most delightful, and I hope to find
+another letter from you somewhere on the road, making
+me informed of his demeanour on your return. On which
+occasion, as on every other, I have no doubt he will have
+distinguished himself as an irresistibly attracting, captivating
+May-Roon-Ti-Groon-Ter. Give him a good many kisses
+for me. I quite agree with Syd as to his ideas of paying
+attention to the old gentleman. It's not bad, but deficient in
+originality. The usual deficiency of an inferior intellect
+with so great a model before him. I am very curious to see
+whether the Plorn remembers me on my reappearance.</p>
+
+<p>I meant to have gone to work this morning, and to have
+tried a second little story for the Christmas number of
+"Household Words," but my letters have (most pleasantly)
+put me out, and I defer all such wise efforts until to-morrow.
+Egg and Collins are out in a gondola with a
+servitore di piazza.</p>
+
+<p>You will find this but a stupid letter, but I really have
+no news. We go to the opera, whenever there is one, see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
+sights, eat and drink, sleep in a natural manner two or
+three nights, and move on again. Edward was a little
+crushed at Padua yesterday. He had been extraordinarily
+cold all night in the rumble, and had got out our clothes to
+dress, and I think must have been projecting a five or six
+hours' sleep, when I announced that he was to come on here
+in an hour and a half to get the rooms and order dinner.
+He fell into a sudden despondency of the profoundest kind,
+but was quite restored when we arrived here between eight
+and nine. We found him waiting at the Custom House with
+a gondola in his usual brisk condition.</p>
+
+<p>It is extraordinary how few English we see. With the
+exception of a gentlemanly young fellow (in a consumption
+I am afraid), married to the tiniest little girl, in a brown
+straw hat, and travelling with his sister and her sister, and
+a consumptive single lady, travelling with a maid and a
+Scotch terrier <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'chistened'">christened</ins> Trotty Veck, we have scarcely seen
+any, and have certainly spoken to none, since we left
+Switzerland. These were aboard the <i>Valetta</i>, where the
+captain and I indulged in all manner of insane suppositions
+concerning the straw hat&mdash;the "Little Matron" we called
+her; by which name she soon became known all over the
+ship. The day we entered Rome, and the moment we
+entered it, there was the Little Matron, alone with antiquity&mdash;and
+Murray&mdash;on the wall. The very first church I
+entered, there was the Little Matron. On the last afternoon,
+when I went alone to St. Peter's, there was the Little
+Matron and her party. The best of it is, that I was
+extremely intimate with them, invited them to Tavistock
+House, when they come home in the spring, and have not
+the faintest idea of their name.</p>
+
+<p>There was no table d'h&ocirc;te at Rome, or at Florence, but
+there is one here, and we dine at it to-day, so perhaps we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>
+may stumble upon somebody. I have heard from Charley
+this morning, who appoints (wisely) Paris as our place of
+meeting. I had a letter from Coote, at Florence, informing
+me that his volume of "Household Songs" was ready, and
+requesting permission to dedicate it to me. Which of course
+I gave.</p>
+
+<p>I am beginning to think of the Birmingham readings.
+I suppose you won't object to be taken to hear them? This
+is the last place at which we shall make a stay of more than
+one day. We shall stay at Parma one, and at Turin one,
+supposing De la Rue to have been successful in taking
+places with the courier into France for the day on which we
+want them (he was to write to bankers at Turin to do it),
+and then we shall come hard and fast home. I feel almost
+there already, and shall be delighted to close the pleasant
+trip, and get back to my own Piccola Camera&mdash;if, being
+English, you understand what <i>that</i> is. My best love and
+kisses to Mamey, Katey, Sydney, Harry, and the noble
+Plorn. Last, not least, to yourself, and many of them. I
+will not wait over to-morrow, tell Kate, for her letter; but
+will write then, whether or no.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Georgy,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Marcus
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>December 19th, 1853.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Marcus</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You made an excellent sketch from a book of mine
+which I have received (and have preserved) with great
+pleasure. Will you accept from me, in remembrance of it,
+<i>this</i> little book? I believe it to be true, though it may be
+sometimes not as genteel as history has a habit of being.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1854.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>The</span> summer of this year was also spent at Boulogne,
+M. Beaucourt being again the landlord; but the house,
+though still on the same "property," stood on the top of
+the hill, above the Moulineaux, and was called the Villa du
+Camp de Droite.</div>
+
+<p>In the early part of the year Charles Dickens paid
+several visits to the English provinces, giving readings from
+his books at many of the large manufacturing towns, and
+always for some good and charitable purpose.</p>
+
+<p>He was still at work upon "Hard Times," which was
+finished during the summer, and was constantly occupied
+with "Household Words." Many of our letters for this
+year are to the contributors to this journal. The last is an
+unusually interesting one. He had for some time past been
+much charmed with the writings of a certain Miss Berwick,
+who, he knew, to be a contributor under a feigned name.
+When at last the lady confided her real name, and he discovered
+in the young poetess the daughter of his dear
+friends, Mr.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> and Mrs. Procter, the "new sensation" caused
+him intense surprise, and the greatest pleasure and delight.
+Miss Adelaide Procter was, from this time, a frequent contributor
+to "Household Words," more especially to the
+Christmas numbers.</p>
+
+<p>There are really very few letters in this year requiring
+any explanation from us&mdash;many explaining themselves, and
+many having allusion to incidents in the past year, which
+have been duly noted by us for 1853.</p>
+
+<p>The portrait mentioned in the letter to Mr. Collins, for
+which he was sitting to Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A., was to be
+one of a series of oil sketches of the then celebrated literary
+men of the day, in their studies. We believe this portrait
+to be now in the possession of Mrs. Ward.</p>
+
+<p>In explanation of the letter to Mr. John Saunders on
+the subject of the production of the latter's play, called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>
+"Love's Martyrdom," we will give the dramatist's own
+words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Having printed for private circulation a play entitled
+'Love's Martyrdom,' and for which I desired to obtain the
+independent judgment of some of our most eminent literary
+men, before seeking the ordeal of the stage, I sent a
+copy to Mr. Dickens, and the letter in question is his
+acknowledgment.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>"He immediately took steps for the introduction of the
+play to the theatre. At first he arranged with Mr. Phelps,
+of Sadler's Wells, but subsequently, with that gentleman's
+consent, removed it to the Haymarket. There it was played
+with Miss Helen Faucit in the character of Margaret, Miss
+Swanborough (who shortly after married and left the stage)
+as Julia, Mr. Barry Sullivan as Franklyn, and Mr. Howe as
+Laneham.</p>
+
+<p>"As far as the play itself was concerned, it was received
+on all sides as a genuine dramatic and poetic success,
+achieved, however, as an eminent critic came to my box to
+say, through greater difficulties than he had ever before
+seen a dramatic work pass through. The time has not come
+for me to speak freely of these, but I may point to two of
+them: the first being the inadequate rehearsals, which
+caused Mr. Dickens to tell me on the stage, four or five
+days only before the first performance, that the play was
+not then in as good a state as it would have been in at Paris
+three weeks earlier. The other was the breakdown of the
+performer of a most important secondary part; a collapse
+so absolute that he was changed by the management before
+the second representation of the piece."</p></div>
+
+<p>This ill-luck of the beginning, pursued the play to its
+close.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Haymarket Theatre was at the time in the very
+lowest state of prostration, through the Crimean War; the
+habitual frequenters were lovers of comedy, and enjoyers of
+farce and burlesque; and there was neither the money nor
+the faith to call to the theatre by the usual methods,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>
+vigorously and discriminatingly pursued, the multitudes
+that I believed could have been so called to a better and
+more romantic class of comedy.</p>
+
+<p>"Even under these and other, similarly depressing circumstances,
+the nightly receipts were about &pound;60, the expenses
+being &pound;80; and on the last&mdash;an author's&mdash;night, there was
+an excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to the best of
+my recollection, about &pound;140, but certainly between &pound;120
+and &pound;140. And with that night&mdash;the sixth or seventh&mdash;the
+experiment ended."</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Savage
+Landor.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 7th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Landor</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I heartily assure you that to have your name coupled
+with anything I have done is an honour and a pleasure to
+me. I cannot say that I am sorry that you should have
+thought it necessary to write to me, for it is always delightful
+to me to see your hand, and to know (though I
+want no outward and visible sign as an assurance of the fact)
+that you are ever the same generous, earnest, gallant man.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine and Georgina send their kind loves. So does
+Walter Landor, who came home from school with high
+judicial commendation and a prize into the bargain.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Landor, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Friday, January 13th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On the very day after I sent the Christmas number
+to Rockingham, I heard of your being at Brighton. I should
+have sent another there, but that I had a misgiving I might
+seem to be making too much of it. For, when I thought of
+the probability of the Rockingham copy going on to Brighton,
+and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large
+envelopes at once at Junction House at breakfast time, a
+sort of comic modesty overcame me. I was heartily pleased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>
+with the Birmingham audience, which was a very fine one.
+I never saw, nor do I suppose anybody ever did, such an
+interesting sight as the working people's night. There were
+two thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately
+observant audience it is impossible to imagine. They
+lost nothing, misinterpreted nothing, followed everything
+closely, laughed and cried with most delightful earnestness,
+and animated me to that extent that I felt as if we were all
+bodily going up into the clouds together. It is an enormous
+place for the purpose; but I had considered all that carefully,
+and I believe made the most distant person hear as well as
+if I had been reading in my own room. I was a little doubtful
+before I began on the first night whether it was quite practicable
+to conceal the requisite effort; but I soon had the
+satisfaction of finding that it was, and that we were all going
+on together, in the first page, as easily, to all appearance, as
+if we had been sitting round the fire.</p>
+
+<p>I am obliged to go out on Monday at five and to dine
+out; but I will be at home at any time before that hour that
+you may appoint. You say you are only going to stay one
+night in town; but if you could stay two, and would dine
+with us alone on Tuesday, <i>that</i> is the plan that we should
+all like best. Let me have one word from you by post on
+Monday morning. Few things that I saw, when I was away,
+took my fancy so much as the Electric Telegraph, piercing,
+like a sunbeam, right through the cruel old heart of the
+Coliseum at Rome. And on the summit of the Alps, among
+the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts
+sustained against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters
+of great beams&mdash;to say nothing of its being at the bottom
+of the sea as we crossed the Channel. With kindest loves,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Most faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, January 16th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It is all very well to pretend to love me as you do.
+Ah! If you loved as <i>I</i> love, Mary! But, when my breast is
+tortured by the perusal of such a letter as yours, Falkland,
+Falkland, madam, becomes my part in "The Rivals," and I
+play it with desperate earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>As thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falkland</span> (<i>to Acres</i>). Then you see her, sir, sometimes?</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Acres</span>. See her! Odds beams and sparkles, yes. See her acting!
+Night after night.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falkland</span> (<i>aside and furious</i>). Death and the devil! Acting, and I
+not there! Pray, sir (<i>with constrained calmness</i>), what
+does she act?</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Acres</span>. Odds, monthly nurses and babbies! Sairey Gamp and
+Betsey Prig, "which, wotever it is, my dear (<i>mimicking</i>),
+I likes it brought reg'lar and draw'd mild!" <i>That's</i>
+very like her.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falkland</span>. Confusion! Laceration! Perhaps, sir, perhaps she sometimes
+acts&mdash;ha! ha! perhaps she sometimes acts, I say&mdash;eh!
+sir?&mdash;a&mdash;ha, ha, ha! a fairy? (<i>With great bitterness.</i>)</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Acres</span>. Odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes! You should hear
+her sing as a fairy. You should see her dance as a
+fairy. Tol de rol lol&mdash;la&mdash;lol&mdash;liddle diddle. (<i>Sings and
+dances</i>). <i>That's</i> very like her.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falkland</span>. Misery! while I, devoted to her image, can scarcely write
+a line now and then, or pensively read aloud to the
+people of Birmingham. (<i>To him.</i>) And they applaud her,
+no doubt they applaud her, sir. And she&mdash;I see her!
+Curtsies and smiles! And they&mdash;curses on them! they
+laugh and&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;and clap their hands&mdash;and say
+it's very good. Do they not say it's very good, sir?
+Tell me. Do they not?</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Acres</span>. Odds, thunderings and pealings, of course they do! and
+the third fiddler, little Tweaks, of the county town, goes
+into fits. Ho, ho, ho, I can't bear it (<i>mimicking</i>); take
+me out! Ha, ha, ha! O what a one she is! She'll be
+the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha! <i>That's</i> very like her!</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falkland</span>. Damnation! Heartless Mary! (<i>Rushes out.</i>)</div></div>
+
+<p>Scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>
+into form of letters, representing the following inscription:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+When the praise thou meetest<br />
+To thine ear is sweetest,<br />
+O then<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Remember Joe</span>!</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+(<i>Curtain falls.</i>)<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 16th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Guilty. The accused pleads guilty, but throws himself
+upon the mercy of the court. He humbly represents
+that his usual hour for getting up, in the course of his
+travels, was three o'clock in the morning, and his usual hour
+for going to bed, nine or ten the next night. That the
+places in which he chiefly deviated from these rules of
+hardship, were Rome and Venice; and that at those cities of
+fame he shut himself up in solitude, and wrote Christmas
+papers for the incomparable publication known as "Household
+Words." That his correspondence at all times, arising
+out of the business of the said "Household Words" alone,
+was very heavy. That his offence, though undoubtedly
+committed, was unavoidable, and that a nominal punishment
+will meet the justice of the case.</p>
+
+<p>We had only three bad days out of the whole time.
+After Naples, which was very hot, we had very cold, clear,
+bright weather. When we got to Chamounix, we found
+the greater part of the inns shut up and the people gone.
+No visitors whatsoever, and plenty of snow. These were
+the very best circumstances under which to see the place,
+and we stayed a couple of days at the H&ocirc;tel de Londres
+(hastily re-furbished for our entertainment), and climbed
+through the snow to the Mer de Glace, and thoroughly
+enjoyed it. Then we went, in mule procession (I walking)
+to the old hotel at Martigny, where Collins was ill, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>
+suppose I bored Egg to death by talking all the evening
+about the time when you and I were there together. Naples
+(a place always painful to me, in the intense degradation of
+the people) seems to have only three classes of inhabitants
+left in it&mdash;priests, soldiers (standing army one hundred
+thousand strong), and spies. Of macaroni we ate very
+considerable quantities everywhere; also, for the benefit of
+Italy, we took our share of every description of wine. At
+Naples I found Layard, the Nineveh traveller, who is a
+friend of mine and an admirable fellow; so we fraternised
+and went up Vesuvius together, and ate more macaroni and
+drank more wine. At Rome, the day after our arrival, they
+were making a saint at St. Peter's; on which occasion I was
+surprised to find what an immense number of pounds of
+wax candles it takes to make the regular, genuine article.
+From Turin to Paris, over the Mont Cenis, we made only
+one journey. The Rhone, being frozen and foggy, was not
+to be navigated, so we posted from Lyons to Chalons, and
+everybody else was doing the like, and there were no horses
+to be got, and we were stranded at midnight in amazing
+little cabarets, with nothing worth mentioning to eat in
+them, except the iron stove, which was rusty, and the
+billiard-table, which was musty. We left Turin on a
+Tuesday evening, and arrived in Paris on a Friday evening;
+where I found my son Charley, hot&mdash;or I should rather say
+cold&mdash;from Germany, with his arms and legs so grown out
+of his coat and trousers, that I was ashamed of him, and
+was reduced to the necessity of taking him, under cover of
+night, to a ready-made establishment in the Palais Royal,
+where they put him into balloon-waisted pantaloons, and
+increased my confusion. Leaving Calais on the evening
+of Sunday, the 10th of December; fact of distinguished
+author's being aboard, was telegraphed to Dover; thereupon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>
+authorities of Dover Railway detained train to London for
+distinguished author's arrival, rather to the exasperation of
+British public. D. A. arrived at home between ten and
+eleven that night, thank God, and found all well and
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>I think you see <i>The Times</i>, and if so, you will have
+seen a very graceful and good account of the Birmingham
+readings. It was the most remarkable thing that England
+could produce, I think, in the way of a vast intelligent
+assemblage; and the success was most wonderful and
+prodigious&mdash;perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether.
+They wound up by giving my wife a piece of plate,
+having given me one before; and when you come to dine
+here (may it be soon!) it shall be duly displayed in the centre
+of the table.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Mrs. Cerjat, to whom my love, and all our loves, that
+I have highly excited them at home here by giving them
+an account in detail of all your daughters; further, that the
+way in which Catherine and Georgina have questioned me
+and cross-questioned me about you all, notwithstanding,
+is maddening. Mrs. Watson has been obliged to pass her
+Christmas at Brighton alone with her younger children, in consequence
+of her two eldest boys coming home to Rockingham
+from school with the whooping-cough. The quarantine
+expires to-day, however; and she drives here, on her way
+back into Northamptonshire, to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>The sad affair of the Preston strike remains unsettled;
+and I hear, on strong authority, that if that were settled, the
+Manchester people are prepared to strike next. Provisions
+very dear, but the people very temperate and quiet in
+general. So ends this jumble, which looks like the index
+to a chapter in a book, I find, when I read it over.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Cerjat, heartily your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 18th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am quite delighted to find that you are so well
+satisfied, and that the enterprise has such a light upon it. I
+think I never was better pleased in my life than I was with
+my Birmingham friends.</p>
+
+<p>That principle of fair representation of all orders carefully
+carried out, I believe, will do more good than any of us
+can yet foresee. Does it not seem a strange thing to
+consider that I have never yet seen with these eyes of
+mine, a mechanic in any recognised position on the platform
+of a Mechanics' Institution?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wills may be expected to sink, shortly, under the
+ravages of letters from all parts of England, Ireland, and
+Scotland, proposing readings. He keeps up his spirits, but
+I don't see how they are to carry him through.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and Miss Hogarth beg their kindest
+regards; and I am, my dear sir, with much regard, too,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 30th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Indeed there is no fear of my thinking you the owner
+of a cold heart. I am more than three parts disposed,
+however, to be ferocious with you for ever writing down
+such a preposterous truism.</p>
+
+<p>My satire is against those who see figures and averages,
+and nothing else&mdash;the representatives of the wickedest and
+most enormous vice of this time&mdash;the men who, through
+long years to come, will do more to damage the real useful
+truths of political economy than I could do (if I tried) in my
+whole life; the addled heads who would take the average
+of cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>
+for clothing a soldier in nankeens on a night when he
+would be frozen to death in fur, and who would comfort the
+labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to and from his
+work, by telling him that the average distance of one
+inhabited place from another in the whole area of England,
+is not more than four miles. Bah! What have you to
+do with these?</p>
+
+<p>I shall put the book upon a private shelf (after reading
+it) by "Once upon a Time." I should have buried my pipe of
+peace and sent you this blast of my war-horn three or four
+days ago, but that I have been reading to a little audience
+of three thousand five hundred at Bradford.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, March 7th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am tardy in answering your letter; but "Hard
+Times," and an immense amount of enforced correspondence,
+are my excuse. To you a sufficient one, I know.</p>
+
+<p>As I should judge from outward and visible appearances,
+I have exactly as much chance of seeing the Russian fleet
+reviewed by the Czar as I have of seeing the English fleet
+reviewed by the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>"Club Law" made me laugh very much when I went
+over it in the proof yesterday. It is most capitally done,
+and not (as I feared it might be) too directly. It is in the
+next number but one.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. &mdash;&mdash; has gone stark mad&mdash;and stark naked&mdash;on
+the spirit-rapping imposition. She was found t'other day
+in the street, clothed only in her chastity, a pocket-handkerchief
+and a visiting card. She had been informed, it appeared,
+by the spirits, that if she went out in that trim she would be
+invisible. She is now in a madhouse, and, I fear, hopelessly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>
+insane. One of the curious manifestations of her disorder
+is that she can bear nothing black. There is a terrific
+business to be done, even when they are obliged to put coals
+on her fire.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&mdash; has a thing called a Psycho-grapher, which writes
+at the dictation of spirits. It delivered itself, a few nights
+ago, of this extraordinarily lucid message:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">x. y. z</span>!<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>upon which it was gravely explained by the true believers
+that "the spirits were out of temper about something."
+Said &mdash;&mdash; had a great party on Sunday, when it was
+rumoured "a count was going to raise the dead." I stayed
+till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for
+neither count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch.
+It is really inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can
+be run away with by such small deer.</p>
+
+<p><i>&Agrave; propos</i> of spiritual messages comes in Georgina, and,
+hearing that I am writing to you, delivers the following
+enigma to be conveyed to Mrs. White:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"Wyon of the Mint lives <i>at</i> the Mint."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Feeling my brain going after this, I only trust it with
+loves from all to all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>March 17th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have read the article with much interest. It is
+most conscientiously done, and presents a great mass of
+curious information condensed into a surprisingly small
+space.</p>
+
+<p>I have made a slight note or two here and there, with a
+soft pencil, so that a touch of indiarubber will make all
+blank again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And I earnestly entreat your attention to the point (I
+have been working upon it, weeks past, in "Hard Times")
+which I have jocosely suggested on the last page but one.
+The English are, so far as I know, the hardest-worked
+people on whom the sun shines. Be content if, in their
+wretched intervals of pleasure, they read for amusement and
+do no worse. They are born at the oar, and they live and
+die at it. Good God, what would we have of them!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>,"</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">No. 16, Wellington Street, North Strand</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, April 12th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>I know all the walks for many and many miles
+round about Malvern, and delightful walks they are. I
+suppose you are already getting very stout, very red, very
+jovial (in a physical point of view) altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Mark and I walked to Dartford from Greenwich, last
+Monday, and found Mrs. &mdash;&mdash; acting "The Stranger" (with
+a strolling company from the Standard Theatre) in Mr.
+Munn's schoolroom. The stage was a little wider than
+your table here, and its surface was composed of loose
+boards laid on the school forms. Dogs sniffed about it
+during the performances, and <i>the</i> carpenter's highlows were
+ostentatiously taken off and displayed in the proscenium.</p>
+
+<p>We stayed until a quarter to ten, when we were obliged
+to fly to the railroad, but we sent the landlord of the hotel
+down with the following articles:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Punch recipe">
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;bottle</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;superior</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;old port,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='left'>golden sherry,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='left'>best French brandy,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>1</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='left'>1st quality old Tom gin,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;bottle</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;superior</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;prime Jamaica rum,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='center'>do.</td><td align='left'>small still <i>Isla</i> whiskey,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;kettle</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;boiling</td><td align='left'>water, two pounds finest white lump sugar,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='3'>Our cards,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;lemon,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><span style="margin-left: 2em;">and</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='3'>Our compliments.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The effect we had previously made upon the theatrical
+company by being beheld in the first two chairs&mdash;there was
+nearly a pound in the house&mdash;was altogether electrical.</p>
+
+<p>My ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed
+at your not saying that you drink two-and-twenty
+tumblers of the limpid element, every day. The children
+also unite in "loves," and the Plornishghenter, on being
+asked if he would send his, replies "Yes&mdash;man," which we
+understand to signify cordial acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>Forster just come back from lecturing at Sherborne.
+Describes said lecture as "Blaze of Triumph."</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+H. W. <span class="smcap">again</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss&mdash;I mean Mrs.&mdash;Bell's story very nice. I have sent
+it to the printer, and entitled it "The Green Ring and the
+Gold Ring."</p>
+
+<p>This apartment looks desolate in your absence; but,
+O Heavens, how tidy!</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+F. W.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wills supposed to have gone into a convent at
+Somers Town.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 5em;">My dear Wills,</span><br />
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. B. W.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday Night, April 15th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have read the "Fatal Revenge." Don't do what
+the minor theatrical people call "despi-ser" me, but I think
+it's very bad. The concluding narrative is by far the most
+meritorious part of the business. Still, the people are so
+very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and are
+always knocking other people's bones about in such a very
+irrational way, that I object. The way in which earthquakes
+won't swallow the monsters, and volcanoes in
+eruption won't boil them, is extremely aggravating. Also
+their habit of bolting when they are going to explain
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>You have sent me a very different and a much better
+book; and for that I am truly grateful. With the dust of
+"Maturin" in my eyes, I sat down and read "The Death of
+Friends," and the dust melted away in some of those tears
+it is good to shed. I remember to have read "The Backroom
+Window" some years ago, and I have associated it
+with you ever since. It is a most delightful paper. But
+the two volumes are all delightful, and I have put them on
+a shelf where you sit down with Charles Lamb again, with
+Talfourd's vindication of him hard by.</p>
+
+<p>We never meet. I hope it is not irreligious, but in this
+strange London I have an inclination to adapt a portion of
+the Church Service to our common experience. Thus:</p>
+
+<p>"We have left unmet the people whom we ought to have
+met, and we have met the people whom we ought not to
+have met, and there seems to be no help in us."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 7em;">But I am always, my dear Procter,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 5em;">(At a distance),</span><br />
+Very cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>April 21st, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I safely received the paper from Mr. Shaen, welcomed
+it with three cheers, and instantly despatched it to
+the printer, who has it in hand now.</p>
+
+<p>I have no intention of striking. The monstrous claims
+at domination made by a certain class of manufacturers,
+and the extent to which the way is made easy for working
+men to slide down into discontent under such hands, are
+within my scheme; but I am not going to strike, so don't
+be afraid of me. But I wish you would look at the story
+yourself, and judge where and how near I seem to be
+approaching what you have in your mind. The first two
+months of it will show that.</p>
+
+<p>I will "make my will" on the first favourable occasion.
+We were playing games last night, and were fearfully
+clever. With kind regards to Mr. Gaskell, always, my dear
+Mrs. Gaskell,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>May 30th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I can<i>not</i> stand a total absence of ventilation, and I
+should have liked (in an amiable and persuasive manner) to
+have punched &mdash;&mdash;'s head, and opened the register stoves.
+I saw the supper tables, sir, in an empty state, and was
+charmed with them. Likewise I recovered myself from a
+swoon, occasioned by long contact with an unventilated man
+of a strong flavour from Copenhagen, by drinking an
+unknown species of celestial lemonade in that enchanted
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p>I am grieved to say that on Saturday I stand engaged
+to dine, at three weeks' notice, with one &mdash;&mdash;,
+a man who has read every book that ever was written,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>
+and is a perfect gulf of information. Before exploding
+a mine of knowledge he has a habit of closing one eye
+and wrinkling up his nose, so that he seems perpetually
+to be taking aim at you and knocking you over with a
+terrific charge. Then he looks again, and takes another
+aim. So you are always on your back, with your legs in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>How can a man be conversed with, or walked with, in
+the county of Middlesex, when he is reviewing the Kentish
+Militia on the shores of Dover, or sailing, every day for
+three weeks, between Dover and Calais?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;"Humphry Clinker" is certainly Smollett's best.
+I am rather divided between "Peregrine Pickle" and
+"Roderick Random," both extraordinarily good in their
+way, which is a way without tenderness; but you will have
+to read them both, and I send the first volume of
+"Peregrine" as the richer of the two.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Peter
+Cunningham.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>June 7th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cunningham</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot become one of the committee for Wilson's
+statue, after entertaining so strong an opinion against the
+expediency of such a memorial in poor dear Talfourd's case.
+But I will subscribe my three guineas, and will pay that
+sum to the account at Coutts's when I go there next week,
+before leaving town.</p>
+
+<p>"The Goldsmiths" admirably done throughout. It is a
+book I have long desired to see done, and never expected to
+see half so well done. Many thanks to you for it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Please to observe the address at Boulogne: "Villa
+du Camp de Droite."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Villa du Camp de Droite</span>, <i>Thursday, June 22nd, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have nothing to say, but having heard from you
+this morning, think I may as well report all well.</p>
+
+<p>We have a most charming place here. It beats the
+former residence all to nothing. We have a beautiful
+garden, with all its fruits and flowers, and a field of our
+own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and
+everything that is airy and fresh. The great Beaucourt
+hovers about us like a guardian genius, and I imagine that
+no English person in a carriage could by any possibility
+find the place.</p>
+
+<p>Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with
+which a certain inimitable creature has made the most of
+it, I will say nothing, until you have an opportunity of
+inspecting the same. At present I will only observe that I
+have written exactly seventy-two words of "Hard Times,"
+since I have been here.</p>
+
+<p>The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat,
+in every stage and aspect of sea-sickness.</p>
+
+<p>The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building
+for (they say) sixty thousand soldiers. I don't imagine it to
+be near enough to bother us.</p>
+
+<p>If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good
+sometimes to come over with the proofs on a Saturday,
+when the tide serves well, before you and Mrs. W. make
+your annual visit. Recollect there is always a bed, and no
+sudden appearance will put us out.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Kind regards.</span><br />
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa du Camp de Droite, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of "Hard Times"
+I beg to report this tenement&mdash;<span class="smcap">amazing</span>!!! Range of view
+and air, most free and delightful; hill-side garden, delicious;
+field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks already
+effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping
+up of a "home" at rounders.</p>
+
+<p>I hope to finish and get to town by next Wednesday
+night, the 19th; what do you say to coming back with me
+on the following Tuesday? The interval I propose to pass
+in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded license in
+the metropolis. If you will come and breakfast with me
+about midnight&mdash;anywhere&mdash;any day, and go to bed no
+more until we fly to these pastoral retreats, I shall be
+delighted to have so vicious an associate.</p>
+
+<p>Will you undertake to let Ward know that if he still
+wishes me to sit to him, he shall have me as long as he
+likes, at Tavistock House, on Monday, the 24th, from
+ten <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>?</p>
+
+<p>I have made it understood here that we shall want to be
+taken the greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on
+nourishing meats. Several new dishes have been rehearsed
+and have come out very well. I have met with what they
+call in the City "a parcel" of the celebrated 1846 champagne.
+It is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good
+when weak.</p>
+
+<p>The camp is about a mile off. Voluptuous English
+authors reposing from their literary fatigues (on their
+laurels) are expected, when all other things fail, to lie on
+straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny, and stare
+at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (About one hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>
+and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on
+Beaucourt since we have been here, and he has clinked
+glasses with them every one, and read a MS. book of his
+father's, on soldiers in general, to them all.)</p>
+
+<p>I shall be glad to hear what you say to these various
+proposals. I write with the Emperor in the town, and a
+great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no
+stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat. It is like
+being up in a balloon. Lionising Englishmen and Germans
+start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway
+up. Ha! ha! ha!</p>
+
+<p>Kindest regards from all. The Plornishghenter adds
+Mr. and Mrs. Goose's duty.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The cobbler has been ill these many months, and
+unable to work; has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it
+cut three times a week. The little dog sits at the door so
+unhappy and anxious to help, that I every day expect to see
+him beginning a pair of top boots.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>," <i>Saturday, July 22nd, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgina</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Neither you nor Catherine did justice to Collins's
+book.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> I think it far away the cleverest novel I have
+ever seen written by a new hand. It is in some respects
+masterly. "Valentine Blyth" is as original, and as well
+done as anything can be. The scene where he shows his
+pictures is full of an admirable humour. Old Mat is admirably
+done. In short, I call it a very remarkable book,
+and have been very much surprised by its great merit.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Kate, with my love, that she will receive to-morrow
+in a little parcel, the complete proofs of "Hard Times."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>
+They will not be corrected, but she will find them pretty
+plain. I am just now going to put them up for her. I saw
+Grisi the night before last in "Lucrezia Borgia"&mdash;finer
+than ever. Last night I was drinking gin-slings till daylight,
+with Buckstone of all people, who saw me looking at
+the Spanish dancers, and insisted on being convivial. I
+have been in a blaze of dissipation altogether, and have
+succeeded (I think), in knocking the remembrance of my
+work out.</p>
+
+<p>Loves to all the darlings, from the Plornish-Maroon
+upward. London is far hotter than Naples.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa du Camp de Droite, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Aug. 17th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sent your MS. off to Wills yesterday, with instructions
+to forward it to you without delay. I hope you
+will have received it before this notification comes to hand.</p>
+
+<p>The usual festivity of this place at present&mdash;which is the
+blessing of soldiers by the ten thousand&mdash;has just now been
+varied by the baptising of some new bells, lately hung up
+(to my sorrow and lunacy) in a neighbouring church. An
+English lady was godmother; and there was a procession
+afterwards, wherein an English gentleman carried "the
+relics" in a highly suspicious box, like a barrel organ; and
+innumerable English ladies in white gowns and bridal
+wreaths walked two and two, as if they had all gone to
+school again.</p>
+
+<p>At a review, on the same day, I was particularly struck
+by the commencement of the proceedings, and its singular
+contrast to the usual military operations in Hyde Park.
+Nothing would induce the general commanding in chief to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>
+begin, until chairs were brought for all the lady-spectators.
+And a detachment of about a hundred men deployed into
+all manner of farmhouses to find the chairs. Nobody
+seemed to lose any dignity by the transaction, either.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">With kindest regards, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,</span><br />
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+William
+Harness.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa du Camp de Droite, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Aug. 19th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Harness</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Yes. The book came from me. I could not put a
+memorandum to that effect on the title-page, in consequence
+of my being here.</p>
+
+<p>I am heartily glad you like it. I know the piece you
+mention, but am far from being convinced by it. A great
+misgiving is upon me, that in many things (this thing
+among the rest) too many are martyrs to <i>our</i> complacency
+and satisfaction, and that we must give up something
+thereof for their poor sakes.</p>
+
+<p>My kindest regards to your sister, and my love (if I may
+send it) to another of your relations.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa du Camp de Droite, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Sept. 6th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><b>*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</b></div>
+
+<p>Any Saturday on which the tide serves your purpose
+(next Saturday excepted) will suit me for the flying visit
+you hint at; and we shall be delighted to see you.
+Although the camp is not above a mile from this gate, we
+never see or hear of it, unless we choose. If you could
+come here in dry weather you would find it as pretty, airy,
+and pleasant a situation as you ever saw. We illuminated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>
+the whole front of the house last night&mdash;eighteen windows&mdash;and
+an immense palace of light was seen sparkling on
+this hill-top for miles and miles away. I rushed to a
+distance to look at it, and never saw anything of the same
+kind half so pretty.</p>
+
+<p>The town<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> looks like one immense flag, it is so decked
+out with streamers; and as the royal yacht approached
+yesterday&mdash;the whole range of the cliff tops lined with
+troops, and the artillery matches in hand, all ready to fire
+the great guns the moment she made the harbour; the
+sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the Prince in
+a blazing uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to
+see&mdash;a stupendous silence, and then such an infernal blazing
+and banging as never was heard. It was almost as fine a
+sight as one could see under a deep blue sky. In our own
+proper illumination I laid on all the servants, all the
+children now at home, all the visitors (it is the annual
+"Household Words" time), one to every window, with
+everything ready to light up on the ringing of a big
+dinner-bell by your humble correspondent. St. Peter's on
+Easter Monday was the result.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Best love from all.</span><br />
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Tuesday, Sept. 26th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First, I have to report that I received your letter with
+much pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, that the weather has entirely changed. It is so
+cool that we have not only a fire in the drawing-room regularly,
+but another to dine by. The delicious freshness of the
+air is charming, and it is generally bright and windy besides.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p>
+<p>Thirdly, that &mdash;&mdash;'s intellectual faculties appear to
+have developed suddenly. He has taken to borrowing
+money; from which I infer (as he has no intention whatever
+of repaying) that his mental powers are of a high
+order. Having got a franc from me, he fell upon Mrs.
+Dickens for five sous. She declining to enter into the transaction,
+he beleaguered that feeble little couple, Harry and
+Sydney, into paying two sous each for "tickets" to behold
+the ravishing spectacle of an utterly-non-existent-and-there-fore-impossible-to-be-produced
+toy theatre. He eats stony
+apples, and harbours designs upon his fellow-creatures until
+he has become light-headed. From the couch rendered uneasy
+by this disorder he has arisen with an excessively protuberant
+forehead, a dull slow eye, a complexion of a leaden
+hue, and a croaky voice. He has become a horror to me,
+and I resort to the most cowardly expedients to avoid meeting
+him. He, on the other hand, wanting another franc,
+dodges me round those trees at the corner, and at the back
+door; and I have a presentiment upon me that I shall fall a
+sacrifice to his cupidity at last.</p>
+
+<p>On the Sunday night after you left, or rather on the
+Monday morning at half-past one, Mary was taken <i>very ill</i>.
+English cholera. She was sinking so fast, and the sickness
+was so exceedingly alarming, that it evidently would not do
+to wait for Elliotson. I caused everything to be done that
+we had naturally often thought of, in a lonely house so full
+of children, and fell back upon the old remedy; though the
+difficulty of giving even it was rendered very great by the
+frightful sickness. Thank God, she recovered so favourably
+that by breakfast time she was fast asleep. She slept
+twenty-four hours, and has never had the least uneasiness
+since. I heard&mdash;of course afterwards&mdash;that she had had an
+attack of sickness two nights before. I think that long ride<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>
+and those late dinners had been too much for her. Without
+them I am inclined to doubt whether she would have been ill.</p>
+
+<p>Last Sunday as ever was, the theatre took fire at half-past
+eleven in the forenoon. Being close by the English
+church, it showered hot sparks into that temple through the
+open windows. Whereupon the congregation shrieked and
+rose and tumbled out into the street; &mdash;&mdash; benignly observing
+to the only ancient female who would listen to him, "I fear
+we must part;" and afterwards being beheld in the street&mdash;in
+his robes and with a kind of sacred wildness on him&mdash;handing
+ladies over the kennel into shops and other structures,
+where they had no business whatever, or the least
+desire to go. I got to the back of the theatre, where I
+could see in through some great doors that had been forced
+open, and whence the spectacle of the whole interior, burning
+like a red-hot cavern, was really very fine, even in the daylight.
+Meantime the soldiers were at work, "saving" the
+scenery by pitching it into the next street; and the poor
+little properties (one spinning-wheel, a feeble imitation of a
+water-mill, and a basketful of the dismalest artificial flowers
+very conspicuous) were being passed from hand to hand
+with the greatest excitement, as if they were rescued children
+or lovely women. In four or five hours the whole place was
+burnt down, except the outer walls. Never in my days did
+I behold such feeble endeavours in the way of extinguishment.
+On an average I should say it took ten minutes to
+throw half a gallon of water on the great roaring heap; and
+every time it was insulted in this way it gave a ferocious
+burst, and everybody ran off. Beaucourt has been going
+about for two days in a clean collar; which phenomenon
+evidently means something, but I don't know what. Elliotson
+reports that the great conjuror lives at his hotel, has
+extra wine every day, and fares expensively. Is he the devil?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have heard from the Kernel.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Wa'al, sir, sayin' as he
+minded to locate himself with us for a week, I expected to
+have heard from him again this morning, but have not.
+Beard comes to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Kindest regards and remembrances from all. Ward
+lives in a little street between the two Tintilleries. The
+Plornish-Maroon desires his duty. He had a fall yesterday,
+through overbalancing himself in kicking his nurse.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Friday, Oct. 13th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Having some little matters that rather press on my
+attention to see to in town, I have made up my mind to
+relinquish the walking project, and come straight home (by
+way of Folkestone) on Tuesday. I shall be due in town at
+midnight, and shall hope to see you next day, with the top
+of your coat-collar mended.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that happens here we suppose to be an
+announcement of the taking of Sebastopol. When a
+church-clock strikes, we think it is the joy-bell, and fly
+out of the house in a burst of nationality&mdash;to sneak in
+again. If they practise firing at the camp, we are sure it
+is the artillery celebrating the fall of the Russian, and we
+become enthusiastic in a moment. I live in constant
+readiness to illuminate the whole house. Whatever anybody
+says I believe; everybody says, every day, that
+Sebastopol is in flames. Sometimes the Commander-in-Chief
+has blown himself up, with seventy-five thousand
+men. Sometimes he has "cut" his way through Lord
+Raglan, and has fallen back on the advancing body<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>
+of the Russians, one hundred and forty-two thousand
+strong, whom he is going to "bring up" (I don't know
+where from, or how, or when, or why) for the destruction
+of the Allies. All these things, in the words of the
+catechism, "I steadfastly believe," until I become a mere
+driveller, a moonstruck, babbling, staring, credulous,
+imbecile, greedy, gaping, wooden-headed, addle-brained,
+wool-gathering, dreary, vacant, obstinate civilian.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my fellow-countryman, affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Saunders.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>October 26th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have had much gratification and pleasure in the
+receipt of your obliging communication. Allow me to
+thank you for it, in the first place, with great cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>Although I cannot say that I came without any prepossessions
+to the perusal of your play (for I had favourable
+inclinings towards it before I began), I <i>can</i> say that I read it
+with the closest attention, and that it inspired me with
+a strong interest, and a genuine and high admiration. The
+parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of your
+task appear to me those in which you shine most. I would
+particularly instance the end of Julia as a very striking
+example of this. The delicacy and beauty of her redemption
+from her weak rash lover, are very far, indeed beyond
+the range of any ordinary dramatist, and display the true
+poetical strength.</p>
+
+<p>As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, and in seeing
+the child of your fancy on his stage, I will venture to point
+out to you not only what I take to be very dangerous
+portions of "Love's Martyrdom" as it stands, <i>for presentation
+on the stage</i>, but portions which I believe Mr. Phelps
+will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>
+him in the persons of live men and women on the wooden
+boards. Knowing him, I think he will be then as violently
+discouraged as he is now generously exalted; and it may be
+useful to you to be prepared for the consideration of those
+passages.</p>
+
+<p>I do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the
+play of modern times best known to an audience proceeds
+upon the main idea of this, namely, that there was a
+hunchback who, because of his deformity, mistrusted himself.
+But it is certainly a grain in the balance when the
+balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it
+should be most carefully trimmed. The incident of the
+ring is an insignificant one to look at over a row of gaslights,
+is difficult to convey to an audience, and the least thing will
+make it ludicrous. If it be so well done by Mr. Phelps
+himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable.
+If it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly
+so, because you revert to it. The quarrel scene between the
+two brothers in the third act is now so long that the justification
+of blind passion and impetuosity&mdash;which can alone
+bear out Franklyn, before the bodily eyes of a great concourse
+of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own
+brother&mdash;is lost. That the two should be parted, and that
+Franklyn should again drive at him, and strike him, and then
+wound him, is a state of things to set the sympathy of an
+audience in the wrong direction, and turn it from the man
+you make happy to the man you leave unhappy. I would
+on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by that
+picture, more than once. All the most sudden inconstancy
+of Clarence I would soften down. Margaret must act much
+better than any actress I have ever seen, if all her lines fall
+in pleasant places; therefore, I think she needs compression
+too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All this applies solely to the theatre. If you ever revise
+the sheets for readers, will you note in the margin the
+broken laughter and the appeals to the Deity? If, on
+summing them up, you find you want them all, I would
+leave them as they stand by all means. If not, I would
+blot accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>It is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by
+anticipating what I believe Mr. Phelps will discover&mdash;or
+what, if ever he should pass it, I have a strong conviction
+the audience will find out&mdash;that I have ventured on these
+few hints. Your concurrence with them generally, on reconsideration,
+or your preference for the poem as it stands, can
+not in the least affect my interest in your success. On the
+other hand, I have a perfect confidence in your not taking
+my misgivings ill; they arise out of my sincere desire for
+the triumph of your work.</p>
+
+<p>With renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded
+me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>November 1st, 1854.</i></span><br />
+(And a constitutionally foggy day.)<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I thought it better not to encumber the address to
+working men with details. Firstly, because they would
+detract from whatever fiery effect the words may have in
+them; secondly, because writing and petitioning and
+pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now
+so clearly understood; and thirdly, because the paper was
+meant as an opening to a persistent pressure of the whole
+question on the public, which would yield other opportunities
+of touching on such points.</p>
+
+<p>In the number <i>for next week</i>&mdash;not this&mdash;is one of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>
+following-up articles called "A Home Question." It is not
+written by me, but is generally of my suggesting, and is
+exceedingly well done by a thorough and experienced hand.
+I think you will find in it, generally, what you want. I have
+told the printers to send you a proof by post as soon as it is
+corrected&mdash;that is to say, as soon as some insertions I made
+in it last night are in type and in their places.</p>
+
+<p>My dear old Parr, I don't believe a word you write about
+King John! That is to say, I don't believe you take into
+account the enormous difference between the energy summonable-up
+in your study at Sherborne and the energy that
+will fire up in you (without so much as saying "With your
+leave" or "By your leave") in the Town Hall at Birmingham.
+I know you, you ancient codger, I know you! Therefore
+I will trouble you to be so good as to do an act of
+honesty after you have been to Birmingham, and to write
+to me, "Ingenuous boy, you were correct. I find I could
+have read 'em 'King John' with the greatest ease."</p>
+
+<p>In that vast hall in the busy town of Sherborne, in
+which our illustrious English novelist is expected to read
+next month&mdash;though he is strongly of opinion that he is
+deficient in power, and too old&mdash;I wonder what accommodation
+there is for reading! because our illustrious
+countryman likes to stand at a desk breast-high, with
+plenty of room about him, a sloping top, and a ledge to
+keep his book from tumbling off. If such a thing should
+not be there, however, on his arrival, I suppose even a Sherborne
+carpenter could knock it up out of a deal board. <i>Is</i>
+there a deal board in Sherborne though? I should like to
+hear Katey's opinion on that point.</p>
+
+<p>In this week's "Household Words" there is an exact
+portrait of our Boulogne landlord, which I hope you will
+like. I think of opening the next long book I write with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
+a man of juvenile figure and strong face, who is always
+persuading himself that he is infirm. What do you think
+of the idea? I should like to have your opinion about it.
+I would make him an impetuous passionate sort of fellow,
+devilish grim upon occasion, and of an iron purpose.
+Droll, I fancy?</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&mdash; is getting a little too fat, but appears to be
+troubled by the great responsibility of directing the whole
+war. He doesn't seem to be quite clear that he has got the
+ships into the exact order he intended, on the sea point of
+attack at Sebastopol. We went to the play last Saturday
+night with Stanfield, whose "high lights" (as Maclise calls
+those knobs of brightness on the top of his cheeks) were
+more radiant than ever. We talked of you, and I told
+Stanny how they are imitating his "Acis and Galatea" sea
+in "Pericles," at Phelps's. He didn't half like it; but I
+added, in nautical language, that it was merely a piratical
+effort achieved by a handful of porpoise-faced swabs, and
+that brought him up with a round turn, as we say at sea.</p>
+
+<p>We are looking forward to the twentieth of next month
+with great pleasure. All Tavistock House send love and
+kisses to all Sherborne House. If there is anything I can
+bring down for you, let me know in good course of time.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday, Nov. 1st, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I take upon myself to answer your letter to Catherine,
+as I am referred to in it.</p>
+
+<p>The "Walk" is not my writing. It is very well done by
+a close imitator. Why I found myself so "used up" after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>
+"Hard Times" I scarcely know, perhaps because I intended
+to do nothing in that way for a year, when the idea laid hold
+of me by the throat in a very violent manner, and because
+the compression and close condensation necessary for that
+disjointed form of publication gave me perpetual trouble.
+But I really was tired, which is a result so very incomprehensible
+that I can't forget it. I have passed an idle autumn
+in a beautiful situation, and am dreadfully brown and big.
+For further particulars of Boulogne, see "Our French
+Watering Place," in this present week of "Household
+Words," which contains a faithful portrait of our landlord
+there.</p>
+
+<p>If you carry out that bright Croydon idea, rely on our
+glad co-operation, only let me know all about it a few days
+beforehand; and if you feel equal to the contemplation of
+the moustache (which has been cut lately) it will give us the
+heartiest pleasure to come and meet you. This in spite of
+the terrific duffery of the Crystal Palace. It is a very
+remarkable thing in itself; but to have so very large a
+building continually crammed down one's throat, and to find
+it a new page in "The Whole Duty of Man" to go there, is
+a little more than even I (and you know how amiable I am)
+can endure.</p>
+
+<p>You always like to know what I am going to do, so I
+beg to announce that on the 19th of December I am going
+to read the "Carol" at Reading, where I undertook the
+presidency of the Literary Institution on the death of poor
+dear Talfourd. Then I am going on to Sherborne, in
+Dorsetshire, to do the like for another institution, which
+is one of the few remaining pleasures of Macready's life.
+Then I am coming home for Christmas Day. Then I believe
+I must go to Bradford, in Yorkshire, to read once more to a
+little fireside party of four thousand. Then I am coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>
+home again to get up a new little version of "The Children
+in the Wood" (yet to be written, by-the-bye), for the children
+to act on Charley's birthday.</p>
+
+<p>I am full of mixed feeling about the war&mdash;admiration of
+our valiant men, burning desires to cut the Emperor of
+Russia's throat, and something like despair to see how the
+old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the wrongs and
+sufferings of the people at home. When I consider the
+Patriotic Fund on the one hand, and on the other the
+poverty and wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which
+in London alone, an infinitely larger number of English
+people than are likely to be slain in the whole Russian war
+have miserably and needlessly died&mdash;I feel as if the world
+had been pushed back five hundred years. If you are
+reading new books just now, I think you will be interested
+with a controversy between Whewell and Brewster, on the
+question of the shining orbs about us being inhabited or
+no. Whewell's book is called, "On the Plurality of Worlds;"
+Brewster's, "More Worlds than One." I shouldn't wonder
+if you know all about them. They bring together a vast
+number of points of great interest in natural philosophy,
+and some very curious reasoning on both sides, and leave
+the matter pretty much where it was.</p>
+
+<p>We had a fine absurdity in connection with our luggage,
+when we left Boulogne. The barometer had within a few
+hours fallen about a foot, in honour of the occasion, and it
+was a tremendous night, blowing a gale of wind and raining
+a little deluge. The luggage (pretty heavy, as you may
+suppose), in a cart drawn by two horses, stuck fast in a rut
+in our field, and couldn't be moved. Our man, made a
+lunatic by the extremity of the occasion, ran down to the
+town to get two more horses to help it out, when he
+returned with those horses and carter B, the most beaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span>
+of men; carter A, who had been soaking all the time by
+the disabled vehicle, descried in carter B the acknowledged
+enemy of his existence, took his own two horses out, and
+walked off with them! After which, the whole set-out
+remained in the field all night, and we came to town,
+thirteen individuals, with one comb and a pocket-handkerchief.
+I was upside-down during the greater part of the
+passage.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Rae's account of Franklin's unfortunate party is
+deeply interesting; but I think hasty in its acceptance of
+the details, particularly in the statement that they had eaten
+the dead bodies of their companions, which I don't believe.
+Franklin, on a former occasion, was almost starved to death,
+had gone through all the pains of that sad end, and lain
+down to die, and no such thought had presented itself to
+any of them. In famous cases of shipwreck, it is very rare
+indeed that any person of any humanising education or
+refinement resorts to this dreadful means of prolonging
+life. In open boats, the coarsest and commonest men of the
+shipwrecked party have done such things; but I don't
+remember more than one instance in which an officer had
+overcome the loathing that the idea had inspired. Dr. Rae
+talks about their <i>cooking</i> these remains too. I should like
+to know where the fuel came from.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 5em;">Kindest love and best regards.</span><br />
+Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Friday Night, Nov. 3rd, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First of all, here is enclosed a letter for Mrs.
+Stanfield, which, if you don't immediately and faithfully
+deliver, you will hear of in an unpleasant way from the
+station-house at the curve of the hill above you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Secondly, this is not to remind you that we meet at the
+Athen&aelig;um next Monday at five, because none but a mouldy
+swab as never broke biscuit or lay out on the for'sel-yardarm
+in a gale of wind ever forgot an appointment with a
+messmate.</p>
+
+<p>But what I want you to think of at your leisure is this:
+when our dear old Macready was in town last, I saw it would
+give him so much interest and pleasure if I promised to go
+down and read my "Christmas Carol" to the little Sherborne
+Institution, which is now one of the few active objects he
+has in the life about him, that I came out with that promise
+in a bold&mdash;I may say a swaggering way. Consequently,
+on Wednesday, the 20th of December, I am going down
+to see him, with Kate and Georgina, returning to town in
+good time for Christmas, on Saturday, the 23rd. Do you
+think you could manage to go and return with us? I really
+believe there is scarcely anything in the world that would give
+him such extraordinary pleasure as such a visit; and if you
+would empower me to send him an intimation that he may
+expect it, he will have a daily joy in looking forward to the
+time (I am seriously sure) which we&mdash;whose light has not
+gone out, and who are among our old dear pursuits and
+associations&mdash;can scarcely estimate.</p>
+
+<p>I don't like to broach the idea in a careless way, and so
+I propose it thus, and ask you to think of it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 17th, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You have given me a new sensation. I did suppose
+that nothing in this singular world could surprise me, but
+you have done it.</p>
+
+<p>You will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span>
+talent of your writing to be sincere. From the first, I have
+always had an especial interest in that Miss Berwick, and
+have over and over again questioned Wills about her. I
+suppose he has gone on gradually building up an imaginary
+structure of life and adventure for her, but he has given me
+the strangest information! Only yesterday week, when we
+were "making up" "The Poor Travellers," as I sat meditatively
+poking the office fire, I said to him, "Wills, have
+you got that Miss Berwick's proof back, of the little sailor's
+song?" "No," he said. "Well, but why not?" I asked
+him. "Why, you know," he answered, "as I have often
+told you before, she don't live at the place to which her
+letters are addressed, and so there's always difficulty and
+delay in communicating with her." "Do you know what
+age she is?" I said. Here he looked unfathomably profound,
+and returned, "Rather advanced in life." "You said she
+was a governess, didn't you?" said I; to which he replied
+in the most emphatic and positive manner, "A governess."</p>
+
+<p>He then came and stood in the corner of the hearth,
+with his back to the fire, and delivered himself like an
+oracle concerning you. He told me that early in life (conveying
+to me the impression of about a quarter of a century
+ago) you had had your feelings desperately wounded by
+some cause, real or imaginary&mdash;"It does not matter which,"
+said I, with the greatest sagacity&mdash;and that you had then
+taken to writing verses. That you were of an unhappy
+temperament, but keenly sensitive to encouragement. That
+you wrote after the educational duties of the day were discharged.
+That you sometimes thought of never writing
+any more. That you had been away for some time "with
+your pupils." That your letters were of a mild and melancholy
+character, and that you did not seem to care as much
+as might be expected about money. All this time I sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>
+poking the fire, with a wisdom upon me absolutely crushing;
+and finally I begged him to assure the lady that she might
+trust me with her real address, and that it would be better
+to have it now, as I hoped our further communications,
+etc. etc. etc. You must have felt enormously wicked last
+Tuesday, when I, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously
+prattling to you. But you have given me so much pleasure,
+and have made me shed so many tears, that I can only think
+of you now in association with the sentiment and grace of
+your verses.</p>
+
+<p>So pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of Richard
+Watts, though I am afraid you come under both his conditions
+of exclusion.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1855.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>In</span> the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens gave public
+readings at Reading, Sherborne, and Bradford in Yorkshire,
+to which reference is made in the first following letters. Besides
+this, he was fully occupied in getting up a play for his
+children, which was acted on the 6th January. Mr. Planch&eacute;'s
+fairy extravaganza of "Fortunio and his Seven Gifted
+Servants" was the play selected, the parts being filled by
+all his own children and some of their young friends, and
+Charles Dickens, Mr. Mark Lemon, and Mr. Wilkie Collins
+playing with them, the only grown-up members of the company.
+In February he made a short trip to Paris with
+Mr. Wilkie Collins, with an intention of going on to Bordeaux,
+which was abandoned on account of bad weather.
+Out of the success of the children's play at Tavistock House
+rose a scheme for a serious play at the same place. Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span>
+Collins undertaking to write a melodrama for the purpose,
+and Mr. Stanfield to paint scenery and drop-scene, Charles
+Dickens turned one of the rooms of the house into a very
+perfect little theatre, and in June "The Lighthouse" was
+acted for three nights, with "Mr. Nightingale's Diary"
+and "Animal Magnetism" as farces; the actors being himself
+and several members of the original amateur company,
+the actresses, his two daughters and his sister-in-law. Mr.
+Stanfield, after entering most heartily into the enterprise,
+and giving constant time and attention to the painting of
+his beautiful scenes, was unfortunately ill and unable to
+attend the first performance. We give a letter to him,
+reporting its great success.</div>
+
+<p>In this summer Charles Dickens made a speech at a
+great meeting at Drury Lane Theatre on the subject of
+"Administrative Reform," of which he writes to Mr.
+Macready. On this subject of "Administrative Reform,"
+too, we give two letters to the great Nineveh traveller
+Mr. Layard (now Sir Austen H. Layard), for whom, as his
+letters show, he conceived at once the affectionate friendship
+which went on increasing from this time for the rest of his
+life. Mr. Layard also spoke at the Drury Lane meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens had made a promise to give another
+reading at Birmingham for the funds of the institute which
+still needed help; and in a letter to Mr. Arthur Ryland,
+asking him to fix a time for it, he gives the first idea of a
+selection from "David Copperfield," which was afterwards
+one of the most popular of his readings.</p>
+
+<p>He was at all times fond of making excursions for a day&mdash;or
+two or three days&mdash;to Rochester and its neighbourhood;
+and after one of these, this year, he writes to
+Mr. Wills that he has seen a "small freehold" to be sold,
+<i>opposite</i> the house on which he had fixed his childish
+affections (and which he calls in <i>this</i> letter the "Hermitage,"
+its real name being "Gad's Hill Place"). The latter house
+was not, at that time, to be had, and he made some approach
+to negotiations as to the other "little freehold," which,
+however, did not come to anything. Later in the year,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>
+however, Mr. Wills, by an accident, discovered that Gad's
+Hill Place, the property of Miss Lynn, the well-known
+authoress, and a constant contributor to "Household
+Words," was itself for sale; and a negotiation for its
+purchase commenced, which was not, however, completed
+until the following spring.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the year, the performance of "The Lighthouse"
+was repeated, for a charitable purpose, at the Campden
+House theatre.</p>
+
+<p>This autumn was passed at Folkestone. Charles Dickens
+had decided upon spending the following winter in Paris,
+and the family proceeded there from Folkestone in October,
+making a halt at Boulogne; from whence his sister-in-law
+preceded the party to Paris, to secure lodgings, with the
+help of Lady Olliffe. He followed, to make his choice of
+apartments that had been found, and he writes to his wife
+and to Mr. Wills, giving a description of the Paris house.
+Here he began "Little Dorrit." In a letter to Mrs. Watson,
+from Folkestone, he gives her the name which he had first
+proposed for this story&mdash;"Nobody's Fault."</p>
+
+<p>During his absence from England, Mr. and Mrs. Hogarth
+occupied Tavistock House, and his eldest son, being now
+engaged in business, remained with them, coming to Paris
+only for Christmas. Three of his boys were at school
+at Boulogne at this time, and one, Walter Landor, at
+Wimbledon, studying for an Indian army appointment.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 3rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>When your Christmas letter did not arrive according
+to custom, I felt as if a bit of Christmas had fallen out and
+there was no supplying the piece. However, it was soon supplied
+by yourself, and the bowl became round and sound again.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number of "Household Words," I suppose,
+will reach Lausanne about midsummer. The first
+ten pages or so&mdash;all under the head of "The First Poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>
+Traveller"&mdash;are written by me, and I hope you will find, in
+the story of the soldier which they contain, something that
+may move you a little. It moved me <i>not</i> a little in the
+writing, and I believe has touched a vast number of people.
+We have sold eighty thousand of it.</p>
+
+<p>I am but newly come home from reading at Reading
+(where I succeeded poor Talfourd as the president of an
+institution), and at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, and at Bradford,
+in Yorkshire. Wonderful audiences! and the number
+at the last place three thousand seven hundred. And yet
+but for the noise of their laughing and cheering, they
+"went" like one man.</p>
+
+<p>The absorption of the English mind in the war is, to
+me, a melancholy thing. Every other subject of popular
+solicitude and sympathy goes down before it. I fear I
+clearly see that for years to come domestic reforms are
+shaken to the root; every miserable red-tapist flourishes
+war over the head of every protester against his humbug;
+and everything connected with it is pushed to such an unreasonable
+extent, that, however kind and necessary it may
+be in itself, it becomes ridiculous. For all this it is an
+indubitable fact, I conceive, that Russia <span class="smcap">must be</span> stopped,
+and that the future peace of the world renders the war imperative
+upon us. The Duke of Newcastle lately addressed
+a private letter to the newspapers, entreating them to exercise
+a larger discretion in respect of the letters of "Our Own
+Correspondents," against which Lord Raglan protests as
+giving the Emperor of Russia information for nothing which
+would cost him (if indeed he could get it at all) fifty or a
+hundred thousand pounds a year. The communication has
+not been attended with much effect, so far as I can see. In
+the meantime I do suppose we have the wretchedest Ministry
+that ever was&mdash;in whom nobody not in office of some sort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
+believes&mdash;yet whom there is nobody to displace. The
+strangest result, perhaps, of years of Reformed Parliaments
+that ever the general sagacity did <i>not</i> foresee.</p>
+
+<p>Let me recommend you, as a brother-reader of high distinction,
+two comedies, both Goldsmith's&mdash;"She Stoops to
+Conquer" and "The Good-natured Man." Both are so
+admirable and so delightfully written that they read wonderfully.
+A friend of mine, Forster, who wrote "The Life of
+Goldsmith," was very ill a year or so ago, and begged me
+to read to him one night as he lay in bed, "something of
+Goldsmith's." I fell upon "She Stoops to Conquer," and
+we enjoyed it with that wonderful intensity, that I believe
+he began to get better in the first scene, and was all right
+again in the fifth act.</p>
+
+<p>I am charmed by your account of Haldimand, to whom
+my love. Tell him Sydney Smith's daughter has privately
+printed a life of her father with selections from his letters,
+which has great merit, and often presents him exactly as he
+used to be. I have strongly urged her to publish it, and I
+think she will do so, about March.</p>
+
+<p>My eldest boy has come home from Germany to learn
+a business life at Birmingham (I think), first of all. The
+whole nine are well and happy. Ditto, Mrs. Dickens.
+Ditto, Georgina. My two girls are full of interest in yours;
+and one of mine (as I think I told you when I was at
+Elys&eacute;e) is curiously like one of yours in the face. They are
+all agog now about a great fairy play, which is to come off
+here next Monday. The house is full of spangles, gas, Jew
+theatrical tailors, and pantomime carpenters. We all unite
+in kindest and best loves to dear Mrs. Cerjat and all the
+blooming daughters. And I am, with frequent thoughts of
+you and cordial affection, ever, my dear Cerjat,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 3rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is a word of heartfelt greeting; in exchange for
+yours, which came to me most pleasantly, and was received
+with a cordial welcome. If I had leisure to write a letter,
+I should write you, at this point, perhaps the very best
+letter that ever was read; but, being in the agonies of
+getting up a gorgeous fairy play for the postboys, on
+Charley's birthday (besides having the work of half-a-dozen
+to do as a regular thing), I leave the merits of the
+wonderful epistle to your lively fancy.</p>
+
+<p>Enclosing a kiss, if you will have the kindness to return
+it when done with.</p>
+
+<p>I have just been reading my "Christmas Carol" in
+Yorkshire. I should have lost my heart to the beautiful
+young landlady of my hotel (age twenty-nine, dress, black
+frock and jacket, exquisitely braided) if it had not been
+safe in your possession.</p>
+
+<p>Many, many happy years to you! My regards to that
+obstinate old Wurzell<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> and his dame, when you have them
+under lock and key again.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Gaskell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 27th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Gaskell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your
+story; not because it is the end of a task to which you had
+conceived a dislike (for I imagine you to have got the
+better of that delusion by this time), but because it is the
+vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious labour.
+It seems to me that you have felt the ground thoroughly
+firm under your feet, and have strided on with a force and
+purpose that <span class="smcap">must</span> now give you pleasure.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span></p>
+<p>You will not, I hope, allow that not-lucid interval of
+dissatisfaction with yourself (and me?), which beset you for
+a minute or two once upon a time, to linger in the shape of
+any disagreeable association with "Household Words." I
+shall still look forward to the large sides of paper, and shall
+soon feel disappointed if they don't begin to reappear.</p>
+
+<p>I thought it best that Wills should write the business
+letter on the conclusion of the story, as that part of our
+communications had always previously rested with him. I
+trust you found it satisfactory? I refer to it, not as a
+matter of mere form, but because I sincerely wish everything
+between us to be beyond the possibility of misunderstanding
+or reservation.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Dear Mrs. Gaskell, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 29th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Ryland</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been in the greatest difficulty&mdash;which I am not
+yet out of&mdash;to know what to read at Birmingham. I fear
+the idea of next month is now impracticable. Which of
+two other months do you think would be preferable for your
+Birmingham objects? Next May, or next December?</p>
+
+<p>Having already read two Christmas books at Birmingham,
+I should like to get out of that restriction, and have a swim
+in the broader waters of one of my long books. I have
+been poring over "Copperfield" (which is my favourite), with
+the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called by some
+such name as "Young Housekeeping and Little Emily."
+But there is still the huge difficulty that I constructed the
+whole with immense pains, and have so woven it up and
+blended it together, that I cannot yet so separate the parts
+as to tell the story of David's married life with Dora, and
+the story of Mr. Peggotty's search for his niece, within the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>
+time. This is my object. If I could possibly bring it to
+bear, it would make a very attractive reading, with, a strong
+interest in it, and a certain completeness.</p>
+
+<p>This is exactly the state of the case. I don't mind confiding
+to you, that I never can approach the book with
+perfect composure (it had such perfect possession of me
+when I wrote it), and that I no sooner begin to try to get
+it into this form, than I begin to read it all, and to feel that
+I cannot disturb it. I have not been unmindful of the
+agreement we made at parting, and I have sat staring at
+the backs of my books for an inspiration. This project is
+the only one that I have constantly reverted to, and yet I
+have made no progress in it!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House, London</span>, <i>Saturday Evening, Feb. 3rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am coming to Paris for a week, with my friend
+Collins&mdash;son of the English painter who painted our green
+lanes and our cottage children so beautifully. Do not tell
+this to Le Vieux. Unless I have the ill fortune to stumble
+against him in the street I shall not make my arrival known
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>I purpose leaving here on Sunday, the 11th, but I shall
+stay that night at Boulogne to see two of my little boys
+who are at school there. We shall come to Paris on
+Monday, the 12th, arriving there in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Now, <i>mon cher</i>, do you think you can, without inconvenience,
+engage me for a week an apartment&mdash;cheerful,
+light, and wholesome&mdash;containing a comfortable <i>salon et
+deux chambres &agrave; coucher</i>. I do not care whether it is
+an hotel or not, but the reason why I do not write for
+an apartment to the H&ocirc;tel Brighton is, that there they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>
+expect one to dine at home (I mean in the apartment)
+generally; whereas, as we are coming to Paris expressly to
+be always looking about us, we want to dine wherever we
+like every day. Consequently, what we want to find is
+a good apartment, where we can have our breakfast but
+where we shall never dine.</p>
+
+<p>Can you engage such accommodation for me? If you
+can, I shall feel very much obliged to you. If the apartment
+should happen to contain a little bed for a servant I
+might perhaps bring one, but I do not care about that
+at all. I want it to be pleasant and gay, and to throw
+myself <i>en gar&ccedil;on</i> on the festive <i>diableries de Paris</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and her sister send their kindest regards
+to Madame Regnier and you, in which I heartily join. All
+the children send their loves to the two brave boys and the
+Normandy <i>bonnes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I shall hope for a short answer from you one day next
+week. My dear Regnier,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words</span>," <i>Friday, Feb. 9th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I want to alter the arrangements for to-morrow, and
+put you to some inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>When I was at Gravesend t'other day, I saw, at Gad's
+Hill&mdash;just opposite to the Hermitage, where Miss Lynn
+used to live&mdash;a little freehold to be sold. The spot and the
+very house are literally "a dream of my childhood," and I
+should like to look at it before I go to Paris. With that
+purpose I must go to Strood by the North Kent, at a
+quarter-past ten to-morrow morning, and I want you,
+strongly booted, to go with me! (I know the particulars
+from the agent.)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Can you? Let me know. If you can, can you manage
+so that we can take the proofs with us? If you can't, will
+you bring them to Tavistock House at dinner time to-morrow,
+half-past five? Forster will dine with us, but no
+one else.</p>
+
+<p>I am uncertain of your being in town to-night, but I
+send John up with this.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Meurice, Paris</span>, <i>Friday, Feb. 16th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I heard from home last night; but the posts are so
+delayed and put out by the snow, that they come in at all
+sorts of times except the right times, and utterly defy all
+calculation. Will you tell Catherine with my love, that I
+will write to her again to-morrow afternoon; I hope she
+may then receive my letter by Monday morning, and in it I
+purpose telling her when I may be expected home. The
+weather is so severe and the roads are so bad, that the
+journey to and from Bordeaux seems out of the question.
+We have made up our minds to abandon it for the present,
+and to return about Tuesday night or Wednesday. Collins
+continues in a queer state, but is perfectly cheerful under
+the stoppage of his wine and other afflictions.</p>
+
+<p>We have a beautiful apartment, very elegantly furnished,
+very thickly carpeted, and as warm as any apartment in
+Paris <i>can</i> be in such weather. We are very well waited on
+and looked after. We breakfast at ten, read and write till
+two, and then I go out walking all over Paris, while the
+invalid sits by the fire or is deposited in a caf&eacute;. We dine at
+five, in a different restaurant every day, and at seven or so
+go to the theatre&mdash;sometimes to two theatres, sometimes to
+three. We get home about twelve, light the fire, and drink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span>
+lemonade, to which <i>I</i> add rum. We go to bed between
+one and two. I live in peace, like an elderly gentleman,
+and regard myself as in a negative state of virtue and
+respectability.</p>
+
+<p>The theatres are not particularly good, but I have
+seen Lema&icirc;tre act in the most wonderful and astounding
+manner. I am afraid we must go to the Op&eacute;ra Comique on
+Sunday. To-morrow we dine with Regnier and to-day with
+the Olliffes.</p>
+
+<p>"La Joie fait Peur," at the Fran&ccedil;ais, delighted me.
+Exquisitely played and beautifully imagined altogether.
+Last night we went to the Porte St. Martin to see a piece
+(English subject) called "Jane Osborne," which the characters
+pronounce "Ja Nosbornnne." The seducer was Lord
+Nottingham. The comic Englishwoman's name (she kept
+lodgings and was a very bad character) was Missees
+Christmas. She had begun to get into great difficulties
+with a gentleman of the name of Meestair Cornhill, when
+we were obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, by the
+intolerable stench of the place. The whole theatre must be
+standing over some vast cesspool. It was so alarming that
+I instantly rushed into a caf&eacute; and had brandy.</p>
+
+<p>My ear has gradually become so accustomed to French,
+that I understand the people at the theatres (for the first
+time) with perfect ease and satisfaction. I walked about
+with Regnier for an hour and a half yesterday, and received
+many compliments on my angelic manner of speaking the
+celestial language. There is a winter Franconi's now, high
+up on the Boulevards, just like the round theatre on the
+Champs Elys&eacute;es, and as bright and beautiful. A clown
+from Astley's is all in high favour there at present. He
+talks slang English (being evidently an idiot), as if he felt a
+perfect confidence that everybody understands him. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>
+name is Boswell, and the whole cirque rang last night with
+cries for Boz Zwilllll! Boz Zweellll! Boz Zwuallll! etc.
+etc. etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>I must begin to look out for the box of bon-bons for the
+noble and fascinating Plornish-Maroon. Give him my love
+and a thousand kisses.</p>
+
+<p>Loves to Mamey, Katey, Sydney, Harry, and the
+following stab to Anne&mdash;she forgot to pack me any shaving
+soap.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Georgy, most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Collins sends kind regards.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel Meurice, Paris</span>, <i>Friday, Feb. 16th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter yesterday evening. I have
+not yet seen the lists of trains and boats, but propose
+arranging to return about Tuesday or Wednesday. In the
+meantime I am living like Gil Blas and doing nothing. I
+am very much obliged to you, indeed, for the trouble you
+have kindly taken about the little freehold. It is clear to
+me that its merits resolve themselves into the view and the
+spot. If I had more money these considerations might, with
+me, overtop all others. But, as it is, I consider the matter
+quite disposed of, finally settled in the negative, and to be
+thought no more about. I shall not go down and look at
+it, as I could add nothing to your report.</p>
+
+<p>Paris is finer than ever, and I go wandering about it all
+day. We dine at all manner of places, and go to two or
+three theatres in the evening. I suppose, as an old farmer
+said of Scott, I am "makin' mysel'" all the time; but I
+seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior vagabond.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I live in continual terror of &mdash;&mdash;, and am strongly fortified
+within doors, with a means of retreat into my bedroom
+always ready. Up to the present blessed moment, his
+staggering form has not appeared.</p>
+
+<p>As to yesterday's post from England, I have not, at the
+present moment, the slightest idea where it may be. It is
+under the snow somewhere, I suppose; but nobody expects
+it, and <i>Galignani</i> reprints every morning leaders from <i>The
+Times</i> of about a fortnight or three weeks old.</p>
+
+<p>Collins, who is not very well, sends his "penitent
+regards," and says he is enjoying himself as much as a man
+with the weight of a broken promise on his conscience can.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>February 26th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Ryland</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Charley came home, I assure you, perfectly delighted
+with his visit to you, and rapturous in his accounts of your
+great kindness to him.</p>
+
+<p>It appears to me that the first question in reference to
+my reading (I have not advanced an inch in my "Copperfield"
+trials by-the-bye) is, whether you think you could
+devise any plan in connection with the room at Dee's,
+which would certainly bring my help in money up to five
+hundred pounds. That is what I want. If it could be
+done by a subscription for two nights, for instance, I
+would not be chary of my time and trouble. But if you
+cannot see your way clearly to that result in that connection,
+then I think it would be better to wait until we
+can have the Town Hall at Christmas. I have promised to
+read, about Christmas time, at Sheffield and at Peterboro'.
+I <i>could</i> add Birmingham to the list, then, if need were. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span>
+what I want is, to give the institution in all five hundred
+pounds. That is my object, and nothing less will satisfy me.</p>
+
+<p>Will you think it over, taking counsel with whomsoever
+you please, and let me know what conclusion you arrive at.
+Only think of me as subservient to the institution.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Mr. Ryland, always very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. David
+Roberts,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>February 28th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear David Roberts</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I hope to make it quite plain to you, in a few words,
+why I think it right to stay away from the Lord Mayor's
+dinner to the club. If I did not feel a kind of rectitude
+involved in my non-acceptance of his invitation, your note
+would immediately induce me to change my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Entertaining a strong opinion on the subject of the
+City Corporation as it stands, and the absurdity of its
+pretensions in an age perfectly different, in all conceivable
+respects, from that to which it properly belonged as a
+reality, I have expressed that opinion on more than one
+occasion, within a year or so, in "Household Words." I do
+not think it consistent with my respect for myself, or for
+the art I profess, to blow hot and cold in the same breath;
+and to laugh at the institution in print, and accept the
+hospitality of its representative while the ink is staring us
+all in the face. There is a great deal too much of this
+among us, and it does not elevate the earnestness or
+delicacy of literature.</p>
+
+<p>This is my sole consideration. Personally I have always
+met the present Lord Mayor on the most agreeable terms,
+and I think him an excellent one. As between you, and
+me, and him, I cannot have the slightest objection to your
+telling him the truth. On a more private occasion, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>
+he was not keeping his state, I should be delighted to
+interchange any courtesy with that honourable and amiable
+gentleman, Mr. Moon.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me always cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Austen H.
+Layard.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday Evening, April 3rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Layard</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Since I had the pleasure of seeing you again at Miss
+Coutts's (really a greater pleasure to me than I could easily
+tell you), I have thought a good deal of the duty we all owe
+you of helping you as much as we can. Being on very
+intimate terms with Lemon, the editor of "Punch" (a most
+affectionate and true-hearted fellow), I mentioned to him in
+confidence what I had at heart. You will find yourself the
+subject of their next large cut, and of some lines in an
+earnest spirit. He again suggested the point to Mr. Shirley
+Brookes, one of their regular corps, who will do what is
+right in <i>The Illustrated London News</i> and <i>The Weekly
+Chronicle</i>, papers that go into the hands of large numbers
+of people. I have also communicated with Jerrold, whom I
+trust, and have begged him not to be diverted from the
+straight path of help to the most useful man in England on
+all possible occasions. Forster I will speak to carefully,
+and I have no doubt it will quicken him a little; not that
+we have anything to complain of in his direction. If you
+ever see any new loophole, cranny, needle's-eye, through
+which I can present your case to "Household Words," I
+most earnestly entreat you, as your staunch friend and
+admirer&mdash;you <i>can</i> have no truer&mdash;to indicate it to me at
+any time or season, and to count upon my being Damascus
+steel to the core.</p>
+
+<p>All this is nothing; because all these men, and thousands
+of others, dote upon you. But I know it would be a comfort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>
+to me, in your hard-fighting place, to be assured of such
+sympathy, and therefore only I write.</p>
+
+<p>You have other recreations for your Sundays in the
+session, I daresay, than to come here. But it is generally
+a day on which I do not go out, and when we dine at half-past
+five in the easiest way in the world, and smoke in the
+peacefulest manner. Perhaps one of these Sundays after
+Easter you might not be indisposed to begin to dig us out?</p>
+
+<p>And I should like, on a Saturday of your appointing, to
+get a few of the serviceable men I know&mdash;such as I have
+mentioned&mdash;about you here. Will you think of this, too,
+and suggest a Saturday for our dining together?</p>
+
+<p>I am really ashamed and moved that you should do your
+part so manfully and be left alone in the conflict. I felt you
+to be all you are the first moment I saw you. I know you
+will accept my regard and fidelity for what they are worth.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Dear Layard, very heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Austen H.
+Layard.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, April 10th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Layard</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall of course observe the strictest silence, at
+present, in reference to your resolutions. It will be a most
+acceptable occupation to me to go over them with you,
+and I have not a doubt of their producing a strong effect
+out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing in the present time at once so galling
+and so alarming to me as the alienation of the people from
+their own public affairs. I have no difficulty in understanding
+it. They have had so little to do with the game
+through all these years of Parliamentary Reform, that they
+have sullenly laid down their cards, and taken to looking
+on. The players who are left at the table do not see
+beyond it, conceive that gain and loss and all the interest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>
+of the play are in their hands, and will never be wiser
+until they and the table and the lights and the money are
+all overturned together. And I believe the discontent to
+be so much the worse for smouldering, instead of blazing
+openly, that it is extremely like the general mind of France
+before the breaking out of the first Revolution, and is in
+danger of being turned by any one of a thousand accidents&mdash;a
+bad harvest&mdash;the last strain too much of aristocratic
+insolence or incapacity&mdash;a defeat abroad&mdash;a mere chance at
+home&mdash;with such a devil of a conflagration as never has
+been beheld since.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, all our English tuft-hunting, toad-eating,
+and other manifestations of accursed gentility&mdash;to say
+nothing of the Lord knows who's defiances of the proven
+truth before six hundred and fifty men&mdash;<span class="smcap">are</span> expressing
+themselves every day. So, every day, the disgusted
+millions with this unnatural gloom are confirmed and
+hardened in the very worst of moods. Finally, round all
+this is an atmosphere of poverty, hunger, and ignorant
+desperation, of the mere existence of which perhaps not
+one man in a thousand of those not actually enveloped in
+it, through the whole extent of this country, has the least
+idea.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me an absolute impossibility to direct the
+spirit of the people at this pass until it shows itself. If
+they begin to bestir themselves in the vigorous national
+manner; if they would appear in political reunion, array
+themselves peacefully but in vast numbers against a system
+that they know to be rotten altogether, make themselves
+heard like the sea all round this island, I for one should
+be in such a movement heart and soul, and should think it
+a duty of the plainest kind to go along with it, and try to
+guide it by all possible means. But you can no more help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>
+a people who do not help themselves than you can help a
+man who does not help himself. And until the people can
+be got up from the lethargy, which is an awful symptom of
+the advanced state of their disease, I know of nothing that
+can be done beyond keeping their wrongs continually
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>I shall hope to see you soon after you come back. Your
+speeches at Aberdeen are most admirable, manful, and
+earnest. I would have such speeches at every market-cross,
+and in every town-hall, and among all sorts and conditions
+of men; up in the very balloons, and down in the very
+diving-bells.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday, April 14th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot express to you how very much delighted I
+am with the "Steele." I think it incomparably the best of
+the series. The pleasanter humanity of the subject may
+commend it more to one's liking, but that again requires a
+delicate handling, which you have given to it in a most
+charming manner. It is surely not possible to approach a
+man with a finer sympathy, and the assertion of the claims
+of literature throughout is of the noblest and most gallant
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>I don't agree with you about the serious papers in <i>The
+Spectator</i>, which I think (whether they be Steele's or
+Addison's) are generally as indifferent as the humour of
+<i>The Spectator</i> is delightful. And I have always had a
+notion that Prue understood her husband very well, and
+held him in consequence, when a fonder woman with less
+show of caprice must have let him go. But these are
+points of opinion. The paper is masterly, and all I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span>
+got to say is, that if &mdash;&mdash; had a grain of the honest sentiment
+with which it overflows, he never would or could
+have made so great a mistake.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday, April 26th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+>ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Mark</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will call for you at two, and go with you to Highgate,
+by all means.</p>
+
+<p>Leech and I called on Tuesday evening and left our
+loves. I have not written to you since, because I thought
+it best to leave you quiet for a day. I have no need to tell
+you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts have been constantly
+with you, and that I have not forgotten (and never
+shall forget) who sat up with me one night when a little
+place in my house was left empty.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to lose any child, but there are many blessed
+sources of consolation in the loss of a baby. There is a
+beautiful thought in Fielding's "Journey from this World
+to the Next," where the baby he had lost many years before
+was found by him all radiant and happy, building him a
+bower in the Elysian Fields where they were to live together
+when he came.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Our kindest loves to Mrs. Lemon.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, May 20th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have a little lark in contemplation, if you will help
+it to fly.</p>
+
+<p>Collins has done a melodrama (a regular old-style melodrama),
+in which there is a very good notion. I am going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>
+to act it, as an experiment, in the children's theatre here&mdash;I,
+Mark, Collins, Egg, and my daughter Mary, the
+whole <i>dram. pers.</i>; our families and yours the whole
+audience; for I want to make the stage large and shouldn't
+have room for above five-and-twenty spectators. Now
+there is only one scene in the piece, and that, my tarry lad,
+is the inside of a lighthouse. Will you come and paint it
+for us one night, and we'll all turn to and help? It is a
+mere wall, of course, but Mark and I have sworn that you
+must do it. If you will say yes, I should like to have the
+tiny flats made, after you have looked at the place, and not
+before. On Wednesday in this week I am good for a steak
+and the play, if you will make your own appointment here;
+or any day next week except Thursday. Write me a line in
+reply. We mean to burst on an astonished world with the
+melodrama, without any note of preparation. So don't say
+a syllable to Forster if you should happen to see him.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday Afternoon, Six o'clock, May 22nd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your note came while I was out walking. Even if I
+had been at home I could not have managed to dine
+together to-day, being under a beastly engagement to dine
+out. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall expect
+you here some time to-morrow, and will remain at home. I
+only wait your instructions to get the little canvases made.
+O, what a pity it is not the outside of the light'us, with the sea
+a-rowling agin it! Never mind, we'll get an effect out of
+the inside, and there's a storm and a shipwreck "off;"
+and the great ambition of my life will be achieved at last, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>
+the wearing of a pair of very coarse petticoat trousers. So
+hoorar for the salt sea, mate, and bouse up!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever affectionately,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Dicky</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>May 23rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mark</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Stanny says he is only sorry it is not the outside of
+the lighthouse with a raging sea and a transparent light.
+He enters into the project with the greatest delight, and I
+think we shall make a capital thing of it.</p>
+
+<p>It now occurs to me that we may as well do a farce too.
+I should like to get in a little part for Katey, and also for
+Charley, if it were practicable. What do you think of
+"Animal Mag."? You and I in our old parts; Collins,
+Jeffrey; Charley, the Markis; Katey and Mary (or Georgina),
+the two ladies? Can you think of anything merry that is
+better? It ought to be broad, as a relief to the melodrama,
+unless we could find something funny with a story in it too.
+I rather incline myself to "Animal Mag." Will you come
+round and deliver your sentiments?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday, May 24th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Great projects are afoot here for a grown-up play in
+about three weeks' time. Former schoolroom arrangements
+to be reversed&mdash;large stage and small audience. Stanfield
+bent on desperate effects, and all day long with his coat off,
+up to his eyes in distemper colours.</p>
+
+<p>Will you appear in your celebrated character of Mr.
+Nightingale? I want to wind up with that popular farce,
+we all playing our old parts.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>May 24th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>That's right! You will find the words come back
+very quickly. Why, <i>of course</i> your people are to come, and
+if Stanfield don't astonish 'em, I'm a Dutchman. O Heaven,
+if you could hear the ideas he proposes to me, making even
+<i>my</i> hair stand on end!</p>
+
+<p>Will you get Marcus or some similar bright creature to
+copy out old Nightingale's part for you, and then return
+the book? This is the prompt-book, the only one I have;
+and Katey and Georgina (being also in wild excitement)
+want to write their parts out with all despatch.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday, May 24th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall expect you to-morrow evening at "Household
+Words." I have written a little ballad for Mary&mdash;"The
+Story of the Ship's Carpenter and the Little Boy, in the
+Shipwreck."</p>
+
+<p>Let us close up with "Mr. Nightingale's Diary." Will
+you look whether you have a book of it, or your part.</p>
+
+<p>All other matters and things hereunto belonging when
+we meet.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Trollope.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday Morning, June 19th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Trollope</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was out of town on Sunday, or I should have
+answered your note immediately on its arrival. I cannot
+have the pleasure of seeing the famous "medium" to-night,
+for I have some theatricals at home. But I fear I
+shall not in any case be a good subject for the purpose, as I
+altogether want faith in the thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have not the least belief in the awful unseen world
+being available for evening parties at so much per night;
+and, although I should be ready to receive enlightenment
+from any source, I must say I have very little hope of it
+from the spirits who express themselves through mediums,
+as I have never yet observed them to talk anything but
+nonsense, of which (as Carlyle would say) there is probably
+enough in these days of ours, and in all days, among
+mere mortality.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday, June 20th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write a hasty note to let you know that last night
+was perfectly wonderful!!!</p>
+
+<p>Such an audience! Such a brilliant success from first
+to last! The Queen had taken it into her head in the
+morning to go to Chatham, and had carried Phipps with
+her. He wrote to me asking if it were possible to give him
+a quarter of an hour. I got through that time before the
+overture, and he came without any dinner, so influenced by
+eager curiosity. Lemon and I did every conceivable absurdity,
+I think, in the farce; and they never left off laughing.
+At supper I proposed your health, which was drunk with
+nine times nine, and three cheers over. We then turned to
+at Scotch reels (having had no exercise), and danced in the
+maddest way until five this morning.</p>
+
+<p>It is as much as I can do to guide the pen.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">With loves to Mrs. Stanfield and all,</span><br />
+Ever most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday, June 30th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My very dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write shortly, after a day's work at my desk, rather
+than lose a post in answering your enthusiastic, earnest, and
+young&mdash;how young, in all the best side of youth&mdash;letter.</p>
+
+<p>To tell you the truth, I confidently expected to hear from
+you. I knew that if there were a man in the world who
+would be interested in, and who would approve of, my giving
+utterance to whatever was in me at this time, it would be
+you. I was as sure of you as of the sun this morning.</p>
+
+<p>The subject is surrounded by difficulties; the Association
+is sorely in want of able men; and the resistance of all the
+phalanx, who have an interest in corruption and mismanagement,
+is the resistance of a struggle against death. But the
+great, first, strong necessity is to rouse the people up, to
+keep them stirring and vigilant, to carry the war dead into
+the tent of such creatures as &mdash;&mdash;, and ring into their souls
+(or what stands for them) that the time for dandy insolence
+is gone for ever. It may be necessary to come to that law
+of primogeniture (I have no love for it), or to come to even
+greater things; but this is the first service to be done, and
+unless it is done, there is not a chance. For this, and to
+encourage timid people to come in, I went to Drury Lane
+the other night; and I wish you had been there and had
+seen and heard the people.</p>
+
+<p>The Association will be proud to have your name and
+gift. When we sat down on the stage the other night,
+and were waiting a minute or two to begin, I said to Morley,
+the chairman (a thoroughly fine earnest fellow), "this
+reminds me so of one of my dearest friends, with a melancholy
+so curious, that I don't know whether the place feels
+familiar to me or strange." He was full of interest directly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span>
+and we went on talking of you until the moment of his
+getting up to open the business.</p>
+
+<p>They are going to print my speech in a tract-form, and
+send it all over the country. I corrected it for the purpose
+last night. We are all well. Charley in the City; all the
+boys at home for the holidays; three prizes brought home
+triumphantly (one from the Boulogne waters and one from
+Wimbledon); I taking dives into a new book, and runs at
+leap-frog over "Household Words;" and Anne going to be
+married&mdash;which is the only bad news.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine, Georgie, Mary, Katey, Charley, and all the
+rest, send multitudes of loves. Ever, my dearest Macready,
+with unalterable affection and attachment,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+3, <span class="smcap">Albion Villas, Folkestone</span>, <i>Tuesday, July 17th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Walter goes back to school on the 1st of August.
+Will you come out of school to this breezy vacation on the
+same day, or rather <i>this day fortnight, July 31st</i>? for that is
+the day on which he leaves us, and we begin (here's a
+parent!) to be able to be comfortable. Why a boy of that
+age should seem to have on at all times a hundred and
+fifty pair of double-soled boots, and to be always jumping
+a bottom stair with the whole hundred and fifty, I don't
+know. But the woeful fact is within my daily experience.</p>
+
+<p>We have a very pleasant little house, overlooking the
+sea, and I think you will like the place. It rained, in
+honour of our arrival, with the greatest vigour, yesterday.
+I went out after dinner to buy some nails (you know the
+arrangements that would be then in progress), and I stopped
+in the rain, about halfway down a steep, crooked street,
+like a crippled ladder, to look at a little coachmaker's,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>
+where there had just been a sale. Speculating on the
+insolvent coachmaker's business, and what kind of coaches
+he could possibly have expected to get orders for in
+Folkestone, I thought, "What would bring together fifty
+people now, in this little street, at this little rainy minute?"
+On the instant, a brewer's van, with two mad horses in it,
+and the harness dangling about them&mdash;like the trappings of
+those horses you are acquainted with, who bolted through
+the starry courts of heaven&mdash;dashed by me, and in that
+instant, such a crowd as would have accumulated in Fleet
+Street sprang up magically. Men fell out of windows,
+dived out of doors, plunged down courts, precipitated
+themselves down steps, came down waterspouts, instead of
+rain, I think, and I never saw so wonderful an instance of
+the gregarious effect of an excitement.</p>
+
+<p>A man, a woman, and a child had been thrown out on
+the horses taking fright and the reins breaking. The child
+is dead, and the woman very ill but will probably recover,
+and the man has a hand broken and other mischief done to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Let me know what Wigan says. If he does not take the
+play, and readily too, I would recommend you not to offer
+it elsewhere. You have gained great reputation by it, have
+done your position a deal of good, and (as I think) stand so
+well with it, that it is a pity to engender the notion that you
+care to stand better.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Folkestone</span>, <i>September 16th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Scrooge is delighted to find that Bob Cratchit is
+enjoying his holiday in such a delightful situation; and he
+says (with that warmth of nature which has distinguished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>
+him since his conversion), "Make the most of it, Bob; make
+the most of it."</p>
+
+<p>[I am just getting to work on No. 3 of the new book,
+and am in the hideous state of mind belonging to that
+condition.]</p>
+
+<p>I have not a word of news. I am steeped in my story,
+and rise and fall by turns into enthusiasm and depression.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Folkestone</span>, <i>Sunday, Sept. 16th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This will be a short letter, but I hope not unwelcome.
+If you knew how often I write to you&mdash;in intention&mdash;I don't
+know where you would find room for the correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine tells me that you want to know the name of
+my new book. I cannot bear that you should know it from
+anyone but me. It will not be made public until the end
+of October; the title is:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"<span class="smcap">Nobody's Fault</span>."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Keep it as the apple of your eye&mdash;an expressive form of
+speech, though I have not the least idea of what it means.</p>
+
+<p>Next, I wish to tell you that I have appointed to read at
+Peterboro', on Tuesday, the 18th of December. I have
+told the Dean that I cannot accept his hospitality, and that
+I am going with Mr. Wills to the inn, therefore I shall be
+absolutely at your disposal, and shall be more than disappointed
+if you don't stay with us. As the time approaches
+will you let me know your arrangements, and whether Mr.
+Wills can bespeak any rooms for you in arranging for me?
+Georgy will give you our address in Paris as soon as we shall
+have settled there. We shall leave here, I think, in rather
+less than a month from this time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You know my state of mind as well as I do, indeed, if
+you don't know it much better, it is not the state of mind I
+take it to be. How I work, how I walk, how I shut
+myself up, how I roll down hills and climb up cliffs; how
+the new story is everywhere&mdash;heaving in the sea, flying
+with the clouds, blowing in the wind; how I settle to
+nothing, and wonder (in the old way) at my own incomprehensibility.
+I am getting on pretty well, have done the
+first two numbers, and am just now beginning the third;
+which egotistical announcements I make to you because I
+know you will be interested in them.</p>
+
+<p>All the house send their kindest loves. I think of
+inserting an advertisement in <i>The Times</i>, offering to submit
+the Plornishghenter to public competition, and to receive
+fifty thousand pounds if such another boy cannot be found,
+and to pay five pounds (my fortune) if he can.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Folkestone</span>, <i>Sunday, Sept. 30th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Welcome from the bosom of the deep! If a hornpipe
+will be acceptable to you at any time (as a reminder of
+what the three brothers were always doing), I shall be, as
+the chairman says at Mr. Evans's, "happy to oblige."</p>
+
+<p>I have almost finished No. 3, in which I have relieved
+my indignant soul with a scarifier. Sticking at it day after
+day, I am the incompletest letter-writer imaginable&mdash;seem
+to have no idea of holding a pen for any other purpose but
+that book. My fair Laura has not yet reported concerning
+Paris, but I should think will have done so before I see you.
+And now to that point. I purpose being in town on <i>Monday,
+the 8th</i>, when I have promised to dine with Forster. At the
+office, between half-past eleven and one that day, I will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>
+expect you, unless I hear from you to the contrary. Of
+course the H. W. stories are at your disposition. If you
+should have completed your idea, we might breakfast together
+at the G. on the Tuesday morning and discuss it.
+Or I shall be in town after ten on the Monday night. At the
+office I will tell you the idea of the Christmas number, which
+will put you in train, I hope, for a story. I have postponed
+the shipwreck idea for a year, as it seemed to require more
+force from me than I could well give it with the weight of a
+new start upon me.</p>
+
+<p>All here send their kindest remembrances. We missed
+you very much, and the Plorn was quite inconsolable. We
+slide down C&aelig;sar occasionally.</p>
+
+<p>They launched the boat, the rapid building of which you
+remember, the other day. All the fishermen in the place,
+all the nondescripts, and all the boys pulled at it with ropes
+from six <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> to four <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> Every now and then the ropes
+broke, and they all fell down in the shingle. The obstinate
+way in which the beastly thing wouldn't move was so exasperating
+that I wondered they didn't shoot it, or burn it.
+Whenever it moved an inch they all cheered; whenever it
+wouldn't move they all swore. Finally, when it was quite
+given over, some one tumbled against it accidentally (as it
+appeared to me, looking out at my window here), and it
+instantly shot about a mile into the sea, and they all stood
+looking at it helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>Kind regards to Pigott, in which all unite.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Folkestone</span>, <i>Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been hammering away in that strenuous
+manner at my book, that I have had leisure for scarcely any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>
+letters but such, as I have been obliged to write; having a
+horrible temptation when I lay down my book-pen to run
+out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide down
+the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the
+relief that only exercise gives me.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter to Miss Coutts in behalf of little Miss Warner
+I despatched straightway. She is at present among the
+Pyrenees, and a letter from her crossed that one of mine in
+which I enclosed yours, last week.</p>
+
+<p>Pray stick to that dim notion you have of coming to
+Paris! How delightful it would be to see your aged
+countenance and perfectly bald head in that capital! It
+will renew your youth, to visit a theatre (previously dining
+at the Trois Fr&egrave;res) in company with the jocund boy who
+now addresses you. Do, do stick to it.</p>
+
+<p>You will be pleased to hear, I know, that Charley has
+gone into Baring's house under very auspicious circumstances.
+Mr. Bates, of that firm, had done me the kindness
+to place him at the brokers' where he was. And when said
+Bates wrote to me a fortnight ago to say that an excellent
+opening had presented itself at Baring's, he added that the
+brokers gave Charley "so high a character for ability and
+zeal" that it would be unfair to receive him as a volunteer,
+and he must begin at a fifty-pound salary, to which I
+graciously consented.</p>
+
+<p>As to the suffrage, I have lost hope even in the ballot.
+We appear to me to have proved the failure of representative
+institutions without an educated and advanced people
+to support them. What with teaching people to "keep in
+their stations," what with bringing up the soul and body of
+the land to be a good child, or to go to the beershop, to go
+a-poaching and go to the devil; what with having no such
+thing as a middle class (for though we are perpetually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>
+bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe
+on the mantle of the upper); what with flunkyism, toadyism,
+letting the most contemptible lords come in for all manner
+of places, reading <i>The Court Circular</i> for the New Testament,
+I do reluctantly believe that the English people are
+habitually consenting parties to the miserable imbecility
+into which we have fallen, <i>and never will help themselves
+out of it</i>. Who is to do it, if anybody is, God knows. But
+at present we are on the down-hill road to being conquered,
+and the people <span class="smcap">will</span> be content to bear it, sing "Rule
+Britannia," and <span class="smcap">will not</span> be saved.</p>
+
+<p>In No. 3 of my new book I have been blowing off
+a little of indignant steam which would otherwise blow
+me up, and with God's leave I shall walk in the same all
+the days of my life; but I have no present political faith or
+hope&mdash;not a grain.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to read the "Carol" here to-morrow in a
+long carpenter's shop, which looks far more alarming as a
+place to hear in than the Town Hall at Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p>Kindest loves from all to your dear sister, Kate and the
+darlings. It is blowing a gale here from the south-west
+and raining like mad.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">2, Rue St. Florentin</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 16th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Catherine</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We have had the most awful job to find a place that
+would in the least suit us, for Paris is perfectly full, and
+there is nothing to be got at any sane price. However, we
+have found two apartments&mdash;an <i>entresol</i> and a first floor,
+with a kitchen and servants' room at the top of the house,
+at No. 49, Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es.</p>
+
+<p>You must be prepared for a regular Continental abode.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>
+There is only one window in each room, but the front
+apartments all look upon the main street of the Champs
+Elys&eacute;es, and the view is delightfully cheerful. There are
+also plenty of rooms. They are not over and above well
+furnished, but by changing furniture from rooms we don't
+care for to rooms we <i>do</i> care for, we shall be able to make
+them home-like and presentable. I think the situation
+itself almost the finest in Paris; and the children will have
+a window from which to look on the busy life outside.</p>
+
+<p>We could have got a beautiful apartment in the Rue
+Faubourg St. Honor&eacute; for a very little more, most elegantly
+furnished; but the greater part of it was on a courtyard,
+and it would never have done for the children. This, that I
+have taken for six months, is seven hundred francs per
+month, and twenty more for the <i>concierge</i>. What you have
+to expect is a regular French residence, which a little
+habitation will make pretty and comfortable, with nothing
+showy in it, but with plenty of rooms, and with that
+wonderful street in which the Barri&egrave;re de l'&Eacute;toile stands
+outside. The amount of rooms is the great thing, and I
+believe it to be the place best suited for us, at a not
+unreasonable price in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Georgina and Lady Olliffe<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> send their loves. Georgina
+and I add ours to Mamey, Katey, the Plorn, and Harry.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">49, <span class="smcap">Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Oct. 19th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>After going through unheard-of bedevilments (of
+which you shall have further particulars as soon as I come
+right side upwards, which may happen in a day or two),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>
+we are at last established here in a series of closets, but a
+great many of them, with all Paris perpetually passing
+under the windows. Letters may have been wandering
+after me to that home in the Rue de Balzac, which is to be
+the subject of more lawsuits between the man who let it
+to me and the man who wouldn't let me have possession,
+than any other house that ever was built. But I have had
+no letters at all, and have been&mdash;ha, ha!&mdash;a maniac since
+last Monday.</p>
+
+<p>I will try my hand at that paper for H. W. to-morrow,
+if I can get a yard of flooring to sit upon; but we have
+really been in that state of topsy-turvyhood that even
+that has been an unattainable luxury, and may yet be
+for eight-and-forty hours or so, for anything I see to the
+contrary.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">49, Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday Night, Oct. 21st, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Coming here from a walk this afternoon, I found
+your letter of yesterday awaiting me. I send this reply by
+my brother Alfred, who is here, and who returns home to-morrow.
+You should get it at the office early on Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>I will go to work to-morrow, and will send you, please
+God, an article by Tuesday's post, which you will get on
+Wednesday forenoon. Look carefully to the proof, as I
+shall not have time to receive it for correction. When you
+arrange about sending your parcels, will you ascertain, and
+communicate to me, the prices of telegraph messages? It
+will save me trouble, having no foreign servant (though
+French is in that respect a trump), and may be useful on
+an emergency.</p>
+
+<p>I have two floors here&mdash;<i>entresol</i> and first&mdash;in a doll's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>
+house, but really pretty within, and the view without
+astounding, as you will say when you come. The house is
+on the Exposition side, about half a quarter of a mile above
+Franconi's, of course on the other side of the way, and close
+to the Jardin d'H&icirc;ver. Each room has but one window in
+it, but we have no fewer than six rooms (besides the back
+ones) looking on the Champs Elys&eacute;es, with the wonderful
+life perpetually flowing up and down. We have no spare-room,
+but excellent stowage for the whole family, including
+a capital dressing-room for me, and a really slap-up kitchen
+near the stairs. Damage for the whole, seven hundred
+francs a month.</p>
+
+<p>But, sir&mdash;but&mdash;when Georgina, the servants, and I
+were here for the first night (Catherine and the rest
+being at Boulogne), I heard Georgy restless&mdash;turned out&mdash;asked:
+"What's the matter?" "Oh, it's dreadfully
+dirty. I can't sleep for the smell of my room." Imagine
+all my stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak by
+a thousand. Imagine the porter, the porter's wife, the
+porter's wife's sister, a feeble upholsterer of enormous age
+from round the corner, and all his workmen (four boys),
+summoned. Imagine the partners in the proprietorship of
+the apartment, and martial little man with Fran&ccedil;ois-Prussian
+beard, also summoned. Imagine your inimitable chief
+briefly explaining that dirt is not in his way, and that he is
+driven to madness, and that he devotes himself to no coat
+and a dirty face, until the apartment is thoroughly purified.
+Imagine co-proprietors at first astounded, then urging that
+"it's not the custom," then wavering, then affected, then
+confiding their utmost private sorrows to the Inimitable,
+offering new carpets (accepted), embraces (not accepted),
+and really responding like French bricks. Sallow, unbrushed,
+unshorn, awful, stalks the Inimitable through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>
+apartment until last night. Then all the improvements
+were concluded, and I do really believe the place to be now
+worth eight or nine hundred francs per month. You
+must picture it as the smallest place you ever saw, but
+as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean as anything
+human can be, and with a moving panorama always outside,
+which is Paris in itself.</p>
+
+<p>You mention a letter from Miss Coutts as to Mrs.
+Brown's illness, which you say is "enclosed to Mrs. Charles
+Dickens."</p>
+
+<p>It is not enclosed, and I am mad to know where she
+writes from that I may write to her. Pray set this right,
+for her uneasiness will be greatly intensified if she have no
+word from me.</p>
+
+<p>I thought we were to give &pound;1,700 for the house at Gad's
+Hill. Are we bound to &pound;1,800? Considering the improvements
+to be made, it is a little too much, isn't it? I have a
+strong impression that at the utmost we were only to divide
+the difference, and not to pass &pound;1,750. You will set me
+right if I am wrong. But I don't think I am.</p>
+
+<p>I write very hastily, with the piano playing and Alfred
+looking for this.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">49, <span class="smcap">Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In the Gad's Hill matter, I too would like to try the
+effect of "not budging." <i>So do not go beyond the</i> &pound;1,700.
+Considering what I should have to expend on the one hand,
+and the low price of stock on the other, I do not feel disposed
+to go beyond that mark. They won't let a purchaser
+escape for the sake of the &pound;100, I think. And Austin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>
+was strongly of opinion, when I saw him last, that &pound;1,700
+was enough.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot think how pleasant it is to me to find myself
+generally known and liked here. If I go into a shop to buy
+anything, and give my card, the officiating priest or
+priestess brightens up, and says: "<i>Ah! c'est l'&eacute;crivain
+c&eacute;l&egrave;bre! Monsieur porte un nom tr&egrave;s-distingu&eacute;. Mais!
+je suis honor&eacute; et int&eacute;ress&eacute; de voir Monsieur Dick-in. Je lis
+un des livres de monsieur tous les jours</i>" (in the <i>Moniteur</i>).
+And a man who brought some little vases home last night,
+said: "<i>On conna&icirc;t bien en France que Monsieur Dick-in
+prend sa position sur la dignit&eacute; de la litt&eacute;rature. Ah! c'est
+grande chose! Et ses caract&egrave;res</i>" (this was to Georgina,
+while he unpacked) "<i>sont si spirituellement tourn&eacute;es! Cette
+Madame Tojare</i>" (Todgers), "<i>ah! qu'elle est dr&ocirc;le et
+pr&eacute;cis&eacute;ment comme une dame que je connais &agrave; Calais.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>You cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will
+only recollect it is the great main road from the Place de la
+Concorde to the Barri&egrave;re de l'&Eacute;toile.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">
+Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Wednesday, November 21st, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the
+day before yesterday, let me thank you a thousand times
+for the delight we derived from the representation of your
+beautiful and admirable piece. I have hardly ever been so
+affected and interested in any theatre. Its construction is
+in the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and
+the whole conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and
+natural conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Through the whole story from beginning to end, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>
+recognise the true spirit and feeling of an artist, and I most
+heartily offer you and your fellow-labourer my felicitations
+on the success you have achieved. That it will prove a very
+great and a lasting one, I cannot for a moment doubt.</p>
+
+<p>O my friend! If I could see an English actress with
+but one hundredth part of the nature and art of Madame
+Plessy, I should believe our English theatre to be in a fair
+way towards its regeneration. But I have no hope of ever
+beholding such a phenomenon. I may as well expect ever
+to see upon an English stage an accomplished artist, able
+to write and to embody what he writes, like you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Madame
+Viardot.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es</span>, <i>Monday, Dec. 3rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Madame Viardot</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens tells me that you have only borrowed
+the first number of "Little Dorrit," and are going to send
+it back. Pray do nothing of the sort, and allow me to have
+the great pleasure of sending you the succeeding numbers
+as they reach me. I have had such delight in your great
+genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of
+it, that I am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's
+intellectual pleasure.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 23rd, 1855.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of
+putting you in possession of my Little Friend No. 2, before
+the general public. It is, of course, at the disposal of your
+circle, but until the month is out, is understood to be a
+prisoner in the castle.</p>
+
+<p>If I had time to write anything, I should still quite vainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>
+try to tell you what interest and happiness I had in once
+more seeing you among your dear children. Let me congratulate
+you on your Eton boys. They are so handsome,
+frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. A
+kiss to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love
+of my heart to every stone in the old house.</p>
+
+<p>Enormous effect at Sheffield. But really not a better
+audience perceptively than at Peterboro', for that could
+hardly be, but they were more enthusiastically demonstrative,
+and they took the line, "and to Tiny Tim who did
+<span class="smcap">not</span> die," with a most prodigious shout and roll of thunder.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Friend, most faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1856.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Charles Dickens</span> having taken an <i>appartement</i> in Paris for
+the winter months, 49, Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es, was
+there with his family until the middle of May. He much
+enjoyed this winter sojourn, meeting many old friends,
+making new friends, and interchanging hospitalities with
+the French artistic world. He had also many friends from
+England to visit him. Mr. Wilkie Collins had an <i>appartement
+de gar&ccedil;on</i> hard by, and the two companions were constantly
+together. The Rev. James White and his family
+also spent their winter at Paris, having taken an <i>appartement</i>
+at 49, Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es, and the girls of
+the two families had the same masters, and took their lessons
+together. After the Whites' departure, Mr. Macready paid
+Charles Dickens a visit, occupying the vacant <i>appartement</i>.</div>
+
+<p>During this winter Charles Dickens was, however,
+constantly backwards and forwards between Paris and
+London on "Household Words" business, and was also at
+work on his "Little Dorrit."</p>
+
+<p>While in Paris he sat for his portrait to the great Ary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span>
+Scheffer. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition
+of this year, and is now in the National Portrait
+Gallery.</p>
+
+<p>The summer was again spent at Boulogne, and once more
+at the Villa des Moulineaux, where he received
+constant visits from English friends, Mr. Wilkie Collins
+taking up his quarters for many weeks at a little cottage
+in the garden; and there the idea of another play, to be
+acted at Tavistock House, was first started. Many of
+our letters for this year have reference to this play, and
+will show the interest which Charles Dickens took in it,
+and the immense amount of care and pains given by him to
+the careful carrying out of this favourite amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number of "Household Words," written
+by Charles Dickens and Mr. Collins, called "The Wreck of
+the <i>Golden Mary</i>," was planned by the two friends during
+this summer holiday.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this year that one of the great wishes of his
+life was to be realised, the much-coveted house&mdash;Gad's
+Hill Place&mdash;having been purchased by him, and the cheque
+written on the 14th of March&mdash;on a "Friday," as he writes
+to his sister-in-law, in the letter of this date. He frequently
+remarked that all the important, and so far fortunate, events
+of his life had happened to him on a Friday. So that,
+contrary to the usual superstition, that day had come to be
+looked upon by his family as his "lucky" day.</p>
+
+<p>The allusion to the "plainness" of Miss Boyle's handwriting
+is good-humouredly ironical; that lady's writing
+being by no means famous for its legibility.</p>
+
+<p>The "Anne" mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law,
+which follows the one to Miss Boyle, was the faithful
+servant who had lived with the family so long; and who,
+having left to be married the previous year, had found it a
+very difficult matter to recover from her sorrow at this
+parting. And the "godfather's present" was for a son of
+Mr. Edmund Yates.</p>
+
+<p>"The Humble Petition" was written to Mr. Wilkie
+Collins during that gentleman's visit to Paris.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The explanation of the remark to Mr. Wills (6th April),
+that he had paid the money to Mr. Poole, is that Charles
+Dickens was the trustee through whom the dramatist
+received his pension.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to the Duke of Devonshire has reference to
+the peace illuminations after the Crimean war.</p>
+
+<p>The M. Forgues for whom, at Mr. Collins's request, he
+writes a short biography of himself, was the editor of the
+<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The speech at the London Tavern was on behalf of
+the Artists' Benevolent Fund.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Kate Macready had sent some clever poems to
+"Household Words," with which Charles Dickens had been
+much pleased. He makes allusion to these, in our two
+remaining letters to Mr. Macready.</p>
+
+<p>"I did write it for you" (letter to Mrs. Watson, 17th
+October), refers to that part of "Little Dorrit" which
+treats of the visit of the Dorrit family to the Great St.
+Bernard. An expedition which it will be remembered he
+made himself, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Watson and
+other friends.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mrs. Horne refers to a joke about the name
+of a friend of this lady's, who had once been brought by her
+to Tavistock House. The letter to Mr. Mitton concerns the
+lighting of the little theatre at Tavistock House.</p>
+
+<p>Our last letter is in answer to one from Mr. Kent, asking
+him to sit to Mr. John Watkins for his photograph. We
+should add, however, that he did subsequently give this
+gentleman some sittings.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Champs Elys&eacute;es</span>, <i>Sunday, Jan. 6th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I should like Morley to do a Strike article, and to
+work into it the greater part of what is here. But I cannot
+represent myself as holding the opinion that all strikes
+among this unhappy class of society, who find it so difficult
+to get a peaceful hearing, are always necessarily wrong,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span>
+because I don't think so. To open a discussion of the
+question by saying that the men are "<i>of course</i> entirely and
+painfully in the wrong," surely would be monstrous in any
+one. Show them to be in the wrong here, but in the name
+of the eternal heavens show why, upon the merits of this
+question. Nor can I possibly adopt the representation that
+these men are wrong because by throwing themselves out
+of work they throw other people, possibly without their
+consent. If such a principle had anything in it, there could
+have been no civil war, no raising by Hampden of a troop
+of horse, to the detriment of Buckinghamshire agriculture,
+no self-sacrifice in the political world. And O, good God,
+when &mdash;&mdash; treats of the suffering of wife and children, can
+he suppose that these mistaken men don't feel it in the
+depths of their hearts, and don't honestly and honourably,
+most devoutly and faithfully believe that for those very
+children, when they shall have children, they are bearing all
+these miseries now!</p>
+
+<p>I hear from Mrs. Fillonneau that her husband was
+obliged to leave town suddenly before he could get your
+parcel, consequently he has not brought it; and White's
+sovereigns&mdash;unless you have got them back again&mdash;are
+either lying out of circulation somewhere, or are being
+spent by somebody else. I will write again on Tuesday.
+My article is to begin the enclosed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 7th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mark</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I want to know how "Jack and the Beanstalk" goes.
+I have a notion from a notice&mdash;a favourable notice, however&mdash;which
+I saw in <i>Galignani</i>, that Webster has let down
+the comic business.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In a piece at the Ambigu, called the "Rentr&eacute;e &agrave; Paris,"
+a mere scene in honour of the return of the troops from the
+Crimea the other day, there is a novelty which I think it
+worth letting you know of, as it is easily available, either
+for a serious or a comic interest&mdash;the introduction of a
+supposed electric telegraph. The scene is the railway
+terminus at Paris, with the electric telegraph office on the
+prompt side, and the clerks <i>with their backs to the audience</i>&mdash;much
+more real than if they were, as they infallibly would
+be, staring about the house&mdash;working the needles; and the
+little bell perpetually ringing. There are assembled to greet
+the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined elements
+of interest&mdash;old veteran fathers, young children, agonised
+mothers, sisters and brothers, girl lovers&mdash;each impatient
+to know of his or her own object of solicitude. Enter to
+these a certain marquis, full of sympathy for all, who
+says: "My friends, I am one of you. My brother has
+no commission yet. He is a common soldier. I wait for
+him as well as all brothers and sisters here wait for <i>their</i>
+brothers. Tell me whom you are expecting." Then
+they all tell him. Then he goes into the telegraph-office,
+and sends a message down the line to know how long
+the troops will be. Bell rings. Answer handed out
+on slip of paper. "Delay on the line. Troops will not
+arrive for a quarter of an hour." General disappointment.
+"But we have this brave electric telegraph, my friends,"
+says the marquis. "Give me your little messages, and I'll
+send them off." General rush round the marquis. Exclamations:
+"How's Henri?" "My love to Georges;" "Has
+Guillaume forgotten Elise?" "Is my son wounded?"
+"Is my brother promoted?" etc. etc. Marquis composes
+tumult. Sends message&mdash;such a regiment, such a company&mdash;"Elise's
+love to Georges." Little bell rings, slip of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span>
+paper handed out&mdash;"Georges in ten minutes will embrace
+his Elise. Sends her a thousand kisses." Marquis sends
+message&mdash;such a regiment, such a company&mdash;"Is my son
+wounded?" Little bell rings. Slip of paper handed out&mdash;"No.
+He has not yet upon him those marks of bravery in
+the glorious service of his country which his dear old father
+bears" (father being lamed and invalided). Last of all,
+the widowed mother. Marquis sends message&mdash;such a
+regiment, such a company&mdash;"Is my only son safe?" Little
+bell rings. Slip of paper handed out&mdash;"He was first upon
+the heights of Alma." General cheer. Bell rings again,
+another slip of paper handed out. "He was made a sergeant
+at Inkermann." Another cheer. Bell rings again, another
+slip of paper handed out. "He was made colour-sergeant
+at Sebastopol." Another cheer. Bell rings again, another
+slip of paper handed out. "He was the first man who
+leaped with the French banner on the Malakhoff tower."
+Tremendous cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper
+handed out. "But he was struck down there by a musket-ball,
+and&mdash;&mdash;Troops have proceeded. Will arrive in half a
+minute after this." Mother abandons all hope; general
+commiseration; troops rush in, down a platform; son only
+wounded, and embraces her.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said, and as you will see, this is available for
+any purpose. But done with equal distinction and rapidity,
+it is a tremendous effect, and got by the simplest means in the
+world. There is nothing in the piece, but it was impossible
+not to be moved and excited by the telegraph part of it.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you have seen something of Stanny, and have
+been to pantomimes with him, and have drunk to the
+absent Dick. I miss you, my dear old boy, at the play,
+woefully, and miss the walk home, and the partings at the
+corner of Tavistock Square. And when I go by myself, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span>
+come home stewing "Little Dorrit" in my head; and the
+best part of <i>my</i> play is (or ought to be) in Gordon Street.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to Beaucourt about taking that breezy
+house&mdash;a little improved&mdash;for the summer, and I hope you
+and yours will come there often and stay there long. My
+present idea, if nothing should arise to unroot me sooner, is
+to stay here until the middle of May, then plant the family
+at Boulogne, and come with Catherine and Georgy home for
+two or three weeks. When I shall next run across I don't
+know, but I suppose next month.</p>
+
+<p>We are up to our knees in mud here. Literally in
+vehement despair, I walked down the avenue outside the
+Barri&egrave;re de l'&Eacute;toile here yesterday, and went straight on
+among the trees. I came back with top-boots of mud on.
+Nothing will cleanse the streets. Numbers of men and
+women are for ever scooping and sweeping in them, and they
+are always one lake of yellow mud. All my trousers go to
+the tailor's every day, and are ravelled out at the heels every
+night. Washing is awful.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Mrs. Lemon, with my love, that I have bought her
+some Eau d'Or, in grateful remembrance of her knowing
+what it is, and crushing the tyrant of her existence by
+resolutely refusing to be put down when that monster would
+have silenced her. You may imagine the loves and messages
+that are now being poured in upon me by all of them, so I
+will give none of them; though I am pretending to be very
+scrupulous about it, and am looking (I have no doubt) as if
+I were writing them down with the greatest care.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Champs Elys&eacute;es</span>, <i>Saturday, Jan. 19th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I had no idea you were so far on with your book,
+and heartily congratulate you on being within sight of land.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is excessively pleasant to me to get your letter, as it
+opens a perspective of theatrical and other lounging evenings,
+and also of articles in "Household Words." It will not be
+the first time that we shall have got on well in Paris, and I
+hope it will not be by many a time the last.</p>
+
+<p>I purpose coming over, early in February (as soon, in
+fact, as I shall have knocked out No. 5 of "Little D."), and
+therefore we can return in a jovial manner together. As
+soon as I know my day of coming over, I will write to you
+again, and (as the merchants&mdash;say Charley&mdash;would add)
+"communicate same" to you.</p>
+
+<p>The lodging, <i>en gar&ccedil;on</i>, shall be duly looked up, and I
+shall of course make a point of finding it close here. There
+will be no difficulty in that. I will have concluded the
+treaty before starting for London, and will take it by the
+month, both because that is the cheapest way, and because
+desirable places don't let for shorter terms.</p>
+
+<p>I have been sitting to Scheffer to-day&mdash;conceive this, if
+you please, with No. 5 upon my soul&mdash;four hours!! I am
+so addleheaded and bored, that if you were here, I should
+propose an instantaneous rush to the Trois Fr&egrave;res. Under
+existing circumstances I have no consolation.</p>
+
+<p>I think <span class="smcap">the</span> portrait<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> is the most astounding thing ever
+beheld upon this globe. It has been shrieked over by the
+united family as "Oh! the very image!" I went down to
+the <i>entresol</i> the moment I opened it, and submitted it to
+the Plorn&mdash;then engaged, with a half-franc musket, in
+capturing a Malakhoff of chairs. He looked at it very hard,
+and gave it as his opinion that it was Misser Hegg. We
+suppose him to have confounded the Colonel with Jollins.
+I met Madame Georges Sand the other day at a dinner got
+up by Madame Viardot for that great purpose. The human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>
+mind cannot conceive any one more astonishingly opposed to
+all my preconceptions. If I had been shown her in a state
+of repose, and asked what I thought her to be, I should have
+said: "The Queen's monthly nurse." <i>Au reste</i>, she has
+nothing of the <i>bas bleu</i> about her, and is very quiet and
+agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which mysterious Frenchmen call and want
+to embrace me, suggests to any one who knows me intimately,
+such infamous lurking, slinking, getting behind doors,
+evading, lying&mdash;so much mean resort to craven flights,
+dastard subterfuges, and miserable poltroonery&mdash;on my
+part, that I merely suggest the arrival of cards like this:</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/6handwrittencards.png" width="500" height="372" alt="Handwritten cards" title="Handwritten cards" />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'>&mdash;and I then write letters of terrific <i>empressement</i>, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span>
+assurances of all sorts of profound considerations, and never
+by any chance become visible to the naked eye.</div>
+
+<p>At the Porte St. Martin they are doing the "Orestes," put
+into French verse by Alexandre Dumas. Really one of the
+absurdest things I ever saw. The scene of the tomb, with
+all manner of classical females, in black, grouping themselves
+on the lid, and on the steps, and on each other, and
+in every conceivable aspect of obtrusive impossibility, is
+just like the window of one of those artists in hair, who
+address the friends of deceased persons. To-morrow week
+a f&ecirc;te is coming off at the Jardin d'H&icirc;ver, next door
+but one here, which I must certainly go to. The f&ecirc;te of
+the company of the Folies Nouvelles! The ladies of the
+company are to keep stalls, and are to sell to Messieurs the
+Amateurs orange-water and lemonade. Paul le Grand is
+to promenade among the company, dressed as Pierrot.
+Kalm, the big-faced comic singer, is to do the like, dressed
+as a Russian Cossack. The entertainments are to conclude
+with "La Polka des B&ecirc;tes f&eacute;roces, par la Troupe enti&egrave;re des
+Folies Nouvelles." I wish, without invasion of the rights
+of British subjects, or risk of war, &mdash;&mdash; could be seized by
+French troops, brought over, and made to assist.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>appartement</i> has not grown any bigger since you last
+had the joy of beholding me, and upon my honour and word
+I live in terror of asking &mdash;&mdash; to dinner, lest she should not
+be able to get in at the dining-room door. I <i>think</i> (am not
+sure) the dining-room would hold her, if she could be once
+passed in, but I don't see my way to that. Nevertheless,
+we manage our own family dinners very snugly there, and
+have good ones, as I think you will say, every day at half-past
+five.</p>
+
+<p>I have a notion that we may knock out a <i>series</i> of
+descriptions for H. W. without much trouble. It is very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>
+difficult to get into the Catacombs, but my name is so well
+known here that I think I may succeed. I find that the
+guillotine can be got set up in private, like Punch's show.
+What do you think of <i>that</i> for an article? I find myself
+underlining words constantly. It is not my nature. It is
+mere imbecility after the four hours' sitting.</p>
+
+<p>All unite in kindest remembrances to you, your mother
+and brother.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever cordially.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>, <i>Jan. 28th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am afraid you will think me an abandoned ruffian
+for not having acknowledged your more than handsome
+warm-hearted letter before now. But, as usual, I have
+been so occupied, and so glad to get up from my desk and
+wallow in the mud (at present about six feet deep here),
+that pleasure correspondence is just the last thing in the
+world I have had leisure to take to. Business correspondence
+with all sorts and conditions of men and women,
+O my Mary! is one of the dragons I am perpetually fighting;
+and the more I throw it, the more it stands upon its hind
+legs, rampant, and throws me.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, on that bright cold morning when I left Peterboro',
+I felt that the best thing I could do was to say
+that word that I would do anything in an honest way to
+avoid saying, at one blow, and make off. I was so sorry to
+leave you all! You can scarcely imagine what a chill and
+blank I felt on that Monday evening at Rockingham. It
+was so sad to me, and engendered a constraint so melancholy
+and peculiar, that I doubt if I were ever much more out of
+sorts in my life. Next morning, when it was light and
+sparkling out of doors, I felt more at home again. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span>
+when I came in from seeing poor dear Watson's grave,
+Mrs. Watson asked me to go up in the gallery, which I
+had last seen in the days of our merry play. We went up,
+and walked into the very part he had made and was so fond
+of, and she looked out of one window and I looked out of
+another, and for the life of me I could not decide in my own
+heart whether I should console or distress her by going and
+taking her hand, and saying something of what was naturally
+in my mind. So I said nothing, and we came out again,
+and on the whole perhaps it was best; for I have no doubt
+we understood each other very well without speaking a
+word.</p>
+
+<p>Sheffield was a tremendous success and an admirable
+audience. They made me a present of table-cutlery after
+the reading was over; and I came away by the mail-train
+within three-quarters of an hour, changing my dress and
+getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn,
+partly on the platform. When we got among the Lincolnshire
+fens it began to snow. That changed to sleet, that
+changed to rain; the frost was all gone as we neared London,
+and the mud has all come. At two or three o'clock in the
+morning I stopped at Peterboro' again, and thought of you
+all disconsolately. The lady in the refreshment-room was
+very hard upon me, harder even than those fair enslavers
+usually are. She gave me a cup of tea, as if I were a hyena
+and she my cruel keeper with a strong dislike to me. I
+mingled my tears with it, and had a petrified bun of enormous
+antiquity in miserable meekness.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear to me that climates are gradually assimilating
+over a great part of the world, and that in the most miserable
+part of our year there is very little to choose between
+London and Paris, except that London is not so muddy.
+I have never seen dirtier or worse weather than we have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span>
+had here since I returned. In desperation I went out to
+the Barri&egrave;res last Sunday on a headlong walk, and came
+back with my very eyebrows smeared with mud. Georgina
+is usually invisible during the walking time of the day.
+A turned-up nose may be seen in the midst of splashes,
+but nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>I am settling to work again, and my horrible restlessness
+immediately assails me. It belongs to such times. As I
+was writing the preceding page, it suddenly came into my
+head that I would get up and go to Calais. I don't know
+why; the moment I got there I should want to go somewhere
+else. But, as my friend the Boots says (see Christmas
+number "Household Words"): "When you come to think
+what a game you've been up to ever since you was in your
+own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you were, and
+how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and
+never to-day, that's where it is."</p>
+
+<p>My dear Mary, would you favour me with the name and
+address of the professor that taught you writing, for I want
+to improve myself? Many a hand have I seen with many
+characteristics of beauty in it&mdash;some loopy, some dashy,
+some large, some small, some sloping to the right, some
+sloping to the left, some not sloping at all; but what I like
+in <i>your</i> hand, Mary, is its plainness, it is like print. Them
+as runs may read just as well as if they stood still. I should
+have thought it was copper-plate if I hadn't known you.
+They send all sorts of messages from here, and so do I, with
+my best regards to Bedgy and pardner and the blessed
+babbies. When shall we meet again, I wonder, and go
+somewhere! Ah!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Believe me ever, my dear Mary,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Yours truly and affectionately,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.<br />
+<span style="margin-right: 5em;">(That doesn't look plain.)</span><br />
+JOE.<br /></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Household Words</span>," <i>Friday, Feb. 8th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I must write this at railroad speed, for I have been
+at it all day, and have numbers of letters to cram into the
+next half-hour. I began the morning in the City, for the
+Theatrical Fund; went on to Shepherd's Bush; came back
+to leave cards for Mr. Baring and Mr. Bates; ran across
+Piccadilly to Stratton Street, stayed there an hour, and
+shot off here. I have been in four cabs to-day, at a cost
+of thirteen shillings. Am going to dine with Mark and
+Webster at half-past four, and finish the evening at the
+Adelphi.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was very successful. Charley was in great
+force, and floored Peter Cunningham and the Audit Office
+on a question about some bill transactions with Baring's.
+The other guests were B. and E., Shirley Brooks, Forster,
+and that's all. The dinner admirable. I never had a
+better. All the wine I sent down from Tavistock House.
+Anne waited, and looked well and happy, very much
+brighter altogether. It gave me great pleasure to see
+her so improved. Just before dinner I got all the
+letters from home. They could not have arrived more
+opportunely.</p>
+
+<p>The godfather's present looks charming now it is
+engraved, and John is just now going off to take it to
+Mrs. Yates. To-morrow Wills and I are going to Gad's
+Hill. It will occupy the whole day, and will just leave me
+time to get home to dress for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>And that's all that I have to say, except that the first
+number of "Little Dorrit" has gone to forty thousand, and
+the other one fast following.</p>
+
+<p>My best love to Catherine, and to Mamey and Katey,
+and Walter and Harry, and the noble Plorn. I am grieved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span>
+to hear about his black eye, and fear that I shall find it in
+the green and purple state on my return.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Humble Petition of Charles Dickens, a Distressed Foreigner</span>,<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">Sheweth</span>,</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That your Petitioner has not been able to write one
+word to-day, or to fashion forth the dimmest shade of the
+faintest ghost of an idea.</p>
+
+<p>That your Petitioner is therefore desirous of being taken
+out, and is not at all particular where.</p>
+
+<p>That your Petitioner, being imbecile, says no more. But
+will ever, etc. (whatever that may be).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>March 3rd, 1856.</i><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Douglas
+Jerrold.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Household Words" Office</span>, <i>March 6th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Jerrold</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Buckstone has been with me to-day in a state of
+demi-semi-distraction, by reason of Macready's dreading his
+asthma so much as to excuse himself (of necessity, I know)
+from taking the chair for the fund on the occasion of their
+next dinner. I have promised to back Buckstone's entreaty
+to you to take it; and although I know that you have an
+objection which you once communicated to me, I still hold
+(as I did then) that it is a reason <i>for</i> and not against. Pray
+reconsider the point. Your position in connection with
+dramatic literature has always suggested to me that there
+would be a great fitness and grace in your appearing in this
+post. I am convinced that the public would regard it in that
+light, and I particularly ask you to reflect that we never can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span>
+do battle with the Lords, if we will not bestow ourselves to
+go into places which they have long monopolised. Now pray
+discuss this matter with yourself once more. If you can
+come to a favourable conclusion I shall be really delighted,
+and will of course come from Paris to be by you; if you
+cannot come to a favourable conclusion I shall be really
+sorry, though I of course most readily defer to your right to
+regard such a matter from your own point of view.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Household Words" Office</span>, <i>Tuesday, March 11th, 1856</i>.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been in bed half the day with my cold, which
+is excessively violent, consequently have to write in a
+great hurry to save the post.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Catherine that I have the most prodigious, overwhelming,
+crushing, astounding, blinding, deafening, pulverising,
+scarifying secret, of which Forster is the hero,
+imaginable by the whole efforts of the whole British population.
+It is a thing of that kind that, after I knew it,
+(from himself) this morning, I lay down flat as if an engine
+and tender had fallen upon me.</p>
+
+<p>Love to Catherine (not a word of Forster before anyone
+else), and to Mamey, Katey, Harry, and the noble Plorn.
+Tell Collins with my kind regards that Forster has just
+pronounced to me that "Collins is a decidedly clever
+fellow." I hope he is a better fellow in health, too.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Household Words</span>," <i>Friday, March 14th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am amazed to hear of the snow (I don't know why,
+but it excited John this morning beyond measure); though
+we have had the same east wind here, and <i>the</i> cold and <i>my</i>
+cold have both been intense.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday evening Webster, Mark, Stanny, and I went
+to the Olympic, where the Wigans ranged us in a row in a
+gorgeous and immense private box, and where we saw
+"Still Waters Run Deep." I laughed (in a conspicuous
+manner) to that extent at Emery, when he received the
+dinner-company, that the people were more amused by me
+than by the piece. I don't think I ever saw anything
+meant to be funny that struck me as so extraordinarily
+droll. I couldn't get over it at all. After the piece we
+went round, by Wigan's invitation, to drink with him. It
+being positively impossible to get Stanny off the stage,
+we stood in the wings during the burlesque. Mrs. Wigan
+seemed really glad to see her old manager, and the company
+overwhelmed him with embraces. They had nearly all
+been at the meeting in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen Charley only twice since I came to
+London, having regularly been in bed until mid-day. To
+my amazement, my eye fell upon him at the Adelphi
+yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>This day I have paid the purchase-money for Gad's
+Hill Place. After drawing the cheque, I turned round to
+give it to Wills (&pound;1,790), and said: "Now isn't it an extraordinary
+thing&mdash;look at the day&mdash;Friday! I have been
+nearly drawing it half-a-dozen times, when the lawyers
+have not been ready, and here it comes round upon a Friday,
+as a matter of course."</p>
+
+<p>Kiss the noble Plorn a dozen times for me, and tell him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span>
+I drank his health yesterday, and wished him many happy
+returns of the day; also that I hope he will not have
+broken all his toys before I come back.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>, <i>Saturday, March 22nd, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I want you&mdash;you being quite well again, as I trust
+you are, and resolute to come to Paris&mdash;so to arrange your
+order of march as to let me know beforehand when you
+will come, and how long you will stay. We owe Scribe
+and his wife a dinner, and I should like to pay the debt
+when you are with us. Ary Scheffer too would be delighted
+to see you again. If I could arrange for a certain
+day I would secure them. We cannot afford (you and I,
+I mean) to keep much company, because we shall have to
+look in at a theatre or so, I daresay!</p>
+
+<p>It would suit my work best, if I could keep myself clear
+until Monday, the 7th of April. But in case that day
+should be too late for the beginning of your brief visit with
+a deference to any other engagements you have in contemplation,
+then fix an earlier one, and I will make "Little
+Dorrit" curtsy to it. My recent visit to London and my
+having only just now come back have thrown me a little
+behindhand; but I hope to come up with a wet sail in a
+few days.</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen the ruins of Covent Garden
+Theatre. I went in the moment I got to London&mdash;four
+days after the fire. Although the audience part and the
+stage were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a
+piece of wood half the size of a lucifer-match for the eye to
+rest on, though nothing whatever remained but bricks and
+smelted iron lying on a great black desert, the theatre still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span>
+looked so wonderfully like its old self grown gigantic that
+I never saw so strange a sight. The wall dividing the
+front from the stage still remained, and the iron pass-doors
+stood ajar in an impossible and inaccessible frame. The
+arches that supported the stage were there, and the
+arches that supported the pit; and in the centre of the
+latter lay something like a Titanic grape-vine that a
+hurricane had pulled up by the roots, twisted, and flung
+down there; this was the great chandelier. Gye had kept
+the men's wardrobe at the top of the house over the great
+entrance staircase; when the roof fell in it came down
+bodily, and all that part of the ruins was like an old
+Babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating the black
+ground, sometimes in pieces so large that I could make out
+the clothes in the "Trovatore."</p>
+
+<p>I should run on for a couple of hours if I had to
+describe the spectacle as I saw it, wherefore I will immediately
+muzzle myself. All here unite in kindest loves
+to dear Miss Macready, to Katie, Lillie, Benvenuta, my
+godson, and the noble Johnny. We are charmed to hear
+such happy accounts of Willy and Ned, and send our loving
+remembrance to them in the next letters. All Parisian
+novelties you shall see and hear for yourself.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Mr. F.'s aunt sends her defiant respects.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">49, <span class="smcap">Avenue des Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday Night, March 27th, 1856 (after post time).</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If I had had any idea of your coming (see how
+naturally I use the word when I am three hundred miles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span>
+off!) to London so soon, I would never have written one
+word about the jump over next week. I am vexed that I
+did so, but as I did I will not now propose a change in the
+arrangements, as I know how methodical you tremendously
+old fellows are. That's your secret I suspect. That's the
+way in which the blood of the Mirabels mounts in your aged
+veins, even at your time of life.</p>
+
+<p>How charmed I shall be to see you, and we all shall be,
+I will not attempt to say. On that expected Sunday you
+will lunch at Amiens but not dine, because we shall wait
+dinner for you, and you will merely have to tell that driver
+in the glazed hat to come straight here. When the Whites
+left I added their little apartment to this little apartment,
+consequently you shall have a snug bedroom (is it not waiting
+expressly for you?) overlooking the Champs Elys&eacute;es.
+As to the arm-chair in my heart, no man on earth&mdash;&mdash;but,
+good God! you know all about it.</p>
+
+<p>You will find us in the queerest of little rooms all alone,
+except that the son of Collins the painter (who writes a
+good deal in "Household Words") dines with us every day.
+Scheffer and Scribe shall be admitted for one evening,
+because they know how to appreciate you. The Emperor
+we will not ask unless you expressly wish it; it makes a fuss.</p>
+
+<p>If you have no appointed hotel at Boulogne, go to the
+H&ocirc;tel des Bains, there demand "Marguerite," and tell her
+that I commended you to her special care. It is the best
+house within my experience in France; Marguerite the
+best housekeeper in the world.</p>
+
+<p>I shall charge at "Little Dorrit" to-morrow with new
+spirits. The sight of you is good for my boyish eyes, and
+the thought of you for my dawning mind. Give the enclosed
+lines a welcome, then send them on to Sherborne.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours most affectionately and truly.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+49, <span class="smcap">Champs Elys&eacute;es, Paris</span>, <i>Sunday, April 6th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">christmas</span>.</div>
+
+<p>Collins and I have a mighty original notion (mine in
+the beginning) for another play at Tavistock House. I
+propose opening on Twelfth Night the theatrical season of
+that great establishment. But now a tremendous question.
+Is</p>
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Wills</span>!</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>game to do a Scotch housekeeper, in a supposed country-house,
+with Mary, Katey, Georgina, etc.? If she can screw
+her courage up to saying "Yes," that country-house opens the
+piece in a singular way, and that Scotch housekeeper's part
+shall flow from the present pen. If she says "No" (but she
+won't), no Scotch housekeeper can be. The Tavistock House
+season of four nights pauses for a reply. Scotch song (new
+and original) of Scotch housekeeper would pervade the
+piece.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">You</span></div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>had better pause for breath.</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>Ever faithfully.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Poole</span>.</div>
+
+<p>I have paid him his money. Here is the proof of life.
+If you will get me the receipt to sign, the money can go to
+my account at Coutts's.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, May 5th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Catherine</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I did nothing at Dover (except for "Household
+Words"), and have not begun "Little Dorrit," No. 8, yet.
+But I took twenty-mile walks in the fresh air, and perhaps
+in the long run did better than if I had been at work. The
+report concerning Scheffer's portrait I had from Ward. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span>
+is in the best place in the largest room, but I find the <i>general</i>
+impression of the artists exactly mine. They almost all
+say that it wants something; that nobody could mistake
+whom it was meant for, but that it has something disappointing
+in it, etc. etc. Stanfield likes it better than
+any of the other painters, I think. His own picture is
+magnificent. And Frith, in a "Little Child's Birthday
+Party," is quite delightful. There are many interesting
+pictures. When you see Scheffer, tell him from me that
+Eastlake, in his speech at the dinner, referred to the portrait
+as "a contribution from a distinguished man of genius
+in France, worthy of himself and of his subject."</p>
+
+<p>I did the maddest thing last night, and am deeply
+penitent this morning. We stayed at Webster's till any
+hour, and they wanted me, at last, to make punch, which
+couldn't be done when the jug was brought, because (to
+Webster's burning indignation) there was only one lemon
+in the house. Hereupon I then and there besought the
+establishment in general to come and drink punch on
+Thursday night, after the play; on which occasion it will
+become necessary to furnish fully the table with some cold
+viands from Fortnum and Mason's. Mark has looked in
+since I began this note, to suggest that the great festival
+may come off at "Household Words" instead. I am
+inclined to think it a good idea, and that I shall transfer
+the locality to that business establishment. But I am at
+present distracted with doubts and torn by remorse.</p>
+
+<p>The school-room and dining-room I have brought into
+habitable condition and comfortable appearance. Charley
+and I breakfast at half-past eight, and meet again at dinner
+when he does not dine in the City, or has no engagement.
+He looks very well.</p>
+
+<p>The audiences at Gye's are described to me as absolute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span>
+marvels of coldness. No signs of emotion can be hammered,
+out of them. Panizzi sat next me at the Academy dinner,
+and took it very ill that I disparaged &mdash;&mdash;. The amateurs
+here are getting up another pantomime, but quarrel so
+violently among themselves that I doubt its ever getting
+on the stage. Webster expounded his scheme for rebuilding
+the Adelphi to Stanfield and myself last night,
+and I felt bound to tell him that I thought it wrong
+from beginning to end. This is all the theatrical news I
+know.</p>
+
+<p>I write by this post to Georgy. Love to Mamey, Katey,
+Harry, and the noble Plorn. I should be glad to see him
+here.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, May 5th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will not be much surprised to hear that I have
+done nothing yet (except for H. W.), and have only just
+settled down into a corner of the school-room. The extent
+to which John and I wallowed in dust for four hours
+yesterday morning, getting things neat and comfortable
+about us, you may faintly imagine. At four in the afternoon
+came Stanfield, to whom I no sooner described the
+notion of the new play, than he immediately upset all my
+new arrangements by making a proscenium of the chairs,
+and planning the scenery with walking-sticks. One of the
+least things he did was getting on the top of the long
+table, and hanging over the bar in the middle window
+where that top sash opens, as if he had got a hinge in
+the middle of his body. He is immensely excited on the
+subject. Mark had a farce ready for the managerial perusal,
+but it won't do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I went to the Dover theatre on Friday night, which was
+a miserable spectacle. The pit is boarded over, and it is a
+drinking and smoking place. It was "for the benefit of
+Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;," and the town had been very extensively
+placarded with "Don't forget Friday." I made out four
+and ninepence (I am serious) in the house, when I went in.
+We may have warmed up in the course of the evening to
+twelve shillings. A Jew played the grand piano; Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;
+sang no end of songs (with not a bad voice, poor creature);
+Mr. &mdash;&mdash; sang comic songs fearfully, and danced clog
+hornpipes capitally; and a miserable woman, shivering in a
+shawl and bonnet, sat in the side-boxes all the evening,
+nursing Master &mdash;&mdash;, aged seven months. It was a most
+forlorn business, and I should have contributed a sovereign
+to the treasury, if I had known how.</p>
+
+<p>I walked to Deal and back that day, and on the previous
+day walked over the downs towards Canterbury in a gale of
+wind. It was better than still weather after all, being
+wonderfully fresh and free.</p>
+
+<p>If the Plorn were sitting at this school-room window in
+the corner, he would see more cats in an hour than he ever
+saw in his life. <i>I</i> never saw so many, I think, as I have
+seen since yesterday morning.</p>
+
+<p>There is a painful picture of a great deal of merit (Egg
+has bought it) in the exhibition, painted by the man who
+did those little interiors of Forster's. It is called "The
+Death of Chatterton." The dead figure is a good deal like
+Arthur Stone; and I was touched on Saturday to see that
+tender old file standing before it, crying under his spectacles
+at the idea of seeing his son dead. It was a very tender
+manifestation of his gentle old heart.</p>
+
+<p>This sums up my news, which is no news at all. Kiss the
+Plorn for me, and expound to him that I am always looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span>
+forward to meeting him again, among the birds and flowers
+in the garden on the side of the hill at Boulogne.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Duke
+of Devonshire.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, June 1st, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Duke of Devonshire</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Allow me to thank you with all my heart for your
+kind remembrance of me on Thursday night. My house
+was already engaged to Miss Coutts's, and I to&mdash;the top of
+St. Paul's, where the sight was most wonderful! But
+seeing that your cards gave me leave to present some
+person not named, I conferred them on my excellent friend
+Dr. Elliotson, whom I found with some fireworkless little
+boys in a desolate condition, and raised to the seventh
+heaven of happiness. You are so fond of making people
+happy, that I am sure you approve.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always your faithful and much obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>June 6th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have never seen anything about myself in print
+which has much correctness in it&mdash;any biographical account
+of myself I mean. I do not supply such particulars when
+I am asked for them by editors and compilers, simply
+because I am asked for them every day. If you want to
+prime Forgues, you may tell him without fear of anything
+wrong, that I was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of
+February, 1812; that my father was in the Navy Pay Office;
+that I was taken by him to Chatham when I was very
+young, and lived and was educated there till I was twelve
+or thirteen, I suppose; that I was then put to a school near
+London, where (as at other places) I distinguished myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span>
+like a brick; that I was put in the office of a solicitor, a
+friend of my father's, and didn't much like it; and after a
+couple of years (as well as I can remember) applied myself
+with a celestial or diabolical energy to the study of such
+things as would qualify me to be a first-rate parliamentary
+reporter&mdash;at that time a calling pursued by many clever
+men who were young at the Bar; that I made my d&eacute;but in
+the gallery (at about eighteen, I suppose), engaged on a
+voluminous publication no longer in existence, called <i>The
+Mirror of Parliament</i>; that when <i>The Morning Chronicle</i>
+was purchased by Sir John Easthope and acquired a large
+circulation, I was engaged there, and that I remained there
+until I had begun to publish "Pickwick," when I found
+myself in a condition to relinquish that part of my labours;
+that I left the reputation behind me of being the best and
+most rapid reporter ever known, and that I could do anything
+in that way under any sort of circumstances, and
+often did. (I daresay I am at this present writing the best
+shorthand writer in the world.)</p>
+
+<p>That I began, without any interest or introduction of
+any kind, to write fugitive pieces for the old "Monthly
+Magazine," when I was in the gallery for <i>The Mirror of
+Parliament</i>; that my faculty for descriptive writing was
+seized upon the moment I joined <i>The Morning Chronicle</i>,
+and that I was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged,
+and wrote the greater part of the short
+descriptive "Sketches by <span class="smcap">Boz</span>" in that paper; that I had
+been a writer when I was a mere baby, and always an actor
+from the same age; that I married the daughter of a writer
+to the signet in Edinburgh, who was the great friend and
+assistant of Scott, and who first made Lockhart known to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>And that here I am.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Finally, if you want any dates of publication of books,
+tell Wills and he'll get them for you.</p>
+
+<p>This is the first time I ever set down even these particulars,
+and, glancing them over, I feel like a wild beast in
+a caravan describing himself in the keeper's absence.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I made a speech last night at the London Tavern,
+at the end of which all the company sat holding their napkins
+to their eyes with one hand, and putting the other
+into their pockets. A hundred people or so contributed
+nine hundred pounds then and there.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, June 15th 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear old Boy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This place is beautiful&mdash;a burst of roses. Your friend
+Beaucourt (who <i>will not</i> put on his hat), has thinned the
+trees and greatly improved the garden. Upon my life, I
+believe there are at least twenty distinct smoking-spots
+expressly made in it.</p>
+
+<p>And as soon as you can see your day in next month for
+coming over with Stanny and Webster, will you let them
+both know? I should not be very much surprised if I were
+to come over and fetch you, when I know what your day is.
+Indeed, I don't see how you could get across properly
+without me.</p>
+
+<p>There is a f&ecirc;te here to-night in honour of the Imperial
+baptism, and there will be another to-morrow. The Plorn
+has put on two bits of ribbon (one pink and one blue), which
+he calls "companys," to celebrate the occasion. The fact
+that the receipts of the f&ecirc;tes are to be given to the sufferers
+by the late floods reminds me that you will find at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span>
+passport office a tin-box, condescendingly and considerately
+labelled in English:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">For the Overflowings</span>,<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>which the chief officer clearly believes to mean, for the
+sufferers from the inundations.</div>
+
+<p>I observe more Mingles in the laundresses' shops, and
+one inscription, which looks like the name of a duet or
+chorus in a playbill, "Here they mingle."</p>
+
+<p>Will you congratulate Mrs. Lemon, with our loves, on her
+gallant victory over the recreant cabman?</p>
+
+<p>Walter has turned up, rather brilliant on the whole; and
+that (with shoals of remembrances and messages which I
+don't deliver) is all my present intelligence.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Mark
+Lemon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. W. Office</span>, <i>July 2nd, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mark</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am concerned to hear that you are ill, that you
+sit down before fires and shiver, and that you have stated
+times for doing so, like the demons in the melodramas, and
+that you mean to take a week to get well in.</p>
+
+<p>Make haste about it, like a dear fellow, and keep up your
+spirits, because I have made a bargain with Stanny and
+Webster that they shall come to Boulogne to-morrow week,
+Thursday the 10th, and stay a week. And you know how
+much pleasure we shall all miss if you are not among us&mdash;at
+least for some part of the time.</p>
+
+<p>If you find any unusually light appearance in the air at
+Brighton, it is a distant refraction (I have no doubt) of the
+gorgeous and shining surface of Tavistock House, now
+transcendently painted. The theatre partition is put up,
+and is a work of such terrific solidity, that I suppose it will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span>
+be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins of London, by that
+Australian of Macaulay's who is to be impressed by its
+ashes. I have wandered through the spectral halls of the
+Tavistock mansion two nights, with feelings of the profoundest
+depression. I have breakfasted there, like a
+criminal in Pentonville (only not so well). It is more like
+Westminster Abbey by midnight than the lowest-spirited
+man&mdash;say you at present for example&mdash;can well imagine.</p>
+
+<p>There has been a wonderful robbery at Folkestone, by
+the new manager of the Pavilion, who succeeded Giovannini.
+He had in keeping &pound;16,000 of a foreigner's, and bolted
+with it, as he supposed, but in reality with only &pound;1,400 of
+it. The Frenchman had previously bolted with the whole,
+which was the property of his mother. With him to
+England the Frenchman brought a "lady," who was, all
+the time and at the same time, endeavouring to steal all the
+money from him and bolt with it herself. The details are
+amazing, and all the money (a few pounds excepted) has
+been got back.</p>
+
+<p>They will be full of sympathy and talk about you when
+I get home, and I shall tell them that I send their loves
+beforehand. They are all enclosed. The moment you feel
+hearty, just write me that word by post. I shall be so
+delighted to receive it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Boy, your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Savage
+Landor.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Evening, July 5th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Landor</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write to you so often in my books, and my writing
+of letters is usually so confined to the numbers that I <i>must</i>
+write, and in which I have no kind of satisfaction, that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span>
+am afraid to think how long it is since we exchanged a
+direct letter. But talking to your namesake this very day
+at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that I would come
+into my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and
+write, "My dear Landor, how are you?" for the pleasure
+of having the answer under your own hand. That you <i>do</i>
+write, and that pretty often, I know beforehand. Else
+why do I read <i>The Examiner</i>?</p>
+
+<p>We were in Paris from October to May (I perpetually
+flying between that city and London), and there we found
+out, by a blessed accident, that your godson was horribly
+deaf. I immediately consulted the principal physician of
+the Deaf and Dumb Institution there (one of the best aurists
+in Europe), and he kept the boy for three months, and took
+unheard-of pains with him. He is now quite recovered,
+has done extremely well at school, has brought home a prize
+in triumph, and will be eligible to "go up" for his India
+examination soon after next Easter. Having a direct
+appointment, he will probably be sent out soon after he has
+passed, and so will fall into that strange life "up the
+country," before he well knows he is alive, which indeed
+seems to be rather an advanced stage of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>And there in Paris, at the same time, I found Marguerite
+Power and Little Nelly, living with their mother and a
+pretty sister, in a very small, neat apartment, and working
+(as Marguerite told me) hard for a living. All that I saw
+of them filled me with respect, and revived the tenderest
+remembrances of Gore House. They are coming to pass
+two or three weeks here for a country rest, next month.
+We had many long talks concerning Gore House, and all its
+bright associations; and I can honestly report that they
+hold no one in more gentle and affectionate remembrance
+than you. Marguerite is still handsome, though she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span>
+the smallpox two or three years ago, and bears the traces
+of it here and there, by daylight. Poor little Nelly (the
+quicker and more observant of the two) shows some little
+tokens of a broken-off marriage in a face too careworn for
+her years, but is a very winning and sensible creature.</p>
+
+<p>We are expecting Mary Boyle too, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>I have just been propounding to Forster if it is not a
+wonderful testimony to the homely force of truth, that one
+of the most popular books on earth has nothing in it to
+make anyone laugh or cry? Yet I think, with some confidence,
+that you never did either over any passage in
+"Robinson Crusoe." In particular, I took Friday's death
+as one of the least tender and (in the true sense) least
+sentimental things ever written. It is a book I read very
+much; and the wonder of its prodigious effect on me and
+everyone, and the admiration thereof, grows on me the
+more I observe this curious fact.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and Georgina send you their kindest loves, and
+smile approvingly on me from the next room, as I bend
+over my desk. My dear Landor, you see many I daresay,
+and hear from many I have no doubt, who love you
+heartily; but we silent people in the distance never forget
+you. Do not forget us, and let us exchange affection at
+least.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your Admirer and Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Duke
+of Devonshire.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, near Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Night, July 5th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Duke of Devonshire</span>,</div>
+
+<p>From this place where I am writing my way through
+the summer, in the midst of rosy gardens and sea airs, I
+cannot forbear writing to tell you with what uncommon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span>
+pleasure I received your interesting letter, and how sensible
+I always am of your kindness and generosity. You were
+always in the mind of my household during your illness;
+and to have so beautiful, and fresh, and manly an assurance
+of your recovery from it, under your own hand, is a privilege
+and delight that I will say no more of.</p>
+
+<p>I am so glad you like Flora. It came into my head
+one day that we have all had our Floras, and that it was a
+half-serious, half-ridiculous truth which had never been
+told. It is a wonderful gratification to me to find that
+everybody knows her. Indeed, some people seem to think
+I have done them a personal injury, and that their individual
+Floras (God knows where they are, or who!) are
+each and all Little Dorrit's.</p>
+
+<p>We were all grievously disappointed that you were ill
+when we played Mr. Collins's "Lighthouse" at my house.
+If you had been well, I should have waited upon you with
+my humble petition that you would come and see it; and if
+you had come I think you would have cried, which would
+have charmed me. I hope to produce another play at
+home next Christmas, and if I can only persuade you to see
+it from a special arm-chair, and can only make you wretched,
+my satisfaction will be intense. May I tell you, to beguile
+a moment, of a little "Tag," or end of a piece, I saw in
+Paris this last winter, which struck me as the prettiest I
+had ever met with? The piece was not a new one, but a
+revival at the Vaudeville&mdash;"Les M&eacute;moires du Diable."
+Admirably constructed, very interesting, and extremely
+well played. The plot is, that a certain M. Robin has come
+into possession of the papers of a deceased lawyer, and
+finds some relating to the wrongful withholding of an
+estate from a certain baroness, and to certain other
+frauds (involving even the denial of the marriage to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span>
+the deceased baron, and the tarnishing of his good name)
+which are so very wicked that he binds them up in a book
+and labels them "M&eacute;moires du Diable." Armed with this
+knowledge he goes down to the desolate old ch&acirc;teau in the
+country&mdash;part of the wrested-away estate&mdash;from which the
+baroness and her daughter are going to be ejected. He
+informs the mother that he can right her and restore the
+property, but must have, as his reward, her daughter's
+hand in marriage. She replies: "I cannot promise my
+daughter to a man of whom I know nothing. The gain
+would be an unspeakable happiness, but I resolutely decline
+the bargain." The daughter, however, has observed all,
+and she comes forward and says: "Do what you have promised
+my mother you can do, and I am yours." Then the
+piece goes on to its development, in an admirable way,
+through the unmasking of all the hypocrites. Now,
+M. Robin, partly through his knowledge of the secret ways
+of the old ch&acirc;teau (derived from the lawyer's papers), and
+partly through his going to a masquerade as the devil&mdash;the
+better to explode what he knows on the hypocrites&mdash;is
+supposed by the servants at the ch&acirc;teau really to be the
+devil. At the opening of the last act he suddenly appears
+there before the young lady, and she screams, but, recovering
+and laughing, says: "You are not really the &mdash;&mdash;?"
+"Oh dear no!" he replies, "have no connection with him.
+But these people down here are so frightened and absurd!
+See this little toy on the table; I open it; here's a little
+bell. They have a notion that whenever this bell rings I
+shall appear. Very ignorant, is it not?" "Very, indeed,"
+says she. "Well," says M. Robin, "if you should want
+me very much to appear, try the bell, if only for a jest.
+Will you promise?" Yes, she promises, and the play goes
+on. At last he has righted the baroness completely, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span>
+has only to hand her the last document, which proves her
+marriage and restores her good name. Then he says:
+"Madame, in the progress of these endeavours I have
+learnt the happiness of doing good for its own sake. I
+made a necessary bargain with you; I release you from it.
+I have done what I undertook to do. I wish you and your
+amiable daughter all happiness. Adieu! I take my leave."
+Bows himself out. People on the stage astonished.
+Audience astonished&mdash;incensed. The daughter is going
+to cry, when she looks at the box on the table, remembers
+the bell, runs to it and rings it, and he rushes back and
+takes her to his heart; upon which we all cry with pleasure,
+and then laugh heartily.</p>
+
+<p>This looks dreadfully long, and perhaps you know it
+already. If so, I will endeavour to make amends with
+Flora in future numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens and her sister beg to present their remembrances
+to your Grace, and their congratulations on your
+recovery. I saw Paxton now and then when you were ill,
+and always received from him most encouraging accounts.
+I don't know how heavy he is going to be (I mean in the
+scale), but I begin to think Daniel Lambert must have been
+in his family.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your Grace's faithful and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, July 8th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I perfectly agree with you in your appreciation of
+Katie's poem, and shall be truly delighted to publish it in
+"Household Words." It shall go into the very next number
+we make up. We are a little in advance (to enable Wills to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span>
+get a holiday), but as I remember, the next number made
+up will be published in three weeks.</p>
+
+<p>We are pained indeed to read your reference to my poor
+boy. God keep him and his father. I trust he is not conscious
+of much suffering himself. If that be so, it is, in the
+midst of the distress, a great comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Dorrit" keeps me pretty busy, as you may
+suppose. The beginning of No. 10&mdash;the first line&mdash;now lies
+upon my desk. It would not be easy to increase upon the
+pains I take with her anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>We are expecting Stanfield on Thursday, and Peter
+Cunningham and his wife on Monday. I would we were
+expecting you! This is as pretty and odd a little French
+country house as could be found anywhere; and the gardens
+are most beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>In "Household Words," next week, pray read "The
+Diary of Anne Rodway" (in two not long parts). It is
+by Collins, and I think possesses great merit and real
+pathos.</p>
+
+<p>Being in town the other day, I saw Gye by accident,
+and told him, when he praised &mdash;&mdash; to me, that she was a
+very bad actress. "Well!" said he, "<i>you</i> may say anything,
+but if anybody else had told me that I should have
+stared." Nevertheless, I derived an impression from his
+manner that she had not been a profitable speculation in
+respect of money. That very same day Stanfield and I
+dined alone together at the Garrick, and drank your health.
+We had had a ride by the river before dinner (of course he
+<i>would</i> go and look at boats), and had been talking of you.
+It was this day week, by-the-bye.</p>
+
+<p>I know of nothing of public interest that is new in France,
+except that I am changing my moustache into a beard. We
+all send our most tender loves to dearest Miss Macready and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span>
+all the house. The Hammy boy is particularly anxious to
+have his love sent to "Misr Creedy."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Villa des Moulineaux, Boulogne</span>, <i>Sunday, July 13th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Collins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are all sorry that you are not coming until the
+middle of next month, but we hope that you will then be
+able to remain, so that we may all come back together about
+the 10th of October. I think (recreation allowed, etc.),
+that the play will take that time to write. The ladies of
+the <i>dram. pers.</i> are frightfully anxious to get it under
+way, and to see you locked up in the pavilion; apropos of
+which noble edifice I have omitted to mention that it is
+made a more secluded retreat than it used to be, and is
+greatly improved by the position of the door being changed.
+It is as snug and as pleasant as possible; and the Genius
+of Order has made a few little improvements about the
+house (at the rate of about tenpence apiece), which the
+Genius of Disorder will, it is hoped, appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>I think I must come over for a small spree, and to fetch
+you. Suppose I were to come on the 9th or 10th of
+August to stay three or four days in town, would that do
+for you? Let me know at the end of this month.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you what a high opinion I have of Anne
+Rodway. I took "Extracts" out of the title because it
+conveyed to the many-headed an idea of incompleteness&mdash;of
+something unfinished&mdash;and is likely to stall some readers
+off. I read the first part at the office with strong admiration,
+and read the second on the railway coming back here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span>
+being in town just after you had started on your cruise.
+My behaviour before my fellow-passengers was weak in the
+extreme, for I cried as much as you could possibly desire.
+Apart from the genuine force and beauty of the little
+narrative, and the admirable personation of the girl's
+identity and point of view, it is done with an amount of
+honest pains and devotion to the work which few men have
+better reason to appreciate than I, and which no man can
+have a more profound respect for. I think it excellent,
+feel a personal pride and pleasure in it which is a delightful
+sensation, and know no one else who could have done it.</p>
+
+<p>Of myself I have only to report that I have been hard at
+it with "Little Dorrit," and am now doing No. 10. This
+last week I sketched out the notion, characters, and
+progress of the farce, and sent it off to Mark, who has been
+ill of an ague. It ought to be very funny. The cat
+business is too ludicrous to be treated of in so small a sheet
+of paper, so I must describe it <i>viv&acirc; voce</i> when I come to
+town. French has been so insufferably conceited since he
+shot tigerish cat No. 1 (intent on the noble Dick, with
+green eyes three inches in advance of her head), that I am
+afraid I shall have to part with him. All the boys likewise
+(in new clothes and ready for church) are at this instant
+prone on their stomachs behind bushes, whooshing and
+crying (after tigerish cat No. 2): "French!" "Here she
+comes!" "There she goes!" etc. I dare not put my
+head out of window for fear of being shot (it is as like a
+<i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> as possible), and tradesmen coming up the
+avenue cry plaintively: "<i>Ne tirez pas, Monsieur Fleench;
+c'est moi&mdash;boulanger. Ne tirez pas, mon ami.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Likewise I shall have to recount to you the secret
+history of a robbery at the Pavilion at Folkestone, which
+you will have to write.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Tell Piggot, when you see him, that we shall all be much
+pleased if he will come at his own convenience while you
+are here, and stay a few days with us.</p>
+
+<p>I shall have more than one notion of future work to
+suggest to you while we are beguiling the dreariness of an
+arctic winter in these parts. May they prosper!</p>
+
+<p>Kind regards from all to the Dramatic Poet of the
+establishment, and to the D. P.'s mother and brother.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;If the "Flying Dutchman" should be done again,
+pray do go and see it. Webster expressed his opinion to me
+that it was "a neat piece." I implore you to go and see a
+neat piece.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Thursday, August 7th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I do not feel disposed to record those two Chancery
+cases; firstly, because I would rather have no part in
+engendering in the mind of any human creature, a hopeful
+confidence in that den of iniquity.</p>
+
+<p>And secondly, because it seems to me that the real philosophy
+of the facts is altogether missed in the narrative. The
+wrong which chanced to be set right in these two cases was
+done, as all such wrong is, mainly because these wicked
+courts of equity, with all their means of evasion and postponement,
+give scoundrels confidence in cheating. If justice
+were cheap, sure, and speedy, few such things could be. It
+is because it has become (through the vile dealing of those
+courts and the vermin they have called into existence) a
+positive precept of experience that a man had better endure
+a great wrong than go, or suffer himself to be taken, into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span>
+Chancery, with the dream of setting it right. It is because
+of this that such nefarious speculations are made.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I see nothing at all to the credit of Chancery
+in these cases, but everything to its discredit. And as to
+owing it to Chancery to bear testimony to its having
+rendered justice in two such plain matters, I have no debt
+of the kind upon my conscience.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+In haste, ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boulogne</span>, <i>Friday, August 8th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I like the second little poem very much indeed, and
+think (as you do) that it is a great advance upon the first.
+Please to note that I make it a rule to pay for everything
+that is inserted in "Household Words," holding it to be a
+part of my trust to make my fellow-proprietors understand
+that they have no right to unrequited labour. Therefore,
+when Wills (who has been ill and is gone for a holiday) does
+his invariable spiriting gently, don't make Katey's case
+different from Adelaide Procter's.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid there is no possibility of my reading Dorsetshirewards.
+I have made many conditional promises thus:
+"I am very much occupied; but if I read at all, I will read
+for your institution in such an order on my list." Edinburgh,
+which is No. 1, I have been obliged to put as far off
+as next Christmas twelvemonth. Bristol stands next. The
+working men at Preston come next. And so, if I were to
+go out of the record and read for your people, I should bring
+such a house about my ears as would shake "Little Dorrit"
+out of my head.</p>
+
+<p>Being in town last Saturday, I went to see Robson in a
+burlesque of "Medea." It is an odd but perfectly true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span>
+testimony to the extraordinary power of his performance
+(which is of a very remarkable kind indeed), that it points
+the badness of &mdash;&mdash;'s acting in a most singular manner,
+by bringing out what she might do and does not. The scene
+with Jason is perfectly terrific; and the manner in which the
+comic rage and jealousy does not pitch itself over the floor
+at the stalls is in striking contrast to the manner in which
+the tragic rage and jealousy does. He has a frantic song
+and dagger dance, about ten minutes long altogether, which
+has more passion in it than &mdash;&mdash; could express in fifty
+years.</p>
+
+<p>We all unite in kindest love to Miss Macready and all
+your dear ones; not forgetting my godson, to whom I send
+his godfather's particular love twice over. The Hammy
+boy is so brown that you would scarcely know him.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Macready, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday Morning, Sept. 28th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I suddenly remember this morning that in Mr.
+Curtis's article, "Health and Education," I left a line
+which must come out. It is in effect that the want of
+healthy training leaves girls in a fit state to be the subjects
+of mesmerism. I would not on any condition hurt
+Elliotson's feelings (as I should deeply) by leaving that
+depreciatory kind of reference in any page of H. W. He
+has suffered quite enough without a stab from a friend. So
+pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what Bradbury
+calls "the Friars," take that passage out. By some extraordinary
+accident, after observing it, I forgot to do it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday, Oct. 4th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mamey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The preparations for the play are already beginning,
+and it is christened (this is a great dramatic secret, which I
+suppose you know already) "The Frozen Deep."</p>
+
+<p>Tell Katey, with my best love, that if she fail to come
+back six times as red, hungry, and strong as she was when
+she went away, I shall give her part to somebody else.</p>
+
+<p>We shall all be very glad to see you both back again;
+when I say "we" I include the birds (who send their
+respectful duty) and the Plorn.</p>
+
+<p>Kind regards to all at Brighton.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Mamey, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 7th</i>, 1856.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I <i>did</i> write it for you; and I hoped in writing
+it, that you would think so. All those remembrances are
+fresh in my mind, as they often are, and gave me an
+extraordinary interest in recalling the past. I should have
+been grievously disappointed if you had not been pleased,
+for I took aim at you with a most determined intention.</p>
+
+<p>Let me congratulate you most heartily on your handsome
+Eddy having passed his examination with such credit. I
+am sure there is a spirit shining out of his eyes, which will
+do well in that manly and generous pursuit. You will
+naturally feel his departure very much, and so will he; but
+I have always observed within my experience, that the men
+who have left home young have, many long years afterwards,
+had the tenderest love for it, and for all associated
+with it. That's a pleasant thing to think of, as one of the
+wise and benevolent adjustments in these lives of ours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have been so hard at work (and shall be for the next
+eight or nine months), that sometimes I fancy I have a
+digestion, or a head, or nerves, or some odd encumbrance of
+that kind, to which I am altogether unaccustomed, and am
+obliged to rush at some other object for relief; at present
+the house is in a state of tremendous excitement, on account
+of Mr. Collins having nearly finished the new play we are
+to act at Christmas, which is very interesting and extremely
+clever. I hope this time you will come and see it. We
+purpose producing it on Charley's birthday, Twelfth Night;
+but we shall probably play four nights altogether&mdash;"The
+Lighthouse" on the last occasion&mdash;so that if you could
+come for the two last nights, you would see both the pieces.
+I am going to try and do better than ever, and already the
+school-room is in the hands of carpenters; men from underground
+habitations in theatres, who look as if they lived
+entirely upon smoke and gas, meet me at unheard-of hours.
+Mr. Stanfield is perpetually measuring the boards with a
+chalked piece of string and an umbrella, and all the elder
+children are wildly punctual and business-like to attract
+managerial commendation. If you don't come, I shall do
+something antagonistic&mdash;try to unwrite No. 11, I think.
+I should particularly like you to see a new and serious piece
+so done. Because I don't think you know, without seeing,
+how good it is!!!</p>
+
+<p>None of the children suffered, thank God, from the
+Boulogne risk. The three little boys have gone back to
+school there, and are all well. Katey came away ill, but it
+turned out that she had the whooping-cough for the second
+time. She has been to Brighton, and comes home to-day.
+I hear great accounts of her, and hope to find her quite
+well when she arrives presently. I am afraid Mary Boyle
+has been praising the Boulogne life too highly. Not that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span>
+I deny, however, our having passed some very pleasant days
+together, and our having had great pleasure in her visit.</p>
+
+<p>You will object to me dreadfully, I know, with a beard
+(though not a great one); but if you come and see the play,
+you will find it necessary there, and will perhaps be more
+tolerant of the fearful object afterwards. I need not tell
+you how delighted we should be to see George, if you would
+come together. Pray tell him so, with my kind regards. I
+like the notion of Wentworth and his philosophy of all
+things. I remember a philosophical gravity upon him, a
+state of suspended opinion as to myself, it struck me, when
+we last met, in which I thought there was a great deal of
+oddity and character.</p>
+
+<p>Charley is doing very well at Baring's, and attracting
+praise and reward to himself. Within this fortnight there
+turned up from the West Indies, where he is now a chief
+justice, an old friend of mine, of my own age, who lived
+with me in lodgings in the Adelphi, when I was just
+Charley's age. He had a great affection for me at that
+time, and always supposed I was to do some sort of wonders.
+It was a very pleasant meeting indeed, and he seemed to
+think it so odd that I shouldn't be Charley!</p>
+
+<p>This is every atom of no-news that will come out of my
+head, and I firmly believe it is all I have in it&mdash;except that
+a cobbler at Boulogne, who had the nicest of little dogs,
+that always sat in his sunny window watching him at work,
+asked me if I would bring the dog home, as he couldn't
+afford to pay the tax for him. The cobbler and the dog
+being both my particular friends, I complied. The cobbler
+parted with the dog heart-broken. When the dog got
+home here, my man, like an idiot as he is, tied him up and
+then untied him. The moment the gate was open, the dog
+(on the very day after his arrival) ran out. Next day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span>
+Georgy and I saw him lying, all covered with mud, dead,
+outside the neighbouring church. How am I ever to tell
+the cobbler? He is too poor to come to England, so I feel
+that I must lie to him for life, and say that the dog is fat and
+happy. Mr. Plornish, much affected by this tragedy, said:
+"I s'pose, pa, I shall meet the cobbler's dog" (in heaven).</p>
+
+<p>Georgy and Catherine send their best love, and I send
+mine. Pray write to me again some day, and I can't be too
+busy to be happy in the sight of your familiar hand, associated
+in my mind with so much that I love and honour.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Mr. Watson, most faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Horne.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square</span>, <i>Oct. 20th, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Horne</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I answer your note by return of post, in order that
+you may know that the Stereoscopic Nottage has not
+written to me yet. Of course I will not lose a moment in
+replying to him when he does address me.</p>
+
+<p>We shall be greatly pleased to see you again. You have
+been very, very often in our thoughts and on our lips, during
+this long interval.</p>
+
+<p>And "she" is near you, is she? O I remember her
+well! And I am still of my old opinion! Passionately
+devoted to her sex as I am (they are the weakness of my
+existence), I still consider her a failure. She had some
+extraordinary christian-name, which I forget. Lashed into
+verse by my feelings, I am inclined to write:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+My heart disowns<br />
+Ophelia Jones;<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>only I think it was a more sounding name.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Are these the tones&mdash;<br />
+Volumnia Jones?<br /></div>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='unindent'>No. Again it seems doubtful.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+God bless her bones,<br />
+Petronia Jones!<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>I think not.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Carve I on stones<br />
+Olympia Jones?<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>Can <i>that</i> be the name? Fond memory favours it more
+than any other. My love to her.</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Mrs. Horne, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Duke
+of Devonshire.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>December 1st</i>, 1856.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Duke of Devonshire</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The moment the first bill is printed for the first
+night of the new play I told you of, I send it to you, in the
+hope that you will grace it with your presence. There is
+not one of the old actors whom you will fail to inspire as
+no one else can; and I hope you will see a little result of a
+friendly union of the arts, that you may think worth
+seeing, and that you can see nowhere else.</p>
+
+<p>We propose repeating it on Thursday, the 8th; Monday,
+the 12th; and Wednesday, the 14th of January. I do not
+encumber this note with so many bills, and merely mention
+those nights in case any one of them should be more
+convenient to you than the first.</p>
+
+<p>But I shall hope for the first, unless you dash me
+(N. B.&mdash;I put Flora into the current number on purpose that
+this might catch you softened towards me, and at a disadvantage).
+If there is hope of your coming, I will have
+the play clearly copied, and will send it to you to read
+beforehand. With the most grateful remembrances, and
+the sincerest good wishes for your health and happiness,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">I am ever, my dear Duke of Devonshire,</span><br />
+Your faithful and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday, Dec. 3rd</i>, 1856.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Mitton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The inspector from the fire office&mdash;surveyor, by-the-bye,
+they called him&mdash;duly came. Wills described him as
+not very pleasant in his manners. I derived the impression
+that he was so exceedingly dry, that if <i>he</i> ever takes fire, he
+must burn out, and can never otherwise be extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, I received a letter from the secretary, to say
+that the said surveyor had reported great additional risk
+from fire, and that the directors, at their meeting next
+Tuesday, would settle the extra amount of premium to be
+paid.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon I thought the matter was becoming complicated,
+and wrote a common-sense note to the secretary
+(which I begged might be read to the directors), saying
+that I was quite prepared to pay any extra premium, but
+setting forth the plain state of the case. (I did not say that
+the Lord Chief Justice, the Chief Baron, and half the Bench
+were coming; though I felt a temptation to make a joke
+about burning them all.)</p>
+
+<p>Finally, this morning comes up the secretary to me
+(yesterday having been the great Tuesday), and says that
+he is requested by the directors to present their compliments,
+and to say that they could not think of charging for any
+additional risk at all; feeling convinced that I would place
+the gas (which they considered to be the only danger) under
+the charge of one competent man. I then explained to him
+how carefully and systematically that was all arranged, and
+we parted with drums beating and colours flying on both
+sides.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span></p>
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday Evening, Dec. 13th</i>, 1856.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We shall be charmed to squeeze Willie's friend in,
+and it shall be done by some undiscovered power of compression
+on the second night, Thursday, the 14th. Will
+you make our compliments to his honour, the Deputy Fiscal,
+present him with the enclosed bill, and tell him we shall be
+cordially glad to see him? I hope to entrust him with
+a special shake of the hand, to be forwarded to our dear
+boy (if a hoary sage like myself may venture on that
+expression) by the next mail.</p>
+
+<p>I would have proposed the first night, but that is too
+full. You may faintly imagine, my venerable friend, the occupation
+of these also gray hairs, between "Golden Marys,"
+"Little Dorrits," "Household Wordses," four stage-carpenters
+entirely boarding on the premises, a carpenter's
+shop erected in the back garden, size always boiling over
+on all the lower fires, Stanfield perpetually elevated on
+planks and splashing himself from head to foot, Telbin
+requiring impossibilities of smart gasmen, and a legion of
+prowling nondescripts for ever shrinking in and out. Calm
+amidst the wreck, your aged friend glides away on the
+"Dorrit" stream, forgetting the uproar for a stretch of
+hours, refreshes himself with a ten or twelve miles walk,
+pitches headforemost into foaming rehearsals, placidly
+emerges for editorial purposes, smokes over buckets of
+distemper with Mr. Stanfield aforesaid, again calmly floats
+upon the "Dorrit" waters.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">With very best love to Miss Macready and all the rest,</span><br />
+Ever, my dear Macready, most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Power.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>December 15th</i>, 1856.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Marguerite</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am not <i>quite</i> clear about the story; not because it
+is otherwise than exceedingly pretty, but because I am
+rather in a difficult position as to stories just now. Besides
+beginning a long one by Collins with the new year (which
+will last five or six months), I have, as I always have at this
+time, a considerable residue of stories written for the
+Christmas number, not suitable to it, and yet available for
+the general purposes of "Household Words." This limits
+my choice for the moment to stories that have some decided
+specialties (or a great deal of story) in them.</p>
+
+<p>But I will look over the accumulation before you come, and
+I hope you will never see your little friend again but in print.</p>
+
+<p>You will find us expecting you on the night of the
+twenty-fourth, and heartily glad to welcome you. The
+most terrific preparations are in hand for the play on
+Twelfth Night. There has been a carpenter's shop in the
+garden for six weeks; a painter's shop in the school-room;
+a gasfitter's shop all over the basement; a dressmaker's
+shop at the top of the house; a tailor's shop in my dressing-room.
+Stanfield has been incessantly on scaffoldings for two
+months; and your friend has been writing "Little Dorrit,"
+etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was
+turned upside-down by the genie.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Kindest love from all, and from me.</span><br />
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Christmas Eve, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="unindent"><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot leave your letter unanswered, because I am
+really anxious that you should understand why I cannot
+comply with your request.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Scarcely a week passes without my receiving requests
+from various quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by
+all the processes ever invented. Apart from my having an
+invincible objection to the multiplication of my countenance
+in the shop-windows, I have not, between my avocations and
+my needful recreation, the time to comply with these proposals.
+At this moment there are three cases out of a vast
+number, in which I have said: "If I sit at all, it shall be to
+you first, to you second, and to you third." But I assure
+you, I consider myself almost as unlikely to go through
+these three conditional achievements as I am to go to
+China. Judge when I am likely to get to Mr. Watkins!</p>
+
+<p>I highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with
+my writings. I doubt if I have a more genial reader in the
+world.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />PROLOGUE TO "THE LIGHTHOUSE."<br />
+
+<br />(Spoken by <span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span>.)<br />
+
+<br /><i>Slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down.</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class='poem'>
+A story of those rocks where doomed ships come<br />
+To cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home,<br />
+Where solitary men, the long year through&mdash;<br />
+The wind their music and the brine their view&mdash;<br />
+Warn mariners to shun the beacon-light;<br />
+A story of those rocks is here to-night.<br />
+Eddystone lighthouse<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>[<i>Exterior view discovered.</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">In its ancient form;</span><br />
+Ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm<br />
+That shiver'd it to nothing; once again<br />
+Behold outgleaming on the angry main!<br />
+Within it are three men; to these repair<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span>In our frail bark of Fancy, swift as air!<br />
+<br />
+They are but shadows, as the rower grim<br />
+Took none but shadows in his boat with him.<br />
+So be <i>ye</i> shades, and, for a little space,<br />
+The real world a dream without a trace.<br />
+Return is easy. It will have ye back<br />
+Too soon to the old beaten dusty track;<br />
+For but one hour forget it. Billows rise,<br />
+Blow winds, fall rain, be black ye midnight skies;<br />
+And you who watch the light, arise! arise!<br />
+<br /></div>
+<div class='sig'>[<i>Exterior view rises and discovers the scene.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE SONG OF THE WRECK.<br />
+
+
+<br />I.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+The wind blew high, the waters raved,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A ship drove on the land,</span><br />
+A hundred human creatures saved,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kneeled down upon the sand.</span><br />
+Threescore were drowned, threescore were thrown<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the black rocks wild,</span><br />
+And thus among them, left alone,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They found one helpless child.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />II.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stood out from all the rest,</span><br />
+And gently laid the lonely head<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon his honest breast.</span><br />
+And travelling o'er the desert wide,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It was a solemn joy,</span><br />
+To see them, ever side by side,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sailor and the boy.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />III.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The two were still but one,</span><br />
+Until the strong man drooped the first,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And felt his labours done.</span><br />
+Then to a trusty friend he spake,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Across the desert wide,</span><br />
+O take this poor boy for my sake!"<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And kissed the child and died.</span><br />
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />IV.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Toiling along in weary plight,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through heavy jungle, mire,</span><br />
+These two came later every night<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To warm them at the fire.</span><br />
+Until the captain said one day,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"O seaman good and kind,</span><br />
+To save thyself now come away,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And leave the boy behind!"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />V.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+The child was slumb'ring near the blaze,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"O captain, let him rest</span><br />
+Until it sinks, when God's own ways<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall teach us what is best!"</span><br />
+They watched the whitened ashy heap,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They touched the child in vain;</span><br />
+They did not leave him there asleep,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never woke again.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This song was sung to the music of "Little Nell," a
+ballad composed by the late Mr. George Linley, to the words
+of Miss Charlotte Young, and dedicated to Charles Dickens.
+He was very fond of it, and his eldest daughter had been in
+the habit of singing it to him constantly since she was quite
+a child.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>END OF VOL. I.<br /><br /><br />
+
+
+
+&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br />
+<small>CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.</small></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+A'Beckett, Gilbert, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br />
+
+<br />
+Affidavit, a facetious, i. <a href="#Page_101">101</a><br />
+<br />
+Ainsworth, W. H., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a><br />
+<br />
+Alison, Sir Archibald, i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="america" id="america"></a>America, feeling for Dickens in the backwoods of, i. <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's first visit to, i. <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his welcome in, i. <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his opinion of, i. <a href="#Page_60">60</a>-<a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">freedom of opinion in, i. <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's lev&eacute;es in, i. <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">change of temperature in, i. <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hotel charges in, i. <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">midnight rambles in New York, i. <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">descriptions of Niagara, i. <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a maid's views on Niagara, i. <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">copyright in, i. <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's tribute to Mrs. Trollope's book on, i. <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">press-ridden, i. <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absence of quiet in, i. <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criticisms of Dickens in, i. <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#readings">Readings</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"American Notes," publication of, i. <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br />
+<br />
+"Animal Magnetism," tag to, written by Dickens, i. <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br />
+<br />
+Anne, Mrs. Dickens's maid, i. <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a><br />
+
+<br />
+"Arabian Nights," a mistake in the, i. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452i" id="Page_452i">[452]</a></span>Astley's Theatre, description of a clown at, i. <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br />
+<br />
+Austin, Henry, i. <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Author, the highest reward of an, i. <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+Autobiography, a concise, of Dickens, i. <a href="#Page_437">437</a><br />
+<br />
+Autograph of Dickens in 1833, i. <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens leaves his in Shakespeare's room, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Boz, i. <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Dickens as Bobadil, i. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facsimile of Dickens's handwriting in 1856, i. <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Babbage, Charles, letters to, i. <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br />
+<br />
+Banks, G., i. <a href="#Page_273">273</a>; letter to, i. <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br />
+
+<br />
+"Barnaby Rudge" written and published, i. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's descriptions of the illustrations of:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the raven, i. <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the locksmith's house, i. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rioters in The Maypole, i. <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scene in the ruins of the Warren, i. <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abduction of Dolly Varden, i. <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lord George Gordon in the Tower, the duel, frontispiece, i. <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hugh taken to gaol, i. <a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Battle of Life, The," dedication of, i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens superintends rehearsals of the play of, i. <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sale of, i. <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reception of the play of, i. <a href="#Page_167">167</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Beaucourt, M., i. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a><br />
+<br />
+Bedstead, a German, i. <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br />
+<br />
+Begging letters, Dickens's answers to, i. <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+<br />
+Bicknell, Henry, i. <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_229">229</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Biographers, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his opinion of John Forster as a biographer, i. <a href="#Page_188">188</a>-<a href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Birthday wishes, i. <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br />
+<br />
+"Black-eyed Susan," Dickens as T. P. Cooke in, i. <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a new version of, i. <a href="#Page_114">114</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Blanchard, Laman, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br />
+<br />
+"Bleak House," commenced, i. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">publication of, i. <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's opinion of, i. <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">circulation of, i. <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Blessington, Lady, i. <a href="#Page_171">171</a><br />
+<br />
+Bobadil, Captain, Dickens plays, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's remarks on, i. <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a letter after, i. <a href="#Page_195">195</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Book-backs, Dickens's imitation, i. <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a><br />
+<br />
+Book Clubs, established, i. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_104">104</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Boulogne" id="Boulogne"></a>Boulogne, Dickens at, i. <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>-<a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>-<a href="#Page_448">448</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a Shakespearian performance at, i. <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>en f&ecirc;te</i>, i. <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illuminations at, on the occasion of the Prince Consort's visit, i. <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fire at, i. <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">condition of, during the Crimean war, i. <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters descriptive of, i. <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Boxall, Sir William, i. <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br />
+<br />
+Boyle, Miss Mary, i. <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Breach of Promise, a new sort of, i. <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br />
+<br />
+Breakfast, a Yorkshire, i. <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="broadstairs" id="broadstairs"></a>Broadstairs, Dickens at, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of lodgings at, i. <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amusements of, i. <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of Fort House at, i. <a href="#Page_254">254</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453i" id="Page_453i">[453]</a></span>Browne, H. K., i. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Buckstone, J. B., i. <a href="#Page_360">360</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Burnett" id="Burnett"></a>Burnett, Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_185">185</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Cabin, a, on board ship, i. <a href="#Page_56">56</a><br />
+<br />
+Capital punishment, Dickens's views on, i. <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="carlisle" id="carlisle"></a>Carlisle, the Earl of, letters to, i. <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Castlereagh, Lord, i. <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<br />
+Cat-hunting, i. <a href="#Page_449">449</a><br />
+<br />
+Cattermole, George, i. <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Chancery, Dickens on the Court of, i. <a href="#Page_450">450</a><br />
+<br />
+Chapman and Hall, Messrs., i. <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_55">55</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Chimes, The," written, i. <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an attack on cant, i. <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's opinion of, i. <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens gives a private reading of, i. <a href="#Page_133">133</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Christmas Carol, The," publication of, i. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criticisms on, i. <a href="#Page_99">99</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Christmas greetings, i. <a href="#Page_167">167</a><br />
+<br />
+Cockspur Street Society, the, i. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>-<a href="#Page_87">87</a><br />
+<br />
+Cold, effects of a, i. <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remedy for a, i. <a href="#Page_168">168</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Colden, David, i. <a href="#Page_64">64</a><br />
+<br />
+Collins, Wilkie, i. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Comedy, Mr. Webster's offer for a prize, Dickens an imaginary competitor, i. <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+<br />
+Conjuring feats, i. <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Cooke, T. P., i. <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Copyright, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's struggles to secure English, in America, i. <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Costello, Dudley, i. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cottage, a cheap, i. <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br />
+<br />
+Coutts, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_410">410</a><br />
+<br />
+Covent Garden Theatre, Macready retires from management of, i. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ruins of, i. <a href="#Page_430">430</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+"Cricket on the Hearth, The," i. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br />
+<br />
+Croker, J. Crofton, i. <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_275">275</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cruikshank, George, i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+<br />
+Cunningham, Peter, i. <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Daily News, The</i>, started, i. <a href="#Page_135">135</a><br />
+<br />
+"David Copperfield," dedication of, i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">purpose of Little Emily in, i. <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">success of, i. <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reading of, i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's favourite work, i. <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Deane, F. H., letter to, i. <a href="#Page_68">68</a><br />
+<br />
+Delane, John, i. <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_314">314</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Devonshire, the Duke of, letters to, i. <a href="#Page_437">437</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a><br />
+<br />
+Devrient, Emil, i. <a href="#Page_277">277</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Charles, at Furnival's Inn, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his marriage, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">employed as a parliamentary reporter, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spends his honeymoon at Chalk, Kent, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">employed on <i>The Morning Chronicle</i>, i. <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removes to Doughty Street, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes for the stage, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his visit to the Yorkshire schools, i. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Twickenham Park, i. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454i" id="Page_454i">[454]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">his visits to Broadstairs, see <a href="#broadstairs">Broadstairs</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his visit to Stratford-on-Avon and Kenilworth, i. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Shakespeare's room, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected at the Athen&aelig;um Club, i. <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removes to Devonshire Terrace, i. <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">portraits of, see <a href="#portraits">Portraits</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits to Scotland, i. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal feeling of for his characters, i. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declines to enter Parliament, i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">public dinners to, i. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an enemy of cant, i. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits of to America, see <a href="#america">America</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">expedition of to Cornwall, i. <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his travels in Italy, see <a href="#italy">Italy</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">political opinions of, i. <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fancy signatures to letters of, i. <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">takes the chair at the opening of the Liverpool Mechanics' Institute, i. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, and see i. <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his theatrical performances, see <a href="#theatrical">Theatrical Performances</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of work on, i. <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Daily News</i>, started by, i. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his visits to Lausanne and Switzerland, i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, and see <a href="#switzerland">Switzerland</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his visits to Paris, see <a href="#paris">Paris</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a stage, manager, i. <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Chester Place, Regent's Park, i. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">takes the chair at the opening of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute, and of the Glasgow Athen&aelig;um, i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Brighton, i. <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Bonchurch, i, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">purchases Tavistock House, i. <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, and see <a href="#tavistock">Tavistock House</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as an editor, i. <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his readings, see <a href="#readings">Readings</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illnesses of, i. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his visits to Boulogne, see <a href="#Boulogne">Boulogne</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">presentation of plate to, at Birmingham, i. <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">purchases Gad's Hill, i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, and see <a href="#Gad">Gad's Hill</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delivers a speech on Administrative Reform, i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Folkestone, i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">restlessness of, when at work, i. <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a> of</span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Mrs. Charles, marriage of, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit of, to America, i. <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Rome, i. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accident to, i. <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Malvern, i. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">present to, at Birmingham, i. <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Charles, jun., birth of, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nickname of, i. <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Eton, i. <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Leipsic, i. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Barings', i. <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Kate, nickname of, i. <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Mamie, nickname of, i. <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illnesses of, i. <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455i" id="Page_455i">[455]</a></span><br />
+Dickens, Walter, nickname of, i. <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Frank, nickname of, i. <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Sydney, birth of, i. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nickname of, i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, i. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">story of, i. <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Edward, nicknames of, i. <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Dora, birth of, i. <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, i. <a href="#Page_240">240</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Alfred, sen., i. <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Fanny, see <a href="#Burnett">Mrs. Burnett</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Frederick, i. <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, John, i. <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Dickson, David, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br />
+<br />
+Diezman, S. A., letter to, i. <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br />
+<br />
+Dinner, a search for a, i. <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ladies at public dinners, i. <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dogs, Dickens's, i. <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a plague of, i. <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">stories of, i. <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Dombey and Son," i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">success of, i. <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sale of, i. <a href="#Page_162">162</a></span><br />
+<br />
+D'Orsay, Comte, i. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a><br />
+<br />
+Driver, Dickens's estimate of himself as a, i. <a href="#Page_2">2</a><br />
+<br />
+Drury Lane Theatre, the saloon at, i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggestions for the saloon at, i. <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Education, Dickens an advocate of, for the people, i. <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br />
+<br />
+Eeles, Mr., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br />
+<br />
+Egg, Augustus, i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a><br />
+<br />
+Elliotson, Dr., i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>,<br />
+<br />
+Elton, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a><br />
+<br />
+Ely, Miss, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br />
+<br />
+Emery, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_429">429</a><br />
+<br />
+England, state of, in 1855, i. <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">politically, i. <a href="#Page_406">406</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Epitaph, Dickens's, on a little child, i. <a href="#Page_68">68</a><br />
+<br />
+Executions, Dickens on public, i. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br />
+<br />
+Exhibition, an infant school at the, i. <a href="#Page_257">257</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Fairy Tales, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_307">307</a><br />
+<br />
+Fielding, Henry, i. <a href="#Page_394">394</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456i" id="Page_456i">[456]</a></span>
+Forgues, M., i. <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a><br />
+<br />
+Forster, John, i. <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Franklin, Sir John, i. <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br />
+<br />
+French portraits of the English, i. <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br />
+<br />
+Friday, Dickens's lucky day, i. <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a><br />
+<br />
+Frith, W. P., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_79">79</a><br />
+<br />
+Funerals, Dickens on state, i. <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Gad" id="Gad"></a>Gad's Hill, purchase of, i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, i. <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gaskell, Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Germany, esteem felt for Dickens in, i. <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br />
+<br />
+Gibson, M., i. <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br />
+<br />
+Goldsmith, Oliver, Dickens on Forster's Life of, i. <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the works of, i. <a href="#Page_380">380</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Grief, the perversity of, exemplified, i. <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br />
+<br />
+Grimaldi, Life of, edited by Dickens, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br />
+<br />
+Guild of Literature and Art, i. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">theatrical performances in aid of the, i. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Haldimand, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Halleck, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Fitzgreene'">Fitz-Greene</ins>, i. <a href="#Page_59">59</a><br />
+<br />
+"Hard Times," i. <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">satire of, explained, i. <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, i. <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Harley, J. P., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+<br />
+Harness, Rev. W., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br />
+<br />
+"Haunted Man, The," i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subjects for illustrations in, described, i. <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dramatisation of, i. <a href="#Page_203">203</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hewett, Captain, i. <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br />
+<br />
+"History of England, The Child's," i. <a href="#Page_297">297</a><br />
+<br />
+Hogarth, Mary, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Hogarth, Georgina, i. <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Holland, Lady, i. <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br />
+<br />
+Home, longings for, i. <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br />
+<br />
+Hood, Tom, i. <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_80">80</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Horne, Mrs., letter to, i. <a href="#Page_456">456</a><br />
+<br />
+Horne, R. H., letter to, i. <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br />
+<br />
+Hospital, a dinner at a, i. <a href="#Page_88">88</a><br />
+<br />
+Houghton, Lord, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+"Household Words," i. <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">scheme of, i. <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggested titles for, i. <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">success of, i. <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christmas numbers of, i. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The Golden Mary," i. <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, i. <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hughes, Master Hastings, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+Hullah, John, i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457i" id="Page_457i">[457]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Illustrated London News</i>, offers to Dickens from, i. <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+<br />
+Illustrations of Dickens's works, his descriptions for, i. <a href="#Page_38">38</a>-<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_203">203</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="italy" id="italy"></a>Italy, Dickens's first visit to, i. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the sky of, i. <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the colouring of, i. <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a sunset in, i. <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">twilight in, i. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">frescoes in, i. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">churches in, i. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fruit in, i. <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">climate of, i. <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a coastguard in, i. <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens at Albaro, i. <a href="#Page_105">105</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Genoa, i. <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Venice and Verona, i. <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Naples, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an ascent of Vesuvius, i. <a href="#Page_137">137</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Rome, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>-<a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Jeffrey, Lord, i. <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a><br />
+<br />
+Jerrold, Douglas, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Joll, Miss, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Keeley, Robert, i. <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_105">105</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Kelly, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br />
+<br />
+Kent, W. Charles, i. <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Kinkel, Dr., i. <a href="#Page_230">230</a><br />
+<br />
+Knight, Charles, i. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Knowles, Sheridan, i. <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Lamartine, i. <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br />
+<br />
+Landor, Walter Savage, i. <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Landseer, Edwin, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br />
+<br />
+Landseer, Tom, i. <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br />
+<br />
+Lansdowne, Lord, i. <a href="#Page_275">275</a><br />
+<br />
+Layard, A. H., i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lectures, Dickens on public, i. <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br />
+<br />
+Leech, John, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br />
+<br />
+Le Gros, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a><br />
+<br />
+Lema&icirc;tre, M., i. <a href="#Page_386">386</a><br />
+<br />
+Lemon, Mark, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lemon, Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_419">419</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap"><a name="letters" id="letters"></a>Letters of Charles Dickens to</span>:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ainsworth, W. H., i. <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anonymous, i. <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Austin, Henry, i. <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>-<a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Babbage, Charles, i. <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Banks, G., i. <a href="#Page_296">296</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bicknell, H., i. <a href="#Page_229">229</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blanchard, Laman, i. <a href="#Page_99">99</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boyle, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carlisle, the Earl of, i. <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458i" id="Page_458i">[458]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cattermole, George, i. <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>-<a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cerjat, M. de, i. <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chapman and Hall, i. <a href="#Page_55">55</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Collins, Wilkie, i. <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Costello, Dudley, i. <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Croker, J. Crofton, i. <a href="#Page_275">275</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cunningham, Peter, i. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Deane, F. H., i. <a href="#Page_68">68</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Delane, John, i. <a href="#Page_314">314</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Devonshire, the Duke of, i. <a href="#Page_437">437</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Mrs. Charles, i. <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Miss Kate, i. <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickson, David, i. <a href="#Page_89">89</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Diezman, S. A., i. <a href="#Page_32">32</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eeles, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ely, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_153">153</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forster, John, i. <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frith, W. P., i. <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gaskell, Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Haldimand, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_157">157</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Halleck, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Fitzgreene'">Fitz-Greene</ins>, i. <a href="#Page_59">59</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harley, J. P., i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harness, Rev. W., i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hogarth, Catherine, i. <a href="#Page_3">3</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hogarth, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hood, Tom, i. <a href="#Page_80">80</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Horne, Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_456">456</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Horne, R. H., i. <a href="#Page_93">93</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hughes, Master, i. <a href="#Page_14">14</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jerrold, Douglas, i. <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Joll, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Keeley, Robert, i. <a href="#Page_105">105</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kent, W. Charles, i. <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knight, Charles, i. <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knowles, Sheridan, i. <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Landor, Walter Savage, i. <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Landseer, Edwin, i. <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Layard, A. H., i. <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lemon, Mark, i. <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longman, Thomas, i. <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longman, William, i. <a href="#Page_24">24</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lovejoy, G., i. <a href="#Page_44">44</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maclise, Daniel, i. <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459i" id="Page_459i">[459]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Macready, W. C., i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Milnes, R. Monckton, i. <a href="#Page_41">41</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mitton, Thomas, i. <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morpeth, Viscount, i. <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pardoe, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_73">73</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poole, John, i. <a href="#Page_236">236</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Power, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Procter, Adelaide, i. <a href="#Page_374">374</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Procter, B. W., i. <a href="#Page_354">354</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Regnier, Monsieur, i. <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Roberts, David, i. <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Russell, Lord John, i. <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ryland, Arthur, i. <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sandys, William, i. <a href="#Page_178">178</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saunders, John, i. <a href="#Page_366">366</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, H. P., i. <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stanfield, Clarkson, i. <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stone, Marcus, i. <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stone, Frank, i. <a href="#Page_199">199</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<i>Sun, The</i>," the editor of, i. <a href="#Page_187">187</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tagart, Edward, i. <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Talfourd, Miss Mary, i. <a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Talfourd, Serjeant, i. <a href="#Page_10">10</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tennent, Sir James Emerson, i. <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tomlin, John, i. <a href="#Page_40">40</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trollope, Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Viardot, Madame, i. <a href="#Page_412">412</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watkins, John, i. <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watson, Hon. Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watson, Hon. R., i. <a href="#Page_159">159</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White, Rev. James, i. <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wills, W. H., i. <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wilson, Effingham, i. <a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lewes, G. H., i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+<br />
+"Lighthouse, The," the play of, i. <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's prologue to, i. <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's "Song of the Wreck" in, i. <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Lion, a chained, i. <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br />
+<br />
+"Little Dorrit," i. <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed name of, i. <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sale of, i. <a href="#Page_426">426</a>;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460i" id="Page_460i">[460]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, i. <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a></span><br />
+<br />
+London, the Mayor of, from a French point of view, i. <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in September, i. <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's opinion of the Corporation of, i. <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facetious advice to country visitors to, i. <a href="#Page_252">252</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Longman, Thomas, letters to, i. <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Longman, William, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br />
+<br />
+Lovejoy, G., i. <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br />
+<br />
+Lyndhurst, Lord, i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Lynn, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+<br />
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Lyttleton'">Lyttelton</ins>, Hon. Spencer, i. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<br />
+Lytton, the first Lord, i. <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Maclise, Daniel, i. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Macready, W. C., i. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Macready, Benvenuta, i. <a href="#Page_431">431</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Macready, Kate, i. <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Macready, Nina, i. <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br />
+<br />
+Martineau, i. <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a><br />
+<br />
+"Martin Chuzzlewit," i. <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dramatised, i. <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+"Master Humphrey's Clock," i. <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the plan of, described, i. <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning illustrations for, i. <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>-<a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>-<a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"M&eacute;moires du Diable, Les," i. <a href="#Page_444">444</a><br />
+<br />
+Missionaries, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br />
+<br />
+Mitton, Thomas, see <a href="#letters">Letters</a><br />
+<br />
+Monuments, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br />
+<br />
+Moore, Tom, i. <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br />
+<br />
+Morley, Mr., i. <a href="#Page_399">399</a><br />
+<br />
+Morpeth, Viscount, letters to, i. <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#carlisle">Carlisle</a>, The Earl of</span><br />
+<br />
+Mulgrave, Earl of, i. <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Narrative, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a><br />
+<br />
+Nathan, Messrs. H. and L., i. <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br />
+<br />
+"Nicholas Nickleby," publication of, i. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rewards and punishments of characters in, i. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens at work on, i. <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dedication of, i, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Kenwigs in, i, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Nicknames, Dickens's, of George Cattermole, i. <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of his children, i. <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nautical, i. <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of himself, i. <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Frank Stone, i. <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Noviomagians, the, i. <a href="#Page_272">272</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Old Curiosity Shop, The," Dickens engaged on, i. <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">scenes in, described by Dickens for illustration, i. <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens heartbroken over the story, i. <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Oliver Twist," publication of, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Organs, street, i. <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461i" id="Page_461i">[461]</a></span><br />
+Overs, i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Pardoe, Miss, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_73">73</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="paris" id="paris"></a>Paris, Dickens at, i. <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>-<a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>-<a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">house-hunting in, i. <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of Dickens's house in, i. <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">state of, in 1846, i. <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeling of people of, for Dickens, i. <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Parrots, human, i. <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br />
+<br />
+"Patrician's Daughter, The," prologue to, written by Dickens, i. <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a><br />
+<br />
+Paxton, Sir Joseph, i. <a href="#Page_446">446</a><br />
+<br />
+Phelps, J., i. <a href="#Page_366">366</a><br />
+<br />
+"Pickwick," origin and publication of, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first mention of Jingle, i. <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conclusion of, celebrated, i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the design of the Shepherd in, explained, i. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Picnic, a, of the elements, i, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">with Eton boys, i. <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Plessy, Madame, i. <a href="#Page_412">412</a><br />
+<br />
+Poole, John, i. <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_236">236</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Poor Travellers, The," i. <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sale of, i. <a href="#Page_379">379</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="portraits" id="portraits"></a>Portraits of Dickens, by Maclise, i. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Ary Scheffer, i. <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Postman, an Albaro, i. <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a><br />
+<br />
+Power, Miss, i. <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Power, Nelly, i. <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br />
+<br />
+Press, the, freedom of, i. <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in America, i. <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">taxation of the, i. <a href="#Page_274">274</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Procter, Adelaide, i. <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_374">374</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Procter, B. W., i. <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Publishing system, how to improve the, i. <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+<br />
+Purse, the power of the, i. <a href="#Page_88">88</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Queen, the, Dickens's theatrical performance before, i. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Rae, Dr., i. <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="readings" id="readings"></a>Readings, Dickens's public, for charities, i. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a><br />
+<br />
+Reform, Dickens speaks on Administrative, i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">association for, i. <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462i" id="Page_462i">[462]</a></span><br />
+Refreshment rooms, i. <a href="#Page_424">424</a><br />
+<br />
+Regnier, M., i. <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Richardson, Samuel, Dickens's opinion of, i. <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br />
+<br />
+"Rivals, The," a scene from, rewritten, i. <a href="#Page_345">345</a><br />
+<br />
+Roberts, David, i. <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Robinson Crusoe," Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br />
+<br />
+Robson, F., i. <a href="#Page_451">451</a><br />
+<br />
+Roche, Dickens's courier, i. <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+<br />
+Russell, Lord John, i. <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Sanatorium for art-students, i. <a href="#Page_102">102</a><br />
+<br />
+Sand, Georges, i. <a href="#Page_420">420</a><br />
+<br />
+Sandys, William, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br />
+<br />
+Saunders, John, i. <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_366">366</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Savage, i. <a href="#Page_271">271</a><br />
+<br />
+Scheffer, Ary, i. <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a><br />
+<br />
+Schoolmistress, a Yorkshire, i. <a href="#Page_8">8</a><br />
+<br />
+Scott, Sir Walter, i. <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br />
+<br />
+Scribe, Eug&egrave;ne, i. <a href="#Page_430">430</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a><br />
+<br />
+Seaside, the, in wet weather, i. <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+<br />
+Sea voyage, a, i. <a href="#Page_322">322</a><br />
+<br />
+Shakespeare, Dickens in room of, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's criticisms of Charles Knight's biography of, i. <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_178">178</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Shower-bath, a perpetual, i. <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br />
+<br />
+"Sketches," publication of the, i. <a href="#Page_1">1</a><br />
+<br />
+Smith, H. P., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+<br />
+Smith, Sydney, i. <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br />
+<br />
+Smollett, Dickens on the works of, i. <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br />
+<br />
+Snevellicci, Miss, in real life, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Snore, a mighty, i. <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br />
+<br />
+Songs by Dickens: on Mark Lemon, i. <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of "The Wreck" in "The Lighthouse," i. <a href="#Page_461">461</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Spencer, Lord, i. <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br />
+<br />
+Spider, a fearful, i. <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+<br />
+Spiritualism, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a><br />
+<br />
+Stage suggestions, i. <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a stage mob, i. <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a piece of stage business, i. <a href="#Page_156">156</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stanfield, Clarkson, i. <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Steele, Sir Richard, Dickens on Forster's essay on, i. <a href="#Page_393">393</a><br />
+<br />
+Stone, Arthur, i. <a href="#Page_436">436</a><br />
+<br />
+Stone, Frank, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stone, Marcus, i. <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_340">340</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Strange Gentleman, The," farce written by Dickens and produced, i. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to Macready, i. <a href="#Page_16">16</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Strikes, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_416">416</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Sun, The</i>, letter to editor of, i. <a href="#Page_187">187</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463i" id="Page_463i">[463]</a></span><br />
+<a name="switzerland" id="switzerland"></a>Switzerland, the Simplon Pass in, i. <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pleasant recollections of, i. <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens at Lausanne in, i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a revolution in, i. <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friends in, i. <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's love for, i. <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning Lausanne in, i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sympathy, letters of, i. <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Tagart, Edward, letters to, i. <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br />
+<br />
+Talfourd, Miss Mary, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br />
+<br />
+Talfourd, Mr. Justice, i. <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_10">10</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Ta&uuml;chnitz, Baron, i. <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="tavistock" id="tavistock"></a>Tavistock House, purchase of, i. <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, i. <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>-<a href="#Page_266">266</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Taxation, Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of newspapers, i. <a href="#Page_273">273</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Telegraph, the dramatic side of the, i. <a href="#Page_417">417</a><br />
+<br />
+Tennent, Sir James Emerson, i. <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+Tenniel, John, i. <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br />
+<br />
+Theatre, Dickens at the, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Phiz's laughter at the, i. <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the saloon at Drury Lane, i. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">scents of a, i. <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">story of a, i. <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposal for a national, i. <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="theatrical" id="theatrical"></a>Theatrical performances of Charles Dickens:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Montreal, i. <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Miss Kelly's Theatre, i. <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Fortunio" at Tavistock House, i. <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The Lighthouse," i. <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>-<a href="#Page_397">397</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The Frozen Deep," i. <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">before the Queen, i. <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning the, i. <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Tomlin, John, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br />
+<br />
+Topham, F. W., i. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br />
+<br />
+Trollope, Mrs., letters to, i. <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," Dickens on, i. <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Viardot, Madame, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_412">412</a><br />
+<br />
+"Village Coquettes, The," operetta written by Dickens, i. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see i. <a href="#Page_93">93</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Waistcoat, a wonderful, i. <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the loan by Dickens of Macready's, i. <a href="#Page_146">146</a></span><br />
+<br />
+War, Dickens on the Russian, i. <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+<br />
+Ward, E. M., i. <a href="#Page_341">341</a><br />
+<br />
+Watkins, John, i. <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, i. <a href="#Page_287">287</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Watson, Hon. R., i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, i. <a href="#Page_159">159</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Watson, Hon. Mrs., i. <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Welcome home, a, i. <a href="#Page_117">117</a><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464i" id="Page_464i">[464]</a></span><br />
+Whewell, Dr., i. <a href="#Page_372">372</a><br />
+<br />
+White, Rev. James, i. <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wigan, Alfred, i. <a href="#Page_429">429</a><br />
+<br />
+Wills, W. H., i. <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wilson, Effingham, letter to, i. <a href="#Page_199">199</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Yates, Edmund, i. <a href="#Page_414">414</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>THE END.</h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The little dog&mdash;a white Havana spaniel&mdash;<i>was</i> brought home and renamed,
+after an incidental character in "Nicholas Nickleby," "Mr. Snittle
+Timbery." This was shortened to "Timber," and under that name the
+little dog lived to be very old, and accompanied the family in all its
+migrations, including the visits to Italy and Switzerland.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Life Insurance Office.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Mr. Macready's&mdash;so pronounced by one of Charles Dickens's little
+children.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> T. P. Cooke, the celebrated actor of "William" in Douglas Jerrold's play of
+"Black-eyed Susan."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This alludes to a theatrical story of a second-rate actor, who described
+himself as a "chained lion," in a theatre where he had to play inferior parts
+to Mr. Macready.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "The Battle of Life."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a></p> <div class='center'>LETTER OF BARON TA&Uuml;CHNITZ.</div>
+
+<p>Having had the privilege to see a letter which the late Mr. Charles Dickens
+wrote to the author of this work upon its first appearance, and which there
+was no intention to publish in England, it became my lively wish to make
+it known to the readers of my edition.</p>
+<p>I therefore addressed an earnest request to Mr. Forster, that he would
+permit the letter to be prefixed to a reprint not designed for circulation in
+England, where I could understand his reluctance to sanction its publication.
+Its varied illustration of the subject of the book, and its striking
+passages of personal feeling and character, led me also to request that I
+might be allowed to present it in facsimile.</p>
+<p>Mr. Forster complied; and I am most happy to be thus enabled to give to
+my public, on the following pages, so attractive and so interesting a letter,
+reproduced in the exact form in which it was written, by the most popular
+and admired-of writers&mdash;too early gone.</p>
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Ta&uuml;chnitz.</span><br /></div>
+<p>Leipsic,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>May 23, 1873.</i></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The last illness of Mrs. White's mother.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Dr. Gottfried Kinkel, a distinguished scholar and Professor in the
+University of Bonn, who was at that time undergoing very rigorous State
+imprisonment in Prussia, for political reasons. Dr. Kinkel was afterwards
+well known as a teacher and lecturer on Art in London, where he resided
+for many years.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The part of the lawyer in "Used Up." It was <i>not</i> played after all by
+Mr. Watson, but by Mr. (now Sir William) Boxall, R.A., a very old and
+intimate friend of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, and of Charles Dickens.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> This part, finally, was played by Charles Dickens, junior.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Mr. Stafford and Mr. Stopford, who both acted in the plays at Rockingham.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Mr. Charles Knight was writing a series of papers in "Household
+Words," called "Shadows."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The great Duke of Wellington's funeral.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Meaning Mr. W. H. Wills himself.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The poet "Barry Cornwall."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> "Hide and Seek."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> On the occasion of the Prince Consort's visit to the camp at Boulogne.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Mr. Egg.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The inscription on the house in Rochester known as "Watts's Charity"
+is to the effect that it furnishes a night's lodging for six poor travellers&mdash;"not
+being Rogues or Proctors."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Captain Cavendish Boyle was governor of the military prison at Weedon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Wife of the late Sir Joseph Olliffe, Physician to the British Embassy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Of Mr. Wilkie Collins.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> This note was written after hearing from Mr. Forster of his intended
+marriage.</p></div>
+</div>
+<p><br /><br />&nbsp;</p>
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+
+<p>The index for this volume was originally located at the end of
+Volume II. To aid the reader, the parts referring to Volume I were
+extracted from that index and appended to the end of this html text. The
+original index can be found in its entirety at the end of the plain text
+version of these volumes.</p>
+<p>Pages 454-455, entries for "Dickens, Mamie" and "Dickens, Kate" were originally not in alphabetically order. This was corrected.</p>
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Letters of Charles Dickens
+       Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Mamie Dickens
+        Georgina Hogarth
+
+Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25852]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Susan Skinner, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+For the reader: Things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as
+HW:
+
+Asterisms in the text are denoted by [asterism]
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+[HW: Charles Dickens]
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+EDITED BY
+
+HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.
+
+In Two Volumes.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+1833 to 1856.
+
+London:
+
+CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
+
+1880.
+
+[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
+
+CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+                     TO
+
+               KATE PERUGINI,
+
+        THIS MEMORIAL OF HER FATHER
+
+           IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED
+
+          BY HER AUNT AND SISTER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+We intend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement to the "Life of
+Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That work, perfect and exhaustive as
+a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of
+the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters,
+or hardly any, besides those addressed to Mr. Forster. As no man ever
+expressed _himself_ more in his letters than Charles Dickens, we believe
+that in publishing this careful selection from his general
+correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally
+felt.
+
+Our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded
+to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for
+our work. By arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that
+they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the
+events of each year. Our collection dates from 1833, the commencement of
+Charles Dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the
+"Pickwick Papers," and is carried on up to the day before his death, in
+1870.
+
+We find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the arrangements of
+letters up to the end of 1839, for he had a careless habit in those days
+about dating his letters, very frequently putting only the day of the
+week on which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of his
+later life, when his dates were always of the very fullest.
+
+A blank is made in Charles Dickens's correspondence with his family by
+the absence of any letter addressed to his daughter Kate (Mrs.
+Perugini), to her great regret and to ours. In 1873, her furniture and
+other possessions were stored in the warehouse of the Pantechnicon at
+the time of the great fire there. All her property was destroyed, and,
+among other things, a box of papers which included her letters from her
+father.
+
+It was our intention as well as our desire to have thanked,
+individually, every one--both living friends and representatives of dead
+ones--for their readiness to give us every possible help to make our
+work complete. But the number of such friends, besides correspondents
+hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions of letters, make it
+impossible in our space to do otherwise than to express, collectively,
+our earnest and heartfelt thanks.
+
+A separate word of gratitude, however, must be given by us to Mr. Wilkie
+Collins for the invaluable help which we have received from his great
+knowledge and experience, in the technical part of our work, and for
+the deep interest which he has shown from the beginning, in our
+undertaking.
+
+It is a great pleasure to us to have the name of Henry Fielding Dickens
+associated with this book. To him, for the very important assistance he
+has given in making our Index, we return our loving thanks.
+
+In writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope, left nothing out
+which in any way requires explanation from us. But we have purposely
+made them as short as possible; our great desire being to give to the
+public another book from Charles Dickens's own hands--as it were, a
+portrait of himself by himself.
+
+Those letters which need no explanation--and of those we have many--we
+give without a word from us.
+
+In publishing the more private letters, we do so with the view of
+showing him in his homely, domestic life--of showing how in the midst of
+his own constant and arduous work, no household matter was considered
+too trivial to claim his care and attention. He would take as much pains
+about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of furniture, the
+superintending any little improvement in the house, as he would about
+the more serious business of his life; thus carrying out to the very
+letter his favourite motto of "What is worth doing at all is worth doing
+well."
+
+                                          MAMIE DICKENS.
+                                          GEORGINA HOGARTH.
+
+        LONDON: _October_, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+  Page 111, line 6. For "because if I hear of you," _read_ "because I hear
+            of you."
+
+    "  114, line 24. For "any old end," _read_ "or any old end."
+
+    "  137. First paragraph, second sentence, _should read_, "All the
+            ancient part of Rome is wonderful and impressive in the
+            extreme, far beyond the possibility of exaggeration. As to
+            the," etc.
+
+    "  456, line 11. For "Mr." _read_ "Mrs."
+
+
+
+
+Book I.
+
+1833 TO 1842.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+
+
+1833 OR 1834, AND 1835, 1836.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+We have been able to procure so few early letters of any general
+interest that we put these first years together. Charles Dickens was
+then living, as a bachelor, in Furnival's Inn, and was engaged as a
+parliamentary reporter on _The Morning Chronicle_. The "Sketches by Boz"
+were written during these years, published first in "The Monthly
+Magazine" and continued in _The Evening Chronicle_. He was engaged to be
+married to Catherine Hogarth in 1835--the marriage took place on the 2nd
+April, 1836; and he continued to live in Furnival's Inn with his wife
+for more than a year after their marriage. They passed the summer months
+of that year in a lodging at Chalk, near Gravesend, in the neighbourhood
+associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. The two
+letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as Miss Hogarth, have no
+date, but were written in 1835. The first of the two refers to the offer
+made to him by Chapman and Hall to edit a monthly periodical, the
+emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen
+pounds a month. The bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of
+"The Pickwick Papers." The first number was published in March, 1836.
+The second letter to Miss Hogarth was written after he had completed
+three numbers of "Pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided
+hit" is "Jingle."
+
+The first letter of this book is addressed to Henry Austin, a friend
+from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister Letitia. It
+bears no date, but must have been written in 1833 or 1834, during the
+early days of his reporting for _The Morning Chronicle_; the journey on
+which he was "ordered" being for that paper.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                           FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Night, past 12._
+
+DEAR HENRY,
+
+I have just been ordered on a journey, the length of which is at present
+uncertain. I may be back on Sunday very probably, and start again on the
+following day. Should this be the case, you shall hear from me before.
+
+Don't laugh. I am going (alone) in a gig; and, to quote the eloquent
+inducement which the proprietors of Hampstead _chays_ hold out to Sunday
+riders--"the gen'l'm'n drives himself." I am going into Essex and
+Suffolk. It strikes me I shall be spilt before I pay a turnpike. I have
+a presentiment I shall run over an only child before I reach Chelmsford,
+my first stage.
+
+Let the evident haste of this specimen of "The Polite Letter Writer" be
+its excuse, and
+
+Believe me, dear Henry, most sincerely yours,
+
+                                                 [HW: Charles Dickens]
+
+NOTE.--To avoid the monotony of a constant repetition, we propose to
+dispense with the signature at the close of each letter, excepting to
+the first and last letters of our collection. Charles Dickens's
+handwriting altered so much during these years of his life, that we have
+thought it advisable to give a facsimile of his autograph to this our
+first letter; and we reproduce in the same way his latest autograph.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                            FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Evening, 1835._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+The House is up; but I am very sorry to say that I must stay at home. I
+have had a visit from the publishers this morning, and the story cannot
+be any longer delayed; it must be done to-morrow, as there are more
+important considerations than the mere payment for the story involved
+too. I must exercise a little self-denial, and set to work.
+
+They (Chapman and Hall) have made me an offer of fourteen pounds a
+month, to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by
+myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four
+woodcuts. I am to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a
+decisive answer on Friday morning. The work will be no joke, but the
+emolument is too tempting to resist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                                                     _Sunday Evening._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have at this moment got Pickwick and his friends on the Rochester
+coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in company with a very
+different character from any I have yet described, who I flatter myself
+will make a decided hit. I want to get them from the ball to the inn
+before I go to bed; and I think that will take me until one or two
+o'clock at the earliest. The publishers will be here in the morning, so
+you will readily suppose I have no alternative but to stick at my desk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+1837.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+From the commencement of "The Pickwick Papers," and of Charles Dickens's
+married life, dates the commencement of his literary life and his sudden
+world-wide fame. And this year saw the beginning of many of those
+friendships which he most valued, and of which he had most reason to be
+proud, and which friendships were ended only by death.
+
+The first letters which we have been able to procure to Mr. Macready and
+Mr. Harley will be found under this date. In January, 1837, he was
+living in Furnival's Inn, where his first child, a son, was born. It was
+an eventful year to him in many ways. He removed from Furnival's Inn to
+Doughty Street in March, and here he sustained the first great grief of
+his life. His young sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, to whom he was
+devotedly attached, died very suddenly, at his house, on the 7th May. In
+the autumn of this year he took lodgings at Broadstairs. This was his
+first visit to that pleasant little watering-place, of which he became
+very fond, and whither he removed for the autumn months with all his
+household, for many years in succession.
+
+Besides the monthly numbers of "Pickwick," which were going on through
+this year until November, when the last number appeared, he had
+commenced "Oliver Twist," which was appearing also monthly, in the
+magazine called "Bentley's Miscellany," long before "Pickwick" was
+completed. And during this year he had edited, for Mr. Bentley, "The
+Life of Grimaldi," the celebrated clown. To this book he wrote himself
+only the preface, and altered and rearranged the autobiographical MS.
+which was in Mr. Bentley's possession.
+
+The letter to Mr. Harley, which bears no date, but must have been
+written either in 1836 or 1837, refers to a farce called "The Strange
+Gentleman" (founded on one of the "Sketches," called the "Great
+Winglebury Duel"), which he wrote expressly for Mr. Harley, and which
+was produced at the St. James's Theatre, under the management of Mr.
+Braham. The only other piece which he wrote for that theatre was the
+story of an operetta, called "The Village Coquettes," the music of which
+was composed by Mr. John Hullah.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. P. Harley.]
+
+                               48, DOUGHTY STREET, _Saturday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have considered the terms on which I could afford just now to sell Mr.
+Braham the acting copyright in London of an entirely new piece for the
+St. James's Theatre; and I could not sit down to write one in a single
+act of about one hour long, under a hundred pounds. For a new piece in
+two acts, a hundred and fifty pounds would be the sum I should require.
+
+I do not know whether, with reference to arrangements that were made
+with any other writers, this may or may not appear a large item. I state
+it merely with regard to the value of my own time and writings at this
+moment; and in so doing I assure you I place the remuneration below the
+mark rather than above it.
+
+As you begged me to give you my reply upon this point, perhaps you will
+lay it before Mr. Braham. If these terms exceed his inclination or the
+ability of the theatre, there is an end of the matter, and no harm done.
+
+                                     Believe me ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                              48, DOUGHTY STREET, _Wednesday Evening._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+There is a semi-business, semi-pleasure little dinner which I intend to
+give at The Prince of Wales, in Leicester Place, Leicester Square, on
+Saturday, at five for half-past precisely, at which only Talfourd,
+Forster, Ainsworth, Jerdan, and the publishers will be present. It is
+to celebrate (that is too great a word, but I can think of no better)
+the conclusion of my "Pickwick" labours; and so I intend, before you
+take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of
+one of the first complete copies of the work. I shall be much delighted
+if you would join us.
+
+I know too well the many anxieties that press upon you just now to seek
+to persuade you to come if you would prefer a night's repose and quiet.
+Let me assure you, notwithstanding, most honestly and heartily that
+there is no one I should be more happy or gratified to see, and that
+among your brilliant circle of well-wishers and admirers you number none
+more unaffectedly and faithfully yours than,
+
+                                        My dear Sir, yours most truly.
+
+
+
+
+1838.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In February of this year Charles Dickens made an expedition with his
+friend, and the illustrator of most of his books, Mr. Hablot K. Browne
+("Phiz"), to investigate for himself the real facts as to the condition
+of the Yorkshire schools, and it may be observed that portions of a
+letter to his wife, dated Greta Bridge, Yorkshire, which will be found
+among the following letters, were reproduced in "Nicholas Nickleby." In
+the early summer he had a cottage at Twickenham Park. In August and
+September he was again at Broadstairs; and in the late autumn he made
+another bachelor excursion--Mr. Browne being again his companion--in
+England, which included his first visit to Stratford-on-Avon and
+Kenilworth. In February appeared the first number of "Nicholas
+Nickleby," on which work he was engaged all through the year, writing
+each number ready for the following month, and never being in advance,
+as was his habit with all his other periodical works, until his very
+latest ones.
+
+The first letter which appears under this date, from Twickenham Park, is
+addressed to Mr. Thomas Mitton, a schoolfellow at one of his earliest
+schools, and afterwards for some years his solicitor. The letter
+contains instructions for his first will; the friend of almost his whole
+life, Mr. John Forster, being appointed executor to this will as he was
+to the last, to which he was "called upon to act" only three years
+before his own death.
+
+The letter which we give in this year to Mr. Justice Talfourd is,
+unfortunately, the only one we have been able to procure to that friend,
+who was, however, one with whom he was most intimately associated, and
+with whom he maintained a constant correspondence.
+
+The letter beginning "Respected Sir" was an answer to a little boy
+(Master Hastings Hughes), who had written to him as "Nicholas Nickleby"
+approached completion, stating his views and wishes as to the rewards
+and punishments to be bestowed on the various characters in the book.
+The letter was sent to him through the Rev. Thomas Barham, author of
+"The Ingoldsby Legends."
+
+The two letters to Mr. Macready, at the end of this year, refer to a
+farce which Charles Dickens wrote, with an idea that it might be
+suitable for Covent Garden Theatre, then under Mr. Macready's
+management.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                             GRETA BRIDGE, _Thursday, Feb. 1st, 1838._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I am afraid you will receive this later than I could wish, as the mail
+does not come through this place until two o'clock to-morrow morning.
+However, I have availed myself of the very first opportunity of writing,
+so the fault is that mail's, and not this.
+
+We reached Grantham between nine and ten on Thursday night, and found
+everything prepared for our reception in the very best inn I have ever
+put up at. It is odd enough that an old lady, who had been outside all
+day and came in towards dinner time, turned out to be the mistress of a
+Yorkshire school returning from the holiday stay in London. She was a
+very queer old lady, and showed us a long letter she was carrying to one
+of the boys from his father, containing a severe lecture (enforced and
+aided by many texts of Scripture) on his refusing to eat boiled meat.
+She was very communicative, drank a great deal of brandy and water, and
+towards evening became insensible, in which state we left her.
+
+Yesterday we were up again shortly after seven A.M., came on upon our
+journey by the Glasgow mail, which charged us the remarkably low sum of
+six pounds fare for two places inside. We had a very droll male
+companion until seven o'clock in the evening, and a most delicious
+lady's-maid for twenty miles, who implored us to keep a sharp look-out
+at the coach-windows, as she expected the carriage was coming to meet
+her and she was afraid of missing it. We had many delightful vauntings
+of the same kind; but in the end it is scarcely necessary to say that
+the coach did not come, but a very dirty girl did.
+
+As we came further north the mire grew deeper. About eight o'clock it
+began to fall heavily, and, as we crossed the wild heaths hereabout,
+there was no vestige of a track. The mail kept on well, however, and at
+eleven we reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst
+of a dreary moor, which the guard informed us was Greta Bridge. I was in
+a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully cold, and there
+were no outward signs of anybody being up in the house. But to our great
+joy we discovered a comfortable room, with drawn curtains and a most
+blazing fire. In half an hour they gave us a smoking supper and a bottle
+of mulled port (in which we drank your health), and then we retired to
+a couple of capital bedrooms, in each of which there was a rousing fire
+halfway up the chimney.
+
+We have had for breakfast, toast, cakes, a Yorkshire pie, a piece of
+beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee,
+ham, and eggs; and are now going to look about us. Having finished our
+discoveries, we start in a postchaise for Barnard Castle, which is only
+four miles off, and there I deliver the letter given me by Mitton's
+friend. All the schools are round about that place, and a dozen old
+abbeys besides, which we shall visit by some means or other to-morrow.
+We shall reach York on Saturday I hope, and (God willing) I trust I
+shall be at home on Wednesday morning.
+
+I wish you would call on Mrs. Bentley and thank her for the letter; you
+can tell her when I expect to be in York.
+
+A thousand loves and kisses to the darling boy, whom I see in my mind's
+eye crawling about the floor of this Yorkshire inn. Bless his heart, I
+would give two sovereigns for a kiss. Remember me too to Frederick, who
+I hope is attentive to you.
+
+Is it not extraordinary that the same dreams which have constantly
+visited me since poor Mary died follow me everywhere? After all the
+change of scene and fatigue, I have dreamt of her ever since I left
+home, and no doubt shall till I return. I should be sorry to lose such
+visions, for they are very happy ones, if it be only the seeing her in
+one's sleep. I would fain believe, too, sometimes, that her spirit may
+have some influence over them, but their perpetual repetition is
+extraordinary.
+
+Love to all friends.
+
+                                 Ever, my dear Kate,
+                                            Your affectionate Husband.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                                     TWICKENHAM PARK, _Tuesday Night._
+
+DEAR TOM,
+
+I sat down this morning and put on paper my testamentary meaning.
+Whether it is sufficiently legal or not is another question, but I hope
+it is. The rough draft of the clauses which I enclose will be preceded
+by as much of the fair copy as I send you, and followed by the usual
+clause about the receipts of the trustees being a sufficient discharge.
+I also wish to provide that if all our children should die before
+twenty-one, and Kate married again, half the surplus should go to her
+and half to my surviving brothers and sisters, share and share alike.
+
+This will be all, except a few lines I wish to add which there will be
+no occasion to consult you about, as they will merely bear reference to
+a few tokens of remembrance and one or two slight funeral directions.
+And so pray God that you may be gray, and Forster bald, long before you
+are called upon to act as my executors.
+
+I suppose I shall see you at the water-party on Thursday? We will then
+make an appointment for Saturday morning, and if you think my clauses
+will do, I will complete my copy, seal it up, and leave it in your
+hands. There are some other papers which you ought to have. We must get
+a box.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, M.P.]
+
+                           TWICKENHAM PARK, _Sunday, July 15th, 1838._
+
+MY DEAR TALFOURD,
+
+I cannot tell you how much pleasure I have derived from the receipt of
+your letter. I have heard little of you, and seen less, for so long a
+time, that your handwriting came like the renewal of some old
+friendship, and gladdened my eyes like the face of some old friend.
+
+If I hear from Lady Holland before you return, I shall, as in duty
+bound, present myself at her bidding; but between you and me and the
+general post, I hope she may not renew her invitation until I can visit
+her with you, as I would much rather avail myself of your personal
+introduction. However, whatever her ladyship may do I shall respond to,
+and anyway shall be only too happy to avail myself of what I am sure
+cannot fail to form a very pleasant and delightful introduction.
+
+Your kind invitation and reminder of the subject of a pleasant
+conversation in one of our pleasant rides, has thrown a gloom over the
+brightness of Twickenham, for here I am chained. It is indispensably
+necessary that "Oliver Twist" should be published in three volumes, in
+September next. I have only just begun the last one, and, having the
+constant drawback of my monthly work, shall be sadly harassed to get it
+finished in time, especially as I have several very important scenes
+(important to the story I mean) yet to write. Nothing would give me so
+much pleasure as to be with you for a week or so. I can only imperfectly
+console myself with the hope that when you see "Oliver" you will like
+the close of the book, and approve my self-denial in staying here to
+write it. I should like to know your address in Scotland when you leave
+town, so that I may send you the earliest copy if it be produced in the
+vacation, which I pray Heaven it may.
+
+Meanwhile, believe that though my body is on the banks of the Thames,
+half my heart is going the Oxford circuit.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and Charley desire their best remembrances (the latter
+expresses some anxiety, not unmixed with apprehension, relative to the
+Copyright Bill, in which he conceives himself interested), with hearty
+wishes that you may have a fine autumn, which is all you want, being
+sure of all other means of enjoyment that a man can have.
+
+                              I am, my dear Talfourd,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I hope you are able to spare a moment now and then to glance at
+"Nicholas Nickleby," and that you have as yet found no reason to alter
+the opinion you formed on the appearance of the first number.
+
+You know, I suppose, that they elected me at the Athenaeum? Pray thank
+Mr. Serjeant Storks for me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                   LION HOTEL, SHREWSBURY, _Thursday, Nov. 1st, 1838._
+
+MY DEAREST LOVE,
+
+I received your welcome letter on arriving here last night, and am
+rejoiced to hear that the dear children are so much better. I hope that
+in your next, or your next but one, I shall learn that they are quite
+well. A thousand kisses to them. I wish I could convey them myself.
+
+We found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital
+beds all ready for us at Leamington, after a very agreeable (but very
+cold) ride. We started in a postchaise next morning for Kenilworth, with
+which we were both enraptured, and where I really think we MUST have
+lodgings next summer, please God that we are in good health and all goes
+well. You cannot conceive how delightful it is. To read among the ruins
+in fine weather would be perfect luxury. From here we went on to Warwick
+Castle, which is an ancient building, newly restored, and possessing no
+very great attraction beyond a fine view and some beautiful pictures;
+and thence to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we sat down in the room where
+Shakespeare was born, and left our autographs and read those of other
+people and so forth.
+
+We remained at Stratford all night, and found to our unspeakable dismay
+that father's plan of proceeding by Bridgenorth was impracticable, as
+there were no coaches. So we were compelled to come here by way of
+Birmingham and Wolverhampton, starting at eight o'clock through a cold
+wet fog, and travelling, when the day had cleared up, through miles of
+cinder-paths and blazing furnaces, and roaring steam-engines, and such a
+mass of dirt, gloom, and misery as I never before witnessed. We got
+pretty well accommodated here when we arrived at half-past four, and are
+now going off in a postchaise to Llangollen--thirty miles--where we
+shall remain to-night, and where the Bangor mail will take us up
+to-morrow. Such are our movements up to this point, and when I have
+received your letter at Chester I shall write to you again and tell you
+when I shall be back. I can say positively that I shall not exceed the
+fortnight, and I think it very possible that I may return a day or two
+before it expires.
+
+We were at the play last night. It was a bespeak--"The Love Chase," a
+ballet (with a phenomenon!), divers songs, and "A Roland for an Oliver."
+It is a good theatre, but the actors are very funny. Browne laughed with
+such indecent heartiness at one point of the entertainment, that an old
+gentleman in the next box suffered the most violent indignation. The
+bespeak party occupied two boxes, the ladies were full-dressed, and the
+gentlemen, to a man, in white gloves with flowers in their button-holes.
+It amused us mightily, and was really as like the Miss Snevellicci
+business as it could well be.
+
+My side has been very bad since I left home, although I have been very
+careful not to drink much, remaining to the full as abstemious as usual,
+and have not eaten any great quantity, having no appetite. I suffered
+such an ecstasy of pain all night at Stratford that I was half dead
+yesterday, and was obliged last night to take a dose of henbane. The
+effect was most delicious. I slept soundly, and without feeling the
+least uneasiness, and am a great deal better this morning; neither do I
+find that the henbane has affected my head, which, from the great effect
+it had upon me--exhilarating me to the most extraordinary degree, and
+yet keeping me sleepy--I feared it would. If I had not got better I
+should have turned back to Birmingham, and come straight home by the
+railroad. As it is, I hope I shall make out the trip.
+
+God bless you, my darling. I long to be back with you again and to see
+the sweet Babs.
+
+                          Your faithful and most affectionate Husband.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Master Hastings Hughes.]
+
+                            DOUGHTY STREET, LONDON, _Dec. 12th, 1838._
+
+RESPECTED SIR,
+
+I have given Squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which
+he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which, being a cowardly
+thing, is just what I should have expected from him--wouldn't you?
+
+I have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and
+the two "sheeps" for the little boys. They have also had some good ale
+and porter, and some wine. I am sorry you didn't say _what_ wine you
+would like them to have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked very
+much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. He
+was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and I believe it went the wrong
+way, which I say served him right, and I hope you will say so too.
+
+Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not
+eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to
+have the rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond
+of, and so am I. He said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he
+thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it cold. You should
+have seen him drink it. I thought he never would have left off. I also
+gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more,
+and he said directly that he should give more than half to his mamma and
+sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I say he is a good
+fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he isn't I am ready to fight
+him whenever they like--there!
+
+Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. Your drawing of her
+is very like, except that I don't think the hair is quite curly enough.
+The nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty
+disagreeable thing, and I know it will make her very cross when she sees
+it; and what I say is that I hope it may. You will say the same I
+know--at least I think you will.
+
+I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot write very fast
+when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think
+about them, and I like you, and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight
+o'clock at night, and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when
+it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So I will not say
+anything more besides this--and that is my love to you and Neptune; and
+if you will drink my health every Christmas Day I will drink
+yours--come.
+
+                               I am,
+                                   Respected Sir,
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--I don't write my name very plain, but you know what it is you
+know, so never mind.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                     DOUGHTY STREET, _Monday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I have not seen you for the past week, because I hoped when we next met
+to bring "The Lamplighter" in my hand. It would have been finished by
+this time, but I found myself compelled to set to work first at the
+"Nickleby" on which I am at present engaged, and which I regret to
+say--after my close and arduous application last month--I find I cannot
+write as quickly as usual. I must finish it, at latest, by the 24th (a
+doubtful comfort!), and the instant I have done so I will apply myself
+to the farce. I am afraid to name any particular day, but I pledge
+myself that you shall have it this month, and you may calculate on that
+promise. I send you with this a copy of a farce I wrote for Harley when
+he left Drury Lane, and in which he acted for some seventy nights. It is
+the best thing he does. It is barely possible you might like to try it.
+Any local or temporary allusions could be easily altered.
+
+Believe me that I only feel gratified and flattered by your inquiry
+after the farce, and that if I had as much time as I have inclination, I
+would write on and on and on, farce after farce and comedy after comedy,
+until I wrote you something that would run. You do me justice when you
+give me credit for good intentions; but the extent of my good-will and
+strong and warm interest in you personally and your great undertaking,
+you cannot fathom nor express.
+
+                            Believe me, my dear Macready,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--For Heaven's sake don't fancy that I hold "The Strange Gentleman"
+in any estimation, or have a wish upon the subject.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C Macready.]
+
+                            48, DOUGHTY STREET, _December 13th, 1838._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I can have but one opinion on the subject--withdraw the farce at once,
+by all means.
+
+I perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most heartily and
+cordially for your kind and manly conduct, which is only what I should
+have expected from you; though, under such circumstances, I sincerely
+believe there are few but you--if any--who would have adopted it.
+
+Believe me that I have no other feeling of disappointment connected with
+this matter but that arising from the not having been able to be of some
+use to you. And trust me that, if the opportunity should ever arrive, my
+ardour will only be increased--not damped--by the result of this
+experiment.
+
+                        Believe me always, my dear Macready,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+1839.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens was still living in Doughty Street, but he removed at
+the end of this year to 1, Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. He hired a
+cottage at Petersham for the summer months, and in the autumn took
+lodgings at Broadstairs.
+
+The cottage at Alphington, near Exeter, mentioned in the letter to Mr.
+Mitton, was hired by Charles Dickens for his parents.
+
+He was at work all through this year on "Nicholas Nickleby."
+
+We have now the commencement of his correspondence with Mr. George
+Cattermole. His first letter was written immediately after Mr.
+Cattermole's marriage with Miss Elderton, a distant connection of
+Charles Dickens; hence the allusions to "cousin," which will be found
+in many of his letters to Mr. Cattermole. The bride and bridegroom were
+passing their honeymoon in the neighbourhood of Petersham, and the
+letter refers to a request from them for the loan of some books, and
+also to his having lent them his pony carriage and groom, during their
+stay in this neighbourhood.
+
+The first letter in this year to Mr. Macready is in answer to one from
+him, announcing his retirement from the management of Covent Garden
+Theatre.
+
+The portrait by Mr. Maclise, mentioned to Mr. Harley, was the, now,
+well-known one, which appeared as a frontispiece to "Nicholas Nickleby."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                             DOUGHTY STREET, _Sunday._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I will have, if you please, three dozen of the extraordinary champagne;
+and I am much obliged to you for recollecting me.
+
+I ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication, but I am,
+notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely sorry, for my own sake and
+the sake of thousands, who may now go and whistle for a theatre--at
+least, such a theatre as you gave them; and I do now in my heart believe
+that for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has passed away.
+If I may jest with my misfortunes, and quote the Portsmouth critic of
+Mr. Crummles's company, I say that: "As an exquisite embodiment of the
+poet's visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with
+refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic
+world before the mental eye, the drama is gone--perfectly gone."
+
+With the same perverse and unaccountable feeling which causes a
+heart-broken man at a dear friend's funeral to see something
+irresistibly comical in a red-nosed or one-eyed undertaker, I receive
+your communication with ghostly facetiousness; though on a moment's
+reflection I find better cause for consolation in the hope that,
+relieved from your most trying and painful duties, you will now have
+leisure to return to pursuits more congenial to your mind, and to move
+more easily and pleasantly among your friends. In the long catalogue of
+the latter, I believe that there is not one prouder of the name, or more
+grateful for the store of delightful recollections you have enabled him
+to heap up from boyhood, than,
+
+                                 My dear Macready,
+                                              Yours always faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                        NEW LONDON INN, EXETER,
+                                 _Wednesday Morning, March 6th, 1839._
+
+DEAR TOM,
+
+Perhaps you have heard from Kate that I succeeded yesterday in the very
+first walk, and took a cottage at a place called Alphington, one mile
+from Exeter, which contains, on the ground-floor, a good parlour and
+kitchen, and above, a full-sized country drawing-room and three
+bedrooms; in the yard behind, coal-holes, fowl-houses, and meat-safes
+out of number; in the kitchen, a neat little range; in the other rooms,
+good stoves and cupboards; and all for twenty pounds a year, taxes
+included. There is a good garden at the side well stocked with cabbages,
+beans, onions, celery, and some flowers. The stock belonging to the
+landlady (who lives in the adjoining cottage), there was some question
+whether she was not entitled to half the produce, but I settled the
+point by paying five shillings, and becoming absolute master of the
+whole!
+
+I do assure you that I am charmed with the place and the beauty of the
+country round about, though I have not seen it under very favourable
+circumstances, for it snowed when I was there this morning, and blew
+bitterly from the east yesterday. It is really delightful, and when the
+house is to rights and the furniture all in, I shall be quite sorry to
+leave it. I have had some few things second-hand, but I take it seventy
+pounds will be the mark, even taking this into consideration. I include
+in that estimate glass and crockery, garden tools, and such like little
+things. There is a spare bedroom of course. That I have furnished too.
+
+I am on terms of the closest intimacy with Mrs. Samuell, the landlady,
+and her brother and sister-in-law, who have a little farm hard by. They
+are capital specimens of country folks, and I really think the old woman
+herself will be a great comfort to my mother. Coals are dear just
+now--twenty-six shillings a ton. They found me a boy to go two miles out
+and back again to order some this morning. I was debating in my mind
+whether I should give him eighteenpence or two shillings, when his fee
+was announced--twopence!
+
+The house is on the high road to Plymouth, and, though in the very heart
+of Devonshire, there is as much long-stage and posting life as you would
+find in Piccadilly. The situation is charming. Meadows in front, an
+orchard running parallel to the garden hedge, richly-wooded hills
+closing in the prospect behind, and, away to the left, before a splendid
+view of the hill on which Exeter is situated, the cathedral towers
+rising up into the sky in the most picturesque manner possible. I don't
+think I ever saw so cheerful or pleasant a spot. The drawing-room is
+nearly, if not quite, as large as the outer room of my old chambers in
+Furnival's Inn. The paint and paper are new, and the place clean as the
+utmost excess of snowy cleanliness can be.
+
+You would laugh if you could see me powdering away with the upholsterer,
+and endeavouring to bring about all sorts of impracticable reductions
+and wonderful arrangements. He has by him two second-hand carpets; the
+important ceremony of trying the same comes off at three this afternoon.
+I am perpetually going backwards and forwards. It is two miles from
+here, so I have plenty of exercise, which so occupies me and prevents my
+being lonely that I stopped at home to read last night, and shall
+to-night, although the theatre is open. Charles Kean has been the star
+for the last two evenings. He was stopping in this house, and went away
+this morning. I have got his sitting-room now, which is smaller and more
+comfortable than the one I had before.
+
+You will have heard perhaps that I wrote to my mother to come down
+to-morrow. There are so many things she can make comfortable at a much
+less expense than I could, that I thought it best. If I had not, I could
+not have returned on Monday, which I now hope to do, and to be in town
+at half-past eight.
+
+Will you tell my father that if he could devise any means of bringing
+him down, I think it would be a great thing for him to have Dash, if it
+be only to keep down the trampers and beggars. The cheque I send you
+below.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          ELM COTTAGE, PETERSHAM, _Wednesday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+Why is "Peveril" lingering on my dusty shelves in town, while my fair
+cousin and your fair bride remains in blissful ignorance of his merits?
+There he is, I grieve to say, but there he shall not be long, for I
+shall be visiting my other home on Saturday morning, and will bring him
+bodily down and forward him the moment he arrives.
+
+Not having many of my books here, I don't find any among them which I
+think more suitable to your purpose than a carpet-bagful sent herewith,
+containing the Italian and German novelists (convenient as being easily
+taken up and laid down again; and I suppose you won't read long at a
+sitting), Leigh Hunt's "Indicator" and "Companion" (which have the same
+merit), "Hood's Own" (complete), "A Legend of Montrose," and
+"Kenilworth," which I have just been reading with greater delight than
+ever, and so I suppose everybody else must be equally interested in. I
+have Goldsmith, Swift, Fielding, Smollett, and the British Essayists
+"handy;" and I need not say that you have them on hand too, if you like.
+
+You know all I would say from my heart and soul on the auspicious event
+of yesterday; but you don't know what I could say about the delightful
+recollections I have of your "good lady's" charming looks and bearing,
+upon which I discoursed most eloquently here last evening, and at
+considerable length. As I am crippled in this respect, however, by the
+suspicion that possibly she may be looking over your shoulder while you
+read this note (I would lay a moderate wager that you have looked round
+twice or thrice already), I shall content myself with saying that I am
+ever heartily, my dear Cattermole,
+
+                                                       Hers and yours.
+
+P.S.--My man (who with his charge is your man while you stay here) waits
+to know if you have any orders for him.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. P. Harley.]
+
+                        ELM COTTAGE, PETERSHAM, NEAR RICHMOND,
+                                                    _June 28th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR HARLEY,
+
+I have "left my home," and been here ever since the end of April, and
+shall remain here most probably until the end of September, which is the
+reason that we have been such strangers of late.
+
+I am very sorry that I cannot dine with you on Sunday, but some people
+are coming here, and I cannot get away. Better luck next time, I hope.
+
+I was on the point of writing to you when your note came, to ask you if
+you would come down here next Saturday--to-morrow week, I mean--and stop
+till Monday. I will either call for you at the theatre, at any time you
+name, or send for you, "punctual," and have you brought down. Can you
+come if it's fine? Say yes, like a good fellow as you are, and say it
+per post.
+
+I have countermanded that face. Maclise has made another face of me,
+which all people say is astonishing. The engraving will be ready soon,
+and I would rather you had that, as I am sure you would if you had seen
+it.
+
+In great haste to save the post, I am, my dear Harley,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Longman.]
+
+                                     DOUGHTY STREET, _Monday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+On Friday I have a family dinner at home--uncles, aunts, brothers,
+sisters, cousins--an annual gathering.
+
+By what fatality is it that you always ask me to dine on the wrong day?
+
+While you are tracing this non-consequence to its cause, I wish you
+would tell Mr. Sydney Smith that of all the men I ever heard of and
+never saw, I have the greatest curiosity to see and the greatest
+interest to know him.
+
+Begging my best compliments at home,
+
+                                          I am, my dear Sir,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                         PETERSHAM, _July 26th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+Fix your visit for whenever you please. It can never give us anything
+but delight to see you, and it is better to look forward to such a
+pleasure than to look back upon it, as the last gratification is
+enjoyable all our lives, and the first for a few short stages in the
+journey.
+
+I feel more true and cordial pleasure than I can express to you in the
+request you have made. Anything which can serve to commemorate our
+friendship and to keep the recollection of it alive among our children
+is, believe me, and ever will be, most deeply prized by me. I accept the
+office with hearty and fervent satisfaction; and, to render this
+pleasant bond between us the more complete, I must solicit you to become
+godfather to the last and final branch of a genteel small family of
+three which I am told may be looked for in that auspicious month when
+Lord Mayors are born and guys prevail. This I look upon as a bargain
+between us, and I have shaken hands with you in spirit upon it. Family
+topics remind me of Mr. Kenwigs. As the weather is wet, and he is about
+to make his last appearance on my little stage, I send Mrs. Macready an
+early proof of the next number, containing an account of his baby's
+progress.
+
+I am going to send you something else on Monday--a tragedy. Don't be
+alarmed. I didn't write it, nor do I want it acted. A young Scotch lady
+whom I don't know (but she is evidently very intelligent and
+accomplished) has sent me a translation of a German play, soliciting my
+aid and advice in the matter of its publication. Among a crowd of
+Germanisms, there are many things in it which are so very striking, that
+I am sure it will amuse you very much. At least I think it will; it has
+me. I am going to send it back to her--when I come to Elstree will be
+time enough; and meantime, if you bestow a couple of hours upon it, you
+will not think them thrown away.
+
+It's a large parcel, and I must keep it here till somebody goes up to
+town and can book it by the coach. I warrant it, large as it looks,
+readable in two hours; and I very much want to know what you think of
+the first act, and especially the opening, which seems to me quite
+famous. The metre is very odd and rough, but now and then there's a
+wildness in it which helps the thing very much; and altogether it has
+left a something on my mind which I can't get rid of.
+
+Mrs. Dickens joins with me in kindest regards to yourself, Mrs., and
+Miss Macready. And I am always,
+
+                                     My dear Macready,
+                                           Faithfully and truly yours.
+
+P.S.--A dreadful thought has just occurred to me--that this is a
+quadruple letter, and that Elstree may not be within the twopenny post.
+Pray Heaven my fears are unfounded.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+
+                        40, ALBION STREET, BROADSTAIRS,
+                                               _September 21st, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I am so anxious to prefer a request to you which does not admit of delay
+that I send you a double letter, with the one redeeming point though of
+having very little in it.
+
+Let me prefix to the last number of "Nickleby," and to the book, a
+duplicate of the leaf which I now send you. Believe me that there will
+be no leaf in the volume which will afford me in times to come more true
+pleasure and gratification, than that in which I have written your name
+as foremost among those of the friends whom I love and honour. Believe
+me, there will be no one line in it conveying a more honest truth or a
+more sincere feeling than that which describes its dedication to you as
+a slight token of my admiration and regard.
+
+So let me tell the world by this frail record that I was a friend of
+yours, and interested to no ordinary extent in your proceedings at that
+interesting time when you showed them such noble truths in such noble
+forms, and gave me a new interest in, and associations with, the labours
+of so many months.
+
+I write to you very hastily and crudely, for I have been very hard at
+work, having only finished to-day, and my head spins yet. But you know
+what I mean. I am then always,
+
+                        Believe me, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--(Proof of Dedication enclosed): "To W. C. Macready, Esq., the
+following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and
+regard, by his friend, the Author."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                      DOUGHTY STREET, _Friday Night, Oct. 25th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+The book, the whole book, and nothing but the book (except the binding,
+which is an important item), has arrived at last, and is forwarded
+herewith. The red represents my blushes at its gorgeous dress; the
+gilding, all those bright professions which I do not make to you; and
+the book itself, my whole heart for twenty months, which should be yours
+for so short a term, as you have it always.
+
+With best regards to Mrs. and Miss Macready, always believe me,
+
+                                     My dear Macready,
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                          DOUGHTY STREET, _Thursday, Nov. 14th, 1839._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+Tom Landseer--that is, the deaf one, whom everybody quite loves for his
+sweet nature under a most deplorable infirmity--Tom Landseer asked me if
+I would present to you from him the accompanying engraving, which he has
+executed from a picture by his brother Edwin; submitting it to you as a
+little tribute from an unknown but ardent admirer of your genius, which
+speaks to his heart, although it does not find its way there through his
+ears. I readily undertook the task, and send it herewith.
+
+I urged him to call upon you with me and proffer it boldly; but he is a
+very modest and delicately-minded creature, and was shy of intruding. If
+you thank him through me, perhaps you will say something about my
+bringing him to call, and so gladden the gentle artist and make him
+happy.
+
+You must come and see my new house when we have it to rights. By
+Christmas Day we shall be, I hope, your neighbours.
+
+Kate progresses splendidly, and, with me, sends her best remembrances to
+Mrs. Macready and all your house.
+
+                                     Ever believe me,
+                                              Dear Macready,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+1840.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn
+months. During all this year he was busily engaged with the periodical
+entitled "Master Humphrey's Clock," in which the story of "The Old
+Curiosity Shop" subsequently appeared. Nearly all these letters to Mr.
+George Cattermole refer to the illustrations for this story.
+
+The one dated March 9th alludes to short papers written for "Master
+Humphrey's Clock" prior to the commencement of "The Old Curiosity Shop."
+
+We have in this year Charles Dickens's first letter to Mr. Daniel
+Maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately, the only letters we
+have been able to obtain addressed to this much-loved friend and most
+intimate companion.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                 1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
+                                         _Monday, January 13th, 1840._
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you. My now periodical
+work appears--or I should rather say the first number does--on Saturday,
+the 28th of March; and as it has to be sent to America and Germany, and
+must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand; I having
+in fact begun it on Saturday last. Instead of being published in monthly
+parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at
+threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle
+the imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new one--I
+mean the plan of the fiction--and it will comprehend a great variety of
+tales. The title is: "Master Humphrey's Clock."
+
+Now, among other improvements, I have turned my attention to the
+illustrations, meaning to have woodcuts dropped into the text and no
+separate plates. I want to know whether you would object to make me a
+little sketch for a woodcut--in indian-ink would be quite
+sufficient--about the size of the enclosed scrap; the subject, an old
+quaint room with antique Elizabethan furniture, and in the
+chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock--the clock belonging to Master
+Humphrey, in fact, and no figures. This I should drop into the text at
+the head of my opening page.
+
+I want to know besides--as Chapman and Hall are my partners in the
+matter, there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the
+question--what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if
+the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at
+regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms? I should tell you that I
+intend to ask Maclise to join me likewise, and that the copying the
+drawing on wood and the cutting will be done in first-rate style. We are
+justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be
+enormous, and the popularity very great; and when I explain to you the
+notes I have in my head, I think you will see that it opens a vast
+number of very good subjects.
+
+I want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your
+own time and place--either here or at your house or at the Athenaeum,
+though this would be the best place, because I have my papers about me.
+If you would take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday,
+I could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit I
+have endeavoured to make this as businesslike and stupid as need be.
+
+Of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound
+secret, or there would be fifty Humphreys in the field. So write me a
+line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your
+worthy lady.
+
+                            Believe me always, my dear Cattermole,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Afternoon._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I think the drawing most famous, and so do the publishers, to whom I
+sent it to-day. If Browne should suggest anything for the future which
+may enable him to do you justice in copying (on which point he is very
+anxious), I will communicate it to you. It has occurred to me that
+perhaps you will like to see his copy on the block before it is cut, and
+I have therefore told Chapman and Hall to forward it to you.
+
+In future, I will take care that you have the number to choose your
+subject from. I ought to have done so, perhaps, in this case; but I was
+very anxious that you should do the room.
+
+Perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as enclosed,
+regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with the publishers, they
+will be happy to enter upon it when, where, and how you please.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                   1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
+                                            _Monday, March 9th, 1840._
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I have been induced, on looking over the works of the "Clock," to make a
+slight alteration in their disposal, by virtue of which the story about
+"John Podgers" will stand over for some little time, and that short tale
+will occupy its place which you have already by you, and which treats of
+the assassination of a young gentleman under circumstances of peculiar
+aggravation. I shall be greatly obliged to you if you will turn your
+attention to this last morsel as the feature of No. 3, and still more if
+you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last
+importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one
+in it. I would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you
+about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which I feel very strongly,
+and into the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no part.
+
+I should tell you perhaps, with reference to Chapman and Hall, that they
+will never trouble you (as they never trouble me) but when there is real
+and pressing occasion, and that their representations in this respect,
+unlike those of most men of business, are to be relied upon.
+
+I cannot tell you how admirably I think Master Humphrey's room comes
+out, or what glowing accounts I hear of the second design you have done.
+I had not the faintest anticipation of anything so good--taking into
+account the material and the despatch.
+
+              With best regards at home,
+                               Believe me, dear Cattermole,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+P.S.--The new (No. 3) tale begins: "I hold a lieutenant's commission in
+his Majesty's army, and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and
+1678." It has at present no title.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. S. A. Diezman.]
+
+            1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                           LONDON, _10th March, 1840._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I will not attempt to tell you how much gratified I have been by the
+receipt of your first English letter; nor can I describe to you with
+what delight and gratification I learn that I am held in such high
+esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is
+flattering indeed.
+
+To you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, I fear, very
+irksome) task of clothing me in the German garb, I owe a long arrear of
+thanks. I wish you would come to England, and afford me an opportunity
+of slightly reducing the account.
+
+It is with great regret that I have to inform you, in reply to the
+request contained in your pleasant communication, that my publishers
+have already made such arrangements and are in possession of such
+stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that I have
+no power to send them out of England. If I had, I need not tell you what
+pleasure it would afford me to promote your views.
+
+I am too sensible of the trouble you must have already had with my
+writings to impose upon you now a long letter. I will only add,
+therefore, that I am,
+
+                                    My dear Sir,
+                                          With great sincerity,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Daniel Maclise.]
+
+                                        BROADSTAIRS, _June 2nd, 1840._
+
+MY DEAR MACLISE,
+
+        My foot is in the house,
+          My bath is on the sea,
+        And, before I take a souse,
+          Here's a single note to thee.
+
+It merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary sublimity;
+that this place is, as the Guide Book most justly observes, "unsurpassed
+for the salubrity of the refreshing breezes, which are wafted on the
+ocean's pinions from far-distant shores." That we are all right after
+the perils and voyages of yesterday. That the sea is rolling away in
+front of the window at which I indite this epistle, and that everything
+is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a splendid coast can make
+it. Bear these recommendations in mind, and shunning Talfourdian
+pledges, come to the bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair
+front, where no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and
+where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs off, and then
+they keep open and won't shut again.
+
+                                 COME!
+
+I can no more.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                  DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 21st._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Kit, the single gentleman, and Mr. Garland go down to the place where
+the child is, and arrive there at night. There has been a fall of snow.
+Kit, leaving them behind, runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in
+one hand and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a
+little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to make his
+presence known. In a window--supposed to be that of the child's little
+room--a light is burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of
+course, to her visitors, who are full of hope) lies dead.
+
+If you have any difficulty about Kit, never mind about putting him in.
+
+The two others to-morrow.
+
+                                                    Faithfully always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I sent the MS. of the enclosed proof, marked 2, up to Chapman and Hall,
+from Devonshire, mentioning a subject of an old gateway, which I had put
+in expressly with a view to your illustrious pencil. By a mistake,
+however, it went to Browne instead. Chapman is out of town, and such
+things have gone wrong in consequence.
+
+The subject to which I wish to call your attention is in an unwritten
+number to follow this one, but it is a mere echo of what you will find
+at the conclusion of this proof marked 2. I want the cart, gaily
+decorated, going through the street of the old town with the wax brigand
+displayed to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also
+dispersing bills. As many flags and inscriptions about Jarley's Wax Work
+fluttering from the cart as you please. You know the wax brigands, and
+how they contemplate small oval miniatures? That's the figure I want. I
+send you the scrap of MS. which contains the subject.
+
+Will you, when you have done this, send it with all speed to Chapman and
+Hall, as we are mortally pressed for time, and I must go hard to work to
+make up for what I have lost by being dutiful and going to see my
+father.
+
+I want to see you about a frontispiece to our first "Clock" volume,
+which will come out (I think) at the end of September, and about other
+matters. When shall we meet and where?
+
+I say nothing about our cousin or the baby, for Kate bears this, and
+will make me a full report and convey all loves and congratulations.
+
+Could you dine with us on Sunday, at six o'clock sharp? I'd come and
+fetch you in the morning, and we could take a ride and walk. We shall be
+quite alone, unless Macready comes. What say you?
+
+Don't forget despatch, there's a dear fellow, and ever believe me,
+
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                                _December 22nd, 1840._
+
+DEAR GEORGE,
+
+The child lying dead in the little sleeping-room, which is behind the
+open screen. It is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her
+breast and pillow, and about her bed, there may be strips of holly and
+berries, and such free green things. Window overgrown with ivy. The
+little boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by the
+bedside, if you like it so; but I think it will be quieter and more
+peaceful if she is quite alone. I want it to express the most beautiful
+repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death
+can.
+
+
+2.
+
+The child has been buried inside the church, and the old man, who cannot
+be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave and sits
+there all day long, waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey.
+His staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie beside
+him. "She'll come to-morrow," he says when it gets dark, and goes
+sorrowfully home. I think an hourglass running out would help the
+notion; perhaps her little things upon his knee, or in his hand.
+
+I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.
+
+Love to Missis.
+
+                                             Ever and always heartily.
+
+
+
+
+1841.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the summer of this year Charles Dickens made, accompanied by Mrs.
+Dickens, his first visit to Scotland, and was received in Edinburgh with
+the greatest enthusiasm.
+
+He was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn, and at the close
+of the year he went to Windsor for change of air after a serious
+illness.
+
+On the 17th January "The Old Curiosity Shop" was finished. In the
+following week the first number of his story of "Barnaby Rudge"
+appeared, in "Master Humphrey's Clock," and the last number of this
+story was written at Windsor, in November of this year.
+
+We have the first letters to his dear and valued friends the Rev.
+William Harness and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. Also his first letter to Mr.
+Monckton Milnes (now Lord Houghton).
+
+Of the letter to Mr. John Tomlin we would only remark, that it was
+published in an American magazine, edited by Mr. E. A. Poe, in the year
+1842.
+
+"The New First Rate" (first letter to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth) must, we
+think, be an allusion to the outside cover of "Bentley's Miscellany,"
+which first appeared in this year, and of which Mr. Ainsworth was
+editor.
+
+The two letters to Mr. Lovejoy are in answer to a requisition from the
+people of Reading that he would represent them in Parliament.
+
+The letter to Mr. George Cattermole (26th June) refers to a dinner given
+to Charles Dickens by the people of Edinburgh, on his first visit to
+that city.
+
+The "poor Overs," mentioned in the letter to Mr. Macready of 24th
+August, was a carpenter dying of consumption, to whom Dr. Elliotson had
+shown extraordinary kindness. "When poor Overs was dying" (wrote Charles
+Dickens to Mr. Forster), "he suddenly asked for a pen and ink and some
+paper, and made up a little parcel for me, which it was his last
+conscious act to direct. She (his wife) told me this, and gave it me. I
+opened it last night. It was a copy of his little book, in which he had
+written my name, 'with his devotion.' I thought it simple and affecting
+of the poor fellow."
+
+"The Saloon," alluded to in our last letter of this year, was an
+institution at Drury Lane Theatre during Mr. Macready's management. The
+original purpose for which this saloon was established having become
+perverted and degraded, Charles Dickens had it much at heart to remodel
+and improve it. Hence this letter to Mr. Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. William Harness.]
+
+               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday Morning, Jan. 2nd, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR HARNESS,
+
+I should have been very glad to join your pleasant party, but all next
+week I shall be laid up with a broken heart, for I must occupy myself in
+finishing the "Curiosity Shop," and it is such a painful task to me that
+I must concentrate myself upon it tooth and nail, and go out nowhere
+until it is done.
+
+I have delayed answering your kind note in a vague hope of being
+heart-whole again by the seventh. The present state of my work, however
+(Christmas not being a very favourable season for making progress in
+such doings), assures me that this cannot be, and that I must heroically
+deny myself the pleasure you offer.
+
+                                      Always believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, Jan. 14th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you for altering the child,
+or how much I hope that my wish in that respect didn't go greatly
+against the grain.
+
+I saw the old inn this morning. Words cannot say how good it is. I can't
+bear the thought of its being cut, and should like to frame and glaze it
+in _statu quo_ for ever and ever.
+
+Will you do a little tail-piece for the "Curiosity" story?--only one
+figure if you like--giving some notion of the etherealised spirit of the
+child; something like those little figures in the frontispiece. If you
+will, and can despatch it at once, you will make me happy.
+
+I am, for the time being, nearly dead with work and grief for the loss
+of my child.
+
+                                    Always, my dear George,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday Night, Jan. 28th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+I sent to Chapman and Hall yesterday morning about the second subject
+for No. 2 of "Barnaby," but found they had sent it to Browne.
+
+The first subject of No. 3 I will either send to you on Saturday, or,
+at latest, on Sunday morning. I have also directed Chapman and Hall to
+send you proofs of what has gone before, for reference, if you need it.
+
+I want to know whether you feel ravens in general and would fancy
+Barnaby's raven in particular. Barnaby being an idiot, my notion is to
+have him always in company with a pet raven, who is immeasurably more
+knowing than himself. To this end I have been studying my bird, and
+think I could make a very queer character of him. Should you like the
+subject when this raven makes his first appearance?
+
+                                                     Faithfully always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday Evening, Jan. 30th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+I send you the first four slips of No. 48, containing the description of
+the locksmith's house, which I think will make a good subject, and one
+you will like. If you put the "'prentice" in it, show nothing more than
+his paper cap, because he will be an important character in the story,
+and you will need to know more about him as he is minutely described. I
+may as well say that he is very short. Should you wish to put the
+locksmith in, you will find him described in No. 2 of "Barnaby" (which I
+told Chapman and Hall to send you). Browne has done him in one little
+thing, but so very slightly that you will not require to see his sketch,
+I think.
+
+Now, I must know what you think about the raven, my buck; I otherwise am
+in this fix. I have given Browne no subject for this number, and time is
+flying. If you would like to have the raven's first appearance, and
+don't object to having both subjects, so be it. I shall be delighted.
+If otherwise, I must feed that hero forthwith.
+
+I cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, without saying that I
+have deeply felt your hearty and most invaluable co-operation in the
+beautiful illustrations you have made for the last story, that I look at
+them with a pleasure I cannot describe to you in words, and that it is
+impossible for me to say how sensible I am of your earnest and friendly
+aid. Believe me that this is the very first time any designs for what I
+have written have touched and moved me, and caused me to feel that they
+expressed the idea I had in my mind.
+
+I am most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you, and am full of
+pleasure and delight.
+
+                            Believe me, my dear Cattermole,
+                                                Always heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Tomlin.]
+
+             1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                   LONDON, _Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1841._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+You are quite right in feeling assured that I should answer the letter
+you have addressed to me. If you had entertained a presentiment that it
+would afford me sincere pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted
+and admiring reader of my books in the backwoods of America, you would
+not have been far wrong.
+
+I thank you cordially and heartily both for your letter and its kind and
+courteous terms. To think that I have awakened a fellow-feeling and
+sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours among the vast
+solitudes in which you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and
+pride to me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate
+remembrance and approval, sounding from the green forests on the banks
+of the Mississippi, sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than
+all the honorary distinctions that all the courts in Europe could
+confer.
+
+It is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in vain,
+and that are the highest reward of an author's life. To be numbered
+among the household gods of one's distant countrymen, and associated
+with their homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each nook and
+corner of the world's great mass there lives one well-wisher who holds
+communion with one in the spirit, is a worthy fame indeed, and one which
+I would not barter for a mine of wealth.
+
+That I may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours for a
+very long time to come, and to hold a place in your pleasant thoughts,
+is the earnest wish of "Boz."
+
+And, with all good wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation
+of all your kindly feeling,
+
+                                          I am, dear Sir,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. R. Monckton Milnes]
+
+                    DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday, March 10th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MILNES,
+
+I thank you very much for the "Nickleby" correspondence, which I will
+keep for a day or two, and return when I see you. Poor fellow! The long
+letter is quite admirable, and most affecting.
+
+I am not quite sure either of Friday or Saturday, for, independently of
+the "Clock" (which for ever wants winding), I am getting a young brother
+off to New Zealand just now, and have my mornings sadly cut up in
+consequence. But, knowing your ways, I know I may say that I will come
+if I can; and that if I can't I won't.
+
+That Nellicide was the act of Heaven, as you may see any of these fine
+mornings when you look about you. If you knew the pain it gave me--but
+what am I talking of? if you don't know, nobody does. I am glad to shake
+you by the hand again autographically,
+
+                                         And am always,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, February 9th._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+My notes tread upon each other's heels. In my last I quite forgot
+business.
+
+Will you, for No. 49, do the locksmith's house, which was described in
+No. 48? I mean the outside. If you can, without hurting the effect, shut
+up the shop as though it were night, so much the better. Should you want
+a figure, an ancient watchman in or out of his box, very sleepy, will be
+just the thing for me.
+
+I have written to Chapman and requested him to send you a block of a
+long shape, so that the house may come upright as it were.
+
+                                                     Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                          OLD SHIP HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Feb. 26th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR KITTENMOLES,
+
+I passed your house on Wednesday, being then atop of the Brighton Era;
+but there was nobody at the door, saving a solitary poulterer, and all
+my warm-hearted aspirations lodged in the goods he was delivering. No
+doubt you observed a peculiar relish in your dinner. That was the
+cause.
+
+I send you the MS. I fear you will have to read all the five slips; but
+the subject I think of is at the top of the last, when the guest, with
+his back towards the spectator, is looking out of window. I think, in
+your hands, it will be a very pretty one.
+
+Then, my boy, when you have done it, turn your thoughts (as soon as
+other engagements will allow) first to the outside of The Warren--see
+No. 1; secondly, to the outside of the locksmith's house, by night--see
+No. 3. Put a penny pistol to Chapman's head and demand the blocks of
+him.
+
+I have addled my head with writing all day, and have barely wit enough
+left to send my love to my cousin, and--there's a genealogical
+poser--what relation of mine may the dear little child be? At present, I
+desire to be commended to her clear blue eyes.
+
+                                  Always, my dear George,
+                                                Faithfully yours,
+                                                            [HW: Boz.]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _April 29th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR AINSWORTH,
+
+With all imaginable pleasure. I quite look forward to the day. It is an
+age since we met, and it ought not to be.
+
+The artist has just sent home your "Nickleby." He suggested variety,
+pleading his fancy and genius. As an artful binder must have his way, I
+put the best face on the matter, and gave him his. I will bring it
+together with the "Pickwick" to your house-warming with me.
+
+The old _Royal George_ went down in consequence of having too much
+weight on one side. I trust the new "First Rate" won't be heavy
+anywhere. There seems to me to be too much whisker for a shilling, but
+that's a matter of taste.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. G. Lovejoy.]
+
+               1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                     _Monday Evening, May 31st, 1841._
+
+SIR,
+
+I am much obliged and flattered by the receipt of your letter, which I
+should have answered immediately on its arrival but for my absence from
+home at the moment.
+
+My principles and inclinations would lead me to aspire to the
+distinction you invite me to seek, if there were any reasonable chance
+of success, and I hope I should do no discredit to such an honour if I
+won and wore it. But I am bound to add, and I have no hesitation in
+saying plainly, that I cannot afford the expense of a contested
+election. If I could, I would act on your suggestion instantly. I am not
+the less indebted to you and the friends to whom the thought occurred,
+for your good opinion and approval. I beg you to understand that I am
+restrained solely (and much against my will) by the consideration I have
+mentioned, and thank both you and them most warmly.
+
+                                                     Yours faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 10th, 1841._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I am favoured with your note of yesterday's date, and lose no time in
+replying to it.
+
+The sum you mention, though small I am aware in the abstract, is greater
+than I could afford for such a purpose; as the mere sitting in the House
+and attending to my duties, if I were a member, would oblige me to make
+many pecuniary sacrifices, consequent upon the very nature of my
+pursuits.
+
+The course you suggest did occur to me when I received your first
+letter, and I have very little doubt indeed that the Government would
+support me--perhaps to the whole extent. But I cannot satisfy myself
+that to enter Parliament under such circumstances would enable me to
+pursue that honourable independence without which I could neither
+preserve my own respect nor that of my constituents. I confess therefore
+(it may be from not having considered the points sufficiently, or in the
+right light) that I cannot bring myself to propound the subject to any
+member of the administration whom I know. I am truly obliged to you
+nevertheless, and am,
+
+                                               Dear Sir,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday Evening, July 28th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Can you do for me by Saturday evening--I know the time is short, but I
+think the subject will suit you, and I am greatly pressed--a party of
+rioters (with Hugh and Simon Tappertit conspicuous among them) in old
+John Willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage,
+smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on
+casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese,
+smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; John Willet, fallen backward in his
+chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them,
+with none of The Maypole customers at his back.
+
+It's in your way, and you'll do it a hundred times better than I can
+suggest it to you, I know.
+
+                                                     Faithfully always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                              BROADSTAIRS, _Friday, August 6th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Here is a subject for the next number; the next to that I hope to send
+you the MS. of very early in the week, as the best opportunities of
+illustration are all coming off now, and we are in the thick of the
+story.
+
+The rioters went, sir, from John Willet's bar (where you saw them to
+such good purpose) straight to The Warren, which house they plundered,
+sacked, burned, pulled down as much of as they could, and greatly
+damaged and destroyed. They are supposed to have left it about half an
+hour. It is night, and the ruins are here and there flaming and smoking.
+I want--if you understand--to show one of the turrets laid open--the
+turret where the alarm-bell is, mentioned in No. 1; and among the ruins
+(at some height if possible) Mr. Haredale just clutching our friend, the
+mysterious file, who is passing over them like a spirit; Solomon Daisy,
+if you can introduce him, looking on from the ground below.
+
+Please to observe that the M. F. wears a large cloak and a slouched hat.
+This is important, because Browne will have him in the same number, and
+he has not changed his dress meanwhile. Mr. Haredale is supposed to have
+come down here on horseback, pell-mell; to be excited to the last
+degree. I think it will make a queer picturesque thing in your hands. I
+have told Chapman and Hall that you may like to have a block of a
+peculiar shape for it. One of them will be with you almost as soon as
+you receive this.
+
+We are very anxious to know that our cousin is out of her trouble, and
+you free from your anxiety. Mind you write when it comes off. And when
+she is quite comfortable come down here for a day or two, like a
+bachelor, as you will be. It will do you a world of good. Think of that.
+
+                                      Always, dear Cattermole,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+P.S.--When you have done the subject, I wish you'd write me one line and
+tell me how, that I may be sure we agree. Loves from Kate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, August 13th._
+
+MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,
+
+Will you turn your attention to a frontispiece for our first volume, to
+come upon the left-hand side of the book as you open it, and to face a
+plain printed title? My idea is, some scene from the "Curiosity Shop,"
+in a pretty border, or scroll-work, or architectural device; it matters
+not what, so that it be pretty. The scene even might be a fanciful
+thing, partaking of the character of the story, but not reproducing any
+particular passage in it, if you thought that better for the effect.
+
+I ask you to think of this, because, although the volume is not
+published until the end of September, there is no time to lose. We wish
+to have it engraved with great care, and worked very skilfully; and this
+cannot be done unless we get it on the stocks soon.
+
+They will give you every opportunity of correction, alteration,
+revision, and all other ations and isions connected with the fine arts.
+
+                                         Always believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                     BROADSTAIRS, _August 19th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+When Hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from The Warren
+beckoned to their pals, they forced into a very remarkable postchaise
+Dolly Varden and Emma Haredale, and bore them away with all possible
+rapidity; one of their company driving, and the rest running beside the
+chaise, climbing up behind, sitting on the top, lighting the way with
+their torches, etc. etc. If you can express the women inside without
+showing them--as by a fluttering veil, a delicate arm, or so forth
+appearing at the half-closed window--so much the better. Mr. Tappertit
+stands on the steps, which are partly down, and, hanging on to the
+window with one hand and extending the other with great majesty,
+addresses a few words of encouragement to the driver and attendants.
+Hugh sits upon the bar in front; the driver sitting postilion-wise, and
+turns round to look through the window behind him at the little doves
+within. The gentlemen behind are also anxious to catch a glimpse of the
+ladies. One of those who are running at the side may be gently rebuked
+for his curiosity by the cudgel of Hugh. So they cut away, sir, as fast
+as they can.
+
+                                                    Always faithfully.
+
+P.S.--John Willet's bar is noble.
+
+We take it for granted that cousin and baby are hearty. Our loves to
+them.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                            BROADSTAIRS, _Tuesday, August 24th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I must thank you, most heartily and cordially, for your kind note
+relative to poor Overs. I can't tell you how glad I am to know that he
+thoroughly deserves such kindness.
+
+What a good fellow Elliotson is. He kept him in his room a whole hour,
+and has gone into his case as if he were Prince Albert; laying down all
+manner of elaborate projects and determining to leave his friend Wood in
+town when he himself goes away, on purpose to attend to him. Then he
+writes me four sides of paper about the man, and says he can't go back
+to his old work, for that requires muscular exertion (and muscular
+exertion he mustn't make), what are we to do with him? He says: "Here's
+five pounds for the present."
+
+I declare before God that I could almost bear the Jones's for five years
+out of the pleasure I feel in knowing such things, and when I think that
+every dirty speck upon the fair face of the Almighty's creation, who
+writes in a filthy, beastly newspaper; every rotten-hearted pander who
+has been beaten, kicked, and rolled in the kennel, yet struts it in the
+editorial "We," once a week; every vagabond that an honest man's gorge
+must rise at; every live emetic in that noxious drug-shop the press, can
+have his fling at such men and call them knaves and fools and thieves, I
+grow so vicious that, with bearing hard upon my pen, I break the nib
+down, and, with keeping my teeth set, make my jaws ache.
+
+I have put myself out of sorts for the day, and shall go and walk,
+unless the direction of this sets me up again. On second thoughts I
+think it will.
+
+                               Always, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                          BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 12th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Here is a business letter, written in a scramble just before post time,
+whereby I dispose of loves to cousin in a line.
+
+Firstly. Will you design, upon a block of wood, Lord George Gordon,
+alone and very solitary, in his prison in the Tower? The chamber as
+ancient as you please, and after your own fancy; the time, evening; the
+season, summer.
+
+Secondly. Will you ditto upon a ditto, a sword duel between Mr. Haredale
+and Mr. Chester, in a grove of trees? No one close by. Mr. Haredale has
+just pierced his adversary, who has fallen, dying, on the grass. He
+(that is, Chester) tries to staunch the wound in his breast with his
+handkerchief; has his snuffbox on the earth beside him, and looks at Mr.
+Haredale (who stands with his sword in his hand, looking down on him)
+with most supercilious hatred, but polite to the last. Mr. Haredale is
+more sorry than triumphant.
+
+Thirdly. Will you conceive and execute, after your own fashion, a
+frontispiece for "Barnaby"?
+
+Fourthly. Will you also devise a subject representing "Master Humphrey's
+Clock" as stopped; his chair by the fireside, empty; his crutch against
+the wall; his slippers on the cold hearth; his hat upon the chair-back;
+the MSS. of "Barnaby" and "The Curiosity Shop" heaped upon the table;
+and the flowers you introduced in the first subject of all withered and
+dead? Master Humphrey being supposed to be no more.
+
+I have a fifthly, sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly; for I sorely want
+you, as I approach the close of the tale, but I won't frighten you, so
+we'll take breath.
+
+                                 Always, my dear Cattermole,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+P.S.--I have been waiting until I got to subjects of this nature,
+thinking you would like them best.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                  BROADSTAIRS, _September 21st, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+Will you, before you go on with the other subjects I gave you, do one of
+Hugh, bareheaded, bound, tied on a horse, and escorted by horse-soldiers
+to jail? If you can add an indication of old Fleet Market, and bodies of
+foot soldiers firing at people who have taken refuge on the tops of
+stalls, bulk-heads, etc., it will be all the better.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Talfourd.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 16th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I should be delighted to come and dine with you on your birthday, and to
+be as merry as I wish you to be always; but as I am going, within a very
+few days afterwards, a very long distance from home, and shall not see
+any of my children for six long months, I have made up my mind to pass
+all that week at home for their sakes; just as you would like your papa
+and mamma to spend all the time they possibly could spare with you if
+they were about to make a dreary voyage to America; which is what I am
+going to do myself.
+
+But although I cannot come to see you on that day, you may be sure I
+shall not forget that it is your birthday, and that I shall drink your
+health and many happy returns, in a glass of wine, filled as full as it
+will hold. And I shall dine at half-past five myself, so that we may
+both be drinking our wine at the same time; and I shall tell my Mary
+(for I have got a daughter of that name but she is a very small one as
+yet) to drink your health too; and we shall try and make believe that
+you are here, or that we are in Russell Square, which is the best thing
+we can do, I think, under the circumstances.
+
+You are growing up so fast that by the time I come home again I expect
+you will be almost a woman; and in a very few years we shall be saying
+to each other: "Don't you remember what the birthdays used to be in
+Russell Square?" and "How strange it seems!" and "How quickly time
+passes!" and all that sort of thing, you know. But I shall always be
+very glad to be asked on your birthday, and to come if you will let me,
+and to send my love to you, and to wish that you may live to be very old
+and very happy, which I do now with all my heart.
+
+                              Believe me always,
+                                          My dear Mary,
+                                                 Yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, Dec. 28th, 1841._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+This note is about the saloon. I make it as brief as possible. Read it
+when you have time. As we were the first experimentalists last night you
+will be glad to know what it wants.
+
+First, the refreshments are preposterously dear. A glass of wine is a
+shilling, and it ought to be sixpence.
+
+Secondly, they were served out by the wrong sort of people--two most
+uncomfortable drabs of women, and a dirty man with his hat on.
+
+Thirdly, there ought to be a box-keeper to ring a bell or give some
+other notice of the commencement of the overture to the after-piece. The
+promenaders were in a perpetual fret and worry to get back again.
+
+And fourthly, and most important of all--if the plan is ever to
+succeed--you must have some notice up to the effect that as it is now a
+place of resort for ladies, gentlemen are requested not to lounge there
+in their hats and greatcoats. No ladies will go there, though the
+conveniences should be ten thousand times greater, while the sort of
+swells who have been used to kick their heels there do so in the old
+sort of way. I saw this expressed last night more strongly than I can
+tell you.
+
+Hearty congratulations on the brilliant triumph. I have always expected
+one, as you know, but nobody could have imagined the reality.
+
+                                Always, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+
+
+1842.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In January of this year Charles Dickens went, with his wife, to America,
+the house in Devonshire Terrace being let for the term of their absence
+(six months), and the four children left in a furnished house in
+Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, under the care of Mr. and Mrs.
+Macready. They returned from America in July, and in August went to
+Broadstairs for the autumn months as usual, and in October Charles
+Dickens made an expedition to Cornwall, with Mr. Forster, Mr. Maclise,
+and Mr. Stanfield for his companions.
+
+During his stay at Broadstairs he was engaged in writing his "American
+Notes," which book was published in October. At the end of the year he
+had written the first number of "Martin Chuzzlewit," which appeared in
+January, 1843.
+
+An extract from a letter, addressed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall before
+his departure for America, is given as a testimony of the estimation in
+which Charles Dickens held the firm with whom he was connected for so
+many years.
+
+His letters to Mr. H. P. Smith, for many years actuary of the Eagle
+Insurance Office, are a combination of business and friendship. Mr.
+Smith gives us, as an explanation of a note to him, dated 14th July,
+that he alluded to the stamp of the office upon the cheque, which was,
+as he described it, "almost a work of art"--a truculent-looking eagle
+seated on a rock and scattering rays over the whole sheet.
+
+Of letters written by Charles Dickens in America we have been able to
+obtain very few. One, to Dr. F. H. Deane, Cincinnati, complying with his
+request to write him an epitaph for the tombstone of his little child,
+has been kindly copied for us from an album, by Mrs. Fields, of Boston.
+Therefore, it is not directly received, but as we have no doubt of its
+authenticity, we give it here; and there is one to Mr. Halleck, the
+American poet.
+
+At the close of the voyage to America (a very bad and dangerous one), a
+meeting of the passengers, with Lord Mulgrave in the chair, took place,
+and a piece of plate and thanks were voted to the captain of the
+_Britannia_, Captain Hewett. The vote of thanks, being drawn up by
+Charles Dickens, is given here. We have letters in this year to Mr.
+Thomas Hood, Miss Pardoe, Mrs. Trollope, and Mr. W. P. Frith. The
+last-named artist--then a very young man--had made great success with
+several charming pictures of Dolly Varden. One of these was bought by
+Charles Dickens, who ordered a companion picture of Kate Nickleby, from
+the young painter, whose acquaintance he made at the same time; and the
+two letters to Mr. Frith have reference to the purchase of the one
+picture and the commission for the other.
+
+The letter to Mr. Cattermole is an acknowledgment also of a completed
+commission of two water-colour drawings, from the subjects of two of Mr.
+Cattermole's illustrations to "The Old Curiosity Shop."
+
+A note to Mr. Macready, at the close of this year, refers to the first
+representation of Mr. Westland Marston's play, "The Patrician's
+Daughter." Charles Dickens took great interest in the production of this
+work at Drury Lane. It was, to a certain extent, an experiment of the
+effect of a tragedy of modern times and in modern dress; and the
+prologue, which Charles Dickens wrote and which we give, was intended to
+show that there need be no incongruity between plain clothes of this
+century and high tragedy. The play was quite successful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Messrs. Chapman and Hall.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having disposed of the business part of this letter, I should not feel
+at ease on leaving England if I did not tell you once more with my whole
+heart that your conduct to me on this and all other occasions has been
+honourable, manly, and generous, and that I have felt it a solemn duty,
+in the event of any accident happening to me while I am away, to place
+this testimony upon record. It forms part of a will I have made for the
+security of my children; for I wish them to know it when they are
+capable of understanding your worth and my appreciation of it.
+
+                                 Always believe me,
+                                           Faithfully and truly yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                   ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Jan. 3rd, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+This is a short note, but I will fulfil the adage and make it a merry
+one.
+
+We came down in great comfort. Our luggage is now aboard. Anything so
+utterly and monstrously absurd as the size of our cabin, no "gentleman
+of England who lives at home at ease" can for a moment imagine. Neither
+of the portmanteaus would go into it. There!
+
+These Cunard packets are not very big you know actually, but the
+quantity of sleeping-berths makes them much smaller, so that the saloon
+is not nearly as large as in one of the Ramsgate boats. The ladies'
+cabin is so close to ours that I could knock the door open without
+getting off something they call my bed, but which I believe to be a
+muffin beaten flat. This is a great comfort, for it is an excellent room
+(the only good one in the ship); and if there be only one other lady
+besides Kate, as the stewardess thinks, I hope I shall be able to sit
+there very often.
+
+They talk of seventy passengers, but I can't think there will be so
+many; they talk besides (which is even more to the purpose) of a very
+fine passage, having had a noble one this time last year. God send it
+so! We are in the best spirits, and full of hope. I was dashed for a
+moment when I saw our "cabin," but I got over that directly, and laughed
+so much at its ludicrous proportions, that you might have heard me all
+over the ship.
+
+God bless you! Write to me by the first opportunity. I will do the like
+to you. And always believe me,
+
+                                         Your old and faithful Friend.
+
+
+
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At a meeting of the passengers on board the _Britannia_ steam-ship,
+travelling from Liverpool to Boston, held in the saloon of that vessel,
+on Friday, the 21st January, 1842, it was moved and seconded:
+
+        "That the Earl of Mulgrave do take the chair."
+
+The motion having been carried unanimously, the Earl of Mulgrave took
+the chair accordingly.
+
+It was also moved and seconded, and carried unanimously:
+
+        "That Charles Dickens, Esq., be appointed
+        secretary and treasurer to the meeting."
+
+The three following resolutions were then proposed and carried _nem.
+con._:
+
+        "First. That, gratefully recognising the
+        blessing of Divine Providence by which we are
+        brought nearly to the termination of our
+        voyage, we have great pleasure in expressing
+        our high appreciation of Captain Hewett's
+        nautical skill and of his indefatigable
+        attention to the management and safe conduct of
+        the ship, during a more than ordinarily
+        tempestuous passage.
+
+        "Secondly. That a subscription be opened for
+        the purchase of a piece of silver plate, and
+        that Captain Hewett be respectfully requested
+        to accept it, as a sincere expression of the
+        sentiments embodied in the foregoing
+        resolution.
+
+        "Thirdly. That a committee be appointed to
+        carry these resolutions into effect; and that
+        the committee be composed of the following
+        gentlemen: Charles Dickens, Esq., E. Dunbar,
+        Esq., and Solomon Hopkins, Esq."
+
+The committee having withdrawn and conferred with Captain Hewett,
+returned, and informed the meeting that Captain Hewett desired to attend
+and express his thanks, which he did.
+
+The amount of the subscription was reported at fifty pounds, and the
+list was closed. It was then agreed that the following inscription
+should be placed upon the testimonial to Captain Hewett:
+
+                               THIS PIECE OF PLATE
+                                 was presented to
+                               CAPTAIN JOHN HEWETT,
+                            of the BRITANNIA Steam-ship,
+
+        By the Passengers on board that vessel in a voyage from Liverpool
+        to Boston, in the month of January, 1842,
+
+        As a slight acknowledgment of his great ability and skill
+        under circumstances of much difficulty and danger,
+        And as a feeble token of their lasting gratitude.
+
+Thanks were then voted to the chairman and to the secretary, and the
+meeting separated.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                          TREMONT HOUSE, BOSTON, _January 31st, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+I am so exhausted with the life I am obliged to lead here, that I have
+had time to write but one letter which is at all deserving of the name,
+as giving any account of our movements. Forster has it, in trust, to
+tell you all its news; and he has also some newspapers which I had an
+opportunity of sending him, in which you will find further particulars
+of our progress.
+
+We had a dreadful passage, the worst, the officers all concur in saying,
+that they have ever known. We were eighteen days coming; experienced a
+dreadful storm which swept away our paddle-boxes and stove our
+lifeboats; and ran aground besides, near Halifax, among rocks and
+breakers, where we lay at anchor all night. After we left the English
+Channel we had only one fine day. And we had the additional discomfort
+of being eighty-six passengers. I was ill five days, Kate six; though,
+indeed, she had a swelled face and suffered the utmost terror all the
+way.
+
+I can give you no conception of my welcome here. There never was a king
+or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds, and
+entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by
+public bodies and deputations of all kinds. I have had one from the Far
+West--a journey of two thousand miles! If I go out in a carriage, the
+crowd surround it and escort me home; if I go to the theatre, the whole
+house (crowded to the roof) rises as one man, and the timbers ring
+again. You cannot imagine what it is. I have five great public dinners
+on hand at this moment, and invitations from every town and village and
+city in the States.
+
+There is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for
+description. I keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to have done so
+to some purpose by the time I come home.
+
+When you write to me again--I say again, hoping that your first letter
+will be soon upon its way here--direct to me to the care of David
+Colden, Esq., New York. He will forward all communications by the
+quickest conveyance and will be perfectly acquainted with all my
+movements.
+
+                                          Always your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Fitz-Greene Halleck.]
+
+                                 CARLTON HOUSE, _February 14th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Will you come and breakfast with me on Tuesday, the 22nd, at half-past
+ten? Say yes. I should have been truly delighted to have a talk with you
+to-night (being quite alone), but the doctor says that if I talk to man,
+woman, or child this evening I shall be dumb to-morrow.
+
+                          Believe me, with true regard,
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                        BALTIMORE, _March 22nd, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+I beg your pardon, but you were speaking of rash leaps at hasty
+conclusions. Are you quite sure you designed that remark for me? Have
+you not, in the hurry of correspondence, slipped a paragraph into my
+letter which belongs of right to somebody else? When did you ever find
+me leap at wrong conclusions? I pause for a reply.
+
+Pray, sir, did you ever find me admiring Mr. ----? On the contrary, did
+you never hear of my protesting through good, better, and best report
+that he was not an open or a candid man, and would one day, beyond all
+doubt, displease you by not being so? I pause again for a reply.
+
+Are you quite sure, Mr. Macready--and I address myself to you with the
+sternness of a man in the pit--are you quite sure, sir, that you do not
+view America through the pleasant mirage which often surrounds a thing
+that has been, but not a thing that is? Are you quite sure that when you
+were here you relished it as well as you do now when you look back upon
+it. The early spring birds, Mr. Macready, _do_ sing in the groves that
+you were, very often, not over well pleased with many of the new
+country's social aspects. Are the birds to be trusted? Again I pause for
+a reply.
+
+My dear Macready, I desire to be so honest and just to those who have so
+enthusiastically and earnestly welcomed me, that I burned the last
+letter I wrote to you--even to you to whom I would speak as to
+myself--rather than let it come with anything that might seem like an
+ill-considered word of disappointment. I preferred that you should think
+me neglectful (if you could imagine anything so wild) rather than I
+should do wrong in this respect. Still it is of no use. I _am_
+disappointed. This is not the republic I came to see; this is not the
+republic of my imagination. I infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy--even
+with its sickening accompaniments of court circulars--to such a
+government as this. The more I think of its youth and strength, the
+poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it appears in my eyes. In
+everything of which it has made a boast--excepting its education of the
+people and its care for poor children--it sinks immeasurably below the
+level I had placed it upon; and England, even England, bad and faulty as
+the old land is, and miserable as millions of her people are, rises in
+the comparison.
+
+_You_ live here, Macready, as I have sometimes heard you imagining!
+_You!_ Loving you with all my heart and soul, and knowing what your
+disposition really is, I would not condemn you to a year's residence on
+this side of the Atlantic for any money. Freedom of opinion! Where is
+it? I see a press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than
+any country I ever knew. If that is its standard, here it is. But I
+speak of Bancroft, and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he
+is "a black sheep--a Democrat." I speak of Bryant, and am entreated to
+be more careful, for the same reason. I speak of international
+copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright. I speak of Miss
+Martineau, and all parties--Slave Upholders and Abolitionists, Whigs,
+Tyler Whigs, and Democrats, shower down upon me a perfect cataract of
+abuse. "But what has she done? Surely she praised America enough!" "Yes,
+but she told us of some of our faults, and Americans can't bear to be
+told of their faults. Don't split on that rock, Mr. Dickens, don't write
+about America; we are so very suspicious."
+
+Freedom of opinion! Macready, if I had been born here and had written my
+books in this country, producing them with no stamp of approval from any
+other land, it is my solemn belief that I should have lived and died
+poor, unnoticed, and a "black sheep" to boot. I never was more convinced
+of anything than I am of that.
+
+The people are affectionate, generous, open-hearted, hospitable,
+enthusiastic, good-humoured, polite to women, frank and candid to all
+strangers, anxious to oblige, far less prejudiced than they have been
+described to be, frequently polished and refined, very seldom rude or
+disagreeable. I have made a great many friends here, even in public
+conveyances, whom I have been truly sorry to part from. In the towns I
+have formed perfect attachments. I have seen none of that greediness and
+indecorousness on which travellers have laid so much emphasis. I have
+returned frankness with frankness; met questions not intended to be
+rude, with answers meant to be satisfactory; and have not spoken to one
+man, woman, or child of any degree who has not grown positively
+affectionate before we parted. In the respects of not being left alone,
+and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle,
+I have suffered considerably. The sight of slavery in Virginia, the
+hatred of British feeling upon the subject, and the miserable hints of
+the impotent indignation of the South, have pained me very much; on the
+last head, of course, I have felt nothing but a mingled pity and
+amusement; on the other, sheer distress. But however much I like the
+ingredients of this great dish, I cannot but come back to the point upon
+which I started, and say that the dish itself goes against the grain
+with me, and that I don't like it.
+
+You know that I am truly a Liberal. I believe I have as little pride as
+most men, and I am conscious of not the smallest annoyance from being
+"hail fellow well met" with everybody. I have not had greater pleasure
+in the company of any set of men among the thousands I have received (I
+hold a regular levee every day, you know, which is duly heralded and
+proclaimed in the newspapers) than in that of the carmen of Hertford,
+who presented themselves in a body in their blue frocks, among a crowd
+of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and bade me welcome through their
+spokesman. They had all read my books, and all perfectly understood
+them. It is not these things I have in my mind when I say that the man
+who comes to this country a Radical and goes home again with his
+opinions unchanged, must be a Radical on reason, sympathy, and
+reflection, and one who has so well considered the subject that he has
+no chance of wavering.
+
+We have been to Boston, Worcester, Hertford, New Haven, New York,
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Fredericksburgh, Richmond, and back
+to Washington again. The premature heat of the weather (it was eighty
+yesterday in the shade) and Clay's advice--how you would like
+Clay!--have made us determine not to go to Charleston; but having got to
+Richmond, I think I should have turned back under any circumstances. We
+remain at Baltimore for two days, of which this is one; then we go to
+Harrisburgh. Then by the canal boat and the railroad over the Alleghany
+Mountains to Pittsburgh, then down the Ohio to Cincinnati, then to
+Louisville, and then to St. Louis. I have been invited to a public
+entertainment in every town I have entered, and have refused them; but I
+have excepted St. Louis as the farthest point of my travels. My friends
+there have passed some resolutions which Forster has, and will show
+you. From St. Louis we cross to Chicago, traversing immense prairies.
+Thence by the lakes and Detroit to Buffalo, and so to Niagara. A run
+into Canada follows of course, and then--let me write the blessed word
+in capitals--we turn towards HOME.
+
+Kate has written to Mrs. Macready, and it is useless for me to thank
+you, my dearest friend, or her, for your care of our dear children,
+which is our constant theme of discourse. Forster has gladdened our
+hearts with his account of the triumph of "Acis and Galatea," and I am
+anxiously looking for news of the tragedy. Forrest breakfasted with us
+at Richmond last Saturday--he was acting there, and I invited him--and
+he spoke very gratefully, and very like a man, of your kindness to him
+when he was in London.
+
+David Colden is as good a fellow as ever lived; and I am deeply in love
+with his wife. Indeed we have received the greatest and most earnest and
+zealous kindness from the whole family, and quite love them all. Do you
+remember one Greenhow, whom you invited to pass some days with you at
+the hotel on the Kaatskill Mountains? He is translator to the State
+Office at Washington, has a very pretty wife, and a little girl of five
+years old. We dined with them, and had a very pleasant day. The
+President invited me to dinner, but I couldn't stay for it. I had a
+private audience, however, and we attended the public drawing-room
+besides.
+
+Now, don't you rush at the quick conclusion that I have rushed at a
+quick conclusion. Pray, be upon your guard. If you can by any process
+estimate the extent of my affectionate regard for you, and the rush I
+shall make when I reach London to take you by your true right hand, I
+don't object. But let me entreat you to be very careful how you come
+down upon the sharpsighted individual who pens these words, which you
+seem to me to have done in what Willmott would call "one of Mr.
+Macready's rushes." As my pen is getting past its work, I have taken a
+new one to say that
+
+                               I am ever, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                         BALTIMORE, UNITED STATES, _March 22nd, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+We have been as far south as Richmond in Virginia (where they grow and
+manufacture tobacco, and where the labour is all performed by slaves),
+but the season in those latitudes is so intensely and prematurely hot,
+that it was considered a matter of doubtful expediency to go on to
+Charleston. For this unexpected reason, and because the country between
+Richmond and Charleston is but a desolate swamp the whole way, and
+because slavery is anything but a cheerful thing to live amidst, I have
+altered my route by the advice of Mr. Clay (the great political leader
+in this country), and have returned here previous to diving into the far
+West. We start for that part of the country--which includes mountain
+travelling, and lake travelling, and prairie travelling--the day after
+to-morrow, at eight o'clock in the morning; and shall be in the West,
+and from there going northward again, until the 30th of April or 1st of
+May, when we shall halt for a week at Niagara, before going further into
+Canada. We have taken our passage home (God bless the word) in the
+_George Washington_ packet-ship from New York. She sails on the 7th of
+June.
+
+I have departed from my resolution not to accept any more public
+entertainments; they have been proposed in every town I have visited--in
+favour of the people of St. Louis, my utmost western point. That town is
+on the borders of the Indian territory, a trifling distance from this
+place--only two thousand miles! At my second halting-place I shall be
+able to write to fix the day; I suppose it will be somewhere about the
+12th of April. Think of my going so far towards the setting sun to
+dinner!
+
+In every town where we stay, though it be only for a day, we hold a
+regular levee or drawing-room, where I shake hands on an average with
+five or six hundred people, who pass on from me to Kate, and are shaken
+again by her. Maclise's picture of our darlings stands upon a table or
+sideboard the while; and my travelling secretary, assisted very often by
+a committee belonging to the place, presents the people in due form.
+Think of two hours of this every day, and the people coming in by
+hundreds, all fresh, and piping hot, and full of questions, when we are
+literally exhausted and can hardly stand. I really do believe that if I
+had not a lady with me, I should have been obliged to leave the country
+and go back to England. But for her they never would leave me alone by
+day or night, and as it is, a slave comes to me now and then in the
+middle of the night with a letter, and waits at the bedroom door for an
+answer.
+
+It was so hot at Richmond that we could scarcely breathe, and the peach
+and other fruit trees were in full blossom; it was so cold at Washington
+next day that we were shivering; but even in the same town you might
+often wear nothing but a shirt and trousers in the morning, and two
+greatcoats at night, the thermometer very frequently taking a little
+trip of thirty degrees between sunrise and sunset.
+
+They do lay it on at the hotels in such style! They charge by the day,
+so that whether one dines out or dines at home makes no manner of
+difference. T'other day I wrote to order our rooms at Philadelphia to be
+ready on a certain day, and was detained a week longer than I expected
+in New York. The Philadelphia landlord not only charged me half rent
+for the rooms during the whole of that time, but board for myself and
+Kate and Anne during the whole time too, though we were actually
+boarding at the same expense during the same time in New York! What do
+you say to that? If I remonstrated, the whole virtue of the newspapers
+would be aroused directly.
+
+We were at the President's drawing-room while we were in Washington. I
+had a private audience besides, and was asked to dinner, but couldn't
+stay.
+
+Parties--parties--parties--of course, every day and night. But it's not
+all parties. I go into the prisons, the police-offices, the
+watch-houses, the hospitals, the workhouses. I was out half the night in
+New York with two of their most famous constables; started at midnight,
+and went into every brothel, thieves' house, murdering hovel, sailors'
+dancing-place, and abode of villany, both black and white, in the town.
+I went _incog._ behind the scenes to the little theatre where Mitchell
+is making a fortune. He has been rearing a little dog for me, and has
+called him "Boz."[1] I am going to bring him home. In a word I go
+everywhere, and a hard life it is. But I am careful to drink hardly
+anything, and not to smoke at all. I have recourse to my medicine-chest
+whenever I feel at all bilious, and am, thank God, thoroughly well.
+
+When I next write to you, I shall have begun, I hope, to turn my face
+homeward. I have a great store of oddity and whimsicality, and am going
+now into the oddest and most characteristic part of this most queer
+country.
+
+Always direct to the care of David Colden, Esq., 28, Laight Street,
+Hudson Square, New York. I received your Caledonia letter with the
+greatest joy.
+
+Kate sends her best remembrances.
+
+                                                      And I am always.
+
+P.S.--Richmond was my extreme southern point, and I turn from the South
+altogether the day after to-morrow. Will you let the Britannia[2] know
+of this change--if needful?
+
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. F. H. Deane.]
+
+                                  CINCINNATI, OHIO, _April 4th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have not been unmindful of your request for a moment, but have not
+been able to think of it until now. I hope my good friends (for whose
+christian-names I have left blanks in the epitaph) may like what I have
+written, and that they will take comfort and be happy again. I sail on
+the 7th of June, and purpose being at the Carlton House, New York, about
+the 1st. It will make me easy to know that this letter has reached you.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+                This is the Grave of a Little Child,
+
+        WHOM GOD IN HIS GOODNESS CALLED TO A BRIGHT ETERNITY
+                      WHEN HE WAS VERY YOUNG.
+
+        HARD AS IT IS FOR HUMAN AFFECTION TO RECONCILE ITSELF
+                        TO DEATH IN ANY
+         SHAPE (AND MOST OF ALL, PERHAPS, AT FIRST IN THIS),
+
+        HIS PARENTS CAN EVEN NOW BELIEVE THAT IT WILL BE A CONSOLATION
+                 TO THEM THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES,
+
+            AND WHEN THEY SHALL HAVE GROWN OLD AND GRAY,
+
+               Always to think of him as a Child in Heaven.
+
+        "_And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him
+                   in the midst of them._"
+
+        HE WAS THE SON OF Q---- AND M---- THORNTON, CHRISTENED
+
+                           CHARLES JERKING.
+
+            HE WAS BORN ON THE 20TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1841,
+               AND HE DIED ON THE 12TH DAY OF MARCH, 1842,
+           HAVING LIVED ONLY THIRTEEN MONTHS AND TWENTY DAYS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                        NIAGARA FALLS (English Side),
+                                              _Sunday, May 1st, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+Although I date this letter as above, it will not be so old a one as at
+first sight it would appear to be when it reaches you. I shall carry it
+on with me to Montreal, and despatch it from there by the steamer which
+goes to Halifax, to meet the Cunard boat at that place, with Canadian
+letters and passengers. Before I finally close it, I will add a short
+postscript, so that it will contain the latest intelligence.
+
+We have had a blessed interval of quiet in this beautiful place, of
+which, as you may suppose, we stood greatly in need, not only by reason
+of our hard travelling for a long time, but on account of the incessant
+persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage coach, railway
+car, and steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to yourself by
+the utmost stretch of your imagination. So far we have had this hotel
+nearly to ourselves. It is a large square house, standing on a bold
+height, with overhanging eaves like a Swiss cottage, and a wide handsome
+gallery outside every story. These colonnades make it look so very
+light, that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with a pack
+of cards; and I live in bodily terror lest any man should venture to
+step out of a little observatory on the roof, and crush the whole
+structure with one stamp of his foot.
+
+Our sitting-room (which is large and low like a nursery) is on the
+second floor, and is so close to the Falls that the windows are always
+wet and dim with spray. Two bedrooms open out of it--one our own; one
+Anne's. The secretary slumbers near at hand, but without these sacred
+precincts. From the three chambers, or any part of them, you can see the
+Falls rolling and tumbling, and roaring and leaping, all day long, with
+bright rainbows making fiery arches down a hundred feet below us. When
+the sun is on them, they shine and glow like molten gold. When the day
+is gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it seems to crumble
+away like the face of a great chalk cliff, or sometimes again to roll
+along the front of the rock like white smoke. But it all seems gay or
+gloomy, dark or light, by sun or moon. From the bottom of both Falls,
+there is always rising up a solemn ghostly cloud, which hides the
+boiling cauldron from human sight, and makes it in its mystery a hundred
+times more grand than if you could see all the secrets that lie hidden
+in its tremendous depth. One Fall is as close to us as York Gate is to
+No. 1, Devonshire Terrace. The other (the great Horse-shoe Fall) may be,
+perhaps, about half as far off as "Creedy's."[3] One circumstance in
+connection with them is, in all the accounts, greatly exaggerated--I
+mean the noise. Last night was perfectly still. Kate and I could just
+hear them, at the quiet time of sunset, a mile off. Whereas, believing
+the statements I had heard I began putting my ear to the ground, like a
+savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty miles off, when we were coming
+here from Buffalo.
+
+I was delighted to receive your famous letter, and to read your account
+of our darlings, whom we long to see with an intensity it is impossible
+to shadow forth, ever so faintly. I do believe, though I say it as
+shouldn't, that they are good 'uns--both to look at and to go. I roared
+out this morning, as soon as I was awake, "Next month," which we have
+been longing to be able to say ever since we have been here. I really do
+not know how we shall ever knock at the door, when that slowest of all
+impossibly slow hackney-coaches shall pull up--at home.
+
+I am glad you exult in the fight I have had about the copyright. If you
+knew how they tried to stop me, you would have a still greater interest
+in it. The greatest men in England have sent me out, through Forster, a
+very manly, and becoming, and spirited memorial and address, backing me
+in all I have done. I have despatched it to Boston for publication, and
+am coolly prepared for the storm it will raise. But my best rod is in
+pickle.
+
+Is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers should grow rich
+here from publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one
+farthing from their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile,
+blackguard, and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no
+honest man would admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat,
+should be able to publish those same writings side by side, cheek by
+jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene companions with which they must
+become connected, in course of time, in people's minds? Is it tolerable
+that besides being robbed and rifled an author should be forced to
+appear in any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious company; that
+he should have no choice of his audience, no control over his own
+distorted text, and that he should be compelled to jostle out of the
+course the best men in this country who only ask to live by writing? I
+vow before high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that
+when I speak about them I seem to grow twenty feet high, and to swell
+out in proportion. "Robbers that ye are," I think to myself when I get
+upon my legs, "here goes!"
+
+The places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone over, the company
+we have been among, the tobacco-spittle we have wallowed in, the strange
+customs we have complied with, the packing-cases in which we have
+travelled, the woods, swamps, rivers, prairies, lakes, and mountains we
+have crossed, are all subjects for legends and tales at home; quires,
+reams, wouldn't hold them. I don't think Anne has so much as seen an
+American tree. She never looks at a prospect by any chance, or displays
+the smallest emotion at any sight whatever. She objects to Niagara that
+"it's nothing but water," and considers that "there is too much of
+that."
+
+I suppose you have heard that I am going to act at the Montreal theatre
+with the officers? Farce-books being scarce, and the choice consequently
+limited, I have selected Keeley's part in "Two o'Clock in the Morning."
+I wrote yesterday to Mitchell, the actor and manager at New York, to get
+and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small whisker halfway down
+the cheek; over this I mean to wear two night-caps, one with a tassel
+and one of flannel; a flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will
+complete the costume.
+
+I am very sorry to hear that business is so flat, but the proverb says
+it never rains but it pours, and it may be remarked with equal truth
+upon the other side, that it never _don't_ rain but it holds up very
+much indeed. You will be busy again long before I come home, I have no
+doubt.
+
+We purpose leaving this on Wednesday morning. Give my love to Letitia
+and to mother, and always believe me, my dear Henry,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                                   MONTREAL, CANADA, _May 12th, 1842._
+
+All well, though (with the exception of one from Fred) we have received
+no letters whatever by the _Caledonia_. We have experienced
+impossible-to-be-described attentions in Canada. Everybody's carriage
+and horses are at our disposal, and everybody's servants; and all the
+Government boats and boats' crews. We shall play, between the 20th and
+the 25th, "A Roland for an Oliver," "Two o'Clock in the Morning," and
+"Deaf as a Post."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Longman.]
+
+                                         ATHENAEUM, _Friday Afternoon._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+If I could possibly have attended the meeting yesterday I would most
+gladly have done so. But I have been up the whole night, and was too
+much exhausted even to write and say so before the proceedings came on.
+
+I have fought the fight across the Atlantic with the utmost energy I
+could command; have never been turned aside by any consideration for an
+instant; am fresher for the fray than ever; will battle it to the death,
+and die game to the last.
+
+I am happy to say that my boy is quite well again. From being in perfect
+health he fell into alarming convulsions with the surprise and joy of
+our return.
+
+I beg my regards to Mrs. Longman,
+
+                                            And am always,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Pardoe.]
+
+             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                    _July 19th, 1842._
+
+DEAR MADAM,
+
+I beg to set you right on one point in reference to the American
+robbers, which perhaps you do not quite understand.
+
+The existing law allows them to reprint any English book, without any
+communication whatever with the author or anybody else. My books have
+all been reprinted on these agreeable terms.
+
+But sometimes, when expectation is awakened there about a book before
+its publication, one firm of pirates will pay a trifle to procure early
+proofs of it, and get so much the start of the rest as they can obtain
+by the time necessarily consumed in printing it. Directly it is printed
+it is common property, and may be reprinted a thousand times. My
+circular only referred to such bargains as these.
+
+I should add that I have no hope of the States doing justice in this
+dishonest respect, and therefore do not expect to overtake these
+fellows, but we may cry "Stop thief!" nevertheless, especially as they
+wince and smart under it.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, July 14th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SMITH,
+
+The cheque safely received. As you say, it would be cheap at any money.
+My devotion to the fine arts renders it impossible for me to cash it. I
+have therefore ordered it to be framed and glazed.
+
+I am really grateful to you for the interest you take in my proceedings.
+Next time I come into the City I will show you my introductory chapter
+to the American book. It may seem to prepare the reader for a much
+greater amount of slaughter than he will meet with; but it is honest and
+true. Therefore my hand does not shake.
+
+Best love and regards. "Certainly" to the Richmondian intentions.
+
+                                        Always faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Harrison Ainsworth.]
+
+                            BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _September 14th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR AINSWORTH,
+
+The enclosed has been sent to me by a young gentleman in Devonshire (of
+whom I know no more than that I have occasionally, at his request, read
+and suggested amendments in some of his writings), with a special
+petition that I would recommend it to you for insertion in your
+magazine.
+
+I think it very pretty, and I have no doubt you will also. But it is
+poetry, and may be too long.
+
+He is a very modest young fellow, and has decided ability.
+
+I hope when I come home at the end of the month, we shall foregather
+more frequently. Of course you are working, tooth and nail; and of
+course I am.
+
+Kate joins me in best regards to yourself and all your house (not
+forgetting, but especially remembering, my old friend, Mrs. Touchet),
+and I am always,
+
+                                            My dear Ainsworth,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                          BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 25th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+I enclose you the Niagara letter, with many thanks for the loan of it.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Chadwick that I am greatly obliged to him for his
+remembrance of me, and I heartily concur with him in the great
+importance and interest of the subject, though I do differ from him, to
+the death, on his crack topic--the New Poor-Law.
+
+I have been turning my thoughts to this very item in the condition of
+American towns, and had put their present aspects strongly before the
+American people; therefore I shall read his report with the greater
+interest and attention.
+
+We return next Saturday night.
+
+If you will dine with us next day or any day in the week, we shall be
+truly glad and delighted to see you. Let me know, then, what day you
+will come.
+
+I need scarcely say that I shall joyfully talk with you about the
+Metropolitan Improvement Society, then or at any time; and with love to
+Letitia, in which Kate and the babies join, I am always, my dear Henry,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--The children's present names are as follows:
+
+Katey (from a lurking propensity to fieryness), Lucifer Box.
+
+Mamey (as generally descriptive of her bearing), Mild Glo'ster.
+
+Charley (as a corruption of Master Toby), Flaster Floby.
+
+Walter (suggested by his high cheek-bones), Young Skull.
+
+Each is pronounced with a peculiar howl, which I shall have great
+pleasure in illustrating.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. William Harness.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 8th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HARNESS,
+
+Some time ago, you sent me a note from a friend of yours, a barrister, I
+think, begging me to forward to him any letters I might receive from a
+deranged nephew of his, at Newcastle. In the midst of a most bewildering
+correspondence with unknown people, on every possible and impossible
+subject, I have forgotten this gentleman's name, though I have a kind of
+hazy remembrance that he lived near Russell Square. As the Post Office
+would be rather puzzled, perhaps, to identify him by such an address,
+may I ask the favour of you to hand him the enclosed, and to say that it
+is the second I have received since I returned from America? The last, I
+think, was a defiance to mortal combat. With best remembrances to your
+sister, in which Mrs. Dickens joins, believe me, my dear Harness,
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Nov. 12th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+You pass this house every day on your way to or from the theatre. I wish
+you would call once as you go by, and soon, that you may have plenty of
+time to deliberate on what I wish to suggest to you. The more I think of
+Marston's play, the more sure I feel that a prologue to the purpose
+would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of any ticklish
+point on the first night. Now I have an idea (not easily explainable in
+writing but told in five words), that would take the prologue out of the
+conventional dress of prologues, quite. Get the curtain up with a dash,
+and begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. If on consideration, you
+should think with me, I will write the prologue heartily.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+TO MR. MARSTON'S PLAY OF "THE PATRICIAN'S DAUGHTER."
+
+        No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright
+        Dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night;
+        No trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire
+        Breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre;
+
+        Enough for him, if in his lowly strain
+        He wakes one household echo not in vain;
+        Enough for him, if in his boldest word
+        The beating heart of MAN be dimly heard.
+
+        Its solemn music which, like strains that sigh
+        Through charmed gardens, all who hearing die;
+        Its solemn music he does not pursue
+        To distant ages out of human view;
+        Nor listen to its wild and mournful chime
+        In the dead caverns on the shore of Time;
+        But musing with a calm and steady gaze
+        Before the crackling flames of living days,
+        He hears it whisper through the busy roar
+        Of what shall be and what has been before.
+        Awake the Present! shall no scene display
+        The tragic passion of the passing day?
+        Is it with Man, as with some meaner things,
+        That out of death his single purpose springs?
+        Can his eventful life no moral teach
+        Until he be, for aye, beyond its reach?
+        Obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade,
+        Dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade?
+        Awake the Present! Though the steel-clad age
+        Find life alone within the storied page,
+        Iron is worn, at heart, by many still--
+        The tyrant Custom binds the serf-like will;
+        If the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone,
+        These later days have tortures of their own;
+        The guiltless writhe, while Guilt is stretched in sleep,
+        And Virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep.
+        Awake the Present! what the Past has sown
+        Be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown!
+        How pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong,
+        Read in the volume Truth has held so long,
+        Assured that where life's flowers freshest blow,
+        The sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow,
+        How social usage has the pow'r to change
+        Good thoughts to evil; in its highest range
+        To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth
+        The kindling impulse of our glorious youth,
+        Crushing the spirit in its house of clay,
+        Learn from the lessons of the present day.
+        Not light its import and not poor its mien;
+        Yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                                   _Saturday Morning._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+One suggestion, though it be a late one. Do have upon the table, in the
+opening scene of the second act, something in a velvet case, or frame,
+that may look like a large miniature of Mabel, such as one of Ross's,
+and eschew that picture. It haunts me with a sense of danger. Even a
+titter at that critical time, with the whole of that act before you,
+would be a fatal thing. The picture is bad in itself, bad in its effect
+upon the beautiful room, bad in all its associations with the house. In
+case of your having nothing at hand, I send you by bearer what would be
+a million times better. Always, my dear Macready,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I need not remind you how common it is to have such pictures in
+cases lying about elegant rooms.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. P. Frith.]
+
+            1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                _November 15th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I shall be very glad if you will do me the favour to paint me two little
+companion pictures; one, a Dolly Varden (whom you have so exquisitely
+done already), the other, a Kate Nickleby.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+P.S.--I take it for granted that the original picture of Dolly with the
+bracelet is sold?
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 17th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Pray consult your own convenience in the matter of my little commission;
+whatever suits your engagements and prospects will best suit me.
+
+I saw an unfinished proof of Dolly at Mitchell's some two or three
+months ago; I thought it was proceeding excellently well then. It will
+give me great pleasure to see her when completed.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Hood.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 30th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR HOOD,
+
+In asking your and Mrs. Hood's leave to bring Mrs. D.'s sister (who
+stays with us) on Tuesday, let me add that I should very much like to
+bring at the same time a very unaffected and ardent admirer of your
+genius, who has no small portion of that commodity in his own right, and
+is a very dear friend of mine and a very famous fellow; to wit, Maclise,
+the painter, who would be glad (as he has often told me) to know you
+better, and would be much pleased, I know, if I could say to him, "Hood
+wants me to bring you."
+
+I use so little ceremony with you, in the conviction that you will use
+as little with me, and say, "My dear D.--Convenient;" or, "My dear
+D.--Ill-convenient," (as the popular phrase is), just as the case may
+be. Of course, I have said nothing to him.
+
+                                              Always heartily yours,
+                                                                  BOZ.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Trollope.]
+
+          1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                _December 16th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,
+
+Let me thank you most cordially for your kind note, in reference to my
+Notes, which has given me true pleasure and gratification.
+
+As I never scrupled to say in America, so I can have no delicacy in
+saying to you, that, allowing for the change you worked in many social
+features of American society, and for the time that has passed since you
+wrote of the country, I am convinced that there is no writer who has so
+well and accurately (I need not add so entertainingly) described it, in
+many of its aspects, as you have done; and this renders your praise the
+more valuable to me. I do not recollect ever to have heard or seen the
+charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its
+feebleness, it may have been most untrue. It seems to me essentially
+natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should accuse an
+uncommon one of this fault, and I have no doubt that you were long ago
+of this opinion; very much to your own comfort.
+
+Mrs. Dickens begs me to thank you for your kind remembrance of her, and
+to convey to you her best regards. Always believe me,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 20th, 1842._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+It is impossible for me to tell you how greatly I am charmed with those
+beautiful pictures, in which the whole feeling, and thought, and
+expression of the little story is rendered to the gratification of my
+inmost heart; and on which you have lavished those amazing resources of
+yours with a power at which I fairly wondered when I sat down yesterday
+before them.
+
+I took them to Mac, straightway, in a cab, and it would have done you
+good if you could have seen and heard him. You can't think how moved he
+was by the old man in the church, or how pleased I was to have chosen it
+before he saw the drawings.
+
+You are such a queer fellow and hold yourself so much aloof, that I am
+afraid to say half I would say touching my grateful admiration; so you
+shall imagine the rest. I enclose a note from Kate, to which I hope you
+will bring the only one acceptable reply. Always, my dear Cattermole,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The little dog--a white Havana spaniel--_was_ brought home and
+renamed, after an incidental character in "Nicholas Nickleby," "Mr.
+Snittle Timbery." This was shortened to "Timber," and under that name
+the little dog lived to be very old, and accompanied the family in all
+its migrations, including the visits to Italy and Switzerland.
+
+[2] Life Insurance Office.
+
+[3] Mr. Macready's--so pronounced by one of Charles Dickens's little
+children.
+
+
+
+
+Book II.
+
+1843 TO 1857.
+
+
+
+
+1843.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+We have, unfortunately, very few letters of interest in this year. But
+we are able to give the commencement of Charles Dickens's correspondence
+with his beloved friends, Mr. Douglas Jerrold and Mr. Clarkson
+Stanfield; with Lord Morpeth (afterwards Lord Carlisle), for whom he
+always entertained the highest regard; and with Mr. Charles Babbage.
+
+He was at work upon "Martin Chuzzlewit" until the end of the year, when
+he also wrote and published the first of his Christmas stories--"The
+Christmas Carol."
+
+He was much distressed by the sad fate of Mr. Elton (a respected actor),
+who was lost in the wreck of the _Pegasus_, and was very eager and
+earnest in his endeavours to raise a fund on behalf of Mr. Elton's
+children.
+
+We are sorry to be unable to give any explanation as to the nature of
+the Cockspur Street Society, mentioned in this first letter to Mr.
+Charles Babbage. But we publish it notwithstanding, considering it to be
+one of general interest.
+
+The "Little History of England" was never finished--not, that is to say,
+the one alluded to in the letter to Mr. Jerrold.
+
+Mr. David Dickson kindly furnishes us with an explanation of the letter
+dated 10th May. "It was," he says, "in answer to a letter from me,
+pointing out that the 'Shepherd' in 'Pickwick' was apparently reflecting
+on the scriptural doctrine of the new birth."
+
+The beginning of the letter to Mr. Jerrold (15th June) is, as will be
+readily understood, an imaginary cast of a purely imaginary play. A
+portion of this letter has already been published, in Mr. Blanchard
+Jerrold's life of his father. It originated in a proposal of Mr.
+Webster's--the manager of the Haymarket Theatre--to give five hundred
+pounds for a prize comedy by an English author.
+
+The opera referred to in the letter to Mr. R. H. Horne was called "The
+Village Coquettes," and the farce was "The Strange Gentleman," already
+alluded to by us, in connection with a letter to Mr. Harley.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Babbage.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _April 27th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I write to you, _confidentially_, in answer to your note of last night,
+and the tenor of mine will tell you why.
+
+You may suppose, from seeing my name in the printed letter you have
+received, that I am favourable to the proposed society. I am decidedly
+opposed to it. I went there on the day I was in the chair, after much
+solicitation; and being put into it, opened the proceedings by telling
+the meeting that I approved of the design in theory, but in practice
+considered it hopeless. I may tell you--I did not tell them--that the
+nature of the meeting, and the character and position of many of the men
+attending it, cried "Failure" trumpet-tongued in my ears. To quote an
+expression from Tennyson, I may say that if it were the best society in
+the world, the grossness of some natures in it would have weight to drag
+it down.
+
+In the wisdom of all you urge in the notes you have sent me, taking them
+as statements of theory, I entirely concur. But in practice, I feel sure
+that the present publishing system cannot be overset until authors are
+different men. The first step to be taken is to move as a body in the
+question of copyright, enforce the existing laws, and try to obtain
+better. For that purpose I hold that the authors and publishers must
+unite, as the wealth, business habits, and interest of that latter class
+are of great importance to such an end. The Longmans and Murray have
+been with me proposing such an association. That I shall support. But
+having seen the Cockspur Street Society, I am as well convinced of its
+invincible hopelessness as if I saw it written by a celestial penman in
+the Book of Fate.
+
+                                      My dear Sir,
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                                  DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _May 3rd, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+Let me thank you most cordially for your books, not only for their own
+sakes (and I have read them with perfect delight), but also for this
+hearty and most welcome mark of your recollection of the friendship we
+have established; in which light I know I may regard and prize them.
+
+I am greatly pleased with your opening paper in the Illuminated. It is
+very wise, and capital; written with the finest end of that iron pen of
+yours; witty, much needed, and full of truth. I vow to God that I think
+the parrots of society are more intolerable and mischievous than its
+birds of prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of
+hearing those infernal and damnably good old times extolled. Once, in a
+fit of madness, after having been to a public dinner which took place
+just as this Ministry came in, I wrote the parody I send you enclosed,
+for Fonblanque. There is nothing in it but wrath; but that's wholesome,
+so I send it you.
+
+I am writing a little history of England for my boy, which I will send
+you when it is printed for him, though your boys are too old to profit
+by it. It is curious that I have tried to impress upon him (writing, I
+daresay, at the same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper,
+for I don't know what I should do if he were to get hold of any
+Conservative or High Church notions; and the best way of guarding
+against any such horrible result is, I take it, to wring the parrots'
+necks in his very cradle.
+
+Oh Heaven, if you could have been with me at a hospital dinner last
+Monday! There were men there who made such speeches and expressed such
+sentiments as any moderately intelligent dustman would have blushed
+through his cindery bloom to have thought of. Sleek, slobbering,
+bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle, and the auditory
+leaping up in their delight! I never saw such an illustration of the
+power of purse, or felt so degraded and debased by its contemplation,
+since I have had eyes and ears. The absurdity of the thing was too
+horrible to laugh at. It was perfectly overwhelming. But if I could have
+partaken it with anybody who would have felt it as you would have done,
+it would have had quite another aspect; or would at least, like a
+"classic mask" (oh d---- that word!) have had one funny side to relieve
+its dismal features.
+
+Supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds of North
+America--yours, mine, and forty-eight others--picked for their
+concurrence of opinion on all important subjects and for their
+resolution to found a colony of common-sense, how soon would that devil,
+Cant, present itself among them in one shape or other? The day they
+landed, do you say, or the day after?
+
+That is a great mistake (almost the only one I know) in the "Arabian
+Nights," when the princess restores people to their original beauty by
+sprinkling them with the golden water. It is quite clear that she must
+have made monsters of them by such a christening as that.
+
+                                  My dear Jerrold,
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Dickson.]
+
+            1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                     _May 10th, 1843._
+
+SIR,
+
+Permit me to say, in reply to your letter, that you do not understand
+the intention (I daresay the fault is mine) of that passage in the
+"Pickwick Papers" which has given you offence. The design of "the
+Shepherd" and of this and every other allusion to him is, to show how
+sacred things are degraded, vulgarised, and rendered absurd when persons
+who are utterly incompetent to teach the commonest things take upon
+themselves to expound such mysteries, and how, in making mere cant
+phrases of divine words, these persons miss the spirit in which they had
+their origin. I have seen a great deal of this sort of thing in many
+parts of England, and I never knew it lead to charity or good deeds.
+
+Whether the great Creator of the world and the creature of his hands,
+moulded in his own image, be quite so opposite in character as you
+believe, is a question which it would profit us little to discuss. I
+like the frankness and candour of your letter, and thank you for it.
+That every man who seeks heaven must be born again, in good thoughts of
+his Maker, I sincerely believe. That it is expedient for every hound to
+say so in a certain snuffling form of words, to which he attaches no
+good meaning, I do not believe. I take it there is no difference between
+us.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 13th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+Yes, you have anticipated my occupation. Chuzzlewit be d----d. High
+comedy and five hundred pounds are the only matters I can think of. I
+call it "The One Thing Needful; or, A Part is Better than the Whole."
+Here are the characters:
+
+        Old Febrile                      Mr. FARREN.
+        Young Febrile (his Son)          Mr. HOWE.
+        Jack Hessians (his Friend)       Mr. W. LACY.
+        Chalks (a Landlord)              Mr. GOUGH.
+        Hon. Harry Staggers              Mr. MELLON.
+        Sir Thomas Tip                   Mr. BUCKSTONE.
+        Swig                             Mr. WEBSTER.
+        The Duke of Leeds                Mr. COUTTS.
+        Sir Smivin Growler               Mr. MACREADY.
+
+Servants, Gamblers, Visitors, etc.
+
+        Mrs. Febrile                     Mrs. GALLOT.
+        Lady Tip                         Mrs. HUMBY.
+        Mrs. Sour                        Mrs. W. CLIFFORD.
+        Fanny                            Miss A. SMITH.
+
+One scene, where Old Febrile tickles Lady Tip in the ribs, and
+afterwards dances out with his hat behind him, his stick before, and his
+eye on the pit, I expect will bring the house down. There is also
+another point, where Old Febrile, at the conclusion of his disclosure to
+Swig, rises and says: "And now, Swig, tell me, have I acted well?" And
+Swig says: "Well, Mr. Febrile, have you ever acted ill?" which will
+carry off the piece.
+
+Herne Bay. Hum. I suppose it's no worse than any other place in this
+weather, but it is watery rather--isn't it? In my mind's eye, I have the
+sea in a perpetual state of smallpox; and the chalk running downhill
+like town milk. But I know the comfort of getting to work in a fresh
+place, and proposing pious projects to one's self, and having the more
+substantial advantage of going to bed early and getting up ditto, and
+walking about alone. I should like to deprive you of the last-named
+happiness, and to take a good long stroll, terminating in a
+public-house, and whatever they chanced to have in it. But fine days are
+over, I think. The horrible misery of London in this weather, with not
+even a fire to make it cheerful, is hideous.
+
+But I have my comedy to fly to. My only comfort! I walk up and down
+the street at the back of the theatre every night, and peep in at
+the green-room window, thinking of the time when "Dick--ins" will be
+called for by excited hundreds, and won't come till Mr. Webster
+(half Swig and half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room,
+and quelling the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard, if he be
+in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept the congratulations
+of the audience, and indulge them with a sight of the man who has got
+five hundred pounds in money, and it's impossible to say how much in
+laurel. Then I shall come forward, and bow once--twice--thrice--roars of
+approbation--Brayvo--brarvo--hooray--hoorar--hooroar--one cheer more;
+and asking Webster home to supper, shall declare eternal friendship for
+that public-spirited individual.
+
+They have not sent me the "Illustrated Magazine." What do they mean by
+that? You don't say your daughter is better, so I hope you mean that she
+is quite well. My wife desires her best regards.
+
+        I am always, my dear Jerrold,
+                     Faithfully your Friend,
+        THE CONGREVE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+        (which I mean to be called in the Sunday papers).
+
+P.S.--I shall dedicate it to Webster, beginning: "My dear Sir,--When you
+first proposed to stimulate the slumbering dramatic talent of England, I
+assure you I had not the least idea"--etc. etc. etc.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                             1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _July 26th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD,
+
+I am chairman of a committee, whose object is to open a subscription,
+and arrange a benefit for the relief of the seven destitute children of
+poor Elton the actor, who was drowned in the _Pegasus_. They are
+exceedingly anxious to have the great assistance of your name; and if
+you will allow yourself to be announced as one of the body, I do assure
+you you will help a very melancholy and distressful cause.
+
+                                                     Faithfully always.
+
+P.S.--The committee meet to-night at the Freemasons', at eight o'clock.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Morpeth.]
+
+           1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                   _August 3rd, 1843._
+
+DEAR LORD MORPETH,
+
+In acknowledging the safe receipt of your kind donation in behalf of
+poor Mr. Elton's orphan children, I hope you will suffer me to address
+you with little ceremony, as the best proof I can give you of my cordial
+reciprocation of all you say in your most welcome note. I have long
+esteemed you and been your distant but very truthful admirer; and trust
+me that it is a real pleasure and happiness to me to anticipate the time
+when we shall have a nearer intercourse.
+
+                     Believe me, with sincere regard,
+                                              Faithfully your Servant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _October 13th, 1843._
+
+MY DEAR AINSWORTH,
+
+I want very much to see you, not having had that old pleasure for a long
+time. I am at this moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in
+the nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints,
+and fractious in the temper from a most intolerable and oppressive cold,
+caught the other day, I suspect, at Liverpool, where I got exceedingly
+wet; but I will make prodigious efforts to get the better of it to-night
+by resorting to all conceivable remedies, and if I succeed so as to be
+only negatively disgusting to-morrow, I will joyfully present myself at
+six, and bring my womankind along with me.
+
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. R. H. Horne.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 13th, 1843._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pray tell that besotted ---- to let the opera sink into its native
+obscurity. I did it in a fit of d----ble good nature long ago, for
+Hullah, who wrote some very pretty music to it. I just put down for
+everybody what everybody at the St. James's Theatre wanted to say and
+do, and that they could say and do best, and I have been most sincerely
+repentant ever since. The farce I also did as a sort of practical joke,
+for Harley, whom I have known a long time. It was funny--adapted from
+one of the published sketches called the "Great Winglebury Duel," and
+was published by Chapman and Hall. But I have no copy of it now, nor
+should I think they have. But both these things were done without the
+least consideration or regard to reputation.
+
+I wouldn't repeat them for a thousand pounds apiece, and devoutly wish
+them to be forgotten. If you will impress this on the waxy mind of ----
+I shall be truly and unaffectedly obliged to you.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+
+1844.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the summer of this year the house in Devonshire Terrace was let, and
+Charles Dickens started with his family for Italy, going first to a
+villa at Albaro, near Genoa, for a few months, and afterwards to the
+Palazzo Pescheire, Genoa. Towards the end of this year he made
+excursions to the many places of interest in this country, and was
+joined at Milan by his wife and sister-in-law, previous to his own
+departure alone on a business visit to England. He had written his
+Christmas story, "The Chimes," and was anxious to take it himself to
+England, and to read it to some of his most intimate friends there.
+
+Mr. Macready went to America and returned in the autumn, and towards the
+end of the year he paid a professional visit to Paris.
+
+Charles Dickens's letter to his wife (26th February) treats of a visit
+to Liverpool, where he went to take the chair on the opening of the
+Mechanics' Institution and to make a speech on education. The "Fanny"
+alluded to was his sister, Mrs. Burnett; the _Britannia_, the ship in
+which he and Mrs. Dickens made their outward trip to America; the "Mrs.
+Bean," the stewardess, and "Hewett," the captain, of that same vessel.
+
+The letter to Mr. Charles Knight was in acknowledgment of the receipt of
+a prospectus entitled "Book Clubs for all readers." The attempt, which
+fortunately proved completely successful, was to establish a cheap book
+club. The scheme was, that a number of families should combine together,
+each contributing about three halfpennies a week; which contribution
+would enable them, by exchanging the volumes among them, to have
+sufficient reading to last the year. The publications, which were to be
+made as cheap as possible, could be purchased by families at the end of
+the year, on consideration of their putting by an extra penny a week
+for that purpose. Charles Dickens, who always had the comfort and
+happiness of the working-classes greatly at heart, was much interested
+in this scheme of Mr. Charles Knight's, and highly approved of it.
+Charles Dickens and this new correspondent became subsequently true and
+fast friends.
+
+"Martin Chuzzlewit" was dramatised in the early autumn of this year, at
+the Lyceum Theatre, which was then under the management of Mr. and Mrs.
+Robert Keeley. Charles Dickens superintended some rehearsals, but had
+left England before the play was acted in public.
+
+The man "Roche," alluded to in his letter to Mr. Maclise, was the French
+courier engaged to go with the family to Italy. He remained as servant
+there, and was with Charles Dickens through all his foreign travels. His
+many excellent qualities endeared him to the whole family, and his
+master never lost sight of this faithful servant until poor Roche's
+untimely death in 1849.
+
+The Rev. Edward Tagart was a celebrated Unitarian minister, and a very
+highly esteemed and valued friend.
+
+The "Chickenstalker" (letter to Mrs. Dickens, November 8th), is an
+instance of the eccentric names he was constantly giving to his
+children, and these names he frequently made use of in his books.
+
+In this year we have our first letter to Mr. (afterwards Sir Edwin)
+Landseer, for whom Charles Dickens had the highest admiration and
+personal regard.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 3rd, 1844._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+You know all the news, and you know I love you; so I no more know why I
+write than I do why I "come round" after the play to shake hands with
+you in your dressing-room. I say come, as if you were at this present
+moment the lessee of Drury Lane, and had ---- with a long face on one
+hand, ---- elaborately explaining that everything in creation is a
+joint-stock company on the other, the inimitable B. by the fire, in
+conversation with ----. Well-a-day! I see it all, and smell that
+extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre, which bursts
+upon me when I swing open the little door in the hall, accompanies me as
+I meet perspiring supers in the narrow passage, goes with me up the two
+steps, crosses the stage, winds round the third entrance P.S. as I wind,
+and escorts me safely into your presence, where I find you unwinding
+something slowly round and round your chest, which is so long that no
+man can see the end of it.
+
+Oh that you had been at Clarence Terrace on Nina's birthday! Good God,
+how we missed you, talked of you, drank your health, and wondered what
+you were doing! Perhaps you are Falkland enough (I swear I suspect you
+of it) to feel rather sore--just a little bit, you know, the merest
+trifle in the world--on hearing that Mrs. Macready looked brilliant,
+blooming, young, and handsome, and that she danced a country dance with
+the writer hereof (Acres to your Falkland) in a thorough spirit of
+becoming good humour and enjoyment. Now you don't like to be told that?
+Nor do you quite like to hear that Forster and I conjured bravely; that
+a plum-pudding was produced from an empty saucepan, held over a blazing
+fire kindled in Stanfield's hat without damage to the lining; that a box
+of bran was changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between my
+godchild's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill uproar and clapping
+of hands that you might have heard it (and I daresay did) in America;
+that three half-crowns being taken from Major Burns and put into a
+tumbler-glass before his eyes, did then and there give jingling answers
+to the questions asked of them by me, and knew where you were and what
+you were doing, to the unspeakable admiration of the whole assembly.
+Neither do you quite like to be told that we are going to do it again
+next Saturday, with the addition of demoniacal dresses from the
+masquerade shop; nor that Mrs. Macready, for her gallant bearing always,
+and her best sort of best affection, is the best creature I know. Never
+mind; no man shall gag me, and those are my opinions.
+
+My dear Macready, the lecturing proposition is not to be thought of. I
+have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in giving you my most
+strenuous and decided advice against it. Looking only to its effect at
+home, I am immovable in my conviction that the impression it would
+produce would be one of failure, and a reduction of yourself to the
+level of those who do the like here. To us who know the Boston names and
+honour them, and who know Boston and like it (Boston is what I would
+have the whole United States to be), the Boston requisition would be a
+valuable document, of which you and your friends might be proud. But
+those names are perfectly unknown to the public here, and would produce
+not the least effect. The only thing known to the public here is, that
+they ask (when I say "they" I mean the people) everybody to lecture. It
+is one of the things I have ridiculed in "Chuzzlewit." Lecture you, and
+you fall into the roll of Lardners, Vandenhoffs, Eltons, Knowleses,
+Buckinghams. You are off your pedestal, have flung away your glass
+slipper, and changed your triumphal coach into a seedy old pumpkin. I am
+quite sure of it, and cannot express my strong conviction in language of
+sufficient force.
+
+"Puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. The nation is a miserable
+Sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul old man upon his
+back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim to the four winds for
+repetition here, that they don't need their ignorant and brutal papers,
+as if the papers could exist if they didn't need them! Let any two of
+these vagabonds, in any town you go to, take it into their heads to make
+you an object of attack, or to direct the general attention elsewhere,
+and what avail those wonderful images of passion which you have been all
+your life perfecting!
+
+I have sent you, to the charge of our trusty and well-beloved Colden, a
+little book I published on the 17th of December, and which has been a
+most prodigious success--the greatest, I think, I have ever achieved. It
+pleases me to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two, and
+I long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning. Do they allow you
+to be quiet, by-the-way? "Some of our most fashionable people, sir,"
+denounced me awfully for liking to be alone sometimes.
+
+Now that we have turned Christmas, I feel as if your face were directed
+homewards, Macready. The downhill part of the road is before us now, and
+we shall travel on to midsummer at a dashing pace; and, please Heaven, I
+will be at Liverpool when you come steaming up the Mersey, with that red
+funnel smoking out unutterable things, and your heart much fuller than
+your trunks, though something lighter! If I be not the first Englishman
+to shake hands with you on English ground, the man who gets before me
+will be a brisk and active fellow, and even then need put his best leg
+foremost. So I warn Forster to keep in the rear, or he'll be blown.
+
+If you shall have any leisure to project and put on paper the outline of
+a scheme for opening any theatre on your return, upon a certain list
+subscribed, and on certain understandings with the actors, it strikes me
+that it would be wise to break ground while you are still away. Of
+course I need not say that I will see anybody or do anything--even to
+the calling together of the actors--if you should ever deem it
+desirable. My opinion is that our respected and valued friend Mr. ----
+will stagger through another season, if he don't rot first. I understand
+he is in a partial state of decomposition at this minute. He was very
+ill, but got better. How is it that ---- always do get better, and
+strong hearts are so easy to die?
+
+Kate sends her tender love; so does Georgy, so does Charlie, so does
+Mamey, so does Katey, so does Walter, so does the other one who is to be
+born next week. Look homeward always, as we look abroad to you. God
+bless you, my dear Macready.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Laman Blanchard.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 4th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR BLANCHARD,
+
+I cannot thank you enough for the beautiful manner and the true spirit
+of friendship in which you have noticed my "Carol." But I _must_ thank
+you because you have filled my heart up to the brim, and it is running
+over.
+
+You meant to give me great pleasure, my dear fellow, and you have done
+it. The tone of your elegant and fervent praise has touched me in the
+tenderest place. I cannot write about it, and as to talking of it, I
+could no more do that than a dumb man. I have derived inexpressible
+gratification from what I know was a labour of love on your part. And I
+can never forget it.
+
+When I think it likely that I may meet you (perhaps at Ainsworth's on
+Friday?) I shall slip a "Carol" into my pocket and ask you to put it
+among your books for my sake. You will never like it the less for having
+made it the means of so much happiness to me.
+
+                           Always, my dear Blanchard,
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                 LIVERPOOL, RADLEY'S HOTEL, _Monday, Feb. 26th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR KATE,
+
+I got down here last night (after a most intolerably wet journey) before
+seven, and found Thompson sitting by my fire. He had ordered dinner, and
+we ate it pleasantly enough, and went to bed in good time. This morning,
+Mr. Yates, the great man connected with the Institution (and a brother
+of Ashton Yates's), called. I went to look at it with him. It is an
+enormous place, and the tickets have been selling at two and even three
+guineas apiece. The lecture-room, in which the celebration is held, will
+accommodate over thirteen hundred people. It was being fitted with gas
+after the manner of the ring at Astley's. I should think it an easy
+place to speak in, being a semicircle with seats rising one above
+another to the ceiling, and will have eight hundred ladies to-night, in
+full dress. I am rayther shaky just now, but shall pull up, I have no
+doubt. At dinner-time to-morrow you will receive, I hope, a facetious
+document hastily penned after I return to-night, telling you how it all
+went off.
+
+When I came back here, I found Fanny and Hewett had picked me up just
+before. We all went off straight to the _Britannia_, which lay where she
+did when we went on board. We went into the old little cabin and the
+ladies' cabin, but Mrs. Bean had gone to Scotland, as the ship does not
+sail again before May. In the saloon we had some champagne and biscuits,
+and Hewett had set out upon the table a block of Boston ice, weighing
+fifty pounds. Scott, of the _Caledonia_, lunched with us--a very nice
+fellow. He saw Macready play Macbeth in Boston, and gave me a tremendous
+account of the effect. Poor Burroughs, of the _George Washington_, died
+on board, on his last passage home. His little wife was with him.
+
+Hewett dines with us to-day, and I have procured him admission to-night.
+I am very sorry indeed (and so was he), that you didn't see the old
+ship. It was the strangest thing in the world to go on board again.
+
+I had Bacon with me as far as Watford yesterday, and very pleasant.
+Sheil was also in the train, on his way to Ireland.
+
+Give my best love to Georgy, and kisses to the darlings. Also
+affectionate regards to Mac and Forster.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE COMMON--PLEASE.
+
+DICKENS _against_ THE WORLD.
+
+
+Charles Dickens, of No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park,
+in the county of Middlesex, gentleman, the successful plaintiff in the
+above cause, maketh oath and saith: That on the day and date hereof, to
+wit at seven o'clock in the evening, he, this deponent, took the chair
+at a large assembly of the Mechanics' Institution at Liverpool, and that
+having been received with tremendous and enthusiastic plaudits, he, this
+deponent, did immediately dash into a vigorous, brilliant, humorous,
+pathetic, eloquent, fervid, and impassioned speech. That the said speech
+was enlivened by thirteen hundred persons, with frequent, vehement,
+uproarious, and deafening cheers, and to the best of this deponent's
+knowledge and belief, he, this deponent, did speak up like a man, and
+did, to the best of his knowledge and belief, considerably distinguish
+himself. That after the proceedings of the opening were over, and a vote
+of thanks was proposed to this deponent, he, this deponent, did again
+distinguish himself, and that the cheering at that time, accompanied
+with clapping of hands and stamping of feet, was in this deponent's case
+thundering and awful. And this deponent further saith, that his
+white-and-black or magpie waistcoat, did create a strong sensation, and
+that during the hours of promenading, this deponent heard from persons
+surrounding him such exclamations as, "What is it! _Is_ it a waistcoat?
+No, it's a shirt"--and the like--all of which this deponent believes to
+have been complimentary and gratifying; but this deponent further saith
+that he is now going to supper, and wishes he may have an appetite to
+eat it.
+
+                                                      CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+        Sworn before me, at the Adelphi }
+          Hotel, Liverpool, on the 26th }
+          of February, 1844.            }
+
+        S. RADLEY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _April 30th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD,
+
+The Sanatorium, or sick house for students, governesses, clerks, young
+artists, and so forth, who are above hospitals, and not rich enough to
+be well attended in illness in their own lodgings (you know its
+objects), is going to have a dinner at the London Tavern, on Tuesday,
+the 5th of June.
+
+The Committee are very anxious to have you for a steward, as one of the
+heads of a large class; and I have told them that I have no doubt you
+will act. There is no steward's fee or collection whatever.
+
+They are particularly anxious also to have Mr. Etty and Edwin Landseer.
+As you see them daily at the Academy, will you ask them or show them
+this note? Sir Martin became one of the Committee some few years ago,
+at my solicitation, as recommending young artists, struggling alone in
+London, to the better knowledge of this establishment.
+
+The dinner is to comprise the new feature of ladies dining at the tables
+with the gentlemen--not looking down upon them from the gallery. I hope
+in your reply you will not only book yourself, but Mrs. Stanfield and
+Mary. It will be very brilliant and cheerful I hope. Dick in the chair.
+Gentlemen's dinner-tickets a guinea, as usual; ladies', twelve
+shillings. I think this is all I have to say, except (which is
+nonsensical and needless) that I am always,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edwin Landseer.]
+
+                           ATHENAEUM, _Monday Morning, May 27th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR LANDSEER,
+
+I have let my house with such delicious promptitude, or, as the
+Americans would say, "with sich everlass'in slickness and al-mity
+sprydom," that we turn out to-night! in favour of a widow lady, who
+keeps it all the time we are away!
+
+Wherefore if you, looking up into the sky this evening between five and
+six (as possibly you may be, in search of the spring), should see a
+speck in the air--a mere dot--which, growing larger and larger by
+degrees, appears in course of time to be an eagle (chain and all) in a
+light cart, accompanied by a raven of uncommon sagacity, curse that
+good-nature which prompted you to say it--that you would give them
+house-room. And do it for the love of
+
+                                                                  BOZ.
+
+P.S.--The writer hereof may be heerd on by personal enquiry at No. 9,
+Osnaburgh Terrace, New Road.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 4th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Many thanks for your proof, and for your truly gratifying mention of my
+name. I think the subject excellently chosen, the introduction exactly
+what it should be, the allusion to the International Copyright question
+most honourable and manly, and the whole scheme full of the highest
+interest. I had already seen your prospectus, and if I can be of the
+feeblest use in advancing a project so intimately connected with an end
+on which my heart is set--the liberal education of the people--I shall
+be sincerely glad. All good wishes and success attend you!
+
+                                        Believe me always,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Dudley Costello.]
+
+                                                     _June 7th, 1844._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Mrs. Harris, being in that delicate state (just confined, and "made
+comfortable," in fact), hears some sounds below, which she fancies may
+be the owls (or howls) of the husband to whom she is devoted. They ease
+her mind by informing her that these sounds are only organs. By "they" I
+mean the gossips and attendants. By "organs" I mean instrumental boxes
+with barrels in them, which are commonly played by foreigners under the
+windows of people of sedentary pursuits, on a speculation of being
+bribed to leave the street. Mrs. Harris, being of a confiding nature,
+believed in this pious fraud, and was fully satisfied "that his owls was
+organs."
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Robert Keeley.]
+
+               9, OSNABURGH TERRACE, _Monday Evening, June 24th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have been out yachting for two or three days; and consequently could
+not answer your letter in due course.
+
+I cannot, consistently with the opinion I hold and have always held, in
+reference to the principle of adapting novels for the stage, give you a
+prologue to "Chuzzlewit." But believe me to be quite sincere in saying
+that if I felt I could reasonably do such a thing for anyone, I would do
+it for you.
+
+I start for Italy on Monday next, but if you have the piece on the
+stage, and rehearse on Friday, I will gladly come down at any time you
+may appoint on that morning, and go through it with you all. If you be
+not in a sufficiently forward state to render this proposal convenient
+to you, or likely to assist your preparations, do not take the trouble
+to answer this note.
+
+I presume Mrs. Keeley will do Ruth Pinch. If so, I feel secure about
+her, and of Mrs. Gamp I am certain. But a queer sensation begins in my
+legs, and comes upward to my forehead, when I think of Tom.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Daniel Maclise.]
+
+               VILLA DI BAGNARELLO, ALBARO, _Monday, July 22nd, 1844._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MAC,
+
+I address you with something of the lofty spirit of an exile--a banished
+commoner--a sort of Anglo-Pole. I don't exactly know what I have done
+for my country in coming away from it; but I feel it is
+something--something great--something virtuous and heroic. Lofty
+emotions rise within me, when I see the sun set on the blue
+Mediterranean. I am the limpet on the rock. My father's name is Turner
+and my boots are green.
+
+Apropos of blue. In a certain picture, called "The Serenade," you
+painted a sky. If you ever have occasion to paint the Mediterranean, let
+it be exactly of that colour. It lies before me now, as deeply and
+intensely blue. But no such colour is above me. Nothing like it. In the
+South of France--at Avignon, at Aix, at Marseilles--I saw deep blue
+skies (not _so_ deep though--oh Lord, no!), and also in America; but the
+sky above me is familiar to my sight. Is it heresy to say that I have
+seen its twin-brother shining through the window of Jack Straw's--that
+down in Devonshire I have seen a better sky? I daresay it is; but like a
+great many other heresies, it is true.
+
+But such green--green--green--as flutters in the vineyard down below the
+windows, _that_ I never saw; nor yet such lilac, and such purple as
+float between me and the distant hills; nor yet--in anything--picture,
+book, or verbal boredom--such awful, solemn, impenetrable blue, as is
+that same sea. It has such an absorbing, silent, deep, profound effect,
+that I can't help thinking it suggested the idea of Styx. It looks as if
+a draught of it--only so much as you could scoop up on the beach, in the
+hollow of your hand--would wash out everything else, and make a great
+blue blank of your intellect.
+
+When the sun sets clearly, then, by Heaven, it is majestic! From any one
+of eleven windows here, or from a terrace overgrown with grapes, you may
+behold the broad sea; villas, houses, mountains, forts, strewn with rose
+leaves--strewn with thorns--stifled in thorns! Dyed through and through
+and through. For a moment. No more. The sun is impatient and fierce,
+like everything else in these parts, and goes down headlong. Run to
+fetch your hat--and it's night. Wink at the right time of black
+night--and it's morning. Everything is in extremes. There is an insect
+here (I forget its name, and Fletcher and Roche are both out) that
+chirps all day. There is one outside the window now. The chirp is very
+loud, something like a Brobdingnagian grasshopper. The creature is born
+to chirp--to progress in chirping--to chirp louder, louder, louder--till
+it gives one tremendous chirp, and bursts itself. That is its life and
+death. Everything "is in a concatenation accordingly." The day gets
+brighter, brighter, brighter, till it's night. The summer gets hotter,
+hotter, hotter, till it bursts. The fruit gets riper, riper, riper, till
+it tumbles down and rots.
+
+Ask me a question or two about fresco--will you be so good? All the
+houses are painted in fresco hereabout--the outside walls I mean; the
+fronts, and backs, and sides--and all the colour has run into damp and
+green seediness, and the very design has struggled away into the
+component atoms of the plaster. Sometimes (but not often) I can make out
+a Virgin with a mildewed glory round her head; holding nothing, in an
+indiscernible lap, with invisible arms; and occasionally the leg or arms
+of a cherub, but it is very melancholy and dim. There are two old
+fresco-painted vases outside my own gate--one on either hand--which are
+so faint, that I never saw them till last night; and only then because I
+was looking over the wall after a lizard, who had come upon me while I
+was smoking a cigar above, and crawled over one of these embellishments
+to his retreat. There is a church here--the Church of the
+Annunciation--which they are now (by "they" I mean certain noble
+families) restoring at a vast expense, as a work of piety. It is a large
+church, with a great many little chapels in it, and a very high dome.
+Every inch of this edifice is painted, and every design is set in a
+great gold frame or border elaborately wrought. You can imagine nothing
+so splendid. It is worth coming the whole distance to see. But every
+sort of splendour is in perpetual enactment through the means of these
+churches. Gorgeous processions in the streets, illuminations of windows
+on festa nights; lighting up of lamps and clustering of flowers before
+the shrines of saints; all manner of show and display. The doors of the
+churches stand wide open; and in this hot weather great red curtains
+flutter and wave in their palaces; and if you go and sit in one of these
+to get out of the sun, you see the queerest figures kneeling against
+pillars, and the strangest people passing in and out, and vast streams
+of women in veils (they don't wear bonnets), with great fans in their
+hands, coming and going, that you are never tired of looking on. Except
+in the churches, you would suppose the city (at this time of year) to be
+deserted, the people keep so close within doors. Indeed it is next to
+impossible to go out into the heat. I have only been into Genoa twice
+myself. We are deliciously cool here, by comparison; being high, and
+having the sea breeze. There is always some shade in the vineyard, too;
+and underneath the rocks on the sea-shore, so if I choose to saunter I
+can do it easily, even in the hot time of the day. I am as lazy,
+however, as--as you are, and do little but eat and drink and read.
+
+As I am going to transmit regular accounts of all sight-seeings and
+journeyings to Forster, who will show them to you, I will not bore you
+with descriptions, however. I hardly think you allow enough for the
+great brightness and brilliancy of colour which is commonly achieved on
+the Continent, in that same fresco painting. I saw some--by a French
+artist and his pupil--in progress at the cathedral at Avignon, which
+was as bright and airy as anything can be,--nothing dull or dead about
+it; and I have observed quite fierce and glaring colours elsewhere.
+
+We have a piano now (there was none in the house), and have fallen into
+a pretty settled easy track. We breakfast about half-past nine or ten,
+dine about four, and go to bed about eleven. We are much courted by the
+visiting people, of course, and I very much resort to my old habit of
+bolting from callers, and leaving their reception to Kate. Green figs I
+have already learnt to like. Green almonds (we have them at dessert
+every day) are the most delicious fruit in the world. And green lemons,
+combined with some rare hollands that is to be got here, make prodigious
+punch, I assure you. You ought to come over, Mac; but I don't expect
+you, though I am sure it would be a very good move for you. I have not
+the smallest doubt of that. Fletcher has made a sketch of the house, and
+will copy it in pen-and-ink for transmission to you in my next letter. I
+shall look out for a place in Genoa, between this and the winter time.
+In the meantime, the people who come out here breathe delightedly, as if
+they had got into another climate. Landing in the city, you would hardly
+suppose it possible that there could be such an air within two miles.
+
+Write to me as often as you can, like a dear good fellow, and rely upon
+the punctuality of my correspondence. Losing you and Forster is like
+losing my arms and legs, and dull and lame I am without you. But at
+Broadstairs next year, please God, when it is all over, I shall be very
+glad to have laid up such a store of recollections and improvement.
+
+I don't know what to do with Timber. He is as ill-adapted to the climate
+at this time of year as a suit of fur. I have had him made a lion dog;
+but the fleas flock in such crowds into the hair he has left, that they
+drive him nearly frantic, and renders it absolutely necessary that he
+should be kept by himself. Of all the miserable hideous little frights
+you ever saw, you never beheld such a devil. Apropos, as we were
+crossing the Seine within two stages of Paris, Roche suddenly said to
+me, sitting by me on the box: "The littel dog 'ave got a great lip!" I
+was thinking of things remote and very different, and couldn't
+comprehend why any peculiarity in this feature on the part of the dog
+should excite a man so much. As I was musing upon it, my ears were
+attracted by shouts of "Helo! hola! Hi, hi, hi! Le voila! Regardez!" and
+the like. And looking down among the oxen--we were in the centre of a
+numerous drove--I saw him, Timber, lying in the road, curled up--you
+know his way--like a lobster, only not so stiff, yelping dismally in the
+pain of his "lip" from the roof of the carriage; and between the aching
+of his bones, his horror of the oxen, and his dread of me (who he
+evidently took to be the immediate agent in and cause of the damage),
+singing out to an extent which I believe to be perfectly unprecedented;
+while every Frenchman and French boy within sight roared for company. He
+wasn't hurt.
+
+Kate and Georgina send their best loves; and the children add "theirs."
+Katey, in particular, desires to be commended to "Mr. Teese." She has a
+sore throat; from sitting in constant draughts, I suppose; but with that
+exception, we are all quite well. Ever believe me, my dear Mac,
+
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. Edward Tagart.]
+
+                       ALBARO, NEAR GENOA, _Friday, August 9th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I find that if I wait to write you a long letter (which has been the
+cause of my procrastination in fulfilling my part of our agreement), I
+am likely to wait some time longer. And as I am very anxious to hear
+from you; not the less so, because if I hear of you through my brother,
+who usually sees you once a week in my absence; I take pen in hand and
+stop a messenger who is going to Genoa. For my main object being to
+qualify myself for the receipt of a letter from you, I don't see why a
+ten-line qualification is not as good as one of a hundred lines.
+
+You told me it was possible that you and Mrs. Tagart might wander into
+these latitudes in the autumn. I wish you would carry out that infant
+intention to the utmost. It would afford us the truest delight and
+pleasure to receive you. If you come in October, you will find us in the
+Palazzo Peschiere, in Genoa, which is surrounded by a delicious garden,
+and is a most charming habitation in all respects. If you come in
+September, you will find us less splendidly lodged, but on the margin of
+the sea, and in the midst of vineyards. The climate is delightful even
+now; the heat being not at all oppressive, except in the actual city,
+which is what the Americans would call considerable fiery, in the middle
+of the day. But the sea-breezes out here are refreshing and cool every
+day, and the bathing in the early morning is something more agreeable
+than you can easily imagine. The orange trees of the Peschiere shall
+give you their most fragrant salutations if you come to us at that
+time, and we have a dozen spare beds in that house that I know of; to
+say nothing of some vast chambers here and there with ancient iron
+chests in them, where Mrs. Tagart might enact Ginevra to perfection, and
+never be found out. To prevent which, I will engage to watch her
+closely, if she will only come and see us.
+
+The flies are incredibly numerous just now. The unsightly blot a little
+higher up was occasioned by a very fine one who fell into the inkstand,
+and came out, unexpectedly, on the nib of my pen. We are all quite well,
+thank Heaven, and had a very interesting journey here, of which, as well
+as of this place, I will not write a word, lest I should take the edge
+off those agreeable conversations with which we will beguile our walks.
+
+Pray tell me about the presentation of the plate, and whether ---- was
+very slow, or trotted at all, and if so, when. He is an excellent
+creature, and I respect him very much, so I don't mind smiling when I
+think of him as he appeared when addressing you and pointing to the
+plate, with his head a little on one side, and one of his eyes turned up
+languidly.
+
+Also let me know exactly how you are travelling, and when, and all about
+it; that I may meet you with open arms on the threshold of the city, if
+happily you bend your steps this way. You had better address me, "Poste
+Restante, Genoa," as the Albaro postman gets drunk, and when he has lost
+letters, and is sober, sheds tears--which is affecting, but hardly
+satisfactory.
+
+Kate and her sister send their best regards to yourself, and Mrs. and
+Miss Tagart, and all your family. I heartily join them in all kind
+remembrances and good wishes. As the messenger has just looked in at the
+door, and shedding on me a balmy gale of onions, has protested against
+being detained any longer, I will only say (which is not at all
+necessary) that I am ever,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--There is a little to see here, in the church way, I assure you.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                          ALBARO, _Saturday Night, August 24th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD,
+
+I love you so truly, and have such pride and joy of heart in your
+friendship, that I don't know how to begin writing to you. When I think
+how you are walking up and down London in that portly surtout, and can't
+receive proposals from Dick to go to the theatre, I fall into a state
+between laughing and crying, and want some friendly back to smite.
+"Je-im!" "Aye, aye, your honour," is in my ears every time I walk upon
+the sea-shore here; and the number of expeditions I make into Cornwall
+in my sleep, the springs of Flys I break, the songs I sing, and the
+bowls of punch I drink, would soften a heart of stone.
+
+We have had weather here, since five o'clock this morning, after your
+own heart. Suppose yourself the Admiral in "Black-eyed Susan" after the
+acquittal of William, and when it was possible to be on friendly terms
+with him. I am T. P.[4] My trousers are very full at the ankles, my
+black neckerchief is tied in the regular style, the name of my ship is
+painted round my glazed hat, I have a red waistcoat on, and the seams of
+my blue jacket are "paid"--permit me to dig you in the ribs when I make
+use of this nautical expression--with white. In my hand I hold the very
+box connected with the story of Sandomingerbilly. I lift up my eyebrows
+as far as I can (on the T. P. model), take a quid from the box, screw
+the lid on again (chewing at the same time, and looking pleasantly at
+the pit), brush it with my right elbow, take up my right leg, scrape my
+right foot on the ground, hitch up my trousers, and in reply to a
+question of yours, namely, "Indeed, what weather, William?" I deliver
+myself as follows:
+
+        Lord love your honour! Weather! Such weather as
+        would set all hands to the pumps aboard one of
+        your fresh-water cockboats, and set the purser
+        to his wits' ends to stow away, for the use of
+        the ship's company, the casks and casks full of
+        blue water as would come powering in over the
+        gunnel! The dirtiest night, your honour, as
+        ever you see 'atween Spithead at gun-fire and
+        the Bay of Biscay! The wind sou'-west, and your
+        house dead in the wind's eye; the breakers
+        running up high upon the rocky beads, the
+        light'us no more looking through the fog than
+        Davy Jones's sarser eye through the blue sky of
+        heaven in a calm, or the blue toplights of your
+        honour's lady cast down in a modest overhauling
+        of her catheads: avast! (_whistling_) my dear
+        eyes; here am I a-goin' head on to the breakers
+        (_bowing_).
+
+        _Admiral_ (_smiling_). No, William! I admire
+        plain speaking, as you know, and so does old
+        England, William, and old England's Queen. But
+        you were saying----
+
+        _William._ Aye, aye, your honour (_scratching
+        his head_). I've lost my reckoning. Damme!--I
+        ast pardon--but won't your honour throw a
+        hencoop or any old end of towline to a man as
+        is overboard?
+
+        _Admiral_ (_smiling still_). You were saying,
+        William, that the wind----
+
+        _William_ (_again cocking his leg, and slapping
+        the thighs very hard_). Avast heaving, your
+        honour! I see your honour's signal fluttering
+        in the breeze, without a glass. As I was
+        a-saying, your honour, the wind was blowin'
+        from the sou'-west, due sou'-west, your honour,
+        not a pint to larboard nor a pint to starboard;
+        the clouds a-gatherin' in the distance for all
+        the world like Beachy Head in a fog, the sea
+        a-rowling in, in heaps of foam, and making
+        higher than the mainyard arm, the craft
+        a-scuddin' by all taught and under storms'ils
+        for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin'
+        out aloft--aloft, your honour, in the little
+        cherubs' native country--and the spray is
+        flying like the white foam from the Jolly's
+        lips when Poll of Portsea took him for a
+        tailor! (_laughs._)
+
+        _Admiral_ (_laughing also_). You have described
+        it well, William, and I thank you. But who are
+        these?
+
+        _Enter Supers in calico jackets to look like
+        cloth, some in brown holland petticoat-trousers
+        and big boots, all with very large buckles.
+        Last Super rolls on a cask, and pretends to
+        keep it. Other Supers apply their mugs to the
+        bunghole and drink, previously holding them
+        upside down._
+
+        _William_ (_after shaking hands with
+        everybody_). Who are these, your honour!
+        Messmates as staunch and true as ever broke
+        biscuit. Ain't you, my lads?
+
+        _All._ Aye, aye, William. That we are! that we
+        are!
+
+        _Admiral_ (_much affected_). Oh, England, what
+        wonder that----! But I will no longer detain
+        you from your sports, my humble friends
+        (ADMIRAL _speaks very low, and looks hard at
+        the orchestra, this being the cue for the
+        dance_)--from your sports, my humble friends.
+        Farewell!
+
+        _All._ Hurrah! hurrah! [_Exit_ ADMIRAL.
+
+        _Voice behind._ Suppose the dance, Mr.
+        Stanfield. Are you all ready? Go then!
+
+My dear Stanfield, I wish you would come this way and see me in that
+Palazzo Peschiere! Was ever man so welcome as I would make you! What a
+truly gentlemanly action it would be to bring Mrs. Stanfield and the
+baby. And how Kate and her sister would wave pocket-handkerchiefs from
+the wharf in joyful welcome! Ah, what a glorious proceeding!
+
+Do you know this place? Of course you do. I won't bore you with anything
+about it, for I know Forster reads my letters to you; but what a place
+it is. The views from the hills here, and the immense variety of
+prospects of the sea, are as striking, I think, as such scenery can be.
+Above all, the approach to Genoa, by sea from Marseilles, constitutes a
+picture which you ought to paint, for nobody else can ever do it!
+William, you made that bridge at Avignon better than it is. Beautiful as
+it undoubtedly is, you made it fifty times better. And if I were
+Morrison, or one of that school (bless the dear fellows one and all!), I
+wouldn't stand it, but would insist on having another picture gratis, to
+atone for the imposition.
+
+The night is like a seaside night in England towards the end of
+September. They say it is the prelude to clear weather. But the wind is
+roaring now, and the sea is raving, and the rain is driving down, as if
+they had all set in for a real hearty picnic, and each had brought its
+own relations to the general festivity. I don't know whether you are
+acquainted with the coastguard and men in these parts? They are
+extremely civil fellows, of a very amiable manner and appearance, but
+the most innocent men in matters you would suppose them to be well
+acquainted with, in virtue of their office, that I ever encountered. One
+of them asked me only yesterday, if it would take a year to get to
+England in a ship? Which I thought for a coastguardman was rather a tidy
+question. It would take a long time to catch a ship going there if he
+were on board a pursuing cutter though. I think he would scarcely do it
+in twelve months, indeed.
+
+So you were at Astley's t'other night. "Now, Mr. Stickney, sir, what can
+I come for to go for to do for to bring for to fetch for to carry for
+you, sir?" "He, he, he! Oh, I say, sir!" "Well, sir?" "Miss Woolford
+knows me, sir. She laughed at me!" I see him run away after this; not on
+his feet, but on his knees and the calves of his legs alternately; and
+that smell of sawdusty horses, which was never in any other place in the
+world, salutes my nose with painful distinctness. What do you think of
+my suddenly finding myself a swimmer? But I have really made the
+discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below the town here,
+like a fish in high spirits. I hope to preserve my bathing-dress for
+your inspection and approval, or possibly to enrich your collection of
+Italian costumes on my return. Do you recollect Yarnold in "Masaniello"?
+I fear that I, unintentionally, "dress at him," before plunging into the
+sea. I enhanced the likeness very much, last Friday morning, by singing
+a barcarole on the rocks. I was a trifle too flesh-coloured (the stage
+knowing no medium between bright salmon and dirty yellow), but apart
+from that defect, not badly made up by any means. When you write to me,
+my dear Stanny, as I hope you will soon, address Poste Restante, Genoa.
+I remain out here until the end of September, and send in for my letters
+daily. There is a postman for this place, but he gets drunk and loses
+the letters; after which he calls to say so, and to fall upon his knees.
+About three weeks ago I caught him at a wine-shop near here, playing
+bowls in the garden. It was then about five o'clock in the afternoon,
+and he had been airing a newspaper addressed to me, since nine o'clock
+in the morning.
+
+Kate and Georgina unite with me in most cordial remembrances to Mrs. and
+Miss Stanfield, and to all the children. They particularise all sorts of
+messages, but I tell them that they had better write themselves if they
+want to send any. Though I don't know that this writing would end in the
+safe deliverance of the commodities after all; for when I began this
+letter, I meant to give utterance to all kinds of heartiness, my dear
+Stanfield; and I come to the end of it without having said anything more
+than that I am--which is new to you--under every circumstance and
+everywhere,
+
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                       PALAZZO PESCHIERE, GENOA, _October 14th, 1844._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+My whole heart is with you _at home_. I have not yet felt so far off as
+I do now, when I think of you there, and cannot fold you in my arms.
+This is only a shake of the hand. I couldn't _say_ much to you, if I
+were home to greet you. Nor can I write much, when I think of you, safe
+and sound and happy, after all your wanderings.
+
+My dear fellow, God bless you twenty thousand times. Happiness and joy
+be with you! I hope to see you soon. If I should be so unfortunate as to
+miss you in London, I will fall upon you, with a swoop of love, in
+Paris. Kate says all kind things in the language; and means more than
+are in the dictionary capacity of all the descendants of all the
+stonemasons that worked at Babel. Again and again and again, my own true
+friend, God bless you!
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                        CREMONA, _Saturday Night, October 16th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+As half a loaf is better than no bread, so I hope that half a sheet of
+paper may be better than none at all, coming from one who is anxious to
+live in your memory and friendship. I should have redeemed the pledge I
+gave you in this regard long since, but occupation at one time, and
+absence from pen and ink at another, have prevented me.
+
+Forster has told you, or will tell you, that I very much wish you to
+hear my little Christmas book; and I hope you will meet me, at his
+bidding, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I have tried to strike a blow upon
+that part of the brass countenance of wicked Cant, when such a
+compliment is sorely needed at this time, and I trust that the result of
+my training is at least the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a
+staggerer. If _you_ should think at the end of the four rounds (there
+are no more) that the said Cant, in the language of _Bell's Life_,
+"comes up piping," I shall be very much the better for it.
+
+I am now on my way to Milan; and from thence (after a day or two's rest)
+I mean to come to England by the grandest Alpine pass that the snow may
+leave open. You know this place as famous of yore for fiddles. I don't
+see any here now. But there is a whole street of coppersmiths not far
+from this inn; and they throb so d----ably and fitfully, that I thought
+I had a palpitation of the heart after dinner just now, and seldom was
+more relieved than when I found the noise to be none of mine.
+
+I was rather shocked yesterday (I am not strong in geographical details)
+to find that Romeo was only banished twenty-five miles. That is the
+distance between Mantua and Verona. The latter is a quaint old place,
+with great houses in it that are now solitary and shut up--exactly the
+place it ought to be. The former has a great many apothecaries in it at
+this moment, who could play that part to the life. For of all the
+stagnant ponds I ever beheld, it is the greenest and weediest. I went to
+see the old palace of the Capulets, which is still distinguished by
+their cognizance (a hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). It is a
+miserable inn. The court was full of crazy coaches, carts, geese, and
+pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and dung. The garden is walled off and
+built out. There was nothing to connect it with its old inhabitants, and
+a very unsentimental lady at the kitchen door. The Montagues used to
+live some two or three miles off in the country. It does not appear
+quite clear whether they ever inhabited Verona itself. But there is a
+village bearing their name to this day, and traditions of the quarrels
+between the two families are still as nearly alive as anything can be,
+in such a drowsy neighbourhood.
+
+It was very hearty and good of you, Jerrold, to make that affectionate
+mention of the "Carol" in _Punch_, and I assure you it was not lost on
+the distant object of your manly regard, but touched him as you wished
+and meant it should. I wish we had not lost so much time in improving
+our personal knowledge of each other. But I have so steadily read you,
+and so selfishly gratified myself in always expressing the admiration
+with which your gallant truths inspired me, that I must not call it time
+lost, either.
+
+You rather entertained a notion, once, of coming to see me at Genoa. I
+shall return straight, on the 9th of December, limiting my stay in town
+to one week. Now couldn't you come back with me? The journey, that way,
+is very cheap, costing little more than twelve pounds; and I am sure the
+gratification to you would be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful
+place, and would put you in a painted room, as big as a church and much
+more comfortable. There are pens and ink upon the premises; orange
+trees, gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires for
+evenings, and a welcome worth having.
+
+Come! Letter from a gentleman in Italy to Bradbury and Evans in London.
+Letter from a gentleman in a country gone to sleep to a gentleman in a
+country that would go to sleep too, and never wake again, if some people
+had their way. You can work in Genoa. The house is used to it. It is
+exactly a week's post. Have that portmanteau looked to, and when we
+meet, say, "I am coming."
+
+I have never in my life been so struck by any place as by Venice. It is
+_the_ wonder of the world. Dreamy, beautiful, inconsistent, impossible,
+wicked, shadowy, d----able old place. I entered it by night, and the
+sensation of that night and the bright morning that followed is a part
+of me for the rest of my existence. And, oh God! the cells below the
+water, underneath the Bridge of Sighs; the nook where the monk came at
+midnight to confess the political offender; the bench where he was
+strangled; the deadly little vault in which they tied him in a sack, and
+the stealthy crouching little door through which they hurried him into a
+boat, and bore him away to sink him where no fisherman dare cast his
+net--all shown by torches that blink and wink, as if they were ashamed
+to look upon the gloomy theatre of sad horrors; past and gone as they
+are, these things stir a man's blood, like a great wrong or passion of
+the instant. And with these in their minds, and with a museum there,
+having a chamber full of such frightful instruments of torture as the
+devil in a brain fever could scarcely invent, there are hundreds of
+parrots, who will declaim to you in speech and print, by the hour
+together, on the degeneracy of the times in which a railroad is building
+across the water at Venice; instead of going down on their knees, the
+drivellers, and thanking Heaven that they live in a time when iron makes
+roads, instead of prison bars and engines for driving screws into the
+skulls of innocent men. Before God, I could almost turn bloody-minded,
+and shoot the parrots of our island with as little compunction as
+Robinson Crusoe shot the parrots in his.
+
+I have not been in bed, these ten days, after five in the morning, and
+have been, travelling many hours every day. If this be the cause of my
+inflicting a very stupid and sleepy letter on you, my dear Jerrold, I
+hope it will be a kind of signal at the same time, of my wish to hail
+you lovingly even from this sleepy and unpromising state. And believe me
+as I am,
+
+                                       Always your Friend and Admirer.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                          PESCHIERE, GENOA, _Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+The cause of my not having written to you is too obvious to need any
+explanation. I have worn myself to death in the month I have been at
+work. None of my usual reliefs have been at hand; I have not been able
+to divest myself of the story--have suffered very much in my sleep in
+consequence--and am so shaken by such work in this trying climate, that
+I am as nervous as a man who is dying of drink, and as haggard as a
+murderer.
+
+I believe I have written a tremendous book, and knocked the "Carol" out
+of the field. It will make a great uproar, I have no doubt.
+
+I leave here to-morrow for Venice and many other places; and I shall
+certainly come to London to see my proofs, coming by new ground all the
+way, cutting through the snow in the valleys of Switzerland, and
+plunging through the mountains in the dead of winter. I would accept
+your hearty offer with right goodwill, but my visit being one of
+business and consultation, I see impediments in the way, and
+insurmountable reasons for not doing so. Therefore, I shall go to an
+hotel in Covent Garden, where they know me very well, and with the
+landlord of which I have already communicated. My orders are not upon a
+mighty scale, extending no further than a good bedroom and a cold
+shower-bath.
+
+Bradbury and Evans are going at it, ding-dong, and are wild with
+excitement. All news on that subject (and on every other) I must defer
+till I see you. That will be immediately after I arrive, of course. Most
+likely on Monday, 2nd December.
+
+Kate and her sister (who send their best regards) and all the children
+are as well as possible. The house is _perfect_; the servants are as
+quiet and well-behaved as at home, which very rarely happens here, and
+Roche is my right hand. There never was such a fellow.
+
+We have now got carpets down--burn fires at night--draw the curtains,
+and are quite wintry. We have a box at the opera, which, is close by
+(for nothing), and sit there when we please, as in our own drawing-room.
+There have been three fine days in four weeks. On every other the water
+has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it has been thundering
+and lightening every day and night.
+
+My hand shakes in that feverish and horrible manner that I can hardly
+hold a pen. And I have so bad a cold that I can't see.
+
+                                  In haste to save the post,
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Charley has a writing-master every day, and a French master. He
+and his sisters are to be waited on by a professor of the noble art of
+dancing, next week.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                 PARMA, ALBERGO DELLA POSTA, _Friday, Nov. 8th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+"If missis could see us to-night, what would she say?" That was the
+brave C.'s remark last night at midnight, and he had reason. We left
+Genoa, as you know, soon after five on the evening of my departure; and
+in company with the lady whom you saw, and the dog whom I don't think
+you did see, travelled all night at the rate of four miles an hour over
+bad roads, without the least refreshment until daybreak, when the brave
+and myself escaped into a miserable caffe while they were changing
+horses, and got a cup of that drink hot. That same day, a few hours
+afterwards, between ten and eleven, we came to (I hope) the d----dest
+inn in the world, where, in a vast chamber, rendered still more desolate
+by the presence of a most offensive specimen of what D'Israeli calls the
+Mosaic Arab (who had a beautiful girl with him), I regaled upon a
+breakfast, almost as cold, and damp, and cheerless, as myself. Then, in
+another coach, much smaller than a small Fly, I was packed up with an
+old padre, a young Jesuit, a provincial avvocato, a private gentleman
+with a very red nose and a very wet brown umbrella, and the brave C. and
+I went on again at the same pace through the mud and rain until four in
+the afternoon, when there was a place in the coupe (two indeed), which I
+took, holding that select compartment in company with a very ugly but
+very agreeable Tuscan "gent," who said "_gia_" instead of "_si_," and
+rung some other changes in this changing language, but with whom I got
+on very well, being extremely conversational. We were bound, as you know
+perhaps, for Piacenza, but it was discovered that we couldn't get to
+Piacenza, and about ten o'clock at night we halted at a place called
+Stradella, where the inn was a series of queer galleries open to the
+night, with a great courtyard full of waggons and horses, and
+"_velociferi_," and what not in the centre. It was bitter cold and very
+wet, and we all walked into a bare room (mine!) with two immensely broad
+beds on two deal dining-tables, a third great empty table, the usual
+washing-stand tripod, with a slop-basin on it, and two chairs. And then
+we walked up and down for three-quarters of an hour or so, while dinner,
+or supper, or whatever it was, was getting ready. This was set forth (by
+way of variety) in the old priest's bedroom, which had two more
+immensely broad beds on two more deal dining-tables in it. The first
+dish was a cabbage boiled in a great quantity of rice and hot water, the
+whole flavoured with cheese. I was so cold that I thought it
+comfortable, and so hungry that a bit of cabbage, when I found such a
+thing floating my way, charmed me. After that we had a dish of very
+little pieces of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys; after that a fowl;
+after that something very red and stringy, which I think was veal; and
+after that two tiny little new-born-baby-looking turkeys, very red and
+very swollen. Fruit, of course, to wind up, and garlic in one shape or
+another in every course. I made three jokes at supper (to the immense
+delight of the company), and retired early. The brave brought in a bush
+or two and made a fire, and after that a glass of screeching hot brandy
+and water; that bottle of his being full of brandy. I drank it at my
+leisure, undressed before the fire, and went into one of the beds. The
+brave reappeared about an hour afterwards and went into the other;
+previously tying a pocket-handkerchief round and round his head in a
+strange fashion, and giving utterance to the sentiment with which this
+letter begins. At five this morning we resumed our journey, still
+through mud and rain, and at about eleven arrived at Piacenza; where we
+fellow-passengers took leave of one another in the most affectionate
+manner. As there was no coach on till six at night, and as it was a very
+grim, despondent sort of place, and as I had had enough of diligences
+for one while, I posted forward here in the strangest carriages ever
+beheld, which we changed when we changed horses. We arrived here before
+six. The hotel is quite French. I have dined very well in my own room on
+the second floor; and it has two beds in it, screened off from the room
+by drapery. I only use one to-night, and that is already made.
+
+I purpose posting on to Bologna, if I can arrange it, at twelve
+to-morrow; seeing the sights here first.
+
+It is dull work this travelling alone. My only comfort is in motion. I
+look forward with a sort of shudder to Sunday, when I shall have a day
+to myself in Bologna; and I think I must deliver my letters in Venice in
+sheer desperation. Never did anybody want a companion after dinner so
+much as I do.
+
+There has been music on the landing outside my door to-night. Two
+violins and a violoncello. One of the violins played a solo, and the
+others struck in as an orchestra does now and then, very well. Then he
+came in with a small tin platter. "Bella musica," said I. "Bellissima
+musica, signore. Mi piace moltissimo. Sono felice, signoro," said he. I
+gave him a franc. "O moltissimo generoso. Tanto generoso signore!"
+
+It was a joke to laugh at when I was learning, but I swear unless I
+could stagger on, Zoppa-wise, with the people, I verily believe I should
+have turned back this morning.
+
+In all other respects I think the entire change has done me undoubted
+service already. I am free of the book, and am red-faced; and feel
+marvellously disposed to sleep.
+
+So for all the straggling qualities of this straggling letter, want of
+sleep must be responsible. Give my best love to Georgy, and my paternal
+blessing to
+
+        Mamey,
+        Katey,
+        Charley,
+        Wally,
+        and
+        Chickenstalker.
+
+P.S.--Get things in their places. I can't bear to picture them
+otherwise.
+
+P.P.S.--I think I saw Roche sleeping with his head on the lady's
+shoulder, in the coach. I couldn't swear it, and the light was
+deceptive. But I think I did.
+
+        Alia sign^{a}
+               Sign^{a} Dickens.
+        Palazzo Peschiere, Genova.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                      FRIBOURG, _Saturday Night, November 23rd, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+For the first time since I left you I am sitting in a room of my own
+hiring, with a fire and a bed in it. And I am happy to say that I have
+the best and fullest intentions of sleeping in the bed, having arrived
+here at half-past four this afternoon, without any cessation of
+travelling, night or day, since I parted from Mr. Bairr's cheap
+firewood.
+
+The Alps appeared in sight very soon after we left Milan--by eight or
+nine o'clock in the morning; and the brave C. was so far wrong in his
+calculations that we began the ascent of the Simplon that same night,
+while you were travelling (as I would I were) towards the Peschiere.
+Most favourable state of circumstances for journeying up that tremendous
+pass! The brightest moon I ever saw, all night, and daybreak on the
+summit. The glory of which, making great wastes of snow a rosy red,
+exceeds all telling. We _sledged_ through the snow on the summit for two
+hours or so. The weather was perfectly fair and bright, and there was
+neither difficulty nor danger--except the danger that there always must
+be, in such a place, of a horse stumbling on the brink of an
+immeasurable precipice. In which case no piece of the unfortunate
+traveller would be left large enough to tell his story in dumb show. You
+may imagine something of the rugged grandeur of such a scene as this
+great passage of these great mountains, and indeed Glencoe, well
+sprinkled with snow, would be very like the ascent. But the top itself,
+so wild, and bleak, and lonely, is a thing by itself, and not to be
+likened to any other sight. The cold was piercing; the north wind high
+and boisterous; and when it came driving in our faces, bringing a sharp
+shower of little points of snow and piercing it into our very blood, it
+really was, what it is often said to be, "cutting"--with a very sharp
+edge too. There are houses of refuge here--bleak, solitary places--for
+travellers overtaken by the snow to hurry to, as an escape from death;
+and one great house, called the Hospital, kept by monks, where wayfarers
+get supper and bed for nothing. We saw some coming out and pursuing
+their journey. If all monks devoted themselves to such uses, I should
+have little fault to find with them.
+
+The cold in Switzerland, since, has been something quite indescribable.
+My eyes are tingling to-night as one may suppose cymbals to tingle when
+they have been lustily played. It is positive pain to me to write. The
+great organ which I was to have had "pleasure in hearing" don't play on
+a Sunday, at which the brave is inconsolable. But the town is
+picturesque and quaint, and worth seeing. And this inn (with a German
+bedstead in it about the size and shape of a baby's linen-basket) is
+perfectly clean and comfortable. Butter is so cheap hereabouts that they
+bring you a great mass like the squab of a sofa for tea. And of honey,
+which is most delicious, they set before you a proportionate allowance.
+We start to-morrow morning at six for Strasburg, and from that town, or
+the next halting-place on the Rhine, I will report progress, if it be
+only in half-a-dozen words.
+
+I am anxious to hear that you reached Genoa quite comfortably, and shall
+look forward with impatience to that letter which you are to indite with
+so much care and pains next Monday. My best love to Georgy, and to
+Charley, and Mamey, and Katey, and Wally, and Chickenstalker. I have
+treated myself to a new travelling-cap to-night (my old one being too
+thin), and it is rather a prodigious affair I flatter myself.
+
+Swiss towns, and mountains, and the Lake of Geneva, and the famous
+suspension bridge at this place, and a great many other objects (with a
+very low thermometer conspicuous among them), are dancing up and down
+me, strangely. But I am quite collected enough, notwithstanding, to have
+still a very distinct idea that this hornpipe travelling is
+uncomfortable, and that I would gladly start for my palazzo out of hand
+without any previous rest, stupid as I am and much as I want it.
+
+                                   Ever, my dear love,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I hope the dancing lessons will be a success. Don't fail to let me
+know.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+           HOTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night,
+                                      Nov. 28th, 1844, Half-past Ten._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Since I wrote to you what would be called in law proceedings the exhibit
+marked A, I have been round to the Hotel Brighton, and personally
+examined and cross-examined the attendants. It is painfully clear to me
+that I shall not see you to-night, nor until Tuesday, the 10th of
+December, when, please God, I shall re-arrive here, on my way to my
+Italian bowers. I mean to stay all the Wednesday and all the Thursday in
+Paris. One night to see you act (my old delight when you little thought
+of such a being in existence), and one night to read to you and Mrs.
+Macready (if that scamp of Lincoln's Inn Fields has not anticipated me)
+my little Christmas book, in which I have endeavoured to plant an
+indignant right-hander on the eye of certain wicked Cant that makes my
+blood boil, which I hope will not only cloud that eye with black and
+blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort. God forgive
+me, but I think there are good things in the little story!
+
+I took it for granted you were, as your American friends say, "in full
+blast" here, and meant to have sent a card into your dressing-room, with
+"Mr. G. S. Hancock Muggridge, United States," upon it. But Paris looks
+coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being able to shake
+your hand I shake my own head dolefully, which is but poor satisfaction.
+
+My love to Mrs. Macready. I will swear to the death that it is truly
+hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for nothing else, and to you,
+my dear Macready, I am ever a devoted friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+              HOTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night, Nov. 28th, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+With an intolerable pen and no ink, I am going to write a few lines to
+you to report progress.
+
+I got to Strasburg on Monday night, intending to go down the Rhine. But
+the weather being foggy, and the season quite over, they could not
+insure me getting on for certain beyond Mayence, or our not being
+detained by unpropitious weather. Therefore I resolved (the malle poste
+being full) to take the diligence hither next day in the afternoon. I
+arrived here at half-past five to-night, after fifty hours of it in a
+French coach. I was so beastly dirty when I got to this house, that I
+had quite lost all sense of my identity, and if anybody had said, "Are
+you Charles Dickens?" I should have unblushingly answered, "No; I never
+heard of him." A good wash, and a good dress, and a good dinner have
+revived me, however; and I can report of this house, concerning which
+the brave was so anxious when we were here before, that it is the best I
+ever was in. My little apartment, consisting of three rooms and other
+conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness. You never saw such
+a charming little baby-house. It is infinitely smaller than those first
+rooms we had at Meurice's, but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and
+quietude, exceeds anything I ever met with at an inn.
+
+The moment I arrived here, I enquired, of course, after Macready. They
+said the English theatre had not begun yet, that they thought he was at
+Meurice's, where they knew some members of the company to be. I
+instantly despatched the porter with a note to say that if he were
+there, I would come round and hug him, as soon as I was clean. They
+referred the porter to the Hotel Brighton. He came back and told me that
+the answer there was: "M. Macready's rooms were engaged, but he had not
+arrived. He was expected to-night!" If we meet to-night, I will add a
+postscript. Wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road between this and
+Boulogne to-morrow?
+
+I mean, as a recompense for my late sufferings, to get a
+hackney-carriage if I can and post that journey, starting from here at
+eight to-morrow morning, getting to Boulogne sufficiently early next
+morning to cross at once, and dining with Forster that same day--to wit,
+Saturday. I have notions of taking you with me on my next journey (if
+you would like to go), and arranging for Georgy to come to us by
+steamer--under the protection of the English captain, for instance--to
+Naples; there I would top and cap all our walks by taking her up to the
+crater of Vesuvius with me. But this is dependent on her ability to be
+perfectly happy for a fortnight or so in our stately palace with the
+children, and such foreign aid as the Simpsons. For I love her too
+dearly to think of any project which would involve her being
+uncomfortable for that space of time.
+
+You can think this over, and talk it over; and I will join you in doing
+so, please God, when I return to our Italian bowers, which I shall be
+heartily glad to do.
+
+They tell us that the landlord of this house, going to London some week
+or so ago, was detained at Boulogne two days by a high sea, in which the
+packet could not put out. So I hope there is the greater chance of no
+such bedevilment happening to me.
+
+Paris is better than ever. Oh dear, how grand it was when I came through
+it in that caravan to-night! I hope we shall be very hearty here, and
+able to say with Wally, "Han't it plassant!"
+
+Love to Charley, Mamey, Katey, Wally, and Chickenstalker. The
+last-named, I take it for granted, is indeed prodigious.
+
+Best love to Georgy.
+
+                                Ever, my dearest Kate,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I have been round to Macready's hotel; it is now past ten, and he
+has not arrived, nor does it seem at all certain that he seriously
+intended to arrive to-night. So I shall not see him, I take it for
+granted, until my return.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                  PIAZZA COFFEE HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN,
+                                             _Monday, Dec. 2nd, 1844._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I received, with great delight, your _excellent_ letter of this morning.
+Do not regard this as my answer to it. It is merely to say that I have
+been at Bradbury and Evans's all day, and have barely time to write more
+than that I _will_ write to-morrow. I arrived about seven on Saturday
+evening, and rushed into the arms of Mac and Forster. Both of them send
+their best love to you and Georgy, with a heartiness not to be
+described.
+
+The little book is now, as far as I am concerned, all ready. One cut of
+Doyle's and one of Leech's I found so unlike my ideas, that I had them
+both to breakfast with me this morning, and with that winning manner
+which you know of, got them with the highest good humour to do both
+afresh. They are now hard at it. Stanfield's readiness, delight, wonder
+at my being pleased with what he has done is delicious. Mac's
+frontispiece is charming. The book is quite splendid; the expenses will
+be very great, I have no doubt.
+
+Anybody who has heard it has been moved in the most extraordinary
+manner. Forster read it (for dramatic purposes) to A'Beckett. He cried
+so much and so painfully, that Forster didn't know whether to go on or
+stop; and he called next day to say that any expression of his feeling
+was beyond his power. But that he believed it, and felt it to be--I
+won't say what.
+
+As the reading comes off to-morrow night, I had better not despatch my
+letters to you until _Wednesday's_ post. I must close to save this
+(heartily tired I am, and I dine at Gore House to-day), so with love to
+Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Wally, and Chickenstalker, ever, believe
+me,
+
+                                           Yours, with true affection.
+
+P.S.--If you had seen Macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and
+crying on the sofa as I read, you would have felt, as I did, what a
+thing it is to have power.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] T. P. Cooke, the celebrated actor of "William" in Douglas Jerrold's
+play of "Black-eyed Susan."
+
+
+
+
+1845.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was still living at the
+Palazzo Peschiere, Genoa, with his family. In February, he went with his
+wife to Rome for the Carnival, leaving his sister-in-law and children at
+Genoa; Miss Hogarth joining them later on at Naples. They all returned
+to Rome for the Holy Week, and then went to Florence, and so back to
+Genoa. He continued his residence at Genoa until June of this year, when
+he returned to England by Switzerland and Belgium, the party being met
+at Brussels by Mr. Forster, Mr. Maclise, and Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and
+arriving at home at the end of June. The autumn months, until the 1st
+October, were again spent at Broadstairs. And in this September was the
+first amateur play at Miss Kelly's theatre in Dean Street, under the
+management of Charles Dickens, with Messrs. Jerrold, Mark Lemon, John
+Leech, Gilbert A'Beckett, Leigh, Frank Stone, Forster, and others as his
+fellow-actors. The play selected was Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his
+Humour," in which Charles Dickens acted Captain Bobadil. The first
+performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors
+and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repetition of the
+same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public
+and charitable objects. "Every Man in his Humour" was shortly after
+repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed
+help; and later in the year Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Elder
+Brother" was given by the same company, at the same place, for the
+benefit of Miss Kelly. There was a farce played after the comedy on each
+occasion--not always the same one--in which Charles Dickens and Mark
+Lemon were the principal actors.
+
+The letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few
+exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation.
+
+He was at work at the end of this year on another Christmas book, "The
+Cricket on the Hearth," and was also much occupied with the project of
+_The Daily News_ paper, of which he undertook the editorship at its
+starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, 1846.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  ROME, _Tuesday, February 4th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+This is a very short note, but time is still shorter. Come by the first
+boat by all means. If there be a good one a day or two before it, come
+by that. Don't delay on any account. I am very sorry you are not here.
+The Carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. I have been
+regretting the having left you at home all the way here.
+
+Kate says, will you take counsel with Charlotte about colour (I put in
+my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made
+at once, by the same artist as before? Kate would have written, but is
+gone with Black to a day performance at the opera, to see Cerito dance.
+At two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large
+sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt
+people with. I should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the
+latter. We had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I
+wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a
+handful of very large confetti every time we met him. It was the best
+thing I have ever done. "The Chimes" are nothing to it.
+
+Anxiously expecting you, I am ever,
+
+                                   Dear Georgy,
+                                            Yours most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                                NAPLES, _Monday, February 17th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+This will be a hasty letter, for I am as badly off in this place as in
+America--beset by visitors at all times and seasons, and forced to dine
+out every day. I have found, however, an excellent man for me--an
+Englishman, who has lived here many years, and is well acquainted with
+_the people_, whom he doctored in the bad time of the cholera, when the
+priests and everybody else fled in terror.
+
+Under his auspices, I have got to understand the low life of Naples
+(among the fishermen and idlers) almost as well as I understand the do.
+do. of my own country; always excepting the language, which is very
+peculiar and extremely difficult, and would require a year's constant
+practice at least. It is no more like Italian than English is to Welsh.
+And as they don't say half of what they mean, but make a wink or a kick
+stand for a whole sentence, it's a marvel to me how they comprehend each
+other. At Rome they speak beautiful Italian (I am pretty strong at that,
+I believe); but they are worse here than in Genoa, which I had
+previously thought impossible.
+
+It is a fine place, but nothing like so beautiful as people make it out
+to be. The famous bay is, to my thinking, as a piece of scenery,
+immeasurably inferior to the Bay of Genoa, which is the most lovely
+thing I have ever seen. The city, in like manner, will bear no
+comparison with Genoa. But there is none in Italy that will, except
+Venice. As to houses, there is no palace like the Peschiere for
+architecture, situation, gardens, or rooms. It is a great triumph to me,
+too, to find how cheap it is. At Rome, the English people live in dirty
+little fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, with not one room as large as
+your own drawing-room, and pay, commonly, seven or eight pounds a week.
+
+I was a week in Rome on my way here, and saw the Carnival, which is
+perfectly delirious, and a great scene for a description. All the
+ancient part of Rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme. Far
+beyond the possibility of exaggeration as to the modern part, it might
+be anywhere or anything--Paris, Nice, Boulogne, Calais, or one of a
+thousand other places.
+
+The weather is so atrocious (rain, snow, wind, darkness, hail, and cold)
+that I can't get over into Sicily. But I don't care very much about it,
+as I have planned out ten days of excursion into the neighbouring
+country. One thing of course--the ascent of Vesuvius, Herculaneum and
+Pompeii, the two cities which were covered by its melted ashes, and dug
+out in the first instance accidentally, are more full of interest and
+wonder than it is possible to imagine. I have heard of some ancient
+tombs (quite unknown to travellers) dug in the bowels of the earth, and
+extending for some miles underground. They are near a place called
+Viterbo, on the way from Rome to Florence. I shall lay in a small stock
+of torches, etc., and explore them when I leave Rome. I return there on
+the 1st of March, and shall stay there nearly a month.
+
+Saturday, February 22nd.--Since I left off as above, I have been away on
+an excursion of three days. Yesterday evening, at four o'clock, we began
+(a small party of six) the ascent of Mount Vesuvius, with six
+saddle-horses, an armed soldier for a guard, and twenty-two guides. The
+latter rendered necessary by the severity of the weather, which is
+greater than has been known for twenty years, and has covered the
+precipitous part of the mountain with deep snow, the surface of which is
+glazed with one smooth sheet of ice from the top of the cone to the
+bottom. By starting at that hour I intended to get the sunset about
+halfway up, and night at the top, where the fire is raging. It was an
+inexpressibly lovely night without a cloud; and when the day was quite
+gone, the moon (within a few hours of the full) came proudly up, showing
+the sea, and the Bay of Naples, and the whole country, in such majesty
+as no words can express. We rode to the beginning of the snow and then
+dismounted. Catherine and Georgina were put into two litters, just
+chairs with poles, like those in use in England on the 5th of November;
+and a fat Englishman, who was of the party, was hoisted into a third,
+borne by eight men. I was accommodated with a tough stick, and we began
+to plough our way up. The ascent was as steep as this line /--very
+nearly perpendicular. We were all tumbling at every stop; and looking up
+and seeing the people in advance tumbling over one's very head, and
+looking down and seeing hundreds of feet of smooth ice below, was, I
+must confess, anything but agreeable. However, I knew there was little
+chance of another clear night before I leave this, and gave the word to
+get up, somehow or other. So on we went, winding a little now and then,
+or we should not have got on at all. By prodigious exertions we passed
+the region of snow, and came into that of fire--desolate and awful, you
+may well suppose. It was like working one's way through a dry waterfall,
+with every mass of stone burnt and charred into enormous cinders, and
+smoke and sulphur bursting out of every chink and crevice, so that it
+was difficult to breathe. High before us, bursting out of a hill at the
+top of the mountain, shaped like this [HW: A], the fire was pouring out,
+reddening the night with flames, blackening it with smoke, and spotting
+it with red-hot stones and cinders that fell down again in showers. At
+every step everybody fell, now into a hot chink, now into a bed of
+ashes, now over a mass of cindered iron; and the confusion in the
+darkness (for the smoke obscured the moon in this part), and the
+quarrelling and shouting and roaring of the guides, and the waiting
+every now and then for somebody who was not to be found, and was
+supposed to have stumbled into some pit or other, made such a scene of
+it as I can give you no idea of. My ladies were now on foot, of course;
+but we dragged them on as well as we could (they were thorough game, and
+didn't make the least complaint), until we got to the foot of that
+topmost hill I have drawn so beautifully. Here we all stopped; but the
+head guide, an English gentleman of the name of Le Gros--who has been
+here many years, and has been up the mountain a hundred times--and your
+humble servant, resolved (like jackasses) to climb that hill to the
+brink, and look down into the crater itself. You may form some notion of
+what is going on inside it, when I tell you that it is a hundred feet
+higher than it was six weeks ago. The sensation of struggling up it,
+choked with the fire and smoke, and feeling at every step as if the
+crust of ground between one's feet and the gulf of fire would crumble in
+and swallow one up (which is the real danger), I shall remember for some
+little time, I think. But we did it. We looked down into the flaming
+bowels of the mountain and came back again, alight in half-a-dozen
+places, and burnt from head to foot. You never saw such devils. And _I_
+never saw anything so awful and terrible.
+
+Roche had been tearing his hair like a madman, and crying that we should
+all three be killed, which made the rest of the company very
+comfortable, as you may suppose. But we had some wine in a basket, and
+all swallowed a little of that and a great deal of sulphur before we
+began to descend. The usual way, after the fiery part is past--you will
+understand that to be all the flat top of the mountain, in the centre
+of which, again, rises the little hill I have drawn--is to slide down
+the ashes, which, slipping from under you, make a gradually increasing
+ledge under your feet, and prevent your going too fast. But when we came
+to this steep place last night, we found nothing there but one smooth
+solid sheet of ice. The only way to get down was for the guides to make
+a chain, holding by each other's hands, and beat a narrow track in it
+into the snow below with their sticks. My two unfortunate ladies were
+taken out of their litters again, with half-a-dozen men hanging on to
+each, to prevent their falling forward; and we began to descend this
+way. It was like a tremendous dream. It was impossible to stand, and the
+only way to prevent oneself from going sheer down the precipice, every
+time one fell, was to drive one's stick into one of the holes the guides
+had made, and hold on by that. Nobody could pick one up, or stop one, or
+render one the least assistance. Now, conceive my horror, when this Mr.
+Le Gros I have mentioned, being on one side of Georgina and I on the
+other, suddenly staggers away from the narrow path on to the smooth ice,
+gives us a jerk, lets go, and plunges headforemost down the smooth ice
+into the black night, five hundred feet below! Almost at the same
+instant, a man far behind, carrying a light basket on his head with some
+of our spare cloaks in it, misses his footing and rolls down in another
+place; and after him, rolling over and over like a black bundle, goes a
+boy, shrieking as nobody but an Italian can shriek, until the breath is
+tumbled out of him.
+
+The Englishman is in bed to-day, terribly bruised but without any broken
+bones. He was insensible at first and a mere heap of rags; but we got
+him before the fire, in a little hermitage there is halfway down, and he
+so far recovered as to be able to take some supper, which was waiting
+for us there. The boy was brought in with his head tied up in a bloody
+cloth, about half an hour after the rest of us were assembled. And the
+man who had had the basket was not found when we left the mountain at
+midnight. What became of the cloaks (mine was among them) I know as
+little. My ladies' clothes were so torn off their backs that they would
+not have been decent, if there could have been any thought of such
+things at such a time. And when we got down to the guides' house, we
+found a French surgeon (one of another party who had been up before us)
+lying on a bed in a stable, with God knows what horrible breakage about
+him, but suffering acutely and looking like death. A pretty unusual trip
+for a pleasure expedition, I think!
+
+I am rather stiff to-day but am quite unhurt, except a slight scrape on
+my right hand. My clothes are burnt to pieces. My ladies are the wonder
+of Naples, and everybody is open-mouthed.
+
+Address me as usual. All letters are forwarded. The children well and
+happy. Best regards.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                 ALBION HOTEL, BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, Aug. 17th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I have been obliged to communicate with the _Punch_ men in reference to
+Saturday, the 20th, as that day of the week is usually their business
+dinner day, and I was not quite sure that it could be conveniently
+altered.
+
+Jerrold now assures me that it can for such a purpose, and that it
+shall, and therefore consider the play as being arranged to come off on
+Saturday, the 20th of next month.
+
+I don't know whether I told you that we have changed the farce; and now
+we are to act "Two o'clock in the Morning," as performed by the
+inimitable B. at Montreal.
+
+In reference to Bruce Castle school, I think the question set at rest
+most probably by the fact of there being no vacancy (it is always full)
+until Christmas, when Howitt's two boys and Jerrold's one go in and fill
+it up again. But after going carefully through the school, a question
+would arise in my mind whether the system--a perfectly admirable one;
+the only recognition of education as a broad system of moral and
+intellectual philosophy, that I have ever seen in practice--do not
+require so much preparation and progress in the mind of the boy, as that
+he shall have come there younger and less advanced than Willy; or at all
+events without that very different sort of school experience which he
+must have acquired at Brighton. I have no warrant for this doubt, beyond
+a vague uneasiness suggesting a suspicion of its great probability. On
+such slight ground I would not hint it to anyone but you, who I know
+will give it its due weight, and no more and no less.
+
+I have the paper setting forth the nature of the higher classical
+studies, and the books they read. It is the usual course, and includes
+the great books in Greek and Latin. They have a miscellaneous library,
+under the management of the boys themselves, of some five or six
+thousand volumes, and every means of study and recreation, and every
+inducement to self-reliance and self-exertion that can easily be
+imagined. As there is no room just now, you can turn it over in your
+mind again. And if you would like to see the place yourself, when you
+return to town, I shall be delighted to go there with you. I come home
+on Wednesday. It is our rehearsal night; and of course the active and
+enterprising stage-manager must be at his post.
+
+                               Ever, my dear Macready,
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
+
+                                                  _August 27th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+I write a line to tell you a project we have in view. A little party of
+us have taken Miss Kelly's theatre for the night of the 20th of next
+month, and we are going to act a play there, with correct and pretty
+costume, good orchestra, etc. etc. The affair is strictly private. The
+admission will be by cards of invitation; every man will have from
+thirty to thirty-five. Nobody can ask any person without the knowledge
+and sanction of the rest, my objection being final; and the expense to
+each (exclusive of the dress, which every man finds for himself) will
+not exceed two guineas. Forster plays, and Stone plays, and I play, and
+some of the _Punch_ people play. Stanfield, having the scenery and
+carpenters to attend to, cannot manage his part also. It is Downright,
+in "Every Man in his Humour," not at all long, but very good; he wants
+you to take it. And so help me. We shall have a brilliant audience. The
+uphill part of the thing is already done, our next rehearsal is next
+Tuesday, and if you will come in you will find everything to your hand,
+and all very merry and pleasant.
+
+Let me know what you decide, like a Kittenmolian Trojan. And with love
+from all here to all there,
+
+                                         Believe me, ever,
+                                                       Heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday, Sept. 18th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We have a little supper, sir, after the farce, at No. 9, Powis Place,
+Great Ormond Street, in an empty house belonging to one of the company.
+There I am requested by my fellows to beg the favour of thy company and
+that of Mrs. Macready. The guests are limited to the actors and their
+ladies--with the exception of yourselves, and D'Orsay, and George
+Cattermole, "or so"--that sounds like Bobadil a little.
+
+I am going to adopt your reading of the fifth act with the worst grace
+in the world. It seems to me that you don't allow enough for Bobadil
+having been frequently beaten before, as I have no doubt he had been.
+The part goes down hideously on this construction, and the end is mere
+lees. But never mind, sir, I intend bringing you up with the farce in
+the most brilliant manner.
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+N.B.--Observe. I think of changing my present mode of life, and am open
+to an engagement.
+
+N.B. No. 2.--I will undertake not to play tragedy, though passion is my
+strength.
+
+N.B. No. 3.--I consider myself a chained lion.[5]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _October 2nd, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I send you the claret jug. But for a mistake, you would have received
+the little remembrance almost immediately after my return from abroad.
+
+I need not say how much I should value another little sketch from your
+extraordinary hand in this year's small volume, to which Mac again does
+the frontispiece. But I cannot hear of it, and will not have it (though
+the gratification of such aid, to me, is really beyond all expression),
+unless you will so far consent to make it a matter of business as to
+receive, without asking any questions, a cheque in return from the
+publishers. Do not misunderstand me--though I am not afraid there is
+much danger of your doing so, for between us misunderstanding is, I
+hope, not easy. I know perfectly well that nothing can pay you for the
+devotion of any portion of your time to such a use of your art. I know
+perfectly well that no terms would induce you to go out of your way, in
+such a regard, for perhaps anybody else. I cannot, nor do I desire to,
+vanquish the friendly obligation which help from you imposes on me. But
+I am not the sole proprietor of those little books; and it would be
+monstrous in you if you were to dream of putting a scratch into a second
+one without some shadowy reference to the other partners, ten thousand
+times more monstrous in me if any consideration on earth could induce me
+to permit it, which nothing will or shall.
+
+So, see what it comes to. If you will do me a favour on my terms it will
+be more acceptable to me, my dear Stanfield, than I can possibly tell
+you. If you will not be so generous, you deprive me of the satisfaction
+of receiving it at your hands, and shut me out from that possibility
+altogether. What a stony-hearted ruffian you must be in such a case!
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Evening, Oct. 17th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+You once--only once--gave the world assurance of a waistcoat. You wore
+it, sir, I think, in "Money." It was a remarkable and precious
+waistcoat, wherein certain broad stripes of blue or purple disported
+themselves as by a combination of extraordinary circumstances, too happy
+to occur again. I have seen it on your manly chest in private life. I
+saw it, sir, I think, the other day in the cold light of morning--with
+feelings easier to be imagined than described. Mr. Macready, sir, are
+you a father? If so, lend me that waistcoat for five minutes. I am
+bidden to a wedding (where fathers are made), and my artist cannot, I
+find (how should he?), imagine such a waistcoat. Let me show it to him
+as a sample of my tastes and wishes; and--ha, ha, ha, ha!--eclipse the
+bridegroom!
+
+I will send a trusty messenger at half-past nine precisely, in the
+morning. He is sworn to secrecy. He durst not for his life betray us, or
+swells in ambuscade would have the waistcoat at the cost of his heart's
+blood.
+
+                                            Thine,
+                                                THE UNWAISTCOATED ONE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Viscount Morpeth.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Nov. 28th, 1845._
+
+MY DEAR LORD MORPETH,
+
+I have delayed writing to you until now, hoping I might have been able
+to tell you of our dramatic plans, and of the day on which we purpose
+playing. But as these matters are still in abeyance, I will give you
+that precious information when I come into the receipt of it myself. And
+let me heartily assure you, that I had at least as much pleasure in
+seeing you the other day as you can possibly have had in seeing me; and
+that I shall consider all opportunities of becoming better known to you
+among the most fortunate and desirable occasions of my life. And that I
+am with your conviction about the probability of our liking each other,
+and, as Lord Lyndhurst might say, with "something more."
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] This alludes to a theatrical story of a second-rate actor, who
+described himself as a "chained lion," in a theatre where he had to play
+inferior parts to Mr. Macready.
+
+
+
+
+1846.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the spring of this year Charles Dickens gave up the editorship of,
+and finally, all connection with _The Daily News_, and went again abroad
+with his family; the house in Devonshire Terrace being let for twelve
+months. He made his summer residence at Lausanne, taking a villa
+(Rosemont) there, from May till November. Here he wrote "The Battle of
+Life," and the first number of "Dombey and Son." In November he removed
+to Paris, where he took a house in the Rue de Courcelles for the winter,
+and where he lived and was at work upon "Dombey" until March, 1847.
+Among the English residents that summer at Lausanne he made many
+friendships, in proof of which he dedicated the Christmas book written
+there to his "English friends in Lausanne." The especially intimate
+friendships which he formed were with M. de Cerjat, who was always a
+resident of Lausanne with his family; Mr. Haldimand, whose name is
+identified with the place, and with the Hon. Richard and Mrs. Watson, of
+Rockingham Castle. He maintained a constant correspondence with them,
+and to Mr. and Mrs. Watson he afterwards dedicated his own favourite of
+all his books, "David Copperfield." M. de Cerjat, from the time of
+Charles Dickens leaving Lausanne, began a custom, which he kept up
+almost without an interval to the time of his own death, of writing him
+a long letter every Christmas, to which he returned answers, which will
+be given in this and the following years.
+
+In this year we have the commencement of his association and
+correspondence with Mr. W. H. Wills. Their connection began in the short
+term of his editorship of _The Daily News_, when he at once fully
+appreciated Mr. Wills's invaluable business qualities. And when, some
+time later, he started his own periodical, "Household Words," he thought
+himself very fortunate in being able to secure Mr. Wills's co-operation
+as editor of that journal, and afterwards of "All the Year Round," with
+which "Household Words" was incorporated. They worked together on terms
+of the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence, and affectionate
+regard, until Mr. Wills's health made it necessary for him to retire
+from the work in 1868. Besides his first notes to Mr. Wills in this
+year, we have our first letters to his dear friends, the Rev. James
+White, Walter Savage Landor, and Miss Marion Ely, the niece of Lady
+Talfourd.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 18th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MR. WILLS,
+
+Do look at the enclosed from Mrs. What's-her-name. For a surprising
+audacity it is remarkable even to me, who am positively bullied, and all
+but beaten, by these people. I wish you would do me the favour to write
+to her (in your own name and from your own address), stating that you
+answered her letter as you did, because if I were the wealthiest
+nobleman in England I could not keep pace with one-twentieth part of the
+demands upon me, and because you saw no internal evidence in her
+application to induce you to single it out for any especial notice.
+That the tone of this letter renders you exceedingly glad you did so;
+and that you decline, from me, holding any correspondence with her.
+Something to that effect, after what flourish your nature will.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+           1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                _February 24th, 1846._
+
+I cannot help telling you, my dear White, for I can think of no formal
+use of Mister to such a writer as you, that I have just now read your
+tragedy, "The Earl of Gowrie," with a delight which I should in vain
+endeavour to express to you. Considered with reference to its story, or
+its characters, or its noble poetry, I honestly regard it as a work of
+most remarkable genius. It has impressed me powerfully and enduringly. I
+am proud to have received it from your hand. And if I have to tell you
+what complete possession it has taken of me--that is, if I _could_ tell
+you--I do believe you would be glad to know it.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday Morning, March 2nd, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MR. WILLS,
+
+I really don't know what to say about the New Brunswicker. The idea will
+obtrude itself on my mind, that he had no business to come here on such
+an expedition; and that it is a piece of the wild conceit for which his
+countrymen are so remarkable, and that I can hardly afford to be steward
+to such adventurers. On the other hand, your description of him pleases
+me. Then that purse which I could never keep shut in my life makes
+mouths at me, saying, "See how empty I am." Then I fill it, and it looks
+very rich indeed.
+
+I think the best way is to say, that if you think you can do him any
+_permanent_ good with five pounds (that is, get him home again) I will
+give you the money. But I should be very much indisposed to give it him,
+merely to linger on here about town for a little time and then be hard
+up again.
+
+As to employment, I do in my soul believe that if I were Lord Chancellor
+of England, I should have been aground long ago, for the patronage of a
+messenger's place.
+
+Say all that is civil for me to the proprietor of _The Illustrated
+London News_, who really seems to be very liberal. "Other engagements,"
+etc. etc., "prevent me from entertaining," etc. etc.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _March 4th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MR. WILLS,
+
+I assure you I am very truly and unaffectedly sensible of your earnest
+friendliness, and in proof of my feeling its worth I shall
+unhesitatingly trouble you sometimes, in the fullest reliance on your
+meaning what you say. The letter from Nelson Square is a very manly and
+touching one. But I am more helpless in such a case as that than in any
+other, having really fewer means of helping such a gentleman to
+employment than I have of firing off the guns in the Tower. Such,
+appeals come to me here in scores upon scores.
+
+The letter from Little White Lion Street does not impress me favourably.
+It is not written in a simple or truthful manner, I am afraid, and is
+_not_ a good reference. Moreover, I think it probable that the writer
+may have deserted some pursuit for which he is qualified, for vague and
+laborious strivings which he has no pretensions to make. However, I will
+certainly act on your impression of him, whatever it may be. And if you
+could explain to the gentleman in Nelson Square, that I am not evading
+his request, but that I do not know of anything to which I can recommend
+him, it would be a great relief to me.
+
+I trust this new printer _is_ a Tartar; and I hope to God he will so
+proclaim and assert his Tartar breeding, as to excommunicate ---- from
+the "chapel" over which he presides.
+
+Tell Powell (with my regards) that he needn't "deal with" the American
+notices of the "Cricket." I never read one word of their abuse, and I
+should think it base to read their praises. It is something to know that
+one is righted so soon; and knowing that, I can afford to know no more.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _March 6th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+In reference to the damage of the candlesticks, I beg to quote (from
+"The Cricket on the Hearth," by the highly popular and deservedly so
+Dick) this reply:
+
+"I'll damage you if you enquire."
+
+                         Ever yours,
+                             My block-reeving,
+                             Main-brace splicing,
+                             Lead-heaving,
+                             Ship-conning,
+                             Stun'sail-bending,
+                             Deck-swabbing
+                             Son of a sea-cook,
+                                            HENRY BLUFF,
+                                                      H.M.S. _Timber._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                     DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, April 13th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Do you recollect sending me your biography of Shakespeare last autumn,
+and my not acknowledging its receipt? I do, with remorse.
+
+The truth is, that I took it out of town with me, read it with great
+pleasure as a charming piece of honest enthusiasm and perseverance, kept
+it by me, came home, meant to say all manner of things to you, suffered
+the time to go by, got ashamed, thought of speaking to you, never saw
+you, felt it heavy on my mind, and now fling off the load by thanking
+you heartily, and hoping you will not think it too late.
+
+                                        Always believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Ely.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Sunday, April 19th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MISS ELY,
+
+A mysterious emissary brought me a note in your always welcome
+handwriting at the Athenaeum last night. I enquired of the servant in
+attendance whether the bearer of this letter was of my vast
+establishment. To which he replied "Yezzir." "Then," said I, "tell him
+not to wait."
+
+Maclise was with me. It was then half-past seven. We had been walking,
+and were splashed to the eyes. We debated upon the possibility of
+getting to Russell Square in reasonable time--decided that it would be
+in the worst taste to appear when the performance would be half
+over--and very reluctantly decided not to come. You may suppose how
+dirty and dismal we were when we went to the Thames Tunnel, of all
+places in the world, instead!
+
+When I came home here at midnight I found another letter from you (I
+left off in this place to press it dutifully to my lips). Then my mind
+misgave me that _you_ must have sent to the Athenaeum. At the apparent
+rudeness of my reply, my face, as Hadji Baba says, was turned upside
+down, and fifty donkeys sat upon my father's grave--or would have done
+so, but for his not being dead yet.
+
+Therefore I send this humble explanation--protesting, however, which I
+do most solemnly, against being invited under such untoward
+circumstances; and claiming as your old friend and no less old admirer
+to be instantly invited to the next performance, if such a thing is ever
+contemplated.
+
+                                   Ever, my dear Miss Ely,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, May 26th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+I send you herewith some books belonging to you. A thousand thanks for
+the "Hermit." He took my fancy mightily when I first saw him in the
+"Illuminated;" and I have stowed him away in the left-hand breast pocket
+of my travelling coat, that we may hold pleasant converse together on
+the Rhine. You see what confidence I have in him!
+
+I wish you would seriously consider the expediency and feasibility of
+coming to Lausanne in the summer or early autumn. I must be at work
+myself during a certain part of every day almost, and you could do twice
+as much there as here. It is a wonderful place to see--and what sort of
+welcome you would find I will say nothing about, for I have vanity
+enough to believe that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at
+home in my household as in any man's.
+
+Do think it over. I could send you the minutest particular of the
+journey. It is really all railroad and steamboat, and the easiest in the
+world.
+
+At Macready's on Thursday, we shall meet, please God!
+
+                                   Always, my dear Jerrold,
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                               GENEVA, _Saturday, October 24th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+The welcome sight of your handwriting moves me (though I have nothing to
+say) to show you mine, and if I could recollect the passage in Virginius
+I would paraphrase it, and say, "Does it seem to tremble, boy? Is it a
+loving autograph? Does it beam with friendship and affection?" all of
+which I say, as I write, with--oh Heaven!--such a splendid imitation of
+you, and finally give you one of those grasps and shakes with which I
+have seen you make the young Icilius stagger again.
+
+Here I am, running away from a bad headache as Tristram Shandy ran away
+from death, and lodging for a week in the Hotel de l'Ecu de Geneve,
+wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late
+revolution. A revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits,
+nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory,
+elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all
+tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden. The newspapers may
+tell you what they please. I believe there is no country on earth but
+Switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected in the
+Christian spirit shown in this place, or in the same proud, independent,
+gallant style. Not one halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or
+strayed. Not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of the last
+gun. Nothing is expressed in the Government addresses to the citizens
+but a regard for the general happiness, and injunctions to forget all
+animosities; which they are practically obeying at every turn, though
+the late Government (of whose spirit I had some previous knowledge) did
+load the guns with such material as should occasion gangrene in the
+wounds, and though the wounded _do_ die, consequently, every day, in the
+hospital, of sores that in themselves were nothing.
+
+_You_ a mountaineer! _You_ examine (I have seen you do it) the point of
+your young son's baton de montagne before he went up into the snow! And
+_you_ talk of coming to Lausanne in March! Why, Lord love your heart,
+William Tell, times are changed since you lived at Altorf. There is not
+a mountain pass open until June. The snow is closing in on all the
+panorama already. I was at the Great St. Bernard two months ago, and it
+was bitter cold and frosty then. Do you think I could let you hazard
+your life by going up any pass worth seeing in bleak March? Never shall
+it be said that Dickens sacrificed his friend upon the altar of his
+hospitality! Onward! To Paris! (Cue for band. Dickens points off with
+truncheon, first entrance P.S. Page delivers gauntlets on one knee.
+Dickens puts 'em on and gradually falls into a fit of musing. Mrs.
+Dickens lays her hand upon his shoulder. Business. Procession. Curtain.)
+
+It is a great pleasure to me, my dear Macready, to hear from yourself,
+as I had previously heard from Forster, that you are so well pleased
+with "Dombey," which is evidently a great success and a great hit, thank
+God! I felt that Mrs. Brown was strong, but I was not at all afraid of
+giving as heavy a blow as I could to a piece of hot iron that lay ready
+at my hand. For that is my principle always, and I hope to come down
+with some heavier sledge-hammers than that.
+
+I know the lady of whom you write. ---- left there only yesterday. The
+story may arise only in her manner, which is extraordinarily free and
+careless. He was visiting her here, when I was here last, three weeks
+ago. I knew her in Italy. It is not her fault if scandal ever leaves her
+alone, for such a braver of all conventionalities never wore petticoats.
+But I should be sorry to hear there was anything guilty in her conduct.
+She is very clever, really learned, very pretty, much neglected by her
+husband, and only four-and-twenty years of age.
+
+Kate and Georgy send their best loves to Mrs. and Miss Macready and all
+your house.
+
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Haldimand.]
+
+                                              PARIS, _November, 1846._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Talking of which[6] reminds me to say, that I have written to my
+printers, and told them to prefix to "The Battle of Life" a dedication
+that is printed in illuminated capitals on my heart. It is only this:
+
+        "This Christmas book is cordially inscribed to
+        my English friends in Switzerland."
+
+I shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or four copies to
+distribute to those whose names will be found written in them, as soon
+as they can be made ready, and believe me, that there is no success or
+approval in the great world beyond the Jura that will be more precious
+and delightful to me, than the hope that I shall be remembered of an
+evening in the coming winter time, at one or two friends' I could
+mention near the Lake of Geneva. It runs with a spring tide, that will
+always flow and never ebb, through my memory; and nothing less than the
+waters of Lethe shall confuse the music of its running, until it loses
+itself in that great sea, for which all the currents of our life are
+desperately bent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                                 PARIS, _Sunday, November 22nd, 1846._
+
+YOUNG MAN,
+
+I will not go there if I can help it. I have not the least confidence in
+the value of your introduction to the Devil. I can't help thinking that
+it would be of better use "the other way, the other way," but I won't
+try it there, either, at present, if I can help it. Your godson says is
+that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly blushed for you.
+
+As to writing, I have written to you twenty times and twenty more to that,
+if you only knew it. I have been writing a little Christmas book, besides,
+expressly for you. And if you don't like it, I shall go to the font of
+Marylebone Church as soon as I conveniently can and renounce you: I am not
+to be trifled with. I write from Paris. I am getting up some French steam.
+I intend to proceed upon the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle,
+and if you _do_ offend me, look to it.
+
+We are all well and happy, and they send loves to you by the bushel. We
+are in the agonies of house-hunting. The people are frightfully civil,
+and grotesquely extortionate. One man (with a house to let) told me
+yesterday that he loved the Duke of Wellington like a brother. The same
+gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand, and pick my
+pocket with the other.
+
+Don't be hard upon the Swiss. They are a thorn in the sides of European
+despots, and a good wholesome people to live near Jesuit-ridden kings on
+the brighter side of the mountains. My hat shall ever be ready to be
+thrown up, and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for Switzerland. If
+you were the man I took you for, when I took you (as a godfather) for
+better and for worse, you would come to Paris and amaze the weak walls
+of the house I haven't found yet with that steady snore of yours, which
+I once heard piercing the door of your bedroom in Devonshire Terrace,
+reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into
+the street, playing Eolian harps among the area railings, and going down
+the New Road like the blast of a trumpet.
+
+I forgive you your reviling of me: there's a shovelful of live coals for
+your head--does it burn? And am, with true affection--does it burn
+now?--
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Richard Watson.]
+
+                 PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORE,
+                                            _Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR WATSON,
+
+We were housed only yesterday. I lose no time in despatching this
+memorandum of our whereabouts, in order that you may not fail to write
+me a line before you come to Paris on your way towards England, letting
+me know on what day we are to expect you to dinner.
+
+We arrived here quite happily and well. I don't mean here, but at the
+Hotel Brighton, in Paris, on Friday evening, between six and seven
+o'clock. The agonies of house-hunting were frightfully severe. It was
+one paroxysm for four mortal days. I am proud to express my belief, that
+we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in the world. The
+like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes does not, exist in
+any other part of the globe. The bedrooms are like opera-boxes. The
+dining-rooms, staircases, and passages, quite inexplicable. The
+dining-room is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent
+a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking in among the
+branches of the trees. There is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room.
+But it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints
+in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery. The maddest
+man in Bedlam, having the materials given him, would be likely to devise
+such a suite, supposing his case to be hopeless and quite incurable.
+
+Pray tell Mrs. Watson, with my best regards, that the dance of the two
+sisters in the little Christmas book is being done as an illustration by
+Maclise; and that Stanfield is doing the battle-ground and the outside
+of the Nutmeg Grater Inn. Maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects
+for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will be very
+pretty, and they think that I shall like it. I shall have been in London
+before I see you, probably, and I hope the book itself will then be on
+its road to Lausanne to speak for itself, and to speak a word for me
+too. I have never left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in
+any place; and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be very
+eloquent and affectionate indeed.
+
+Well, if I don't turn up again next summer it shall not be my fault. In
+the meanwhile, I shall often and often look that way with my mind's eye,
+and hear the sweet, clear, bell-like voice of ---- with the ear of my
+imagination. In the event of there being any change--but it is not
+likely--in the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up into
+his head, I mean, and frets against his wig--I hope some one of my
+English friends will apprise me of it, for the love of the great Saint
+Bernard.
+
+I have not seen Lord Normanby yet. I have not seen anything up to this
+time but houses and lodgings. There seems to be immense excitement here
+on the subject of ---- however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation
+getting up. I saw the king the other day coming into Paris. His carriage
+was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he sat very far back in it, I
+thought, and drove at a great pace. It was strange to see the prefet of
+police on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the
+right and left as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every
+tree in the long avenue.
+
+The English relations look anything but promising, though I understand
+that the Count St. Aulaire is to remain in London, notwithstanding the
+newspaper alarms to the contrary. If there be anything like the
+sensation in England about ---- that there is here, there will be a
+bitter resentment indeed. The democratic society of Paris have
+announced, this morning, their intention of printing and circulating
+fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every European language. It is a
+base business beyond question, and comes at an ill time.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister desire their best regards to be sent to you
+and their best loves to Mrs. Watson, in which I join, as nearly as I
+may. Believe me, with great truth,
+
+                                                 Very sincerely yours.
+
+P.S.--Mrs. Dickens is going to write to Mrs. Watson next week, she says.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Cerjat.]
+
+               PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORE,
+                                            _Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+When we turned out of your view on that disconsolate Monday, when you so
+kindly took horse and rode forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very
+dull and drowsy manner, I can assure you. I could have borne a world of
+punch in the rumble and been none the worse for it. There was an
+uncommonly cool inn that night, and quite a monstrous establishment at
+Auxonne the next night, full of flatulent passages and banging doors.
+The next night we passed at Montbard, where there is one of the very
+best little inns in all France. The next at Sens, and so we got here.
+The roads were bad, but not very for French roads. There was no
+deficiency of horses anywhere; and after Pontarlier the weather was
+really not too cold for comfort. They weighed our plate at the frontier
+custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we lingered about
+there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for three long hours and a half,
+during which the officials committed all manner of absurdities, and got
+into all sorts of disputes with my brave courier. This was the only
+misery we encountered--except leaving Lausanne, and that was enough to
+last us and _did_ last us all the way here. We are living on it now. I
+felt, myself, much as I should think the murderer felt on that fair
+morning when, with his gray-haired victim (those unconscious gray hairs,
+soon to be bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as the
+top of that mountain of St. Bernard without one touch of remorse. A
+weight is on my breast. The only difference between me and the murderer
+is, that his weight was guilt and mine is regret.
+
+I haven't a word of news to tell you. I shouldn't write at all if I were
+not the vainest man in the world, impelled by a belief that you will be
+glad to hear from me, even though you hear no more than that I have
+nothing to say. "Dombey" is doing wonders. It went up, after the
+publication of the second number, over the thirty thousand. This is such
+a very large sale, so early in the story, that I begin to think it will
+beat all the rest. Keeley and his wife are making great preparations
+for producing the Christmas story, and I have made them (as an old stage
+manager) carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about scenery
+and so forth--in particular a sudden change from the inside of the
+doctor's house in the midst of the ball to the orchard in the
+snow--which ought to tell very well. But actors are so bad, in general,
+and the best are spread over so many theatres, that the "cast" is black
+despair and moody madness. There is no one to be got for Marion but a
+certain Miss ----, I am afraid--a pupil of Miss Kelly's, who acted in
+the private theatricals I got up a year ago. Macready took her
+afterwards to play Virginia to his Virginius, but she made nothing of
+it, great as the chance was. I have promised to show her what I mean, as
+near as I can, and if you will look into the English Opera House on the
+morning of the 17th, 18th, or 19th of next month, between the hours of
+eleven and four, you will find me in a very hot and dusty condition,
+playing all the parts of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the
+actors, actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus people,
+tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general ragamuffins of the
+theatre.
+
+Moore, the poet, is very ill--I fear dying. The last time I saw him was
+immediately before I left London, and I thought him sadly changed and
+tamed, but not much more so than such a man might be under the heavy
+hand of time. I believe he suffered severe grief in the death of a son
+some time ago. The first man I met in Paris was ----, who took hold of
+me as I was getting into a coach at the door of the hotel. He hadn't a
+button on his shirt (but I don't think he ever has), and you might have
+sown what boys call "mustard and cress" in the dust on his coat. I have
+not seen Lord Normanby yet, as we have only just got a house (the
+queerest house in Europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason
+to fear that the growing dissensions between England and France, and the
+irritation of the French king, may lead to the withdrawal of the
+minister on each side of the Channel.
+
+Have you cut down any more trees, played any more rubbers, propounded
+any more teasers to the players at the game of Yes and No? How is the
+old horse? How is the gray mare? How is Crab (to whom my respectful
+compliments)? Have you tried the punch yet; if yes, did it succeed; if
+no, why not? Is Mrs. Cerjat as happy and as well as I would have her,
+and all your house ditto ditto? Does Haldimand play whist with any
+science yet? Ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying _I_ hadn't any! And are
+those damask-cheeked virgins, the Miss ----, still sleeping on dewy rose
+leaves near the English church?
+
+Remember me to all your house, and most of all to its other head, with
+all the regard and earnestness that a "numble individual" (as they
+always call it in the House of Commons) who once travelled with her in a
+car over a smooth country may charge you with. I have added two lines to
+the little Christmas book, that I hope both you and she may not dislike.
+Haldimand will tell you what they are. Kate and Georgy send their
+kindest loves, and Kate is "going" to write "next week." Believe me
+always, my dear Cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this
+past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of them,
+
+                                          Very faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                58, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, _Saturday, Dec. 19th, 1846._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I really am bothered to death by this confounded _dramatization_ of the
+Christmas book. They were in a state so horrible at Keeley's yesterday
+(as perhaps Forster told you when he wrote), that I was obliged to
+engage to read the book to them this morning. It struck me that Mrs.
+Leigh Murray, Miss Daly, and Vining seemed to understand it best.
+Certainly Miss Daly knew best what she was about yesterday. At eight
+to-night we have a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but
+dresses. I see no possibility of escaping from it before one or two
+o'clock in the morning. And I was at the theatre all day yesterday.
+Unless I had come to London, I do not think there would have been much
+hope of the version being more than just tolerated, even that doubtful.
+All the actors bad, all the business frightfully behindhand. The very
+words of the book confused in the copying into the densest and most
+insufferable nonsense. I must exempt, however, from the general
+slackness both the Keeleys. I hope they will be very good. I have never
+seen anything of its kind better than the manner in which they played
+the little supper scene between Clemency and Britain, yesterday. It was
+quite perfect, even to me.
+
+The small manager, Forster, Talfourd, Stanny, and Mac dine with me at
+the Piazza to-day, before the rehearsal. I have already one or two
+uncommonly good stories of Mac. I reserve them for narration. I have
+also a dreadful cold, which I would not reserve if I could help it. I
+can hardly hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but had
+serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed.
+
+Christmas book published to-day--twenty-three thousand copies already
+gone!!! Browne's plates for next "Dombey" much better than usual.
+
+I have seen nobody yet, of course. But I sent Roche up to your mother
+this morning, to say I am in town and will come shortly. There is a
+great thaw here to-day, and it is raining hard. I hope you have the
+advantage (if it be one, which I am not sure of) of a similar change in
+Paris. Of course I start again on Thursday. We are expecting (Roche and
+I) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom we have applied for
+places. The journey here was long and cold--twenty-four hours from Paris
+to Boulogne. Passage not very bad, and made in two hours.
+
+I find I can't write at all, so I had best leave off. I am looking
+impatiently for your letter on Monday morning. Give my best love to
+Georgy, and kisses to all the dear children. And believe me, my love,
+
+                                                  Most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                         PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 21st, 1846._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+In a quiet interval of half an hour before going to dine at Macready's,
+I sit down to write you a few words. But I shall reserve my letter for
+to-morrow's post, in order that you may hear what _I_ hear of the
+"going" of the play to-night. Think of my being there on Saturday, with
+a really frightful cold, and working harder than ever I did at the
+amateur plays, until two in the morning. There was no supper to be got,
+either here or anywhere else, after coming out; and I was as hungry and
+thirsty as need be. The scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and
+they have spent money on it _liberally_. The great change from the
+ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both the departure
+and the return will tell, I think, strongly on an audience. I have made
+them very quick and excited in the passionate scenes, and so have
+infused some appearance of life into those parts of the play. But I
+can't make a Marion, and Miss ---- is awfully bad. She is a mere nothing
+all through. I put Mr. Leigh Murray into such a state, by making him
+tear about, that the perspiration ran streaming down his face. They have
+a great let. I believe every place in the house is taken. Roche is
+going.
+
+_Tuesday Morning._--The play went, as well as I can make out--I hoped to
+have had Stanny's report of it, but he is ill--with great effect. There
+was immense enthusiasm at its close, and great uproar and shouting for
+me. Forster will go on Wednesday, and write you his account of it. I saw
+the Keeleys on the stage at eleven o'clock or so, and they were in
+prodigious spirits and delight.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, PARIS,
+                                      _Sunday Night, Dec. 27th, 1846._
+
+MY VERY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+Amen, amen. Many merry Christmases, many happy new years, unbroken
+friendship, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on
+earth, and heaven at last, for all of us.
+
+I enclose you a letter from Jeffrey, which you may like to read. _Bring
+it to me back when you come over._ I have told him all he wants to
+know. Is it not a strange example of the hazards of writing in numbers
+that a man like him should form his notion of Dombey and Miss Tox on
+three months' knowledge? I have asked him the same question, and advised
+him to keep his eye on both of them as time rolls on.
+
+We had a cold journey here from Boulogne, but the roads were not very
+bad. The malle poste, however, now takes the trains at Amiens. We missed
+it by ten minutes, and had to wait three hours--from twelve o'clock
+until three, in which interval I drank brandy and water, and slept like
+a top. It is delightful travelling for its speed, that malle poste, and
+really for its comfort too. But on this occasion it was not remarkable
+for the last-named quality. The director of the post at Boulogne told me
+a lamentable story of his son at Paris being ill, and implored me to
+bring him on. The brave doubted the representations altogether, but I
+couldn't find it in my heart to say no; so we brought the director,
+bodkinwise, and being a large man, in a great number of greatcoats, he
+crushed us dismally until we got to the railroad. For two passengers
+(and it never carries more) it is capital. For three, excruciating.
+
+Write to ---- what you have said to me. You need write no more. He is
+full of vicious fancies and wrong suspicions, even of Hardwick, and I
+would rather he heard it from you than from me, whom he is not likely to
+love much in his heart. I doubt it may be but a rusty instrument for
+want of use, the ----ish heart.
+
+My most important present news is that I am going to take a jorum of hot
+rum and egg in bed immediately, and to cover myself up with all the
+blankets in the house. Love from all. I have a sensation in my head, as
+if it were "on edge." It is still very cold here, but the snow had
+disappeared on my return, both here and on the road, except within ten
+miles or so of Boulogne.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] "The Battle of Life."
+
+
+
+
+1847.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of the year Charles Dickens was still living in
+Paris--Rue de Courcelles. His stay was cut shorter than he intended it
+to have been, by the illness from scarlet fever of his eldest son, who
+was at school in London. Consequent upon this, he and his wife went to
+London at the end of February, taking up their abode at the Victoria
+Hotel, Euston Square, the Devonshire Terrace house being still occupied
+by its tenant, Sir James Duke, and the sick boy under the care of his
+grandmother, Mrs. Hogarth, in Albany Street. The children, with their
+aunt, remained in Paris, until a temporary house had been taken for the
+family in Chester Place, Regent's Park; and Roche was then sent back to
+take _all_ home. In Chester Place another son was born--Sydney Smith
+Haldimand--his godfathers being Mr. Haldimand, of Lausanne, and Mr. H.
+P. Smith, of the Eagle Life Assurance office. He was christened at the
+same time as a daughter of Mr. Macready's, and the letters to Mr. Smith
+have reference to the postponement of the christening on Mr. Smith's
+account. In May, Charles Dickens had lodgings in Brighton for some
+weeks, for the recovery of Mrs. Dickens's health; going there first with
+his wife and sister-in-law and the eldest boy--now recovered from his
+fever--and being joined at the latter part of the time by his two little
+daughters, to whom there are some letters among those which follow
+here. He removed earlier than usual this summer to Broadstairs, which
+remained his head-quarters until October, with intervals of absence for
+amateur theatrical tours (which Mr. Forster calls "splendid strolling"),
+in which he was usually accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law.
+Several new recruits had been added to the theatrical company, from
+among distinguished literary men and artists, and it now included,
+besides those previously named, Mr. George Cruikshank, Mr. George Henry
+Lewes, and Mr. Augustus Egg; the supreme management and arrangement of
+everything being always left to Charles Dickens. "Every Man in his
+Humour" and farces were again played at Manchester and Liverpool, for
+the benefit of Mr. Leigh Hunt, and the dramatic author, Mr. John Poole.
+
+By the end of the Broadstairs holiday, the house in Devonshire Terrace
+was vacant, and the family returned to it in October. All this year
+Charles Dickens had been at work upon the monthly numbers of "Dombey and
+Son," in spite of these many interruptions. He began at Broadstairs a
+Christmas book. But he found that the engrossing interest of his novel
+approaching completion made it impossible for him to finish the other
+work in time. So he decided to let this Christmas pass without a story,
+and postponed the publication of "The Haunted Man" until the following
+year.
+
+At the close of the year he went to Leeds, to take the chair at a
+meeting of the Mechanics' Institute, and on the 28th December he
+presided at the opening of the Glasgow Athenaeum; he and his wife being
+the guests of the historian--_then_ Mr. Sheriff, afterwards Sir
+Archibald Alison. From a letter to his sister-in-law, written from
+Edinburgh, it will be seen that Mrs. Dickens was prevented by sudden
+illness from being present at the "demonstration." At the end of that
+letter there is another illustration of the odd names he was in the
+habit of giving to his children, the last of the three, the "Hoshen
+Peck," being a corruption of "Ocean Spectre"--a name which had,
+afterwards, a sad significance, as the boy (Sydney Smith) became a
+sailor, and died and was buried at sea two years after his father's
+death.
+
+The letters in this year need very little explanation. In the first
+letter to Mrs. Watson, he alludes to a sketch which she had made from
+"The Battle of Life," and had sent to Charles Dickens, as a remembrance,
+when her husband paid a short visit to Paris in this winter.
+
+And there are two letters to Miss Marguerite Power, the niece of the
+Countess of Blessington--a lady for whom he had then, and until her
+death, a most affectionate friendship and respect, for the sake of her
+own admirable qualities, and in remembrance of her delightful
+association with Gore House, where he was a frequent visitor. For Lady
+Blessington he had a high admiration and great regard, and she was one
+of his earliest appreciators; and Alfred, Comte D'Orsay, was also a
+much-loved friend. His "own marchioness," alluded to in the second
+letter to Miss Power, was the younger and very charming sister of his
+correspondent.
+
+We much regret having been unable to procure any letters addressed to
+Mr. Egg. His intimacy with him began first in the plays of this year;
+but he became, almost immediately, one of the friends for whom he had an
+especial affection; and Mr. Egg was a regular visitor at his house and
+at his seaside places of resort for many years after this date.
+
+The letter to Mr. William Sandys has reference to an intention which
+Charles Dickens _had_ entertained, of laying the scene of a story in
+Cornwall; Mr. Sandys, himself a Cornishman, having proposed to send him
+some books to help him as to the dialect.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                      PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, _Jan. 25th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I cannot allow your wandering lord to return to your--I suppose "arms"
+is not improper--arms, then, without thanking you in half-a-dozen words
+for your letter, and assuring you that I had great interest and pleasure
+in its receipt, and that I say Amen to all _you_ say of our happy past
+and hopeful future. There is a picture of Lausanne--St. Bernard--the
+tavern by the little lake between Lausanne and Vevay, which is kept by
+that drunken dog whom Haldimand believes to be so sober--and of many
+other such scenes, within doors and without--that rises up to my mind
+very often, and in the quiet pleasure of its aspect rather daunts me, as
+compared with the reality of a stirring life; but, please God, we will
+have some more pleasant days, and go up some more mountains, somewhere,
+and laugh together, at somebody, and form the same delightful little
+circle again, somehow.
+
+I quite agree with you about the illustrations to the little Christmas
+book. I was delighted with yours. Your good lord before-mentioned will
+inform you that it hangs up over my chair in the drawing-room here; and
+when you come to England (after I have seen you again in Lausanne) I
+will show it you in my little study at home, quietly thanking you on the
+bookcase. Then we will go and see some of Turner's recent pictures, and
+decide that question to Haldimand's utmost confusion.
+
+You will find Watson looking wonderfully well, I think. When he was
+first here, on his way to England, he took an extraordinary bath, in
+which he was rubbed all over with chemical compounds, and had everything
+done to him that could be invented for seven francs. It _may_ be the
+influence of this treatment that I see in his face, but I think it's the
+prospect of coming back to Elysee. All I can say is, that when _I_ come
+that way, and find myself among those friends again, I expect to be
+perfectly lovely--a kind of Glorious Apollo, radiant and shining with
+joy.
+
+Kate and her sister send all kinds of love in this hasty packet, and I
+am always, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. Edward Tagart.]
+
+            PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORE,
+                                          _Thursday, Jan. 28th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Before you read any more, I wish you would take those tablets out of
+your drawer, in which you have put a black mark against my name, and
+erase it neatly. I don't deserve it, on my word I don't, though
+appearances are against me, I unwillingly confess.
+
+I had gone to Geneva, to recover from an uncommon depression of spirits
+consequent on too much sitting over "Dombey" and the little Christmas
+book, when I received your letter as I was going out walking, one
+sunshiny, windy day. I read it on the banks of the Rhone, where it runs,
+very blue and swift, between two high green hills, with ranges of snowy
+mountains filling up the distance. Its cordial and unaffected tone gave
+me the greatest pleasure--did me a world of good--set me up for the
+afternoon, and gave me an evening's subject of discourse. For I talked
+to "them" (that is, Kate and Georgy) about those bright mornings at the
+Peschiere, until bedtime, and threatened to write you such a letter next
+day as would--I don't exactly know what it was to do, but it was to be a
+great letter, expressive of all kinds of pleasant things, and, perhaps
+the most genial letter that ever was written.
+
+From that hour to this, I have again and again and again said, "I'll
+write to-morrow," and here I am to-day full of penitence--really sorry
+and ashamed, and with no excuse but my writing-life, which makes me get
+up and go out, when my morning work is done, and look at pen and ink no
+more until I begin again.
+
+Besides which, I have been seeing Paris--wandering into hospitals,
+prisons, dead-houses, operas, theatres, concert-rooms, burial-grounds,
+palaces, and wine-shops. In my unoccupied fortnight of each month, every
+description of gaudy and ghastly sight has been passing before me in a
+rapid panorama. Before that, I had to come here from Switzerland, over
+frosty mountains in dense fogs, and through towns with walls and
+drawbridges, and without population, or anything else in particular but
+soldiers and mud. I took a flight to London for four days, and went and
+came back over one sheet of snow, sea excepted; and I wish that had been
+snow too. Then Forster (who is here now, and begs me to send his kindest
+regards) came to see Paris for himself, and in showing it to him, away I
+was borne again, like an enchanted rider. In short, I have had no rest
+in my play; and on Monday I am going to work again. A fortnight hence
+the play will begin once more; a fortnight after that the work will
+follow round, and so the letters that I care for go unwritten.
+
+Do you care for French news? I hope not, because I don't know any. There
+is a melodrama, called "The French Revolution," now playing at the
+Cirque, in the first act of which there is the most tremendous
+representation of _a people_ that can well be imagined. There are
+wonderful battles and so forth in the piece, but there is a power and
+massiveness in the mob which is positively awful. At another theatre,
+"Clarissa Harlowe" is still the rage. There are some things in it rather
+calculated to astonish the ghost of Richardson, but Clarissa is very
+admirably played, and dies better than the original to my thinking; but
+Richardson is no great favourite of mine, and never seems to me to take
+his top-boots off, whatever he does. Several pieces are in course of
+representation, involving rare portraits of the English. In one, a
+servant, called "Tom Bob," who wears a particularly English waistcoat,
+trimmed with gold lace and concealing his ankles, does very good things
+indeed. In another, a Prime Minister of England, who has ruined himself
+by railway speculations, hits off some of our national characteristics
+very happily, frequently making incidental mention of "Vishmingster,"
+"Regeenstreet," and other places with which you are well acquainted.
+"Sir Fakson" is one of the characters in another play--"English to the
+Core;" and I saw a Lord Mayor of London at one of the small theatres the
+other night, looking uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's waistcoat,
+the order of the Garter, and a very low-crowned broad-brimmed hat, not
+unlike a dustman.
+
+I was at Geneva at the time of the revolution. The moderation and
+mildness of the successful party were beyond all praise. Their appeals
+to the people of all parties--printed and pasted on the walls--have no
+parallel that I know of, in history, for their real good sterling
+Christianity and tendency to promote the happiness of mankind. My
+sympathy is strongly with the Swiss radicals. They know what Catholicity
+is; they see, in some of their own valleys, the poverty, ignorance,
+misery, and bigotry it always brings in its train wherever it is
+triumphant; and they would root it out of their children's way at any
+price. I fear the end of the struggle will be, that some Catholic power
+will step in to crush the dangerously well-educated republics (very
+dangerous to such neighbours); but there is a spirit in the people, or I
+very much mistake them, that will trouble the Jesuits there many years,
+and shake their altar steps for them.
+
+This is a poor return (I look down and see the end of the paper) for
+your letter, but in its cordial spirit of reciprocal friendship, it is
+not so bad a one if you could read it as I do, and it eases my mind and
+discharges my conscience. We are coming home, please God, at the end of
+March. Kate and Georgy send their best regards to you, and their loves
+to Mrs. and Miss Tagart and the children. _Our_ children wish to live
+too in _your_ children's remembrance. You will be glad, I know, to hear
+that "Dombey" is doing wonders, and that the Christmas book shot far
+ahead of its predecessors. I hope you will like _the last chapter of No.
+5_. If you can spare me a scrap of your handwriting in token of
+forgiveness, do; if not, I'll come and beg your pardon on the 31st of
+March.
+
+                                 Ever believe me,
+                                            Cordially and truly yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                     VICTORIA HOTEL, EUSTON SQUARE,
+                                          _Thursday, March 4th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+I have not got much to say, and that's the truth; but I cannot let this
+letter go into the post without wishing you many many happy returns of
+your birthday, and sending my love to Auntey and to Katey, and to all of
+them. We were at Mrs. Macready's last night, where there was a little
+party in honour of Mr. Macready's birthday. We had some dancing, and
+they wished very much that you and Katey had been there; so did I and
+your mamma. We have not got back to Devonshire Terrace yet, but are
+living at an hotel until Sir James Duke returns from Scotland, which
+will be on Saturday or Monday. I hope when he comes home and finds us
+here he will go out of Devonshire Terrace, and let us get it ready for
+you. Roche is coming back to you very soon. He will leave here on
+Saturday morning. He says he hopes you will have a very happy birthday,
+and he means to drink your health on the road to Paris.
+
+                                             Always your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                       CHESTER PLACE, _Tuesday Night._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So far from having "got through my agonies," as you benevolently hope, I
+have not yet begun them. No, on this _ninth of the month_ I have not yet
+written a single slip. What could I do; house-hunting at first, and
+beleaguered all day to-day and yesterday by furniture that must be
+altered, and things that must be put away? My wretchedness, just now, is
+inconceivable. Tell Anne, by-the-bye (not with reference to my
+wretchedness, but in connection with the arrangements generally), that I
+can't get on at all without her.
+
+If Kate has not mentioned it, get Katey and Mamey to write and send a
+letter to Charley; of course not hinting at our being here. He wants to
+hear from them.
+
+Poor little Hall is dead, as you will have seen, I dare say, in the
+paper. This house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and above,
+looking into the park on one side and Albany Street on the other.
+Forster is mild. Maclise, exceedingly bald on the crown of his head.
+Roche has just come in to know if he may "blow datter light." Love to
+all the darlings. Regards to everybody else. Love to yourself.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens and Miss Katey Dickens.]
+
+                   148, KING'S ROAD, BRIGHTON, _Monday, May 24, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MAMEY AND KATEY,
+
+I was very glad to receive your nice letter. I am going to tell you
+something that I hope will please you. It is this: I am coming to London
+Thursday, and I mean to bring you both back here with me, to stay until
+we all come home together on the Saturday. I hope you like this.
+
+Tell John to come with the carriage to the London Bridge Station, on
+Thursday morning at ten o'clock, and to wait there for me. I will then
+come home and fetch you.
+
+Mamma and Auntey and Charley send their loves. I send mine too, to
+Walley, Spim, and Alfred, and Sydney.
+
+                                   Always, my dears,
+                                               Your affectionate Papa.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Sandys.]
+
+                             1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _June 13th, 1847._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Many thanks for your kind note. I shall hope to see you when we return
+to town, from which we shall now be absent (with a short interval in
+next month) until October. Your account of the Cornishmen gave me great
+pleasure; and if I were not sunk in engagements so far, that the crown
+of my head is invisible to my nearest friends, I should have asked you
+to make me known to them. The new dialogue I will ask you by-and-by to
+let me see. I have, for the present, abandoned the idea of sinking a
+shaft in Cornwall.
+
+I have sent your Shakesperian extracts to Collier. It is a great
+comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning the poet. It
+is a fine mystery; and I tremble every day lest something should come
+out. If he had had a Boswell, society wouldn't have respected his
+grave, but would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological
+shop-windows.
+
+                                            Believe me,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]
+
+                                     CHESTER PLACE, _June 14th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR SMITH,
+
+Haldimand stayed at No. 7, Connaught Place, Hyde Park, when I saw him
+yesterday. But he was going to cross to Boulogne to-day.
+
+The young Pariah seems pretty comfortable. He is of a cosmopolitan
+spirit I hope, and stares with a kind of leaden satisfaction at his
+spoons, without afflicting himself much about the established church.
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I think of bringing an action against you for a new sort of breach
+of promise, and calling all the bishops to estimate the damage of having
+our christening postponed for a fortnight. It appears to me that I shall
+get a good deal of money in this way. If you have any compromise to
+offer, my solicitors are Dodson and Fogg.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                                  BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _July 2nd, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MISS POWER,
+
+Let me thank you, very sincerely, for your kind note and for the little
+book. I read the latter on my way down here with the greatest pleasure.
+It is a charming story gracefully told, and very gracefully and worthily
+translated. I have not been better pleased with a book for a long time.
+
+I cannot say I take very kindly to the illustrations. They are a long
+way behind the tale to my thinking. The artist understands it very well,
+I dare say, but does not express his understanding of it, in the least
+degree, to any sense of mine.
+
+Ah Rosherville! That fated Rosherville, when shall we see it! Perhaps in
+one of those intervals when I am up to town from here, and suddenly
+appear at Gore House, somebody will propose an excursion there, next
+day. If anybody does, somebody else will be ready to go. So this
+deponent maketh oath and saith.
+
+I am looking out upon a dark gray sea, with a keen north-east wind
+blowing it in shore. It is more like late autumn than midsummer, and
+there is a howling in the air as if the latter were in a very hopeless
+state indeed. The very Banshee of Midsummer is rattling the windows
+drearily while I write. There are no visitors in the place but children,
+and they (my own included) have all got the hooping-cough, and go about
+the beach choking incessantly. A miserable wanderer lectured in a
+library last night about astronomy; but being in utter solitude he
+snuffed out the transparent planets he had brought with him in a box and
+fled in disgust. A white mouse and a little tinkling box of music that
+stops at "come," in the melody of the Buffalo Gals, and can't play "out
+to-night," are the only amusements left.
+
+I beg from my solitude to send my love to Lady Blessington, and your
+sister, and Count D'Orsay. I think of taming spiders, as Baron Trenck
+did. There is one in my cell (with a speckled body and twenty-two very
+decided knees) who seems to know me.
+
+                                  Dear Miss Power,
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]
+
+                                        BROADSTAIRS, _July 9th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR SMITH,
+
+I am really more obliged to you for your kindness about "The Eagle" (as
+I always call your house) than I can say. But when I come to town
+to-morrow week, for the Liverpool and Manchester plays, I shall have
+Kate and Georgy with me. Moreover I shall be continually going out and
+coming in at unholy hours. Item, the timid will come at impossible
+seasons to "go over" their parts with the manager. Item, two Jews with
+musty sacks of dresses will be constantly coming backwards and forwards.
+Item, sounds as of "groans" will be heard while the inimitable Boz is
+"getting" his words--which happens all day. Item, Forster will
+incessantly deliver an address by Bulwer. Item, one hundred letters per
+diem will arrive from Manchester and Liverpool; and five actresses, in
+very limp bonnets, with extraordinary veils attached to them, will be
+always calling, protected by five mothers.
+
+No, no, my actuary. Some congenial tavern is the fitting scene for these
+things, if I don't get into Devonshire Terrace, whereof I have some
+spark of hope. Eagles couldn't look the sun in the face and have such
+enormities going on in their nests.
+
+I am, for the time, that obscene thing, in short, now chronicled in the
+Marylebone Register of Births--
+
+                                              A PLAYER,
+                                                   Though still yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                        BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Tuesday, July 14th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MISS POWER,
+
+Though I am hopeless of Rosherville until after the 28th--for am I not
+beckoned, by angels of charity and by local committees, to Manchester
+and Liverpool, and to all sorts of bedevilments (if I may be allowed the
+expression) in the way of managerial miseries in the meantime--here I
+find myself falling into parenthesis within parenthesis, like Lord
+Brougham--yet will I joyfully come up to London on Friday, to dine at
+your house and meet the Dane, whose Books I honour, and whose--to make
+the sentiment complete, I want something that would sound like "Bones, I
+love!" but I can't get anything that unites reason with beauty. You, who
+have genius and beauty in your own person, will supply the gap in your
+kindness.
+
+An advertisement in the newspapers mentioning the dinner-time, will be
+esteemed a favour.
+
+Some wild beasts (in cages) have come down here, and involved us in a
+whirl of dissipation. A young lady in complete armour--at least, in
+something that shines very much, and is exceedingly scaley--goes into
+the den of ferocious lions, tigers, leopards, etc., and pretends to go
+to sleep upon the principal lion, upon which a rustic keeper, who speaks
+through his nose, exclaims, "Behold the abazid power of woobad!" and we
+all applaud tumultuously.
+
+Seriously, she beats Van Amburgh. And I think the Duke of Wellington
+must have her painted by Landseer.
+
+My penitent regards to Lady Blessington, Count D'Orsay, and my own
+Marchioness.
+
+                               Ever, dear Miss Power,
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                           BROADSTAIRS, _Wednesday, August 4th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+I am delighted to hear that you are going to improve in your spelling,
+because nobody can write properly without spelling well. But I know you
+will learn whatever you are taught, because you are always good,
+industrious, and attentive. That is what I always say of my Mamey.
+
+The note you sent me this morning is a very nice one, and the spelling
+is beautiful.
+
+                                  Always, my dear Mamey,
+                                               Your affectionate Papa.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Morning, Nov. 23rd, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I am in the whirlwind of finishing a number with a crisis in it; but I
+can't fall to work without saying, in so many words, that I feel all
+words insufficient to tell you what I think of you after a night like
+last night. The multitudes of new tokens by which I know you for a great
+man, the swelling within me of my love for you, the pride I have in you,
+the majestic reflection I see in you of all the passions and affections
+that make up our mystery, throw me into a strange kind of transport that
+has no expression but in a mute sense of an attachment, which, in truth
+and fervency, is worthy of its subject.
+
+What is this to say! Nothing, God knows, and yet I cannot leave it
+unsaid.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I never saw you more gallant and free than in the gallant and free
+scenes last night. It was perfectly captivating to behold you. However,
+it shall not interfere with my determination to address you as Old Parr
+in all future time.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                           EDINBURGH, _Thursday, December 13th, 1847._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I "take up my pen," as the young ladies write, to let you know how we
+are getting on; and as I shall be obliged to put it down again very
+soon, here goes. We lived with very hospitable people in a very splendid
+house near Glasgow, and were perfectly comfortable. The meeting was the
+most stupendous thing as to numbers, and the most beautiful as to
+colours and decorations I ever saw. The inimitable did wonders. His
+grace, elegance, and eloquence, enchanted all beholders. _Kate didn't
+go!_ having been taken ill on the railroad between here and Glasgow.
+
+It has been snowing, sleeting, thawing, and freezing, sometimes by turns
+and sometimes all together, since the night before last. Lord Jeffrey's
+household are in town here, not at Craigcrook, and jogging on in a cosy,
+old-fashioned, comfortable sort of way. We have some idea of going to
+York on Sunday, passing that night at Alfred's, and coming home on
+Monday; but of this, Kate will advise you when she writes, which she
+will do to-morrow, after I shall have seen the list of railway trains.
+
+She sends her best love. She is a little poorly still, but nothing to
+speak of. She is frightfully anxious that her not having been to the
+great demonstration should be kept a secret. But I say that, like
+murder, it will out, and that to hope to veil such a tremendous disgrace
+from the general intelligence is out of the question. In one of the
+Glasgow papers she is elaborately described. I rather think Miss Alison,
+who is seventeen, was taken for her, and sat for the portrait.
+
+Best love from both of us, to Charley, Mamey, Katey, Wally,
+Chickenstalker, Skittles, and the Hoshen Peck; last, and not least, to
+you. We talked of you at the Macreadys' party on Monday night. I hope
+---- came out lively, also that ---- was truly amiable. Finally, that
+---- took everybody to their carriages, and that ---- wept a good deal
+during the festivities? God bless you. Take care of yourself, for the
+sake of mankind in general.
+
+                                     Ever affectionately, dear Georgy.
+
+
+
+
+1848.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In March of this year Charles Dickens went with his wife for two or
+three weeks to Brighton, accompanied by Mrs. Macready, who was in
+delicate health, and we give a letter to Mr. Macready from Brighton.
+Early in the year, "Dombey and Son" was finished, and he was again busy
+with an amateur play, with the same associates and some new adherents;
+the proceeds being, at first, intended to go towards the curatorship of
+Shakespeare's house, which post was to be given to Mr. Sheridan Knowles.
+The endowment was abandoned, upon the town and council of
+Stratford-on-Avon taking charge of the house; the large sum realised by
+the performances being handed over to Mr. Sheridan Knowles. The play
+selected was "The Merry Wives of Windsor;" the farce, "Love, Law, and
+Physic." There were two performances at the Haymarket in April, at one
+of which her Majesty and the Prince Consort were present; and in July
+there were performances at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh,
+and Glasgow. Some ladies accompanied the "strollers" on this theatrical
+provincial tour, and Mrs. Dickens and her sister were of the party. Many
+of the following letters bear reference to these plays.
+
+In this summer, his eldest sister Fanny (Mrs. Burnett) died, and there
+are sorrowful allusions to her illness in several of the letters.
+
+The autumn months were again spent at Broadstairs, where he wrote "The
+Haunted Man," which was illustrated by Mr. Frank Stone, Mr. Leech, and
+others. At the end of the year and at the end of his work, he took
+another short holiday at Brighton with his wife and sister-in-law; and
+the letters to Mr. Stone on the subject of his illustrations to "The
+Haunted Man" are written from Brighton. The first letters which we have
+to Mr. Mark Lemon come here. We regret to have been unable to procure
+any letters addressed to Mr. Leech, with whom, as with Mr. Lemon,
+Charles Dickens was very intimately associated for many years.
+
+Also, we have the beginning of his correspondence with Mr. Charles Kent.
+He wrote (an unusual thing for him to do) to the editor of _The Sun_
+newspaper, begging him to thank the writer of a particularly sympathetic
+and earnest review of "Dombey and Son," which appeared in _The Sun_ at
+the close of the book. Mr. Charles Kent replied in his proper person,
+and from that time dates a close friendship and constant correspondence.
+
+With the letter to Mr. Forster we give, as a note, a letter which Baron
+Tauechnitz published in his edition of Mr. Forster's "Life of Oliver
+Goldsmith."
+
+Mr. Peter Cunningham, as an important member of the "Shakespeare's
+House" committee, managed the _un_-theatrical part of this Amateur
+Provincial Tour, and was always pleasantly connected with the plays.
+
+The book alluded to in the last letter for this year, to be dedicated to
+Charles Dickens's daughters by Mr. Mark Lemon, was called "The Enchanted
+Doll."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Babbage.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 26th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+Pray let me thank you for your pamphlet.
+
+I confess that I am one of the unconvinced grumblers, and that I doubt
+the present or future existence of any government in England, strong
+enough to convert the people to your income-tax principles. But I do not
+the less appreciate the ability with which you advocate them, nor am I
+the less gratified by any mark of your remembrance.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                          JUNCTION HOUSE, BRIGHTON, _March 2nd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We have migrated from the Bedford and come here, where we are very
+comfortably (not to say gorgeously) accommodated. Mrs. Macready is
+certainly better already, and I really have very great hopes that she
+will come back in a condition so blooming, as to necessitate the
+presentation of a piece of plate to the undersigned trainer.
+
+You mean to come down on Sunday and on Sunday week. If you don't, I
+shall immediately take the Victoria, and start Mr. ----, of the Theatre
+Royal, Haymarket, as a smashing tragedian. Pray don't impose upon me
+this cruel necessity.
+
+I think Lamartine, so far, one of the best fellows in the world; and I
+have lively hopes of that great people establishing a noble republic.
+Our court had best be careful not to overdo it in respect of sympathy
+with ex-royalty and ex-nobility. Those are not times for such displays,
+as, it strikes me, the people in some of our great towns would be apt to
+express pretty plainly.
+
+However, we'll talk of all this on these Sundays, and Mr. ---- shall
+_not_ be raised to the pinnacle of fame.
+
+                                Ever affectionately yours,
+                                                     My dear Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Editor of _The Sun_.]
+
+           DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                           _Friday, April 14th, 1848._
+
+                            _Private._
+
+Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to the Editor of _The Sun_,
+and begs that gentleman will have the goodness to convey to the writer
+of the notice of "Dombey and Son," in last evening's paper, Mr.
+Dickens's warmest acknowledgments and thanks. The sympathy expressed in
+it is so very earnestly and unaffectedly stated, that it is particularly
+welcome and gratifying to Mr. Dickens, and he feels very desirous indeed
+to convey that assurance to the writer of that frank and genial
+farewell.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Charles M. Kent.]
+
+          1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                   _April 18th, 1848._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Pray let me repeat to you personally what I expressed in my former note,
+and allow me to assure you, as an illustration of my sincerity, that I
+have never addressed a similar communication to anybody except on one
+occasion.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                     DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, April 22nd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,[7]
+
+I finished Goldsmith yesterday, after dinner, having read it from the
+first page to the last with the greatest care and attention.
+
+As a picture of the time, I really think it impossible to give it too
+much praise. It seems to me to be the very essence of all about the time
+that I have ever seen in biography or fiction, presented in most wise
+and humane lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. I have never
+liked Johnson half so well. Nobody's contempt for Boswell ought to be
+capable of increase, but I have never seen him in my mind's eye half so
+plainly. The introduction of him is quite a masterpiece. I should point
+to that, if I didn't know the author, as being done by somebody with a
+remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated, and a most admirable
+and fanciful power of communicating it to another. All about Reynolds is
+charming; and the first account of the Literary Club and of Beauclerc as
+excellent a piece of description as ever I read in my life. But to read
+the book is to be in the time. It lives again in as fresh and lively a
+manner as if it were presented on an impossibly good stage by the very
+best actors that ever lived, or by the real actors come out of their
+graves on purpose.
+
+And as to Goldsmith himself, and _his_ life, and the tracing of it out
+in his own writings, and the manful and dignified assertion of him
+without any sobs, whines, or convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a
+noble achievement, of which, apart from any private and personal
+affection for you, I think (and really believe) I should feel proud, as
+one who had no indifferent perception of these books of his--to the best
+of my remembrance--when little more than a child. I was a little afraid
+in the beginning, when he committed those very discouraging imprudences,
+that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately; but I
+very soon got over that fear, and found reason in every page to admire
+the sense, calmness, and moderation with which you make the love and
+admiration of the reader cluster about him from his youth, and
+strengthen with his strength--and weakness too, which is better still.
+
+I don't quite agree with you in two small respects. First, I question
+very much whether it would have been a good thing for every great man to
+have had his Boswell, inasmuch as I think that two Boswells, or three at
+most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have
+set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished
+people about them for ever restless and distrustful. I can imagine a
+succession of Boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in
+society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship.
+Secondly, I cannot help objecting to that practice (begun, I think, or
+greatly enlarged by Hunt) of italicising lines and words and whole
+passages in extracts, without some very special reason indeed. It does
+appear to be a kind of assertion of the editor over the reader--almost
+over the author himself--which grates upon me. The author might almost
+as well do it himself to my thinking, as a disagreeable thing; and it is
+such a strong contrast to the modest, quiet, tranquil beauty of "The
+Deserted Village," for instance, that I would almost as soon hear "the
+town crier" speak the lines. The practice always reminds me of a man
+seeing a beautiful view, and not thinking how beautiful it is half so
+much as what he shall say about it.
+
+In that picture at the close of the third book (a most beautiful one) of
+Goldsmith sitting looking out of window at the Temple trees, you speak
+of the "gray-eyed" rooks. Are you sure they are "gray-eyed"? The raven's
+eye is a deep lustrous black, and so, I suspect, is the rook's, except
+when the light shines full into it.
+
+I have reserved for a closing word--though I _don't_ mean to be
+eloquent about it, being far too much in earnest--the admirable manner
+in which the case of the literary man is stated throughout this book. It
+is splendid. I don't believe that any book was ever written, or anything
+ever done or said, half so conducive to the dignity and honour of
+literature as "The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith," by J. F.,
+of the Inner Temple. The gratitude of every man who is content to rest
+his station and claims quietly on literature, and to make no feint of
+living by anything else, is your due for evermore. I have often said,
+here and there, when you have been at work upon the book, that I was
+sure it would be; and I shall insist on that debt being due to you
+(though there will be no need for insisting about it) as long as I have
+any tediousness and obstinacy to bestow on anybody. Lastly, I never will
+hear the biography compared with Boswell's except under vigorous
+protest. For I do say that it is mere folly to put into opposite scales
+a book, however amusing and curious, written by an unconscious coxcomb
+like that, and one which surveys and grandly understands the characters
+of all the illustrious company that move in it.
+
+My dear Forster, I cannot sufficiently say how proud I am of what you
+have done, or how sensible I am of being so tenderly connected with it.
+When I look over this note, I feel as if I had said no part of what I
+think; and yet if I were to write another I should say no more, for I
+can't get it out. I desire no better for my fame, when my personal
+dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a
+biographer and such a critic. And again I say, most solemnly, that
+literature in England has never had, and probably never will have, such
+a champion as you are, in right of this book.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                           _Wednesday, May 3rd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR LEMON,
+
+Do you think you could manage, before we meet to-morrow, to get from the
+musical director of the Haymarket (whom I don't know) a note of the
+overtures he purposes playing on our two nights? I am obliged to correct
+and send back the bill proofs to-morrow (they are to be brought to Miss
+Kelly's)--and should like, for completeness' sake, to put the music in.
+Before "The Merry Wives," it must be something Shakespearian. Before
+"Animal Magnetism," something very telling and light--like "Fra
+Diavolo."
+
+Wednesday night's music in a concatenation accordingly, and jolly little
+polkas and quadrilles between the pieces, always beginning the moment
+the act-drop is down. If any little additional strength should be really
+required in the orchestra, so be it.
+
+Can you come to Miss Kelly's by _three_? I should like to show you
+bills, tickets, and so forth, before they are worked. In order that they
+may not interfere with or confuse the rehearsal, I have appointed Peter
+Cunningham to meet me there at three, instead of half-past.
+
+                                                     Faithfully ever.
+
+P.S.--If you should be disposed to chop together early, send me a line
+to the Athenaeum. I have engaged to be with Barry at ten, to go over the
+Houses of Parliament. When I have done so, I will go to the club on the
+chance of a note from you, and would meet you where you chose.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                                  ATHENAEUM, _Thursday, May 4th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I have not been able to write to you until now. I have lived in hope
+that Kate and I might be able to run down to see you and yours for a
+day, before our design for enforcing the Government to make Knowles the
+first custodian of the Shakespeare house should come off. But I am so
+perpetually engaged in drilling the forces, that I see no hope of making
+a pleasant expedition to the Isle of Wight until about the twentieth.
+Then I shall hope to do so for one day. But of this I will advise you
+further, in due course.
+
+My doubts about the house you speak of are twofold, First, I could not
+leave town so soon as May, having affairs to arrange for a sick sister.
+And secondly, I fear Bonchurch is not sufficiently bracing for my
+chickens, who thrive best in breezy and cool places. This has set me
+thinking, sometimes of the Yorkshire coast, sometimes of Dover. I would
+not have the house at Bonchurch reserved for me, therefore. But if it
+should be empty, we will go and look at it in a body. I reserve the more
+serious part of my letter until the last, my dear White, because it
+comes from the bottom of my heart. None of your friends have thought and
+spoken oftener of you and Mrs. White than we have these many weeks past.
+I should have written to you, but was timid of intruding on your sorrow.
+What you say, and the manner in which you tell me I am connected with it
+in your recollection of your dear child, now among the angels of God,
+gives me courage to approach your grief--to say what sympathy we have
+felt with it, and how we have not been unimaginative of these deep
+sources of consolation to which you have had recourse. The traveller
+who journeyed in fancy from this world to the next was struck to the
+heart to find the child he had lost, many years before, building him a
+tower in heaven. Our blessed Christian hopes do not shut out the belief
+of love and remembrance still enduring there, but irradiate it and make
+it sacred. Who should know that better than you, or who more deeply feel
+the touching truths and comfort of that story in the older book, where,
+when the bereaved mother is asked, "Is it well with the child?" she
+answers, "It _is_ well."
+
+God be with you. Kate and her sister desire their kindest love to
+yourself and Mrs. White, in which I heartily join.
+
+                            Being ever, my dear White,
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday, May 10th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We are rehearsing at the Haymarket now, and Lemon mentioned to me
+yesterday that Webster had asked him if he would sound Forster or me as
+to your intention of having a farewell benefit before going to America,
+and whether you would like to have it at the Haymarket, and also as to
+its being preceded by a short engagement there. I don't know what your
+feelings may be on this latter head, but thinking it well that you may
+know how the land lies in these seas, send you this; the rather (excuse
+Elizabethan phrase, but you know how indispensable it is to me under
+existing circumstances)--the rather that I am thereto encouraged by thy
+consort, who has just come a-visiting here, with thy fair daughters,
+Mistress Nina and the little Kate. Wherefore, most selected friend,
+perpend at thy leisure, and so God speed thee!
+
+                                      And no more at present from,
+                                                           Thine ever.
+
+        From my tent in my garden.
+
+
+ANOTHER "BOBADIL" NOTE.
+
+I must tell you this, sir, I am no general man; but for William
+Shakespeare's sake (you may embrace it at what height of favour you
+please) I will communicate with you on the twenty-first, and do esteem
+you to be a gentleman of some parts--of a good many parts in truth. I
+love few words.
+
+[Illustration: HW: Signature: Bobadil]
+
+        At Cobb's, a water-bearer,
+              _October 11th._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday Morning, June 22nd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+I will be at Miss Kelly's to-morrow evening, from seven to eight, and
+shall hope to see you there, for a little conversation, touching the
+railroad arrangements.
+
+All preparations completed in Edinburgh and Glasgow. There will be a
+great deal of money taken, especially at the latter place.
+
+I wish I could persuade you, seriously, to come into training for Nym,
+in "The Merry Wives." He is never on by himself, and all he has to do is
+good, without being difficult. If you could screw yourself up to the
+doing of that part in Scotland, it would prevent our taking some new
+man, and would cover you (all over) with glory.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+P.S.--I am fully persuaded that an amateur manager has more
+correspondence than the Home Secretary.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                    _July 27th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I thought to have been at Rockingham long ago! It seems a century since
+I, standing in big boots on the Haymarket stage, saw you come into a box
+upstairs and look down on the humbled Bobadil, since then I have had the
+kindest of notes from you, since then the finest of venison, and yet I
+have not seen the Rockingham flowers, and they are withering I daresay.
+
+But we have acted at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and
+Glasgow; and the business of all this--and graver and heavier daily
+occupation in going to see a dying sister at Hornsey--has so worried me
+that I have hardly had an hour, far less a week. I shall never be quite
+happy, in a theatrical point of view, until you have seen me play in an
+English version of the French piece, "L'Homme Blase," which fairly
+turned the head of Glasgow last Thursday night as ever was; neither
+shall I be quite happy, in a social point of view, until I have been to
+Rockingham again. When the first event will come about Heaven knows. The
+latter will happen about the end of the November fogs and wet weather.
+For am I not going to Broadstairs now, to walk about on the sea-shore
+(why don't you bring your rosy children there?) and think what is to be
+done for Christmas! An idea occurs to me all at once. I must come down
+and read you that book before it's published. Shall it be a bargain?
+Were you all in Switzerland? I don't believe _I_ ever was. It is such a
+dream now. I wonder sometimes whether I ever disputed with a Haldimand;
+whether I ever drank mulled wine on the top of the Great St. Bernard, or
+was jovial at the bottom with company that have stolen into my
+affection; whether I ever was merry and happy in that valley on the Lake
+of Geneva, or saw you one evening (when I didn't know you) walking down
+among the green trees outside Elysee, arm-in-arm with a gentleman in a
+white hat. I am quite clear that there is no foundation for these
+visions. But I should like to go somewhere, too, and try it all over
+again. I don't know how it is, but the ideal world in which my lot is
+cast has an odd effect on the real one, and makes it chiefly precious
+for such remembrances. I get quite melancholy over them sometimes,
+especially when, as now, those great piled-up semicircles of bright
+faces, at which I have lately been looking--all laughing, earnest and
+intent--have faded away like dead people. They seem a ghostly moral of
+everything in life to me.
+
+Kate sends her best love, in which Georgy would as heartily unite, I
+know, but that she is already gone to Broadstairs with the children. We
+think of following on Saturday morning, but that depends on my poor
+sister. Pray give my most cordial remembrances to Watson, and tell him
+they include a great deal. I meant to have written you a letter. I don't
+know what this is. There is no word for it. So, if you will still let me
+owe you one, I will pay my debt, on the smallest encouragement, from the
+seaside. Here, there, and elsewhere, I am, with perfect truth, believe
+me,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Saturday, August 26th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I was about to write to you when I received your welcome letter. You
+knew I should come from a somewhat longer distance than this to give you
+a hearty God-speed and farewell on the eve of your journey. What do you
+say to Monday, the fourth, or Saturday, the second? Fix either day, let
+me know which suits you best--at what hour you expect the Inimitable,
+and the Inimitable will come up to the scratch like a man and a brother.
+
+Permit me, in conclusion, to nail my colours to the mast. Stars and
+stripes are so-so--showy, perhaps; but my colours is THE UNION JACK,
+which I am told has the remarkable property of having braved a thousand
+years the battle AND the breeze. Likewise, it is the flag of Albion--the
+standard of Britain; and Britons, as I am informed, never, never,
+never--will--be--slaves!
+
+My sentiment is: Success to the United States as a golden campaigning
+ground, but blow the United States to 'tarnal smash as an Englishman's
+place of residence. Gentlemen, are you all charged?
+
+                                                  Affectionately ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday, Sept. 8th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+We shall be very glad to see you all again, and we hope you will be very
+glad to see us. Give my best love to dear Katey, also to Frankey, Alley,
+and the Peck.
+
+I have had a nice note from Charley just now. He says it is expected at
+school that when Walter puts on his jacket, all the Miss Kings will fall
+in love with him to desperation and faint away.
+
+                             Ever, my dear Mamey,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Effingham William Wilson.]
+
+               1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                                     _Nov. 7th, 1848._
+
+                       "A NATIONAL THEATRE."
+
+SIR,
+
+I beg you to accept my best thanks for your pamphlet and your obliging
+note. That such a theatre as you describe would be but worthy of this
+nation, and would not stand low upon the list of its instructors, I have
+no kind of doubt. I wish I could cherish a stronger faith than I have in
+the probability of its establishment on a rational footing within fifty
+years.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, Nov. 21st, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I send you herewith the second part of the book, which I hope may
+interest you. If you should prefer to have it read to you by the
+Inimitable rather than to read it, I shall be at home this evening (loin
+of mutton at half-past five), and happy to do it. The proofs are full
+of printers' errors, but with the few corrections I have scrawled upon
+it, you will be able to make out what they mean.
+
+I send you, on the opposite side, a list of the subjects already in hand
+from this second part. If you should see no other in it that you like (I
+think it important that you should keep Milly, as you have begun with
+her), I will, in a day or two, describe you an unwritten subject for the
+third part of the book.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+SUBJECTS IN HAND FOR THE SECOND PART.
+
+1. Illuminated page. Tenniel. Representing Redlaw going upstairs, and
+the Tetterby family below.
+
+2. The Tetterby supper. Leech.
+
+3. The boy in Redlaw's room, munching his food and staring at the fire.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                          BRIGHTON, _Thursday Night, Nov. 23rd, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+We are unanimous.
+
+The drawing of Milly on the chair is CHARMING. I cannot tell you how
+much the little composition and expression please me. Do that, by all
+means.
+
+I fear she must have a little cap on. There is something coming in the
+last part, about her having had a dead child, which makes it yet more
+desirable than the existing text does that she should have that little
+matronly sign about her. Unless the artist is obdurate indeed, and then
+he'll do as he likes.
+
+I am delighted to hear that you have your eye on her in the students'
+room. You will really, pictorially, make the little woman whom I love.
+
+Kate and Georgy send their kindest remembrances. I write hastily to save
+the post.
+
+                                    Ever, my dear Stone,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+             BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Monday Night, Nov. 27th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+You are a TRUMP, emphatically a TRUMP, and such are my feelings towards
+you at this moment that I think (but I am not sure) that if I saw you
+about to place a card on a wrong pack at Bibeck (?), I wouldn't breathe
+a word of objection.
+
+Sir, there is a subject I have written to-day for the third part, that I
+think and hope will just suit you. Scene, Tetterby's. Time, morning. The
+power of bringing back people's memories of sorrow, wrong and trouble,
+has been given by the ghost to Milly, though she don't know it herself.
+As she comes along the street, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby recover themselves,
+and are mutually affectionate again, and embrace, closing _rather_ a
+good scene of quarrel and discontent. The moment they do so, Johnny (who
+has seen her in the distance and announced her before, from which moment
+they begin to recover) cries "Here she is!" and she comes in, surrounded
+by the little Tetterbys, the very spirit of morning, gladness,
+innocence, hope, love, domesticity, etc. etc. etc. etc.
+
+I would limit the illustration to her and the children, which will make
+a fitness between it and your other illustrations, and give them all a
+character of their own. The exact words of the passage I endorsed on
+another slip of paper. Note. There are six boy Tetterbys present (young
+'Dolphus is not there), including Johnny; and in Johnny's arms is
+Moloch, the baby, who is a girl. I hope to be back in town next Monday,
+and will lose no time in reporting myself to you. Don't wait to send me
+the drawing of this. I know how pretty she will be with the children in
+your hands, and should be a stupendous jackass if I had any distrust of
+it.
+
+The Duke of Cambridge is staying in this house, and they are driving me
+mad by having Life Guards bands under our windows, playing _our_
+overtures! I have been at work all day, and am going to wander into the
+theatre, where (for the comic man's benefit) "two gentlemen of Brighton"
+are performing two counts in a melodrama. I was quite addle-headed for
+the time being, and think an amateur or so would revive me. No 'Tone! I
+don't in the abstract approve of Brighton. I couldn't pass an autumn
+here; but it is a gay place for a week or so; and when one laughs and
+cries, and suffers the agitation that some men experience over their
+books, it's a bright change to look out of window, and see the gilt
+little toys on horseback going up and down before the mighty sea, and
+thinking nothing of it.
+
+Kate's love and Georgy's. They say you'll contradict every word of this
+letter.
+
+                                                      Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[SLIP OF PAPER ENCLOSED.]
+
+"Hurrah! here's Mrs. Williams!" cried Johnny.
+
+So she was, and all the Tetterby children with her; and as she came in,
+they kissed her and kissed one another, and kissed the baby and kissed
+their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about
+her, trooping on with her in triumph.
+
+(After which, she is going to say: "What, are _you_ all glad to see me
+too! Oh, how happy it makes me to find everyone so glad to see me this
+bright morning!")
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                           BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Nov. 28th, 1848._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I assure you, most unaffectedly and cordially, that the dedication of
+that book to Mary and _Kate_ (not Catherine) will be a real delight to
+me, and to all of us. I know well that you propose it in "affectionate
+regard," and value and esteem it, therefore, in a way not easy of
+expression.
+
+You were talking of "coming" down, and now, in a mean and dodging way,
+you write about "sending" the second act! I have a propogician to make.
+Come down on Friday. There is a train leaves London Bridge at two--gets
+here at four. By that time I shall be ready to strike work. We can take
+a little walk, dine, discuss, and you can go back in good time next
+morning. I really think this ought to be done, and indeed MUST be done.
+Write and say it shall be done.
+
+A little management will be required in dramatising the third part,
+where there are some things I _describe_ (for effect's sake, and as a
+matter of art) which must be _said_ on the stage. Redlaw is in a new
+condition of mind, which fact must be shot point-blank at the audience,
+I suppose, "as from the deadly level of a gun." By anybody who knew how
+to play Milly, I think it might be made very good. Its effect is very
+pleasant upon me. I have also given Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby another
+innings.
+
+I went to the play last night--fifth act of Richard the Third. Richmond
+by a stout _lady_, with a particularly well-developed bust, who finished
+all the speeches with the soubrette simper. Also, at the end of the
+tragedy she came forward (still being Richmond) and said, "Ladies and
+gentlemen, on Wednesday next the entertainments will be for _My_
+benefit, when I hope to meet your approbation and support." Then, having
+bowed herself into the stage-door, she looked out of it, and said,
+winningly, "Won't you come?" which was enormously applauded.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[7] LETTER OF BARON TAUeCHNITZ.
+
+Having had the privilege to see a letter which the late Mr. Charles
+Dickens wrote to the author of this work upon its first appearance, and
+which there was no intention to publish in England, it became my lively
+wish to make it known to the readers of my edition.
+
+I therefore addressed an earnest request to Mr. Forster, that he would
+permit the letter to be prefixed to a reprint not designed for
+circulation in England, where I could understand his reluctance to
+sanction its publication. Its varied illustration of the subject of the
+book, and its striking passages of personal feeling and character, led
+me also to request that I might be allowed to present it in facsimile.
+
+Mr. Forster complied; and I am most happy to be thus enabled to give to
+my public, on the following pages, so attractive and so interesting a
+letter, reproduced in the exact form in which it was written, by the
+most popular and admired-of writers--too early gone.
+
+TAUeCHNITZ.
+
+Leipsic, _May 23, 1873._
+
+
+
+
+1849.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+This, as far as correspondence is concerned, was an uneventful year. In
+the spring Charles Dickens took one of his holidays at Brighton,
+accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law and two daughters, and they
+were joined in their lodgings by Mr. and Mrs. Leech. From Brighton he
+writes the letter--as a song--which we give, to Mr. Mark Lemon, who had
+been ill, asking him to pay them a visit.
+
+In the summer, Charles Dickens went with his family, for the first time,
+to Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, having hired for six months the charming
+villa, Winterbourne, belonging to the Rev. James White. And now began
+that close and loving intimacy which for the future was to exist between
+these two families. Mr. Leech also took a house at Bonchurch. All
+through this year Charles Dickens was at work upon "David Copperfield."
+
+As well as giving eccentric names to his children and friends, he was
+also in the habit of giving such names to himself--that of "Sparkler"
+being one frequently used by him.
+
+Miss Joll herself gives us the explanation of the letter to her on
+capital punishment: "Soon after the appearance of his 'Household Words,'
+some friends were discussing an article in it on 'Private Executions.'
+They contended that it went to prove Mr. Dickens was an advocate of
+capital punishment. I, however, took a different view of the matter, and
+ventured to write and inquire his views on the subject, and to my letter
+he sent me a courteous reply."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Dudley Costello.]
+
+                  DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Night, Jan. 26th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR COSTELLO,
+
+I am desperate! Engaged in links of adamant to a "monster in human
+form"--a remarkable expression I think I remember to have once met with
+in a newspaper--whom I encountered at Franconi's, whence I have just
+returned, otherwise I would have done all three things right heartily
+and with my accustomed sweetness. Think of me another time when chops
+are on the carpet (figuratively speaking), and see if I won't come and
+eat 'em!
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I find myself too despondent for the flourish.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Night, Feb. 27th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+I am not engaged on the evening of your birthday. But even if I had an
+engagement of the most particular kind, I should excuse myself from
+keeping it, so that I might have the pleasure of celebrating at home,
+and among my children, the day that gave me such a dear and good
+daughter as you.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _May 25th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR STANFIELD.
+
+No--no--no! Murder, murder! Madness and misconception! Any _one_ of the
+subjects--not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you
+think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a
+pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request!
+
+Says my friend to me, "Will you ask _your_ friend, Mr. Stanfield, what
+the damage of a little picture of that size would be, that I may treat
+myself with the same, if I can afford it?" Says I, "I will." Says he,
+"Will you suggest that I should like it to be _one_ of those subjects?"
+Says I, "I will."
+
+I am beating my head against the door with grief and frenzy, and I shall
+continue to do so, until I receive your answer.
+
+                                   Ever heartily yours,
+                                                 THE MISCONCEIVED ONE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                         DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, June 4th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Leech and Sparkler having promised their ladies to take them to Ascot,
+and having failed in their truths, propoge to take them to Greenwich
+instead, next Wednesday. Will that alteration in the usual arrangements
+be agreeable to Gaffin, S.? If so, the place of meeting is the
+Sparkler's Bower, and the hour, one exactly.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+             SHANKLIN, ISLE OF WIGHT, _Monday Night, June 16th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR KATE,
+
+I have but a moment. Just got back and post going out. I have taken a
+most delightful and beautiful house, belonging to White, at Bonchurch;
+cool, airy, private bathing, everything delicious. I think it is the
+prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad. Anne may
+begin to dismantle Devonshire Terrace. I have arranged for carriages,
+luggage, and everything.
+
+The man with the post-bag is swearing in the passage.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--A waterfall on the grounds, which I have arranged with a carpenter
+to convert into a perpetual shower-bath.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, June 25th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR LEMON,
+
+I am very unwilling to deny Charley the pleasure you so kindly offer
+him. But as it is just the close of the half-year when they are getting
+together all the half-year's work--and as that day's pleasure would
+weaken the next day's duty, I think I must be "more like an ancient
+Roman than a ----" Sparkler, and that it will be wisest in me to say
+nothing about it.
+
+Get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of "Copperfield" No.
+3; "simple and quiet, but very natural and touching."--_Evening Bore._
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+NEW SONG.
+
+TUNE--"Lesbia hath a beaming eye."
+
+1.
+
+        Lemon is a little hipped,
+          And this is Lemon's true position;
+        He is not pale, he's not white-lipped,
+          Yet wants a little fresh condition.
+        Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
+          Old ocean's rising, falling billows,
+        Than on the houses every one,
+          That form the street called Saint Anne's Willers.
+                Oh, my Lemon, round and fat,
+                  Oh, my bright, my right, my tight 'un,
+                Think a little what you're at--
+                  Don't stay at home, but come to Brighton!
+
+2.
+
+        Lemon has a coat of frieze,
+          But all so seldom Lemon wears it,
+        That it is a prey to fleas,
+          And ev'ry moth that's hungry tears it.
+        Oh, that coat's the coat for me,
+          That braves the railway sparks and breezes,
+        Leaving every engine free
+          To smoke it, till its owner sneezes!
+                Then my Lemon, round and fat,
+                  L., my bright, my right, my tight 'un,
+                Think a little what you're at--
+                  On Tuesday first, come down to Brighton!
+
+                                                          T. SPARKLER.
+
+Also signed,
+
+        CATHERINE DICKENS,
+        ANNIE LEECH,
+        GEORGINA HOGARTH,
+        MARY DICKENS,
+        KATIE DICKENS,
+        JOHN LEECH.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                     WINTERBOURNE, _Sunday Evening, Sept. 23rd, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I have a hundred times at least wanted to say to you how good I thought
+those papers in "Blackwood"--how excellent their purpose, and how
+delicately and charmingly worked out. Their subtle and delightful
+humour, and their grasp of the whole question, were something more
+pleasant to me than I can possibly express.
+
+"How comes this lumbering Inimitable to say this, on this Sunday night
+of all nights in the year?" you naturally ask. Now hear the Inimitable's
+honest avowal! I make so bold because I heard that Morning Service
+better read this morning than ever I have heard it read in my life. And
+because--for the soul of me--I cannot separate the two things, or help
+identifying the wise and genial man out of church with the earnest and
+unaffected man in it. Midsummer madness, perhaps, but a madness I hope
+that will hold us true friends for many and many a year to come. The
+madness is over as soon as you have burned this letter (see the history
+of the Gunpowder Plot), but let us be friends much longer for these
+reasons and many included in them not herein expressed.
+
+                                                Affectionately always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Joll.]
+
+                      ROCKINGHAM CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
+                                                    _Nov. 27th, 1849._
+
+Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to Miss Joll. He is, on
+principle, opposed to capital punishment, but believing that many
+earnest and sincere people who are favourable to its retention in
+extreme cases would unite in any temperate effort to abolish the evils
+of public executions, and that the consequences of public executions are
+disgraceful and horrible, he has taken the course with which Miss Joll
+is acquainted as the most hopeful, and as one undoubtedly calculated to
+benefit society at large.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Night, Nov. 30th, 1849._
+                                                 _A Quarter-past Ten._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Plunged in the deepest gloom, I write these few words to let you know
+that, just now, when the bell was striking ten, I drank to
+
+[Illustration: H. E. R.!]
+
+and to all the rest of Rockingham; as the wine went down my throat, I
+felt distinctly that it was "changing those thoughts to madness."
+
+On the way here I was a terror to my companions, and I am at present a
+blight and mildew on my home.
+
+Think of me sometimes, as I shall long think of our glorious dance last
+night. Give my most affectionate regards to Watson, and my kind
+remembrances to all who remember me, and believe me,
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I am in such an incapable state, that after executing the
+foregoing usual flourish I swooned, and remained for some time
+insensible. Ha, ha, ha! Why was I ever restored to consciousness!!!
+
+P.P.S.--"Changing" those thoughts ought to be "driving." But my
+recollection is incoherent and my mind wanders.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Cerjat.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Dec. 29th, 1849._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I received your letter at breakfast-time this morning with a pleasure my
+eloquence is unable to express and your modesty unable to conceive. It
+is so delightful to be remembered at this time of the year in your house
+where we have been so happy, and in dear old Lausanne, that we always
+hope to see again, that I can't help pushing away the first page of
+"Copperfield" No. 10, now staring at me with what I may literally call a
+blank aspect, and plunging energetically into this reply.
+
+What a strange coincidence that is about Blunderstone House! Of all the
+odd things I have ever heard (and their name is Legion), I think it is
+the oddest. I went down into that part of the country on the 7th of
+January last year, when I was meditating the story, and chose
+Blunderstone for the sound of its name. I had previously observed much
+of what you say about the poor girls. In all you suggest with so much
+feeling about their return to virtue being cruelly cut off, I concur
+with a sore heart. I have been turning it over in my mind for some time,
+and hope, in the history of Little Em'ly (who _must_ fall--there is no
+hope for her), to put it before the thoughts of people in a new and
+pathetic way, and perhaps to do some good. You will be glad to hear, I
+know, that "Copperfield" is a great success. I think it is better liked
+than any of my other books.
+
+We had a most delightful time at Watsons' (for both of them we have
+preserved and strengthened a real affection), and were the gayest of the
+gay. There was a Miss Boyle staying in the house, who is an excellent
+amateur actress, and she and I got up some scenes from "The School for
+Scandal" and from "Nickleby," with immense success. We played in the old
+hall, with the audience filled up and running over with servants. The
+entertainments concluded with feats of legerdemain (for the performance
+of which I have a pretty good apparatus, collected at divers times and
+in divers places), and we then fell to country dances of a most frantic
+description, and danced all night. We often spoke of you and Mrs. Cerjat
+and of Haldimand, and wished you were all there. Watson and I have some
+fifty times "registered a vow" (like O'Connell) to come to Lausanne
+together, and have even settled in what month and week. Something or
+other has always interposed to prevent us; but I hope, please God, most
+certainly to see it again, when my labours-Copperfieldian shall have
+terminated.
+
+You have no idea what that hanging of the Mannings really was. The
+conduct of the people was so indescribably frightful, that I felt for
+some time afterwards almost as if I were living in a city of devils. I
+feel, at this hour, as if I never could go near the place again. My
+letters have made a great to-do, and led to a great agitation of the
+subject; but I have not a confident belief in any change being made,
+mainly because the total abolitionists are utterly reckless and
+dishonest (generally speaking), and would play the deuce with any such
+proposition in Parliament, unless it were strongly supported by the
+Government, which it would certainly not be, the Whig motto (in office)
+being "_laissez aller_." I think Peel might do it if he came in. Two
+points have occurred to me as being a good commentary to the objections
+to my idea. The first is that a most terrific uproar was made when the
+hanging processions were abolished, and the ceremony shrunk from Tyburn
+to the prison door. The second is that, at this very time, under the
+British Government in New South Wales, executions take place _within the
+prison walls_, with decidedly improved results. (I am waiting to explode
+this fact on the first man of mark who gives me the opportunity.)
+
+Unlike you, we have had no marriages or giving in marriage here. We
+might have had, but a certain young lady, whom you know, is hard to
+please. The children are all well, thank God! Charley is going to Eton
+the week after next, and has passed a first-rate examination. Kate is
+quite well, and unites with me and Georgina in love to you and Mrs.
+Cerjat and Haldimand, whom I would give a good deal (tell him) to have
+several hours' contradiction of at his own table. Good heavens, how
+obstinate we would both be! I see him leaning back in his chair, with
+his right forefinger out, and saying, "Good God!" in reply to some
+proposition of mine, and then laughing.
+
+All in a moment a feeling comes over me, as if you and I have been still
+talking, smoking cigars outside the inn at Martigny, the piano sounding
+inside, and Lady Mary Taylour singing. I look into my garden (which is
+covered with snow) rather dolefully, but take heart again, and look
+brightly forward to another expedition to the Great St. Bernard, when
+Mrs. Cerjat and I shall laugh as I fancy I have never laughed since, in
+one of those one-sided cars; and when we shall again learn from
+Haldimand, in a little dingy cabaret, at lunch-time, how to secure a
+door in travelling (do you remember?) by balancing a chair against it on
+its two hind-legs.
+
+I do hope that we may all come together again once more, while there is
+a head of hair left among us; and in this hope remain, my dear Cerjat,
+
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+
+
+1850.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the spring Charles Dickens took a short holiday again, with his wife
+and sister-in-law, at Brighton, from whence he wrote to Mr. Wills, on
+"Household Words" business. The first number of this journal appeared on
+the 30th March.
+
+This autumn he succeeded, for the first time, in getting possession of
+the "Fort House," Broadstairs, on which he had always set his
+affections. He was hard at work on the closing numbers of "David
+Copperfield" during all the summer and autumn. The family moved to
+Broadstairs in July, but as a third daughter was born in August, they
+were not joined by Mrs. Dickens until the end of September. "David
+Copperfield" was finished in October.
+
+The beginning of his correspondence with Mrs. Gaskell is in his asking
+her to contribute to "Household Words," which she did from the first
+number, and very frequently afterwards both to "Household Words" and
+"All the Year Round."
+
+The letter to Mr. David Roberts, R.A., is one thanking him for a
+remembrance of his (Mr. Roberts's) travels in the East--a picture of a
+"Simoom in the Desert," which was one of Charles Dickens's most highly
+prized possessions.
+
+A letter to Mr. Sheridan Knowles contains allusions which we have no
+means of explaining, but we publish it, as it is characteristic, and
+addressed to a literary celebrity. Its being inscribed to "Daddy"
+Knowles illustrates a habit of Charles Dickens--as does a letter later
+in this year to Mr. Stone, beginning, "My dear P."--of giving nicknames
+to the friends with whom he was on the most affectionate and intimate
+terms. Mr. Stone--especially included in this category--was the subject
+of many such names; "Pump," or "Pumpion," being one by which he was
+frequently addressed--a joke as good-humouredly and gladly received as
+it was kindly and pleasantly intended.
+
+There were no public amateur theatricals this year; but in November, the
+greater part of the amateur company played for three nights at Knebworth
+Park, as the guests of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (afterwards Lord
+Lytton), who entertained all his county neighbours to witness the
+performances. The play was "Every Man in his Humour," and farces, varied
+each night.
+
+This year we have our first letter to Miss Mary Boyle, a cousin of Mrs.
+Watson, well known as an amateur actress and an accomplished lady. Miss
+Boyle was to have acted with the amateur company at Knebworth, but was
+prevented by domestic affliction. Early in the following year there was
+a private play at Rockingham Castle, when Miss Boyle acted with Charles
+Dickens, the play being "Used Up," in which Mrs. Dickens also acted; and
+the farce, "Animal Magnetism," in which Miss Boyle and Miss Hogarth
+played. The letters to Mrs. Watson in this year refer chiefly to the
+preparations for the play in her house.
+
+The accident mentioned in the letter addressed to Mr. Henry Bicknell
+(son-in-law of Mr. David Roberts, R.A., and a much-esteemed friend of
+Charles Dickens) was an accident which happened to Mrs. Dickens, while
+rehearsing at a theatre. She fell through a trap-door, spraining her
+ankle so badly as to be incapacitated from taking her part in the
+theatricals at Knebworth.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 3rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR ROBERTS,
+
+I am more obliged to you than I can tell you for the beautiful mark of
+your friendly remembrance which you have sent me this morning. I shall
+set it up among my household gods with pride. It gives me the highest
+gratification, and I beg you to accept my most cordial and sincere
+thanks. A little bit of the tissue paper was sticking to the surface of
+the picture, and has slightly marked it. It requires but a touch, as one
+would dot an "i" or cross a "t," to remove the blemish; but as I cannot
+think of a recollection so full of poetry being touched by any hand but
+yours, I have told Green the framer, whenever he shall be on his way
+with it, to call on you by the road. I enclose a note from Mrs. Dickens,
+which I hope will impress you into a country dance, with which we hope
+to dismiss Christmas merrily.
+
+                                  Ever, my dear Roberts,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. James Sheridan Knowles.]
+
+                              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 3rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR GOOD KNOWLES,
+
+Many happy New Years to you, and to all who are near and dear to you.
+Your generous heart unconsciously exaggerates, I am sure, my merit in
+respect of that most honourable gentleman who has been the occasion of
+our recent correspondence. I cannot sufficiently admire the dignity of
+his conduct, and I really feel indebted to you for giving me the
+gratification of observing it.
+
+As to that "cross note," which, rightly considered, was nothing of the
+sort, if ever you refer to it again, I'll do--I don't exactly know what,
+but something perfectly desperate and ferocious. If I have ever thought
+of it, it has only been to remember with delight how soon we came to a
+better understanding, and how heartily we confirmed it with a most
+expressive shake of the hand, one evening down in that mouldy little den
+of Miss Kelly's.
+
+                                        Heartily and faithfully yours.
+     "Daddy" Knowles.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 31st, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+You may perhaps have seen an announcement in the papers of my intention
+to start a new cheap weekly journal of general literature.
+
+I do not know what your literary vows of temperance or abstinence may
+be, but as I do honestly know that there is no living English writer
+whose aid I would desire to enlist in preference to the authoress of
+"Mary Barton" (a book that most profoundly affected and impressed me), I
+venture to ask you whether you can give me any hope that you will write
+a short tale, or any number of tales, for the projected pages.
+
+No writer's name will be used, neither my own nor any other; every paper
+will be published without any signature, and all will seem to express
+the general mind and purpose of the journal, which is the raising up of
+those that are down, and the general improvement of our social
+condition. I should set a value on your help which your modesty can
+hardly imagine; and I am perfectly sure that the least result of your
+reflection or observation in respect of the life around you, would
+attract attention and do good.
+
+Of course I regard your time as valuable, and consider it so when I ask
+you if you could devote any of it to this purpose.
+
+If you could and would prefer to speak to me on the subject, I should be
+very glad indeed to come to Manchester for a few hours and explain
+anything you might wish to know. My unaffected and great admiration of
+your book makes me very earnest in all relating to you. Forgive my
+troubling you for this reason, and believe me ever,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Mrs. Dickens and her sister send their love.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I have been going to write to you for a long time, but have always had
+in my mind that you might come here with Lotty any day. As Lotty has
+come without you, however (witness a tremendous rampaging and ravaging
+now going on upstairs!), I despatch this note to say that I suppose you
+have seen the announcement of "the" new weekly thing, and that if you
+would ever write anything for it, you would please me better than I can
+tell you. We hope to do some solid good, and we mean to be as cheery and
+pleasant as we can. (And, putting our hands in our breeches pockets, we
+say complacently, that our money is as good as Blackwood's any day in
+the week.)
+
+Now the murder's out!
+
+Are you never coming to town any more? Must I come to Bonchurch? Am I
+born (for the eight-and-thirtieth time) next Thursday, at half-past
+five, and do you mean to say you are _not_ coming to dinner? Well, well,
+I can always go over to Puseyism to spite my friends, and that's some
+comfort.
+
+Poor dear Jeffrey! I had heard from him but a few days, and the unopened
+proof of No. 10 was lying on his table when he died. I believe I have
+lost as affectionate a friend as I ever had, or ever shall have, in this
+world.
+
+                                   Ever heartily yours, my dear White.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 8th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+Let me thank you in the heartiest manner for your most kind and
+gratifying mention of me in your able pamphlet. It gives me great
+pleasure, and I sincerely feel it.
+
+I quite agree with you in all you say so well of the injustice and
+impolicy of this excessive taxation. But when I think of the condition
+of the great mass of the people, I fear that I could hardly find the
+heart to press for justice in this respect, before the window-duty is
+removed. They cannot read without light. They cannot have an average
+chance of life and health without it. Much as we feel our wrong, I fear
+that they feel their wrong more, and that the things just done in this
+wise must bear a new physical existence.
+
+I never see you, and begin to think we must have another play--say in
+Cornwall--expressly to bring us together.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+
+
+SUGGESTIONS FOR TITLES OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS."
+
+THE FORGE:
+
+A Weekly Journal,
+
+Conducted by Charles Dickens.
+
+
+        "Thus at the glowing Forge of Life our actions must be wrought,
+         Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
+         Each burning deed and thought."--_Longfellow._
+
+        THE HEARTH.
+        THE FORGE.
+        THE CRUCIBLE.
+        THE ANVIL OF THE TIME.
+        CHARLES DICKENS'S OWN.
+        SEASONABLE LEAVES.
+        EVERGREEN LEAVES.
+        HOME.
+        HOME-MUSIC.
+        CHANGE.
+        TIME AND TIDE.
+        TWOPENCE.
+        ENGLISH BELLS.
+        WEEKLY BELLS.
+        THE ROCKET.
+        GOOD HUMOUR.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                   148, KING'S ROAD, BRIGHTON,
+                                    _Tuesday Night, March 12th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have made a correction or two in my part of the post-office article. I
+still observe the top-heavy "Household Words" in the title. The title of
+"The Amusements of the People" has to be altered as I have marked it. I
+would as soon have my hair cut off as an intolerable Scotch shortness
+put into my titles by the elision of little words. "The Seasons" wants a
+little punctuation. Will the "Incident in the Life of Mademoiselle
+Clairon" go into those two pages? I fear not, but one article would be
+infinitely better, I am quite certain, than two or three short ones. If
+it will go in, in with it.
+
+I shall be back, please God, by dinner-time to-morrow week. I will be
+ready for Smithfield either on the following Monday morning at four, or
+any other morning you may arrange for.
+
+Would it do to make up No. 2 on Wednesday, the 20th, instead of
+Saturday? If so, it would be an immense convenience to me. But if it be
+distinctly necessary to make it up on Saturday, say by return, and I am
+to be relied upon. Don't fail in this.
+
+I really _can't_ promise to be comic. Indeed, your note put me out a
+little, for I had just sat down to begin, "It will last my time." I will
+shake my head a little, and see if I can shake a more comic substitute
+out of it.
+
+As to _two_ comic articles, or two any sort of articles, out of me,
+that's the intensest extreme of no-goism.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _July 13th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+Being obliged (sorely against my will) to leave my work this morning and
+go out, and having a few spare minutes before I go, I write a hasty
+note, to hint how glad I am to have received yours, and how happy and
+tranquil we feel it to be for you all, that the end of that long illness
+has come.[8] Kate and Georgy send best loves to Mrs. White, and we hope
+she will take all needful rest and relief after those arduous, sad, and
+weary weeks. I have taken a house at Broadstairs, from early in August
+until the end of October, as I don't want to come back to London until I
+shall have finished "Copperfield." I am rejoiced at the idea of your
+going there. You will find it the healthiest and freshest of places; and
+there are Canterbury, and all varieties of what Leigh Hunt calls
+"greenery," within a few minutes' railroad ride. It is not very
+picturesque ashore, but extremely so seaward; all manner of ships
+continually passing close inshore. So come, and we'll have no end of
+sports, please God.
+
+I am glad to say, as I know you will be to hear, that there seems a
+bright unanimity about "Copperfield." I am very much interested in it
+and pleased with it myself. I have carefully planned out the story, for
+some time past, to the end, and am making out my purposes with great
+care. I should like to know what you see from that tower of yours. I
+have little doubt you see the real objects in the prospect.
+
+"Household Words" goes on _thoroughly well_. It is expensive, of course,
+and demands a large circulation; but it is taking a great and steady
+stand, and I have no doubt already yields a good round profit.
+
+To-morrow week I shall expect you. You shall have a bottle of the
+"Twenty." I have kept a few last lingering caskets with the gem
+enshrined therein, expressly for you.
+
+                                       Ever, my dear White,
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+         HOTEL WINDSOR, PARIS, _Thursday, July 27th, 1850._
+                                                    _After post-time._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have had much ado to get to work; the heat here being so intense that
+I can do nothing but lie on the bare floor all day. I never felt it
+anything like so hot in Italy.
+
+There is nothing doing in the theatres, and the atmosphere is so
+horribly oppressive there that one can hardly endure it. I came out of
+the Francais last night half dead. I am writing at this moment with
+nothing on but a shirt and pair of white trousers, and have been
+sitting four hours at this paper, but am as faint with the heat as if I
+had been at some tremendous gymnastics; and yet we had a thunderstorm
+last night.
+
+I hope we are doing pretty well in Wellington Street. My anxiety makes
+me feel as if I had been away a year. I hope to be home on Tuesday
+evening, or night at latest. I have picked up a very curious book of
+French statistics that will suit us, and an odd proposal for a company
+connected with the gambling in California, of which you will also be
+able to make something.
+
+I saw a certain "Lord Spleen" mentioned in a playbill yesterday, and
+will look after that distinguished English nobleman to-night, if
+possible. Rachel played last night for the last time before going to
+London, and has not so much in her as some of our friends suppose.
+
+The English people are perpetually squeezing themselves into courtyards,
+blind alleys, closed edifices, and other places where they have no sort
+of business. The French people, as usual, are making as much noise as
+possible about everything that is of no importance, but seem (as far as
+one can judge) pretty quiet and good-humoured. They made a mighty
+hullabaloo at the theatre last night, when Brutus (the play was
+"Lucretia") declaimed about liberty.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _August 9th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I shall be obliged to you if you will write to this man, and tell him
+that what he asks I never do--firstly, because I have no kind of
+connection with any manager or theatre; secondly, because I am asked to
+read so many manuscripts, that compliance is impossible, or I should
+have no other occupation or relaxation in the world.
+
+[Symbol: right hand] A foreign gentleman, with a beard, name unknown,
+but signing himself "A Fellow Man," and dating from nowhere, declined,
+twice yesterday, to leave this house for any less consideration than the
+insignificant one of "twenty pounds." I have had a policeman waiting for
+him all day.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                              BROADSTAIRS, _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I enclose a few lines from Georgy, and write these to say that I purpose
+going home at some time on Thursday, but I cannot say precisely when, as
+it depends on what work I do to-morrow. Yesterday Charles Knight, White,
+Forster, Charley, and I walked to Richborough Castle and back. Knight
+dined with us afterwards; and the Whites, the Bicknells, and Mrs. Gibson
+came in in the evening and played vingt-et-un.
+
+Having no news I must tell you a story of Sydney. The children, Georgy,
+and I were out in the garden on Sunday evening (by-the-bye, I made a
+beautiful passage down, and got to Margate a few minutes after one),
+when I asked Sydney if he would go to the railroad and see if Forster
+was coming. As he answered very boldly "Yes," I opened the garden-gate,
+upon which he set off alone as fast as his legs would carry him; and
+being pursued, was not overtaken until he was through the Lawn House
+Archway, when he was still going on at full speed--I can't conceive
+where. Being brought back in triumph, he made a number of fictitious
+starts, for the sake of being overtaken again, and we made a regular
+game of it. At last, when he and Ally had run away, instead of running
+after them, we came into the garden, shut the gate, and crouched down on
+the ground. Presently we heard them come back and say to each other with
+some alarm, "Why, the gate's shut, and they're all gone!" Ally began in
+a dismayed way to cry out, but the Phenomenon shouting, "Open the gate!"
+sent an enormous stone flying into the garden (among our heads) by way
+of alarming the establishment. I thought it a wonderful piece of
+character, showing great readiness of resource. He would have fired a
+perfect battery of stones, or very likely have broken the pantry window,
+I think, if we hadn't let him in.
+
+They are all in great force, and send their loves. They are all much
+excited with the expectation of receiving you on Friday, and would start
+me off to fetch you now if I would go.
+
+Our train on Friday will be half-past twelve. I have spoken to Georgy
+about the partridges, and hope we may find some.
+
+                                  Ever, my dearest Kate,
+                                                  Most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                  BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Monday Night, Sept. 16th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+Your letter having arrived in time for me to write a line by the evening
+post, I came out of a paroxysm of "Copperfield," to say that I am
+_perfectly delighted_ to read it, and to know that we are going to act
+together in that merry party. We dress "Every Man" in Queen Elizabeth's
+time. The acting copy is much altered from the old play, but we still
+smooth down phrases when needful. I don't remember anyone that is
+changed. Georgina says she can't describe the dress Mrs. Kitely used to
+wear. I shall be in town on Saturday, and will then get Maclise to make
+me a little sketch, of it, carefully explained, which I will post to
+you. At the same time I will send you the book. After consideration of
+forces, it has occurred to me (old Ben being, I daresay, rare; but I
+_do_ know rather heavy here and there) that Mrs. Inchbald's "Animal
+Magnetism," which we have often played, will "go" with a greater laugh
+than anything else. That book I will send you on Saturday too. You will
+find your part (Lisette, I think it is called, but it is a waiting-maid)
+a most admirable one; and I have seen people laugh at the piece until
+they have hung over the front of the boxes like ripe fruit. You may
+dress the part to please yourself after reading it. We wear powder. I
+will take care (bringing a theatrical hairdresser for the company) of
+your wig! We will rehearse the two pieces when we go down, or at least
+anything with which you have to do, over and over again. You will find
+my company so well used to it, and so accustomed to consider it a grave
+matter of business, as to make it easy. I am now awaiting the French
+books with a view to "Rockingham," and I hope to report of that too,
+when I write to you on Saturday.
+
+                            My dear Miss Boyle, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                       DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday, Sept. 20th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+I enclose you the book of "Animal Magnetism," and the book of "Every Man
+in his Humour;" also a sketch by Mr. Maclise of a correct and
+picturesque Mrs. Kitely. Mr. Forster is Kitely; Mr. Lemon, Brainworm;
+Mr. Leech, Master Matthew; Mr. Jerrold, Master Stephen; Mr. Stone,
+Downright. Kitely's dress is a very plain purple gown, like a
+Bluecoat-boy's. Downright's dress is also very sober, chiefly brown and
+gray. All the rest of us are very bright. I am flaming red. Georgina
+will write you about your colour and hers in "Animal Magnetism;" the
+gayer the better. I am the Doctor, in black, with red stockings. Mr.
+Lemon (an excellent actor), the valet, as far as I can remember, in blue
+and yellow, and a chintz waistcoat. Mr. Leech is the Marquis, and Mr.
+Egg the one-eyed servant.
+
+What do you think of doing "Animal Magnetism" as the last piece (we may
+play three in all, I think) at Rockingham? If so, we might make Quin the
+one-eyed servant, and beat up with Mrs. Watson for a Marquis. Will you
+tell me what you think of this, addressed to Broadstairs? I have not
+heard from Bulwer again. I daresay I have crossed a letter from him by
+coming up to-day; but I have every reason to believe that the last week
+in October is the time.
+
+                                           Ever very faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--This is quite a managerial letter, which I write with all manner
+of appointments and business discussions going on about me, having my
+pen on the paper and my eye on "Household Words," my head on
+"Copperfield" and my ear nowhere particularly.
+
+I will let you know about "A Day after the Wedding." I have sent for the
+book on Monday.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                            BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _September 24th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Coming out of "Copperfield" into a condition of temporary and partial
+consciousness, I plunge into histrionic duties, and hold enormous
+correspondence with Miss Boyle, between whom and myself the most
+portentous packets are continually passing. I send you a piece we
+purpose playing last at Rockingham, which "my company" played in London,
+Scotland, Manchester, Liverpool, and I don't know where else. It is one
+of the most ridiculous things ever done. We purpose, as I have said,
+playing it last. Why do I send it to you? Because there is an excellent
+part (played in my troupe by George Cruikshank) for your brother in
+it--Jeffrey; with a black patch on his eye, and a lame leg, he would be
+charming--noble! If he is come home, give him my love and tell him so.
+If he is not come home, do me that favour when he does come. And add
+that I have a wig for him belonging to the part, which I have an idea of
+sending to the Exposition of '51, as a triumph of human ingenuity.
+
+I am the Doctor; Miss Boyle, Lisette; Georgy, the other little woman. We
+have nearly arranged our "bill" for Rockingham. We shall want one more
+reasonably good actor, besides your brother and Miss Boyle's, to play
+the Marquis in this piece. Do you know a being endowed by nature with
+the requisite qualities?
+
+There are some things in the next "Copperfield" that I think better than
+any that have gone before. After I have been believing such things with
+all my heart and soul, two results always ensue: first, I can't write
+plainly to the eye; secondly, I can't write sensibly to the mind. So
+"Copperfield" is to blame, and I am not, for this wandering note; and if
+you like it, you'll forgive me. With my affectionate remembrances to
+Watson,
+
+                                 Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I find I am not equal to the flourish.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Wednesday, Oct 30th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+We are all extremely concerned and distressed to lose you. But we feel
+that it cannot be otherwise, and we do not, in our own expectation of
+amusement, forget the sad cause of your absence.
+
+Bulwer was here yesterday; and if I were to tell you how earnestly he
+and all the other friends whom you don't know have looked forward to the
+projected association with you, and in what a friendly spirit they all
+express their disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, I think.
+Pray don't give yourself the least uneasiness on account of the blank in
+our arrangements. I did not write to you yesterday, in the hope that I
+might be able to tell you to-day that I had replaced you, in however
+poor a way. I cannot do that yet, but I am busily making out some means
+of filling the parts before we rehearse to-morrow night, and I trust to
+be able to do so in some out-of-the-way manner.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and Bridget send you their kindest remembrances. They are
+bitterly disappointed at not seeing you to-day, but we all hope for a
+better time.
+
+                                      Dear Miss Boyle,
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+               DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday Evening, Nov. 23rd, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Being well home from Knebworth, where everything has gone off in a whirl
+of triumph and fired the whole length and breadth of the county of
+Hertfordshire, I write a short note to say that we are yours any time
+after Twelfth-night, and that we look forward to seeing you with the
+greatest pleasure. I should have made this reply to your last note
+sooner, but that I have been waiting to send you "Copperfield" in a new
+waistcoat. His tailor is so slow that it has not yet appeared; but when
+the resplendent garment comes home it shall be forwarded.
+
+I have not your note at hand, but I think you said "any time after
+Christmas." At all events, and whatever you said, we will conclude a
+treaty on any terms you may propose. And if it should include any of
+Charley's holidays, perhaps you would allow us to put a brass collar
+round his neck, and chain him up in the stable.
+
+Kate and Georgina (who has covered herself with glory) join me in best
+remembrances and regards to Watson and you and all the house. I have
+stupendous proposals to make concerning Switzerland in the spring.
+
+I promised Bulwer to make enquiry of you about "Miss Watson," whom he
+once knew and greatly wished to hear of. He associated her (but was not
+clear how) with Lady Palmer.
+
+                                     My dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Bicknell.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _November 28th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MR. BICKNELL,
+
+If I ever did such a thing, believe me I would do it at your request.
+But I don't, and if you could see the ramparts of letters from similar
+institutions with which my desk bristles every now and then, you would
+feel that nothing lies between total abstinence (in this regard) and
+utter bewilderment and lecturation.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister unite with me in kind regards to you and
+Mrs. Bicknell. The consequences of the accident are fast fading, I am
+happy to say. We all hope to hear shortly that Mrs. Bicknell has
+recovered that other little accident, which (as you and I know) will
+occasionally happen in well-regulated families.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                         OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I have been (a strange thing for me) so very unwell since Sunday, that I
+have hardly been able to hold up my head--a bilious attack, I believe,
+and a very miserable sort of business. This, my dear friend, is the
+reason why I have not sooner written to you in reference to your noble
+letter, which I read in _The Examiner_, and for which--as it exalts
+me--I cannot, cannot thank you in words.
+
+We had been following up the blow in Kinkel's[9] favour, and I was
+growing sanguine, in the hope of getting him out (having enlisted strong
+and active sympathy in his behalf), when the news came of his escape.
+Since then we have heard nothing of him. I rather incline to the opinion
+that the damnable powers that be connived at his escape, but know
+nothing. Whether he be retaken or whether he appear (as I am not without
+hope he may) in the streets of London, I shall be a party to no step
+whatever without consulting you; and if any scrap of intelligence
+concerning him shall reach me, it shall be yours immediately.
+
+Horne wrote the article. I shall see him here to-night, and know how he
+will feel your sympathy and support. But I do not wait to see him before
+writing, lest you should think me slow to feel your generosity. We said
+at home when we read your letter, that it was like the opening of your
+whole munificent and bare heart.
+
+                                 Ever most affectionately yours,
+                                                       My dear Landor.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+        [Symbol: right hand]        THIS IS NO. 2.
+
+                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday Morning, Dec. 9th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Your note to me of Saturday has crossed mine to you, I find. If you open
+both of mine together, please to observe _this is No. 2_.
+
+You may rely on Mr. Tucker's doing his work thoroughly well and charging
+a fair price. It is not possible for him to say aforehand, in such a
+case, what it will cost, I imagine, as he will have to adapt his work to
+the place. Nathan's stage knowledge may be stated in the following
+figures: 00000000000. Therefore, I think you had best refer Mr. Tucker
+to _me_, and I will apply all needful screws and tortures to him.
+
+I have thought of one or two very ingenious (hem!) little contrivances
+for adapting the difficulties of "Used Up" to the small stage. They will
+require to be so exactly explained to your carpenter (though very easy
+little things in themselves), that I think I had better, before
+Christmas, send my servant down for an hour--he is quite an old stager
+now--to show him precisely what I mean. It is not a day's work, but it
+would be extremely difficult to explain in writing. I developed these
+wonderful ideas to the master carpenter at one of the theatres, and he
+shook his head with an intensely mournful air, and said, "Ah, sir, it's
+a universal observation in the profession, sir, that it was a great loss
+to the public when you took to writing books!" which I thought
+complimentary to "Copperfield."
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                      DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Dec. 14th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I shall be delighted to come on the seventh instead of the eighth. We
+consider it an engagement. Over and above the pleasure of a quiet day
+with you, I think I can greatly facilitate the preparations (that's the
+way, you see, in which we cheat ourselves into making duties of
+pleasures) by being at Rockingham a day earlier. So that's settled.
+
+I was quite certain when that Child of Israel mentioned those
+dimensions, that he must be wrong. For which wooden-headedness the Child
+shall be taken to task on Monday morning, when I am going to look at his
+preparations, by appointment, about the door. Don't you observe, that
+the scenery not being made expressly for the room, it may be impossible
+to use it as you propose? There is a scene before that wall, and unless
+the door in the scene (supposing there to be one, which I am not sure
+of) should come exactly into the place of the door of the room, the door
+of the room might as well be in Africa. If it could be used it would
+still require to be backed (excuse professional technicality) by another
+scene in the passage. And if it be rather in the side of the bottom of
+the room (as I seem to remember it), it would be shut out of sight, or
+partially, by the side scenes. Do you comprehend these stage managerial
+sagacities? That piece of additional room in so small a stage would be
+of immense service, if we could avail ourselves of it. If we can't, I
+have another means (I think) of discovering Leech, Saville, and
+Coldstream at table. I am constantly turning over in my mind the
+capacities of the place, and hope by one means or other to make
+something more than the best of it. As to the fireplace, you will never
+be able to use that. The heat of the lamp will be very great, and
+ventilation will be the thing wanted. Thirteen feet and a half of depth,
+diminished by stage fittings and furniture, is a small space. I think
+the doorway could be used in the last scene, with the castle steps and
+platform for the staircase running straight through it toward the hall.
+_Nous verrons._ I will write again about my visit of inspection,
+probably on Monday.
+
+Will you let them know that Messrs. Nathan, of Titchborne Street,
+Haymarket, will dress them, please, and that I will engage for their
+doing it thoroughly well; also that Mr. Wilson, theatrical hairdresser,
+Strand, near St. Clement's Churchyard, will come down with wigs, etc.,
+to "make up" everybody; that he has a list of the pieces from me, and
+that he will be glad to measure the heads and consult the tastes of all
+concerned, if they will give him the opportunity beforehand? I should
+like to see Sir Adonis Leech and the Hon. T. Saville if I can. For they
+ought to be wonderfully made up, and to be as unlike themselves as
+possible, and to contrast well with each other and with me. I rather
+grudge _caro sposo_ coming into the company. I should like him so much
+to see the play. If we do it all well together it ought to be so very
+pleasant. I never saw a great mass of people so charmed with a little
+story as when we acted it at the Glasgow Theatre. But I have no other
+reason for faltering when I take him to my arms. I feel that he is the
+man for the part.[10] I see him with a blue bag, a flaxen wig, and green
+spectacles. I know what it will be. I foresee how all that sessional
+experience will come out. I reconcile myself to it, in spite of the
+selfish consideration of wanting him elsewhere; and while I have a heavy
+sense of a light being snuffed out in the audience, perceive a new
+luminary shining on the stage!
+
+Your brother[11] would make a capital tiger, too! Very short tight
+surtout, doeskins, bright top-boots, white cravat, bouquet in
+button-hole, close wig--very good, ve--ry good. It clearly must be so.
+The thing is done. I told you we were opening a tremendous
+correspondence when we first began to write on such a long subject. But
+do let me tell you, once and for all, that I am in the business heart
+and soul, and that you cannot trouble me respecting it, and that I
+wouldn't willingly or knowingly leave the minutest detail unprovided
+for. It cannot possibly be a success if the smallest peppercorn of
+arrangement be omitted. And a success it must be! I couldn't go into
+such a thing, or help to bring you poorly out of it, for any earthly
+consideration. Talking of forgetting, isn't it odd? I doubt if I could
+forget words I had learned, so long as I wanted them. But the moment the
+necessity goes, they go. I know my place and everybody's place in this
+identical piece of "Used Up" perfectly, and could put every little
+object on its own square inches of room exactly where it ought to be.
+But I have no more recollection of my words now (I took the book up
+yesterday) than if I had only seen the play as one of the audience at a
+theatre. Perhaps not so much. With cordial remembrances,
+
+                                    Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 19th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I am sorry to say that business ("Household Words" business) will keep
+me in town to-morrow. But on Monday I propose coming down and returning
+the same day. The train for my money appears to be the half-past six
+A.M. (horrible initials!), and to that invention for promoting early
+rising I design to commit myself.
+
+I am shocked if I also made the mistake of confounding those two (and
+too) similar names.[12] But I think Mr. S-T-A-F-F-O-R-D had better do
+the Marquis. I am glad to find that we agree, but we always do.
+
+I have closely overhauled the little theatre, and the carpenter and
+painter. The whole has been entirely repainted (I mean the proscenium
+and scenery) for this especial purpose, and is extremely pretty. I don't
+think, the scale considered, that anything better _could_ be done. It is
+very elegant. I have brought "the Child" to this. For the hire of the
+theatre, fifteen pounds. The carriage to be extra. The Child's fares and
+expenses (which will be very moderate) to be extra. The stage
+carpenter's wages to be extra--seven shillings a day. I don't think,
+when you see the things, that you will consider this too much. It is as
+good as the Queen's little theatre at Windsor, raised stage excepted. I
+have had an extraction made, which will enable us to use the door. I am
+at present breaking my man's heart, by teaching him how to imitate the
+sounds of the smashing of the windows and the breaking of the balcony in
+"Used Up." In the event of his death from grief, I have promised to do
+something for his mother. Thinking it possible that you might not see
+the enclosed until next month, and hoping that it is seasonable for
+Christmas, I send it. Being, with cordial regards and all seasonable
+good wishes,
+
+                                  Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--This [blot] is a tear over the devotion of Captain Boyle, who (as
+I learned from the Child of Israel this morning) would not decide upon
+Farmer Wurzel's coat, without referring the question of buttons to
+managerial approval.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Poole.]
+
+             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Night, Christmas Eve, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR POOLE,
+
+On the Sunday when I last saw you, I went straight to Lord John's with
+the letter you read. He was out of town, and I left it with my card.
+
+On the following Wednesday I received a note from him, saying that he
+did not bear in mind exactly what I had told him of you before, and
+asking me to tell it again. I immediately replied, of course, and gave
+him an exact description of you and your condition, and your way of life
+in Paris and everything else; a perfect diorama in little, with you
+pervading it. To-day I got a letter from him, announcing that you have a
+pension of _a hundred a year_! of which I heartily wish you joy.
+
+He says: "I am happy to say that the Queen has approved of a pension of
+one hundred pounds a year to Mr. Poole.
+
+"The Queen, in her gracious answer, informs me that she meant to have
+mentioned Mr. Poole to me, and that she had wished to place him in the
+Charter House, but found the society there was not such as he could
+associate with.
+
+"Be so good as to inform Mr. Poole that directions are given for his
+pension, which will date from the end of June last."
+
+I have lost no time in answering this, but you must brace up your
+energies to write him a short note too, and another for the Queen.
+
+If you are in Paris, shall I ascertain what authority I shall need from
+you to receive the half-year, which I suppose will be shortly due? I can
+receive it as usual.
+
+With all good wishes and congratulations, seasonable and unseasonable,
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday Morning, Dec. 30th, 1850._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+As your letter is _decided_, the scaffolding shall be re-erected round
+Charley's boots (it has been taken down, and the workmen had retired to
+their respective homes in various parts of England and Wales) and his
+dressing proceeded with. I have been very much pleased with him in the
+matter, as he has never made the least demonstration of disappointment
+or mortification, and was perfectly contented to give in. (_Here I break
+off to go to Boxall._) (_Here I return much exhausted._)
+
+Your time shall be stated in the bills for both nights. I propose to
+rehearse on the day, on Thursday and Friday, and in the evening on
+Saturday, that we may try our lights. Therefore:
+
+                  {will come on Tuesday, 7th January, as there must be a
+                  {responsible person to anathematise, and as the company
+     NATHAN       {seem so slow about their dresses, that I foresee the
+      AND         {strong probability of Nathan having a good deal to do
+ STAGE CARPENTER  {at Rockingham without respect.
+
+        WILSON     will come on Saturday, 11th January.
+        TUCKER     will come on Saturday, 11th January.
+
+I shall be delighted to see your brother, and so no more at present from
+
+                            Yours ever,
+                                   COLDSTREAM FREELOVE DOCTOR DICKENS.
+
+P.S.--As Boxall (with his head very much on one side and his spectacles
+on) danced backward from the canvas incessantly with great nimbleness,
+and returned, and made little digs at it with his pencil, with a
+horrible grin on his countenance, I augur that he pleased himself this
+morning.
+
+"Tag" added by Mr. Dickens to "Animal Magnetism," played at Rockingham
+Castle.
+
+                      ANIMAL MAGNETISM.--TAG.
+
+   [After LA FLEUR says to the Marquis: "Sir, return him the wand; and
+      the ladies, I daresay, will fall in love with him again."]
+
+        DOCTOR. I'm cheated, robbed! I don't believe! I hate
+        Wand, Marquis, Doctor, Ward, Lisette, and Fate!
+
+        LA FLEUR. Not me?
+
+        DOCTOR. _You_ worse, you rascal, than the rest.
+
+        LA FLEUR. (_bowing_). To merit it, good sir, I've done my best.
+
+        LISETTE. (_sharply_). And I.
+
+        CONSTANCE. I fear that I too have a claim
+        Upon your anger.
+
+        LISETTE.        Anger, madam? Shame!
+        He's justly treated, as he might have known.
+        And if the wand were a divining one
+        It would have turn'd, within his very hands,
+        Point-blank to where your handsome husband stands.
+
+        CONSTANCE (_glancing at_ DOCTOR). I would it were the wand of
+                   Harlequin,
+        To change his temper and his favour win.
+
+        JEFFREY (_peeping in_). In that case, mistress, you might be
+                  so kind
+        As wave me back the eye of which I'm blind.
+
+        MARQUIS (_laughing and examining it_). 'Tis nothing but a piece
+                  of senseless wood,
+        And has no influence for harm or good.
+        Yet stay! It surely draws me towards those
+        Indulgent, pleasant, smiling, beaming rows!
+        It surely charms me.
+
+        ALL.        And us too.
+
+        MARQUIS.          To bend
+        Before their gen'rous efforts to commend;
+        To cheer us on, through these few happy hours,
+        And strew our mimic way with real flowers.
+
+[_All make obeisance._
+
+        Stay yet again. Among us all, I feel
+        One subtle, all-pervading influence steal,
+        Stirring one wish within one heart and head,
+        Bright be the path our host and hostess tread!
+        Blest be their children, happy be their race,
+        Long may they live, this ancient hall to grace
+        Long bear of English virtues noble fruit--
+        Green-hearted ROCKINGHAM! strike deep thy root
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] The last illness of Mrs. White's mother.
+
+[9] Dr. Gottfried Kinkel, a distinguished scholar and Professor in the
+University of Bonn, who was at that time undergoing very rigorous State
+imprisonment in Prussia, for political reasons. Dr. Kinkel was
+afterwards well known as a teacher and lecturer on Art in London, where
+he resided for many years.
+
+[10] The part of the lawyer in "Used Up." It was _not_ played after all
+by Mr. Watson, but by Mr. (now Sir William) Boxall, R.A., a very old and
+intimate friend of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, and of Charles Dickens.
+
+[11] This part, finally, was played by Charles Dickens, junior.
+
+[12] Mr. Stafford and Mr. Stopford, who both acted in the plays at
+Rockingham.
+
+
+
+
+1851.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In February this year, Charles Dickens made a short bachelor excursion
+with Mr. Leech and the Hon. Spencer Lyttelton to Paris, from whence we
+give a letter to his wife. She was at this time in very bad health, and
+the little infant Dora had a serious illness during the winter. The
+child rallied for the time, but Mrs. Dickens continued so ill that she
+was advised to try the air--and water--of Malvern. And early in March,
+she and her sister were established in lodgings there, the children
+being left in London, and Charles Dickens dividing his time between
+Devonshire Terrace and Malvern. He was busily occupied before this time
+in superintending the arrangements for Mr. Macready's last appearance on
+the stage at Drury Lane, and for a great dinner which was given to Mr.
+Macready after it on the 1st March, at which the chair was taken by Sir
+Edward Bulwer Lytton. With him Charles Dickens was then engaged in
+maturing a scheme, which had been projected at the time of the amateur
+play at Knebworth, of a Guild of Literature and Art, which was to found
+a provident fund for literary men and artists; and to start which, a
+series of dramatic performances by the amateur company was proposed. Sir
+E. B. Lytton wrote a comedy, "Not so Bad as We Seem," for the purpose,
+to be played in London and the provinces; and the Duke of Devonshire
+turned one of the splendid rooms in Devonshire House into a theatre, for
+the first occasion of its performance. It was played early in May before
+her Majesty and the Prince Consort, and a large audience. Later in the
+season, there were several representations of the comedy (with a farce,
+"Mr. Nightingale's Diary," written by Charles Dickens for himself and
+Mr. Mark Lemon) in the Hanover Square Rooms.
+
+But in the interval between the Macready banquet and the play at
+Devonshire House, Charles Dickens underwent great family trouble and
+sorrow. His father, whose health had been declining for some time,
+became seriously ill, and Charles Dickens was summoned from Malvern to
+attend upon him. Mr. John Dickens died on the 31st March. On the 14th
+April, Charles Dickens had gone from Malvern to preside at the annual
+dinner of the General Theatrical Fund, and found his children all well
+at Devonshire Terrace. He was playing with his baby, Dora, before he
+went to the dinner; soon after he left the house the child died suddenly
+in her nurse's arms. The sad news was communicated to the father after
+his duties at the dinner were over. The next day, Mr. Forster went to
+Malvern to break the news to Mrs. Dickens, and she and her sister
+returned with him to London, and the Malvern lodgings were given up. But
+Mrs. Dickens being still out of health, and London being more than
+usually full (this being the year of the Great Exhibition), Charles
+Dickens decided to let the town house again for a few months, and
+engaged the Fort House, Broadstairs, from the beginning of May until
+November. This, which was his longest sojourn at Broadstairs, was also
+the last, as the following summer he changed his seaside resort, and
+never returned to that pretty little watering-place, although he always
+retained an affectionate interest in it.
+
+The lease of the Devonshire Terrace house was to expire this year. It was
+now too small for his family, so he could not renew it, although he left
+it with regret. From the beginning of the year, he had been in negotiation
+for a house in Tavistock Square, in which his friend Mr. Frank Stone had
+lived for some years. Many letters which follow are on the subject of this
+house and the improvements Charles Dickens made in it. His brother-in-law,
+Henry Austin--himself an architect--superintended the "works" at Tavistock
+House, as he did afterwards those at Gad's Hill--and there are many
+characteristic letters to Mr. Austin while these works were in progress.
+In the autumn, as a letter written in August to Mr. Stone will show, an
+exchange of houses was made--Mr. Stone removing with his family to
+Devonshire Terrace until his own new house was ready--while the
+alterations in Tavistock House went on, and Charles Dickens removed into
+it from Broadstairs, in November.
+
+His eldest son was now an Eton boy. He had been one of the party and
+had played a small part in the play at Rockingham Castle, in the
+Christmas holidays, and his father's letters to Mrs. Watson at the
+beginning of this year have reference to this play.
+
+This year he wrote and published the "Haunted Man," which he had found
+himself unable to finish for the previous Christmas. It was the last of
+the Christmas _books_. He abandoned them in favour of a Christmas number
+of "Household Words," which he continued annually for many years in
+"Household Words" and "All the Year Round," and in which he had the
+collaboration of other writers. The "Haunted Man" was dramatised and
+produced at the Adelphi Theatre, under the management of Mr. Benjamin
+Webster. Charles Dickens read the book himself, at Tavistock House, to a
+party of actors and actresses.
+
+At the end of the year he wrote the first number of "Bleak House,"
+although it was not published until March of the following year. With
+the close attention and the hard work he gave, from the time of its
+starting, to his weekly periodical, he found it to be most desirable,
+now, in beginning a new monthly serial, that he should be ready with
+some numbers in advance before the appearance of the first number.
+
+A provincial tour for the "Guild" took place at the end of the year. A
+letter to his wife, from Clifton, in November, gives a notion of the
+general success and enthusiasm with which the plays were attended. The
+"new Hardman," to whom he alludes as taking that part in Sir E. B.
+Lytton's comedy in the place of Mr. Forster, was Mr. John Tenniel, who
+was a new addition, and a very valuable and pleasant one, to the
+company. Mr. Topham, the delightful water-colour painter, Mr. Dudley
+Costello, and Mr. Wilkie Collins were also new recruits to the company
+of "splendid strollers" about this time. A letter to Mr. Wills, asking
+him to take a part in the comedy, is given here. He never did _act_ with
+the company, but he complied with Charles Dickens's desire that he
+should be "in the scheme" by giving it all sorts of assistance, and
+almost invariably being one of the party in the provincial tours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                             DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _January 24th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Kate will have told you, I daresay, that my despondency on coming to
+town was relieved by a talk with Lady John Russell, of which you were
+the subject, and in which she spoke of you with an earnestness of old
+affection and regard that did me good. I date my recovery (which has
+been slow) from that hour. I am still feeble, and liable to sudden
+outbursts of causeless rage and demoniacal gloom, but I shall be better
+presently. What a thing it is, that we can't be always innocently merry
+and happy with those we like best without looking out at the back
+windows of life! Well, one day perhaps--after a long night--the blinds
+on that side of the house will be down for ever, and nothing left but
+the bright prospect in front.
+
+Concerning supper-toast (of which I feel bound to make some mention),
+you did, as you always do, right, and exactly what was most agreeable to
+me.
+
+My love to your excellent husband (I wonder whether he and the
+dining-room have got to rights yet!), and to the jolly little boys and
+the calm little girl. Somehow, I shall always think of Lord Spencer as
+eternally walking up and down the platform at Rugby, in a high chill
+wind, with no apparent hope of a train--as I left him; and somehow I
+always think of Rockingham, after coming away, as if I belonged to it
+and had left a bit of my heart behind, which it is so very odd to find
+wanting twenty times a day.
+
+                    Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, faithfully yours, and his.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Night, Jan. 28th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I presume you mean Mr. Stafford and Mr. Stopford to pay Wilson (as I
+have instructed him) a guinea each? Am I right? In that just case I
+still owe you a guinea for _my_ part. I was going to send you a
+post-office order for that amount, when a faint sense of absurdity
+mantled my ingenuous visage with a blush, and I thought it better to owe
+you the money until we met. I hope it may be soon!
+
+I believe I may lay claim to the mysterious inkstand, also to a volume
+lettered on the back, "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, II.," which I
+left when I came down at Christmas. Will you take care of them as
+hostages until we effect an exchange?
+
+Charley went back in great spirits, threatening to write to George. It
+was a very wet night, and John took him to the railway. He said, on his
+return: "Mas'r Charles went off very gay, sir. He found some young
+gen'lemen as was his friends in the train, sir." "Come," said I, "I am
+glad of that. How many were there? Two or three?" "Oh dear, sir, there
+was a matter of forty, sir! All with their heads out o' the
+coach-windows, sir, a-hallooing 'Dickens!' all over the station!"
+
+Her ladyship and the ward of the FIZ-ZISH-UN send their best loves, in
+which I heartily join. If you and your dear husband come to town before
+we bring out Bulwer's comedy, I think we must have a snug reading of it.
+
+                             Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday, Jan. 31st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR LEMON,
+
+We are deeply sorry to receive the mournful intelligence of your
+calamity. But we know you will both have found comfort in that blessed
+belief, from which the sacred figure with the child upon His knee is, in
+all stages of our lives, inseparable, for of such is the kingdom of God!
+
+We join in affectionate loves to you and your dear wife. She well
+deserves your praise, I am sure.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                        DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, Feb. 10th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+There is a small part in Bulwer's comedy, but very good what there
+is--not much--my servant, who opens the play, which I should be very
+glad if you would like to do.
+
+Pray understand that there is no end of men who would do it, and that if
+you have the least objection to the trouble, I don't make this the
+expression of a wish even. Otherwise, I would like you to be in the
+scheme, which is a very great and important one, and which cannot have
+too many men who are steadily--not flightily, like some of our
+friends--in earnest, and who are not to be lightly discouraged.
+
+If you do the part, I would like to have a talk with you about the
+secretarial duties. They must be performed by someone I clearly see, and
+will require good business direction. I should like to put some young
+fellow, to whom such work and its remuneration would be an object, under
+your eye, if we could find one entire and perfect chrysolite anywhere.
+Let me know whether I am to rate you on the ship's books or not. If yes,
+consider yourself "called" to the reading (by Macready) at Forster's
+rooms, on Wednesday, the 19th, at three.
+
+And in the meantime you shall have a proof of the plan.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                     HOTEL WAGRAM, PARIS, _Thursday, Feb. 12th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I received your letter this morning (on returning from an expedition to
+a market thirteen miles away, which involved the necessity of getting up
+at five), and am delighted to have such good accounts of all at home.
+
+We had D'Orsay to dinner yesterday, and I am hurried to dress now, in
+order to pay a promised visit to his _atelier_. He was very happy with
+us, and is much improved both in spirits and looks. Lord and Lady
+Castlereagh live downstairs here, and we went to them in the evening,
+and afterwards brought him upstairs to smoke. To-night we are going to
+see Lemaitre in the renowned "Belphegor" piece. To-morrow at noon we
+leave Paris for Calais (the Boulogne boat does not serve our turn), and
+unless the weather for crossing should be absurd, I shall be at home,
+please God, early on the evening of Saturday. It continues to be
+delightful weather here--gusty, but very clear and fine. Leech and I had
+a charming country walk before breakfast this morning at Poissy and
+enjoyed it very much. The rime was on the grass and trees, and the
+country most delicious.
+
+Spencer Lyttelton is a capital companion on a trip, and a great addition
+to the party. We have got on famously and been very facetious. With best
+love to Georgina and the darlings,
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Friday Night, late, Feb. 21st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+I have devoted a couple of hours this evening to going very carefully
+over your paper (which I had read before) and to endeavouring to bring
+it closer, and to lighten it, and to give it that sort of compactness
+which a habit of composition, and of disciplining one's thoughts like a
+regiment, and of studying the art of putting each soldier into his right
+place, may have gradually taught me to think necessary. I hope, when you
+see it in print, you will not be alarmed by my use of the pruning-knife.
+I have tried to exercise it with the utmost delicacy and discretion, and
+to suggest to you, especially towards the end, how this sort of writing
+(regard being had to the size of the journal in which it appears)
+requires to be compressed, and is made pleasanter by compression. This
+all reads very solemnly, but only because I want you to read it (I mean
+the article) with as loving an eye as I have truly tried to touch it
+with a loving and gentle hand. I propose to call it "My Mahogany
+Friend." The other name is too long, and I think not attractive. Until I
+go to the office to-morrow and see what is actually in hand, I am not
+certain of the number in which it will appear, but Georgy shall write on
+Monday and tell you. We are always a fortnight in advance of the public
+or the mechanical work could not be done. I think there are many things
+in it that are _very pretty_. The Katie part is particularly well done.
+If I don't say more, it is because I have a heavy sense, in all cases,
+of the responsibility of encouraging anyone to enter on that thorny
+track, where the prizes are so few and the blanks so many; where----
+
+But I won't write you a sermon. With the fire going out, and the first
+shadows of a new story hovering in a ghostly way about me (as they
+usually begin to do, when I have finished an old one), I am in danger of
+doing the heavy business, and becoming a heavy guardian, or something of
+that sort, instead of the light and airy Joe.
+
+So good-night, and believe that you may always trust me, and never find
+a grim expression (towards you) in any that I wear.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                                                _February 21st, 1851._
+
+Oh my dear Roberts, if you knew the trouble we have had and the money we
+pay for Drury Lane for one night for the benefit, you would never dream
+of it for the dinner. _There isn't possibility of getting a theatre._
+
+I will do all I can for your charming little daughter, and hope to
+squeeze in half-a-dozen ladies at the last; but we must not breathe the
+idea or we shall not dare to execute it, there will be such an outcry.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                            DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _February 27th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+Forster told me to-day that you wish Tennyson's sonnet to be read after
+your health is given on Saturday. I am perfectly certain that it would
+not do at that time. I am quite convinced that the audience would not
+receive it, under these exciting circumstances, as it ought to be
+received. If I had to read it, I would on no account undertake to do so
+at that period, in a great room crowded with a dense company. I have an
+instinctive assurance that it would fail. Being with Bulwer this
+morning, I communicated your wish to him, and he immediately felt as I
+do. I could enter into many reasons which induce me to form this
+opinion. But I believe that you have that confidence in me that I may
+spare you the statement of them.
+
+I want to know one thing from you. As I shall be obliged to be at the
+London Tavern in the afternoon of to-morrow, Friday (I write, observe,
+on Thursday night), I shall be much helped in the arrangements if you
+will send me your answer by a messenger (addressed here) on the receipt
+of this. Which would you prefer--that "Auld Lang Syne" should be sung
+after your health is given and before you return thanks, or after you
+have spoken?
+
+I cannot forbear a word about last night. I think I have told you
+sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when I was a mere boy, I was one
+of your faithful and devoted adherents in the pit; I believe as true a
+member of that true host of followers as it has ever boasted. As I
+improved myself and was improved by favouring circumstances in mind and
+fortune, I only became the more earnest (if it were possible) in my
+study of you. No light portion of my life arose before me when the quiet
+vision to which I am beholden, in I don't know how great a decree, or
+for how much--who does?--faded so nobly from my bodily eyes last night.
+And if I were to try to tell you what I felt--of regret for its being
+past for ever, and of joy in the thought that you could have taken your
+leave of _me_ but in God's own time--I should only blot this paper with
+some drops that would certainly not be of ink, and give very faint
+expression to very strong emotions.
+
+What is all this in writing! It is only some sort of relief to my full
+heart, and shows very little of it to you; but that's something, so I
+let it go.
+
+                       Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--My very flourish departs from me for the moment.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                   KNUTSFORD LODGE, GREAT MALVERN, _March 20th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR ROBERTS,
+
+Mrs. Dickens has been unwell, and I am here with her. I want you to give
+a quarter of an hour to the perusal of the enclosed prospectus; to
+consider the immense value of the design, if it be successful, to
+artists young and old; and then to bestow your favourable consideration
+on the assistance I am going to ask of you for the sake and in the name
+of the cause.
+
+For the representation of the new comedy Bulwer has written for us, to
+start this scheme, I am having an ingenious theatre made by Webster's
+people, for erection on certain nights in the Hanover Square Rooms. But
+it will first be put up in the Duke of Devonshire's house, where the
+first representation will take place before a brilliant company,
+including (I believe) the Queen.
+
+Now, will you paint us a scene--the scene of which I enclose Bulwer's
+description from the prompter's book? It will be a cloth with a
+set-piece. It should be sent to your studio or put up in a theatre
+painting-room, as you would prefer. I have asked Stanny to do another
+scene, Edwin Landseer, and Louis Haghe. The Devonshire House performance
+will probably be on Monday, the 28th of April. I should want to have the
+scenery complete by the 20th, as it would require to be elaborately
+worked and rehearsed. _You_ could do it in no time after sending in your
+pictures, and will you?
+
+What the value of such aid would be I need not say. I say no more of the
+reasons that induce me to ask it, because if they are not in the
+prospectus they are nowhere.
+
+On Monday and Tuesday nights I shall be in town for rehearsal, but until
+then I shall be here. Will you let me have a line from you in reply?
+
+                               My dear Roberts, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+           _Description of the Scene proposed:_
+
+        STREETS OF LONDON IN THE TIME OF GEORGE I.
+
+        In perspective, an alley inscribed DEADMAN'S
+        LANE; a large, old-fashioned, gloomy,
+        mysterious house in the corner, marked No. 1.
+        (_This No. 1, Deadman's Lane, has been
+        constantly referred to in the play as the abode
+        of a mysterious female figure, who enters
+        masked, and passes into this house on the scene
+        being disclosed._) It is night, and there are
+        moonlight mediums.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                             H. W. OFFICE, _Monday, March 26th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I reserve all news of the play until I come down. The Queen appoints the
+30th of April. There is no end of trouble.
+
+My father slept well last night, and is as well this morning (they send
+word) as anyone in such a state, so cut and slashed, can be. I have been
+waiting at home for Bulwer all the morning (it is now two), and am now
+waiting for Lemon before I go up there. I will not close this note until
+I have been.
+
+It is raining here incessantly. The streets are in a most miserable
+state. A van, containing the goods of some unfortunate family moving,
+has broken down close outside, and the whole scene is a picture of
+dreariness.
+
+The children are quite well and very happy. I had Dora down this
+morning, who was quite charmed to see me. That Miss Ketteridge appointed
+two to-day for seeing the house, and probably she is at this moment
+disparaging it.
+
+My father is very weak and low, but not worse, I hope, than might be
+expected. I am going home to dine with the children. By working here
+late to-night (coming back after dinner) I can finish what I have to do
+for the play. Therefore I hope to be with you to-morrow, in good time
+for dinner.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--Love to Georgy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+              DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thursday Morning, April 3rd, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I took my threatened walk last night, but it yielded little but
+generalities.
+
+However, I thought of something for _to-night_, that I think will make a
+splendid paper. I have an idea that it might be connected with the gas
+paper (making gas a great agent in an effective police), and made one of
+the articles. This is it: "A Night in a Station-house." If you would go
+down to our friend Mr. Yardley, at Scotland Yard, and get a letter or
+order to the acting chief authority at that station-house in Bow Street,
+to enable us to hear the charges, observe the internal economy of the
+station-house all night, go round to the cells with the visiting
+policeman, etc., I would stay there, say from twelve to-night to four or
+five in the morning. We might have a "night-cap," a fire, and some tea
+at the office hard by. If you could conveniently borrow an hour or two
+from the night we could both go. If not, I would go alone. It would make
+a wonderful good paper at a most appropriate time, when the back slums
+of London are going to be invaded by all sorts of strangers.
+
+You needn't exactly say that _I_ was going _in propria_ (unless it were
+necessary), and, of course, you wouldn't say that I propose to-night,
+because I am so worn by the sad arrangements in which I am engaged, and
+by what led to them, that I cannot take my natural rest. But to-morrow
+night we go to the gas-works. I might not be so disposed for this
+station-house observation as I shall be to-night for a long time, and I
+see a most singular and admirable chance for us in the descriptive way,
+not to be lost.
+
+Therefore, if you will arrange the thing before I come down at four this
+afternoon, any of the Scotland Yard people will do it, I should think;
+if our friend by any accident should not be there, I will go into it.
+
+If they should recommend any other station-house as better for the
+purpose, or would think it better for us to go to more than one under
+the guidance of some trustworthy man, of course we will pay any man and
+do as they recommend. But I think one topping station-house would be
+best.
+
+                                                     Faithfully ever.
+
+P.S.--I write from my bed.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                           _Saturday, May 24th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+We are getting in a good heap of money for the Guild. The comedy has
+been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. The scene
+to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. And
+there _is_ a farce to be produced on Tuesday next, wherein a
+distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts, and in
+particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of which I say no more. I am
+pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from
+the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of
+darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague
+smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down on
+Wednesday or Thursday.
+
+Ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you
+think of us among the London fleas! But they tell me you are coming in
+for Dorsetshire. You must be very careful, when you come to town to
+attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in
+the streets. They will misdirect you for what the vulgar call "a lark,"
+meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. Always go into some
+respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his being
+dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his
+hat being made of sticking-plaster. You may perhaps see in some odd
+place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table
+before him and three thimbles on it. He will want you to bet, but don't
+do it. He really desires to cheat you. And don't buy at auctions where
+the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These,
+too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real good
+acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), I
+would recommend you to see ---- at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody
+will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by
+seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence
+a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect.
+Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The
+Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission
+is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent
+Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and
+Cheapside. I think these will please you after a time, though the tumult
+and bustle will at first bewilder you. If I can serve you in any way,
+pray command me. And with my best regards to your happy family, so
+remote from this Babel,
+
+                           Believe me, my dear Friend,
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you
+will see at Charing Cross, as you go down to the House, is a statue of
+_King Charles the First_.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                                        BROADSTAIRS, _July 8th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+We shall be delighted to see you, if you will come down on Saturday. Mr.
+Lemon may perhaps be here, with his wife, but no one else. And we can
+give you a bed that may be surpassed, with a welcome that certainly
+cannot be.
+
+The general character of Broadstairs as to size and accommodation was
+happily expressed by Miss Eden, when she wrote to the Duke of Devonshire
+(as he told me), saying how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who
+asked leave to see her garden, for not plucking it bodily up, and
+sticking it in his button-hole.
+
+As we think of putting mignonette-boxes outside the windows, for the
+younger children to sleep in by-and-by, I am afraid we should give your
+servant the cramp if we hardily undertook to lodge him. But in case you
+should decide to bring one, he is easily disposable hard by.
+
+Don't come by the boat. It is rather tedious, and both departs and
+arrives at inconvenient hours. There is a railway train from the Dover
+terminus to Ramsgate, at half-past twelve in the day, which will bring
+you in three hours. Another at half-past four in the afternoon. If you
+will tell me by which you come (I hope the former), I will await you at
+the terminus with my little brougham.
+
+You will have for a night-light in the room we shall give you, the North
+Foreland lighthouse. That and the sea and air are our only lions. It is
+a very rough little place, but a very pleasant one, and you will make it
+pleasanter than ever to me.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                 BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _July 11th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology
+for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circumstances I
+could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that I have
+more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. If I were
+not the gentlest of men I should do it!
+
+Poor dear Haldimand, I have thought of him so often. That kind of decay
+is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that I have no words to
+express my compassion and sorrow. When I was at Abbotsford, I saw in a
+vile glass case the last clothes Scott wore. Among them an old white
+hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy,
+purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. It so
+embodied Lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write,
+and laid down his pen and cried, that it associated itself in my mind
+with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. I fancy Haldimand
+in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and
+remembering the happy hours we have passed with him, and his goodness
+and truth. I think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the
+moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. Pray tell us if you hear
+more of him. We really loved him.
+
+To go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so
+ago I took Charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river
+gipsying. I secured the services of Charley's godfather (an old friend
+of mine, and a noble fellow with boys), and went down to Slough,
+accompanied by two immense hampers from Fortnum and Mason, on (I
+believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics.
+
+It cleared before we got to Slough; but the boys, who had got up at four
+(we being due at eleven), had horrible misgivings that we might not
+come, in consequence of which we saw them looking into the carriages
+before us, all face. They seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be
+all face; their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent. When
+they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were upon strong springs, and
+their waistcoats developed themselves in the usual places. When the
+first hamper came out of the luggage-van, I was conscious of their
+dancing behind the guard; when the second came out with bottles in it,
+they all stood wildly on one leg. We then got a couple of flys to drive
+to the boat-house. I put them in the first, but they couldn't sit still
+a moment, and were perpetually flying up and down like the toy figures
+in the sham snuff-boxes. In this order we went on to "Tom Brown's, the
+tailor's," where they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the
+boat-house, where they all cried in shrill chorus for "Mahogany"--a
+gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion, a waterman by
+profession. (He was likewise called during the day "Hog" and "Hogany,"
+and seemed to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) We
+embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped awning, which
+I had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing hard, went down the river.
+We dined in a field; what I suffered for fear those boys should get
+drunk, the struggles I underwent in a contest of feeling between
+hospitality and prudence, must ever remain untold. I feel, even now, old
+with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. They were very good, however.
+The speech of one became thick, and his eyes too like lobsters' to be
+comfortable, but only temporarily. He recovered, and I suppose outlived
+the salad he took. I have heard nothing to the contrary, and I imagine I
+should have been implicated on the inquest if there had been one. We had
+tea and rashers of bacon at a public-house, and came home, the last five
+or six miles in a prodigious thunderstorm. This was the great success of
+the day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else. The
+dinner had been great, and Mahogany had informed them, after a bottle of
+light champagne, that he never would come up the river "with ginger
+company" any more. But the getting so completely wet through was the
+culminating part of the entertainment. You never in your life saw such
+objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that it was at
+all advisable to go home and change, or that there was anything to
+prevent their standing at the station two mortal hours to see me off,
+was wonderful. As to getting them to their dames with any sort of sense
+that they were damp, I abandoned the idea. I thought it a success when
+they went down the street as civilly as if they were just up and newly
+dressed, though they really looked as if you could have rubbed them to
+rags with a touch, like saturated curl-paper.
+
+I am sorry you have not been able to see our play, which I suppose you
+won't now, for I take it you are not going on Monday, the 21st, our last
+night in town? It is worth seeing, not for the getting up (which modesty
+forbids me to approve), but for the little bijou it is, in the scenery,
+dresses, and appointments. They are such as never can be got together
+again, because such men as Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve, Haghe, Egg, and
+others, never can be again combined in such a work. Everything has been
+done at its best from all sorts of authorities, and it is really very
+beautiful to look at.
+
+I find I am "used up" by the Exhibition. I don't say "there is nothing
+in it"--there's too much. I have only been twice; so many things
+bewildered me. I have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so
+many sights in one has not decreased it. I am not sure that I have seen
+anything but the fountain and perhaps the Amazon. It is a dreadful thing
+to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says, "Have you seen ----?" I
+say, "Yes," because if I don't, I know he'll explain it, and I can't
+bear that. ---- took all the school one day. The school was composed of
+a hundred "infants," who got among the horses' legs in crossing to the
+main entrance from the Kensington Gate, and came reeling out from
+between the wheels of coaches undisturbed in mind. They were clinging to
+horses, I am told, all over the park.
+
+When they were collected and added up by the frantic monitors, they were
+all right. They were then regaled with cake, etc., and went tottering
+and staring all over the place; the greater part wetting their
+forefingers and drawing a wavy pattern on every accessible object. One
+infant strayed. He was not missed. Ninety and nine were taken home,
+supposed to be the whole collection, but this particular infant went to
+Hammersmith. He was found by the police at night, going round and round
+the turnpike, which he still supposed to be a part of the Exhibition. He
+had the same opinion of the police, also of Hammersmith workhouse, where
+he passed the night. When his mother came for him in the morning, he
+asked when it would be over? It was a great Exhibition, he said, but he
+thought it long.
+
+As I begin to have a foreboding that you will think the same of this act
+of vengeance of mine, this present letter, I shall make an end of it,
+with my heartiest and most loving remembrances to Watson. I should have
+liked him of all things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him,
+and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the
+thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the
+career of a booby who was plucked at college, every verse ending:
+
+        I don't care a fig what the people may think,
+        But what WILL the governor say!
+
+which was shouted with a deferential jollity towards myself, as a
+governor who had that day done a creditable action, and proved himself
+worthy of all confidence.
+
+           With love to the boys and girls,
+                                Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                 Most sincerely yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                         "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Sunday, July 20th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I have been considering the great house question since you kindly called
+yesterday evening, and come to the conclusion that I had better not let
+it go. I am convinced it is the prudent thing for me to do, and that I
+am very unlikely to find the same comforts for the rising generation
+elsewhere, for the same money. Therefore, as Robins no doubt understands
+that you would come to me yesterday--passing his life as he does amidst
+every possible phase of such negotiations--I think it hardly worth while
+to wait for the receipt of his coming letter. If you will take the
+trouble to call on him in the morning, and offer the L1,450, I shall be
+very much obliged to you. If you will receive from me full power to
+conclude the purchase (subject of course to my solicitor's approval of
+the lease), pray do. I give you _carte blanche_ to L1,500, but I think
+the L1,450 ought to win the day.
+
+I don't make any apologies for thrusting this honour upon you, knowing
+what a thorough-going old pump you are. Lemon and his wife are coming
+here, after the rehearsal, to a gipsy sort of cold dinner. Time,
+half-past three. Viands, pickled salmon and cold pigeon-pie. Occupation
+afterwards, lying on the carpet as a preparation for histrionic
+strength. Will you come with us from the Hanover Square Rooms?
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                         BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Sunday, July 27th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+A most excellent Shadow![13] I have sent it up to the printer, and Wills
+is to send you a proof. Will you look carefully at all the earlier part,
+where the use of the past tense instead of the present a little hurts
+the picturesque effect? I understand each phase of the thing to be
+_always a thing present before the mind's eye_--a shadow passing before
+it. Whatever is done, must be _doing_. Is it not so? For example, if I
+did the Shadow of Robinson Crusoe, I should not say he _was_ a boy at
+Hull, when his father lectured him about going to sea, and so forth; but
+he _is_ a boy at Hull. There he is, in that particular Shadow, eternally
+a boy at Hull; his life to me is a series of shadows, but there is no
+"was" in the case. If I choose to go to his manhood, I can. These
+shadows don't change as realities do. No phase of his existence passes
+away, if I choose to bring it to this unsubstantial and delightful life,
+the only death of which, to me, is _my_ death, and thus he is immortal
+to unnumbered thousands. If I am right, will you look at the proof
+through the first third or half of the papers, and see whether the
+Factor comes before us in that way? If not, it is merely the alteration
+of the verb here and there that is requisite.
+
+You say you are coming down to look for a place next week. Now, Jerrold
+says he is coming on Thursday, by the cheap express at half-past twelve,
+to return with me for the play early on Monday morning. Can't you make
+that holiday too? I have promised him our only spare bed, but we'll find
+you a bed hard by, and shall be delighted "to eat and drink you," as an
+American once wrote to me. We will make expeditions to Herne Bay,
+Canterbury, where not? and drink deep draughts of fresh air. Come! They
+are beginning to cut the corn. You will never see the country so pretty.
+If you stay in town these days, you'll do nothing. I feel convinced
+you'll not buy the "Memoirs of a Man of Quality." Say you'll come!
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
+
+                     BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _Saturday, August 23rd, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+A "dim vision" occurs to me, arising out of your note; also presents
+itself to the brains of my other half.
+
+Supposing you should find, on looking onward, a possibility of your
+being houseless at Michaelmas, what do you say to using Devonshire
+Terrace as a temporary encampment? It will not be in its usual order,
+but we would take care that there should be as much useful furniture of
+all sorts there, as to render it unnecessary for you to move a stick. If
+you should think this a convenience, then I should propose to you to
+pile your furniture in the middle of the rooms at Tavistock House, and
+go out to Devonshire Terrace two or three weeks _before_ Michaelmas, to
+enable my workmen to commence their operations. This might be to our
+mutual convenience, and therefore I suggest it. Certainly the sooner I
+can begin on Tavistock House the better. And possibly your going into
+Devonshire Terrace might relieve you from a difficulty that would
+otherwise be perplexing.
+
+I make this suggestion (I need not say to _you_) solely on the chance of
+its being useful to both of us. If it were merely convenient to me, you
+know I shouldn't dream of it. Such an arrangement, while it would cost
+you nothing, would perhaps enable you to get your new house into order
+comfortably, and do exactly the same thing for me.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I anticipated your suggestion some weeks ago, when I found I
+couldn't build a stable. I said I ought to have permission to take the
+piece of ground into my garden, which was conceded. Loaden writes me
+this morning that he thinks he can get permission to build a stable one
+storey high, without a chimney. I reply that on the whole I would rather
+enlarge the garden than build a stable with those restrictions.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                           BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 7th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+I am in that state of mind which you may (once) have seen described in
+the newspapers as "bordering on distraction;" the house given up to me,
+the fine weather going on (soon to break, I daresay), the painting
+season oozing away, my new book waiting to be born, and
+
+                  NO WORKMEN ON THE PREMISES,
+
+along of my not hearing from you!! I have torn all my hair off, and
+constantly beat my unoffending family. Wild notions have occurred to me
+of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. Then I remember that you
+have probably written to prepare _your_ man, and restrain my audacious
+hand. Then Stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly mysterious
+visage, and says that a rat has appeared in the kitchen, and it's his
+opinion (Stone's, not the rat's) that the drains want "compo-ing;" for
+the use of which explicit language I could fell him without remorse. In
+my horrible desire to "compo" everything, the very postman becomes my
+enemy because he brings no letter from you; and, in short, I don't see
+what's to become of me unless I hear from you to-morrow, which I have
+not the least expectation of doing.
+
+Going over the house again, I have materially altered the
+plans--abandoned conservatory and front balcony--decided to make Stone's
+painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly six inches higher than the
+room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to a
+back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended
+drawing-room--now school-room--to a manageable size, making a door of
+communication between the new drawing-room and the study. Curtains and
+carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in
+preparation, and still--still--
+
+                      NO WORKMEN ON THE PREMISES.
+
+To pursue this theme is madness. Where are you? When are you coming
+home? Where is the man who is to do the work? Does he know that an army
+of artificers must be turned in at once, and the whole thing finished
+out of hand? O rescue me from my present condition. Come up to the
+scratch, I entreat and implore you!
+
+I send this to Laetitia to forward,
+
+        Being, as you well know why,
+        Completely floored by N. W., I
+                            _Sleep_.
+
+I hope you may be able to read this. My state of mind does not admit of
+coherence.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--NO WORKMEN ON THE PREMISES!
+
+Ha! ha! ha! (I am laughing demoniacally.)
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                          BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, September 21st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+It is quite clear we could do nothing else with the drains than what you
+have done. Will it be at all a heavy item in the estimate?
+
+If there be the _least_ chance of a necessity for the pillar, let us
+have it. Let us dance in peace, whatever we do, and only go into the
+kitchen by the staircase.
+
+Have they cut the door between the drawing-room and the study yet? The
+foreman will let Shoolbred know when the feat is accomplished.
+
+O! and did you tell him of another brass ventilator in the dining-room,
+opening into the dining-room flue?
+
+I don't think I shall come to town until you want to show the progress,
+whenever that may be. I shall look forward to another dinner, and I
+think we must encourage the Oriental, for the goodness of its wine.
+
+I am getting a complete set of a certain distinguished author's works
+prepared for a certain distinguished architect, which I hope he will
+accept, as a slight, though very inadequate, etc. etc.; affectionate,
+etc.; so heartily and kindly taking so much interest, etc. etc.
+
+                                    Love to Laetitia.
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                               BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _October 7th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+O! O! O! D---- the Pantechnicon. O!
+
+I will be at Tavistock House at twelve on Saturday, and then will wait
+for you until I see you. If we return together--as I hope we shall--our
+express will start at half-past four, and we ought to dine (somewhere
+about Temple Bar) at three.
+
+The infamous ---- says the stoves shall be fixed to-morrow.
+
+O! if this were to last long; the distraction of the new book, the
+whirling of the story through one's mind, escorted by workmen, the
+imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning to write, the not being able
+to do so, the, O! I should go---- O!
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--None. I have torn it off.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                              BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _October 10th, 1851._
+
+                  ON THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER.
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,
+
+Your remembrance at such a time--not thrown away upon me, trust me--is a
+sufficient assurance that you know how truly I feel towards you, and
+with what an earnest sympathy I must think of you now.
+
+God be with you! There is indeed nothing terrible in such a death,
+nothing that we would undo, nothing that we may remember otherwise than
+with deeply thankful, though with softened hearts.
+
+Kate sends you her affectionate love. I enclose a note from Georgina.
+Pray give my kindest remembrances to your brother Cavendish, and believe
+me now and ever,
+
+                                               Faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Eeles.]
+
+            "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OFFICE,
+                                 _Wednesday Evening, Oct. 22nd, 1851._
+
+DEAR MR. EELES,
+
+I send you the list I have made for the book-backs. I should like the
+"History of a Short Chancery Suit" to come at the bottom of one recess,
+and the "Catalogue of Statues of the Duke of Wellington" at the bottom
+of the other. If you should want more titles, and will let me know how
+many, I will send them to you.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+        LIST OF IMITATION BOOK-BACKS.
+
+        _Tavistock House_, 1851.
+
+        Five Minutes in China. 3 vols.
+        Forty Winks at the Pyramids. 2 vols.
+        Abernethy on the Constitution. 2 vols.
+        Mr. Green's Overland Mail. 2 vols.
+        Captain Cook's Life of Savage. 2 vols.
+        A Carpenter's Bench of Bishops. 2 vols.
+        Toot's Universal Letter-Writer. 2 vols.
+        Orson's Art of Etiquette.
+        Downeaster's Complete Calculator.
+        History of the Middling Ages. 6 vols.
+        Jonah's Account of the Whale.
+        Captain Parry's Virtues of Cold Tar.
+        Kant's Ancient Humbugs. 10 vols.
+        Bowwowdom. A Poem.
+        The Quarrelly Review. 4 vols.
+        The Gunpowder Magazine. 4 vols.
+        Steele. By the Author of "Ion."
+        The Art of Cutting the Teeth.
+        Matthew's Nursery Songs. 2 vols.
+        Paxton's Bloomers. 5 vols.
+        On the Use of Mercury by the Ancient Poets.
+        Drowsy's Recollections of Nothing. 3 vols.
+        Heavyside's Conversations with Nobody. 3 vols.
+        Commonplace Book of the Oldest Inhabitant. 2 vols.
+        Growler's Gruffiology, with Appendix. 4 vols.
+        The Books of Moses and Sons. 2 vols.
+        Burke (of Edinburgh) on the Sublime and Beautiful. 2 vols.
+        Teazer's Commentaries.
+        King Henry the Eighth's Evidences of Christianity. 5 vols.
+        Miss Biffin on Deportment.
+        Morrison's Pills Progress. 2 vols.
+        Lady Godiva on the Horse.
+        Munchausen's Modern Miracles. 4 vols.
+        Richardson's Show of Dramatic Literature. 12 vols.
+        Hansard's Guide to Refreshing Sleep. As many volumes as possible.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                   OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
+                                          _Saturday, Oct. 25th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+On the day of our departure, I thought we were going--backward--at a
+most triumphant pace; but yesterday we rather recovered. The painters
+still mislaid their brushes every five minutes, and chiefly whistled in
+the intervals; and the carpenters (especially the Pantechnicon)
+continued to look sideways with one eye down pieces of wood, as if they
+were absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the Thames
+Tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities of this transitory
+world; but still there was an improvement, and it is confirmed to-day.
+White lime is to be seen in kitchens, the bath-room is gradually
+resolving itself from an abstract idea into a fact--youthful, extremely
+youthful, but a fact. The drawing-room encourages no hope whatever, nor
+the study. Staircase painted. Irish labourers howling in the
+school-room, but I don't know why. I see nothing. Gardener vigorously
+lopping the trees, and really letting in the light and air. Foreman
+sweet-tempered but uneasy. Inimitable hovering gloomily through the
+premises all day, with an idea that a little more work is done when he
+flits, bat-like, through the rooms, than when there is no one looking
+on. Catherine all over paint. Mister McCann, encountering Inimitable in
+doorways, fades obsequiously into areas, and there encounters him again,
+and swoons with confusion. Several reams of blank paper constantly
+spread on the drawing-room walls, and sliced off again, which looks like
+insanity. Two men still clinking at the new stair-rails. I think they
+must be learning a tune; I cannot make out any other object in their
+proceedings.
+
+Since writing the above, I have been up there again, and found the young
+paper-hanger putting on his slippers, and looking hard at the walls of
+the servants' room at the top of the house, as if he meant to paper it
+one of these days. May Heaven prosper his intentions!
+
+When do you come back? I hope soon.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                                       CLIFTON, _November 13th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAREST KATE,
+
+I have just received your second letter, and am quite delighted to find
+that all is going on so vigorously, and that you are in such a
+methodical, business-like, and energetic state. I shall come home by the
+express on Saturday morning, and shall hope to be at home between eleven
+and twelve.
+
+We had a noble night last night. The room (which is the largest but one
+in England) was crammed in every part. The effect of from thirteen to
+fourteen hundred people, all well dressed, and all seated in one
+unbroken chamber, except that the floor rose high towards the end of the
+hall, was most splendid, and we never played to a better audience. The
+enthusiasm was prodigious; the place delightful for speaking in; no end
+of gas; another hall for a dressing-room; an immense stage; and every
+possible convenience. We were all thoroughly pleased, I think, with the
+whole thing, and it was a very great and striking success.
+To-morrow-night, having the new Hardman, I am going to try the play with
+all kinds of cuts, taking out, among other things, some half-dozen
+printed pages of "Wills's Coffee House."
+
+We are very pleasant and cheerful. They are all going to Matthew
+Davenport Hill's to lunch this morning, and to see some woods about six
+or seven miles off. I prefer being quiet, and shall go out at my leisure
+and call on Elliot. We are very well lodged and boarded, and, living
+high up on the Downs, are quite out of the filth of Bristol.
+
+I saw old Landor at Bath, who has bronchitis. When he was last in town,
+"Kenyon drove him about, by God, half the morning, under a most damnable
+pretence of taking him to where Walter was at school, and they never
+found the confounded house!" He had in his pocket on that occasion a
+souvenir for Walter in the form of a Union shirt-pin, which is now in my
+possession, and shall be duly brought home.
+
+I am tired enough, and shall be glad when to-morrow night is over. We
+expect a very good house. Forster came up to town after the performance
+last night, and promised to report to you that all was well. Jerrold is
+in extraordinary force. I don't think I ever knew him so humorous. And
+this is all my news, which is quite enough. I am continually thinking of
+the house in the midst of all the bustle, but I trust it with such
+confidence to you that I am quite at my ease about it.
+
+        With best love to Georgy and the girls,
+                     Ever, my dearest Kate, most affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I forgot to say that Topham has suddenly come out as a juggler,
+and swallows candles, and does wonderful things with the poker very well
+indeed, but with a bashfulness and embarrassment extraordinarily
+ludicrous.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Eeles.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _Nov. 17th, 1851._
+
+DEAR MR. EELES,
+
+I must thank you for the admirable manner in which you have done the
+book-backs in my room. I feel personally obliged to you, I assure you,
+for the interest you have taken in my whim, and the promptitude with
+which you have completely carried it out.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday Afternoon, Dec. 5th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I write in great haste to tell you that Mr. Wills, in the utmost
+consternation, has brought me your letter, just received (four o'clock),
+and that it is _too late_ to recall your tale. I was so delighted with
+it that I put it first in the number (not hearing of any objection to my
+proposed alteration by return of post), and the number is now made up
+and in the printer's hands. I cannot possibly take the tale out--it has
+departed from me.
+
+I am truly concerned for this, but I hope you will not blame me for what
+I have done in perfect good faith. Any recollection of me from your pen
+cannot (as I think you know) be otherwise than truly gratifying to me;
+but with my name on every page of "Household Words," there would be--or
+at least I should feel--an impropriety in so mentioning myself. I was
+particular, in changing the author, to make it "Hood's _Poems_" in the
+most important place--I mean where the captain is killed--and I hope and
+trust that the substitution will not be any serious drawback to the
+paper in any eyes but yours. I would do anything rather than cause you a
+minute's vexation arising out of what has given me so much pleasure, and
+I sincerely beseech you to think better of it, and not to fancy that any
+shade has been thrown on your charming writing, by
+
+                                         The unfortunate but innocent.
+
+P.S.--I write at a gallop, not to lose another post.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                       TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, December 21st, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+If you were not the most suspicious of women, always looking for soft
+sawder in the purest metal of praise, I should call your paper
+delightful, and touched in the tenderest and most delicate manner. Being
+what you are, I confine myself to the observation that I have called it
+"A Love Affair at Cranford," and sent it off to the printer.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 26th, 1851._
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+About the three papers.
+
+1st. With Mr. Plowman of Oxford, Wills will communicate.
+
+2nd. (Now returned.) I have seen, in nearly the same form, before. The
+list of names is overwhelming.
+
+3rd. I am not at all earnest in the Savage matter; firstly, because I
+think so tremendous a vagabond never could have obtained an honest
+living in any station of existence or at any period of time; and
+secondly, because I think it of the highest importance that such an
+association as our Guild should not appear to resent upon society the
+faults of individuals who were flagrantly impracticable.
+
+At its best, it is liable to that suspicion, as all such efforts have
+been on the part of many jealous persons, to whom it _must_ look for
+aid. And any stop that in the least encourages it is one of a fatal
+kind.
+
+I do _not_ think myself, but this is merely an individual opinion, that
+Savage _was_ a man of genius, or that anything of his writing would have
+attracted much notice but for the bastard's reference to his mother. For
+these reasons combined, I should not be inclined to add my subscription
+of two guineas to yours, unless the inscription were altered as I have
+altered it in pencil. But in that case I should be very glad to respond
+to your suggestion, and to snuff out all my smaller disinclination.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[13] Mr. Charles Knight was writing a series of papers in "Household
+Words," called "Shadows."
+
+
+
+
+1852.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the summer of this year, Charles Dickens hired a house at Dover for
+three months, whither he went with his family. At the end of this time
+he sent his children and servants back to Tavistock House, and crossed
+over to Boulogne, with his wife and sister-in-law, to inspect that town
+and its neighbourhood, with a view of making it his summer quarters in
+the following year. Many amateur performances were given in the
+provinces in aid of the fund for the Guild of Literature and Art;
+Charles Dickens, as usual, taking the whole management on his own
+shoulders.
+
+In March, the first number of "Bleak House" appeared, and he was at work
+on this book all through the year, as well as being constantly occupied
+with his editorship of "Household Words."
+
+We have, in the letters for this year, Charles Dickens's first to Lord
+John Russell (afterwards the Earl Russell); a friend whom he held in the
+highest estimation, and to whom he was always grateful for many personal
+kindnesses. We have also his first letter to Mr. Wilkie Collins, with
+whom he became most intimately associated in literary work. The
+affectionate friendship he had for him, the high value in which he held
+him as a brother-artist, are constantly expressed in Charles Dickens's
+own letters to Mr. Collins, and in his letters to other friends.
+
+"Those gallant men" (in the letter to Mr. J. Crofton Croker) had
+reference to an antiquarian club, called the Noviomagians, who were
+about to give a dinner in honour of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain
+Kellett, the officers in command of the Arctic Exploring Expedition, to
+which Charles Dickens was also invited. Mr. Crofton Croker was the
+president of this club, and to denote his office it was customary to put
+on a cocked hat after dinner.
+
+The "lost character" he writes of in a letter to Mrs. Watson, refers to
+two different decipherings of his handwriting; this sort of study being
+in fashion then, and he and his friends at Rockingham Castle deriving
+much amusement from it.
+
+The letter dated July 9th was in answer to an anonymous correspondent,
+who wrote to him as follows: "I venture to trespass on your attention
+with one serious query, touching a sentence in the last number of 'Bleak
+House.' Do the supporters of Christian missions to the heathen really
+deserve the attack that is conveyed in the sentence about Jo' seated in
+his anguish on the door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel in Foreign Parts? The allusion is severe, but is it just? Are
+such boys as Jo' neglected? What are ragged schools, town missions, and
+many of those societies I regret to see sneered at in the last number of
+'Household Words'?"
+
+The "Duke of Middlesex," in the letter we have here to Mr. Charles
+Knight, was the name of the character played by Mr. F. Stone, in Sir E.
+B. Lytton's comedy of "Not so Bad as we Seem."
+
+Our last letter in this year, to Mr. G. Linnaeus Banks, was in
+acknowledgment of one from him on the subject of a proposed public
+dinner to Charles Dickens, to be given by the people of Birmingham, when
+they were also to present him with a salver and a diamond ring. The
+dinner was given in the following year, and the ring and salver (the
+latter an artistic specimen of Birmingham ware) were duly presented by
+Mr. Banks, who acted as honorary secretary, in the names of the
+subscribers, at the rooms of the Birmingham Fine Arts Association. Mr.
+Banks, and the artist, Mr. J. C. Walker, were the originators of this
+demonstration.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 31st, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+If the "taxes on knowledge" mean the stamp duty, the paper duty, and the
+advertisement duty, they seem to me to be unnecessarily confounded, and
+unfairly too.
+
+I have already declined to sign a petition for the removal of the stamp
+duty on newspapers. I think the reduced duty is some protection to the
+public against the rash and hasty launching of blackguard newspapers. I
+think the newspapers are made extremely accessible to the poor man at
+present, and that he would not derive the least benefit from the
+abolition of the stamp. It is not at all clear to me, supposing he wants
+_The Times_ a penny cheaper, that he would get it a penny cheaper if the
+tax were taken off. If he supposes he would get in competition two or
+three new journals as good to choose from, he is mistaken; not knowing
+the immense resources and the gradually perfective machinery necessary
+to the production of such a journal. It appears to me to be a fair tax
+enough, very little in the way of individuals, not embarrassing to the
+public in its mode of being levied, and requiring some small
+consideration and pauses from the American kind of newspaper projectors.
+Further, a committee has reported in favour of the repeal, and the
+subject may be held to need no present launching.
+
+The repeal of the paper duty would benefit the producers of periodicals
+immensely. It would make a very large difference to me, in the case of
+such a journal as "Household Words." But the gain to the public would be
+very small. It would not make the difference of enabling me, for
+example, to reduce the price of "Household Words," by its fractional
+effect upon a copy, or to increase the quantity of matter. I might, in
+putting the difference into my pocket, improve the quality of the paper
+a little, but not one man in a thousand would notice it. It _might_
+(though I am not sure even of this) remove the difficulties in the way
+of a deserving periodical with a small sale. Charles Knight holds that
+it would. But the case, on the whole, appeared to me so slight, when I
+went to Downing Street with a deputation on the subject, that I said (in
+addressing the Chancellor of the Exchequer) I could not honestly
+maintain it for a moment as against the soap duty, or any other pressing
+on the mass of the poor.
+
+The advertisement duty has this preposterous anomaly, that a footman in
+want of a place pays as much in the way of tax for the expression of his
+want, as Professor Holloway pays for the whole list of his miraculous
+cures.
+
+But I think, at this time especially, there is so much to be considered
+in the necessity the country will be under of having money, and the
+necessity of justice it is always under, to consider the physical and
+moral wants of the poor man's home, as to justify a man in saying: "I
+must wait a little, all taxes are more or less objectionable, and so no
+doubt are these, but we must have some; and I have not made up my mind
+that all these things that are mixed up together _are_ taxes on
+knowledge in reality."
+
+Kate and Georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest love to dear Mrs.
+Macready. We are always with you in spirit, and always talking about
+you. I am obliged to conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with
+business engagements. Saw the lecture and was delighted; thought the
+idea admirable. Again, loves upon loves to dear Mrs. Macready and to
+Miss Macready also, and Kate and all the house. I saw ---- play (O
+Heaven!) "Macbeth," the other night, in three hours and fifty minutes,
+which is quick, I think.
+
+                                       Ever and always affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. Crofton Croker.]
+
+                                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 6th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have the greatest interest in those gallant men, and should have been
+delighted to dine in their company. I feel truly obliged to you for your
+kind remembrance on such an occasion.
+
+But I am engaged to Lord Lansdowne on Wednesday, and can only drink to
+them in the spirit, which I have often done when they have been farther
+off.
+
+I hope you will find occasion to put on your cocked hat, that they may
+see how terrific and imposing "a fore-and-after" can be made on shore.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _April 6th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+My "lost character" was one of those awful documents occasionally to be
+met with, which WILL be everywhere. It glared upon me from every drawer
+I had, fell out of books, lurked under keys, hid in empty inkstands, got
+into portfolios, frightened me by inscrutably passing into locked
+despatch-boxes, and was not one character, but a thousand. This was when
+I didn't want it. I look for it this morning, and it is nowhere!
+Probably will never be beheld again.
+
+But it was very unlike this one; and there is no doubt that when these
+ventures come out good, it is only by lucky chance and coincidence. She
+never mentioned my love of order before, and it is so remarkable (being
+almost a _dis_order), that she ought to have fainted with surprise when
+my handwriting was first revealed to her.
+
+I was very sorry to leave Rockingham the other day, and came away in
+quite a melancholy state. The Birmingham people were very active; and
+the Shrewsbury gentry quite transcendent. I hope we shall have a very
+successful and dazzling trip. It is delightful to me to think of your
+coming to Birmingham; and, by-the-bye, if you will tell me in the
+previous week what hotel accommodation you want, Mr. Wills will look to
+it with the greatest pleasure.
+
+Your bookseller ought to be cashiered. I suppose "he" (as Rogers calls
+everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his
+mind from dwelling on its loss. Abortive effort!
+
+              Charley brings this with himself.
+              With kindest regards and remembrances,
+                        Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 29th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+A thousand thanks for the Shadow, which, is charming. May you often go
+(out of town) and do likewise!
+
+I dined with Charles Kemble, yesterday, to meet Emil Devrient, the
+German actor. He said (Devrient is my antecedent) that Ophelia _spoke_
+the snatches of ballads in their German version of "Hamlet," because
+they didn't know the airs. Tom Taylor said that you had published the
+airs in your "Shakespeare." I said that if it were so, I knew you would
+be happy to place them at the German's service. If you have got them and
+will send them to me, I will write to Devrient (who knows no English) a
+French explanation and reminder of the circumstance, and will tell him
+that you responded like a man and a--I was going to say publisher, but
+you are nothing of the sort, except as Tonson. Then indeed you are every
+inch a pub.!
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, June 30th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR LORD,
+
+I am most truly obliged to you for your kind note, and for your so
+generously thinking of me in the midst of your many occupations. I do
+assure you that your ever ready consideration had already attached me to
+you in the warmest manner, and made me very much your debtor. I thank
+you unaffectedly and very earnestly, and am proud to be held in your
+remembrance.
+
+                      Believe me always, yours faithfully and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Anonymous Correspondent.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _July 9th, 1852._
+
+SIR,
+
+I have received your letter of yesterday's date, and shall content
+myself with a brief reply.
+
+There was a long time during which benevolent societies were spending
+immense sums on missions abroad, when there was no such thing as a
+ragged school in England, or any kind of associated endeavour to
+penetrate to those horrible domestic depths in which such schools are
+now to be found, and where they were, to my most certain knowledge,
+neither placed nor discovered by the Society for the Propagation of the
+Gospel in Foreign Parts.
+
+If you think the balance between the home mission and the foreign
+mission justly held in the present time, I do not. I abstain from
+drawing the strange comparison that might be drawn between the sums even
+now expended in endeavours to remove the darkest ignorance and
+degradation from our very doors, because I have some respect for
+mistakes that may be founded in a sincere wish to do good. But I present
+a general suggestion of the still-existing anomaly (in such a paragraph
+as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing some people to
+reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance more correctly. I am
+decidedly of opinion that the two works, the home and the foreign, are
+_not_ conducted with an equal hand, and that the home claim is by far
+the stronger and the more pressing of the two.
+
+Indeed, I have very grave doubts whether a great commercial country,
+holding communication with all parts of the world, can better
+Christianise the benighted portions of it than by the bestowal of its
+wealth and energy on the making of good Christians at home, and on the
+utter removal of neglected and untaught childhood from its streets,
+before it wanders elsewhere. For, if it steadily persist in this work,
+working downward to the lowest, the travellers of all grades whom it
+sends abroad will be good, exemplary, practical missionaries, instead of
+undoers of what the best professed missionaries can do.
+
+These are my opinions, founded, I believe, on some knowledge of facts
+and some observation. If I could be scared out of them, let me add in
+all good humour, by such easily-impressed words as "antichristian" or
+"irreligious," I should think that I deserved them in their real
+signification.
+
+I have referred in vain to page 312 of "Household Words" for the sneer
+to which you call my attention. Nor have I, I assure you, the least idea
+where else it is to be found.
+
+                                     I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                        10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _July 22nd, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+This is indeed a noble letter. The description of the family is quite
+amazing. I _must_ return it myself to say that I HAVE appreciated it.
+
+I am going to do "Used Up" at Manchester on the 2nd of September. O,
+think of that! With another Mary!!! How can I ever say, "_Dear_ Joe, if
+you like!" The voice may fully frame the falsehood, but the heart--the
+heart, Mr. Wurzel--will have no part in it.
+
+My dear Mary, you do scant justice to Dover. It is not quite a place to
+my taste, being too bandy (I mean musical, no reference to its legs),
+and infinitely too genteel. But the sea is very fine, and the walks are
+quite remarkable. There are two ways of going to Folkestone, both lovely
+and striking in the highest degree; and there are heights, and downs,
+and country roads, and I don't know what, everywhere.
+
+To let you into a secret, I am not quite sure that I ever did like, or
+ever shall like, anything quite so well as "Copperfield." But I foresee,
+I think, some very good things in "Bleak House." I shouldn't wonder if
+they were the identical things that D'Israeli sees looming in the
+distance. I behold them in the months ahead and weep.
+
+Watson seemed, when I saw him last, to be holding on as by a
+sheet-anchor to theatricals at Christmas. Then, O rapture! but be still,
+my fluttering heart.
+
+This is one of what I call my wandering days before I fall to work. I
+seem to be always looking at such times for something I have not found
+in life, but may possibly come to a few thousands of years hence, in
+some other part of some other system. God knows. At all events I won't
+put your pastoral little pipe out of tune by talking about it. I'll go
+and look for it on the Canterbury road among the hop-gardens and
+orchards.
+
+                                        Ever faithfully your Friend,
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                 10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _Sunday, Aug. 1st, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+I don't see why you should go to the Ship, and I won't stand it. The
+state apartment will be occupied by the Duke of Middlesex (whom I think
+you know), but we can easily get a bed for you hard by. Therefore you
+will please to drive here next Saturday evening. Our regular dinner hour
+is half-past five. If you are later, you will find something ready for
+you.
+
+If you go on in that way about your part, I shall think you want to play
+Mr. Gabblewig. Your role, though a small one on the stage, is a large
+one off it; and no man is more important to the Guild, both on and off.
+
+My dear friend Watson! Dead after an illness of four days. He dined with
+us this day three weeks. I loved him as my heart, and cannot think of
+him without tears.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                            DOVER, _August 5th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+Poor dear Watson was dead when the paragraph in the paper appeared. He
+was buried in his own church yesterday. Last Sunday three weeks (the day
+before he went abroad) he dined with us, and was quite well and happy.
+She has come home, is at Rockingham with the children, and does not
+weakly desert his grave, but sets up her rest by it from the first. He
+had been wandering in his mind a little before his death, but recovered
+consciousness, and fell asleep (she says) quite gently and peacefully in
+her arms.
+
+I loved him very much, and God knows he deserved it.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+               10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+'Peared to me (as Uncle Tom would say) until within these last few days,
+that I should be able to write to you, joyfully accepting your
+Saturday's invitation after Newcastle, in behalf of all whom it
+concerned. But the Sunderland people rushed into the field to propose
+our acting there on that Saturday, the only possible night. And as it is
+the concluding Guild expedition, and the Guild has a paramount claim on
+us, I have been obliged to knock my own inclinations on the head, cut
+the throat of my own wishes, and bind the Company hand and foot to the
+Sunderland lieges. I don't mean to tell them now of your invitation
+until we shall have got out of that country. There might be rebellion.
+We are staying here for the autumn.
+
+Is there any hope of your repeating your visit to these coasts?
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                       10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _August 5th, 1852._
+
+                   ON THE DEATH OF MR. WATSON.
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I cannot bear to be silent longer, though I know full well--no one
+better I think--how your love for him, and your trust in God, and your
+love for your children will have come to the help of such a nature as
+yours, and whispered better things than any friendship can, however
+faithful and affectionate.
+
+We held him so close in our hearts--all of us here--and have been so
+happy with him, and so used to say how good he was, and what a gentle,
+generous, noble spirit he had, and how he shone out among commoner men
+as something so real and genuine, and full of every kind of worthiness,
+that it has often brought the tears into my eyes to talk of him; we have
+been so accustomed to do this when we looked forward to years of
+unchanged intercourse, that now, when everything but truth goes down
+into the dust, those recollections which make the sword so sharp pour
+balm into the wound. And if it be a consolation to us to know the
+virtues of his character, and the reasons that we had for loving him, O
+how much greater is your comfort who were so devoted to him, and were
+the happiness of his life!
+
+We have thought of you every day and every hour; we think of you now in
+the dear old house, and know how right it is, for his dear children's
+sake, that you should have bravely set up your rest in the place
+consecrated by their father's memory, and within the same summer shadows
+that fall upon his grave. We try to look on, through a few years, and to
+see the children brightening it, and George a comfort and a pride and an
+honour to you; and although it _is_ hard to think of what we have lost,
+we know how something of it will be restored by your example and
+endeavours, and the blessing that will descend upon them. We know how
+the time will come when some reflection of that cordial, unaffected,
+most affectionate presence, which we can never forget, and never would
+forget if we could--such is God's great mercy--will shine out of your
+boy's eyes upon you, his best friend and his last consoler, and fill the
+void there is now.
+
+May God, who has received into His rest through this affliction as good
+a man as ever I can know and love and mourn for on this earth, be good
+to you, dear friends, through these coming years! May all those
+compassionate and hopeful lessons of the great Teacher who shed divine
+tears for the dead bring their full comfort to you! I have no fear of
+that, my confidence is certainty.
+
+I cannot write what I wish; I had so many things to say, I seem to have
+said none. It is so with the remembrances we send. I cannot put them
+into words.
+
+If you should ever set up a record in the little church, I would try to
+word it myself, and God knows out of the fulness of my heart, if you
+should think it well.
+
+                My dear Friend,
+                        Yours, with the truest affection and sympathy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                   HOTEL DES BAINS, BOULOGNE,
+                                      _Tuesday Night, Oct. 5th, 1852._
+
+                  ON THE DEATH OF MRS. MACREADY.
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I received your melancholy letter while we were staying at Dover, a few
+days after it was written; but I thought it best not to write to you
+until you were at home again, among your dear children.
+
+Its tidings were not unexpected to us, had been anticipated in many
+conversations, often thought of under many circumstances; but the shock
+was scarcely lessened by this preparation. The many happy days we have
+passed together came crowding back; all the old cheerful times arose
+before us; and the remembrance of what we had loved so dearly and seen
+under so many aspects--all natural and delightful and affectionate and
+ever to be cherished--was, how pathetic and touching you know best!
+
+But my dear, dear Macready, this is not the first time you have felt
+that the recollection of great love and happiness associated with the
+dead soothes while it wounds. And while I can imagine that the blank
+beside you may grow wider every day for many days to come, I _know_--I
+think--that from its depths such comfort will arise as only comes to
+great hearts like yours, when they can think upon their trials with a
+steady trust in God.
+
+My dear friend, I have known her so well, have been so happy in her
+regard, have been so light-hearted with her, have interchanged so many
+tender remembrances of you with her when you were far away, and have
+seen her ever so simply and truly anxious to be worthy of you, that I
+cannot write as I would and as I know I ought. As I would press your
+hand in your distress, I let this note go from me. I understand your
+grief, I deeply feel the reason that there is for it, yet in that very
+feeling find a softening consolation that must spring up a
+hundred-thousandfold for you. May Heaven prosper it in your breast, and
+the spirits that have gone before, from the regions of mercy to which
+they have been called, smooth the path you have to tread alone! Children
+are left you. Your good sister (God bless her!) is by your side. You
+have devoted friends, and more reasons than most men to be self-reliant
+and stedfast. Something is gone that never in this world can be
+replaced, but much is left, and it is a part of her life, her death, her
+immortality.
+
+Catherine and Georgina, who are with me here, send you their overflowing
+love and sympathy. We hope that in a little while, and for a little
+while at least, you will come among us, who have known the happiness of
+being in this bond with you, and will not exclude us from participation
+in your past and future.
+
+        Ever, my dearest Macready, with unchangeable affection,
+                                          Yours in all love and truth.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                HOTEL DES BAINS, BOULOGNE, _Tuesday, Oct. 12th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                            H. W.
+
+I have thought of the Christmas number, but not very successfully,
+because I have been (and still am) constantly occupied with "Bleak
+House." I purpose returning home either on Sunday or Monday, as my work
+permits, and we will, immediately thereafter, dine at the office and
+talk it over, so that you may get all the men to their work.
+
+The fault of ----'s poem, besides its intrinsic meanness as a
+composition, is that it goes too glibly with the comfortable ideas (of
+which we have had a great deal too much in England since the Continental
+commotions) that a man is to sit down and make himself domestic and
+meek, no matter what is done to him. It wants a stronger appeal to
+rulers in general to let men do this, fairly, by governing them well. As
+it stands, it is at about the tract-mark ("Dairyman's Daughter," etc.)
+of political morality, and don't think that it is necessary to write
+_down_ to any part of our audience. I always hold that to be as great a
+mistake as can be made.
+
+I wish you would mention to Thomas, that I think the paper on hops
+_extremely well done_. He has quite caught the idea we want, and caught
+it in the best way. In pursuing the bridge subject, I think it would be
+advisable to look up the _Thames police_. I have a misty notion of some
+capital papers coming out of it. Will you see to this branch of the tree
+among the other branches?
+
+                                 MYSELF.
+
+To Chapman I will write. My impression is that I shall not subscribe to
+the Hood monument, as I am not at all favourable to such posthumous
+honours.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                HOTEL DES BAINS, BOULOGNE,
+                                   _Wednesday Night, Oct. 13th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+The number coming in after dinner, since my letter was written and
+posted, I have gone over it.
+
+I am grievously depressed by it; it is so exceedingly bad. If you have
+anything else to put first, don't put ----'s paper first. (There is
+nothing better for a beginning in the number as it stands, but this is
+very bad.) It is a mistake to think of it as a first article. The
+article itself is in the main a mistake. Firstly, the subject requires
+the greatest discretion and nicety of touch. And secondly, it is all
+wrong and self-contradictory. Nobody can for a moment suppose that
+"sporting" amusements are the sports of the PEOPLE; the whole gist of
+the best part of the description is to show that they are the amusements
+of a peculiar and limited class. The greater part of them are at a
+miserable discount (horse-racing excepted, which has been already
+sufficiently done in H. W.), and there is no reason for running amuck at
+them at all. I have endeavoured to remove much of my objection (and I
+think have done so), but, both in purpose and in any general address, it
+is as wide of a first article as anything can well be. It would do best
+in the opening of the number.
+
+About Sunday in Paris there is no kind of doubt. Take it out. Such a
+thing as that crucifixion, unless it were done in a masterly manner, we
+have no business to stagger families with. Besides, the name is a
+comprehensive one, and should include a quantity of fine matter. Lord
+bless me, what I could write under that head!
+
+Strengthen the number, pray, by anything good you may have. It is a very
+dreary business as it stands.
+
+The proofs want a thorough revision.
+
+In haste, going to bed.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--I want a name for Miss Martineau's paper.
+
+        TRIUMPHANT CARRIAGES (or TRIUMPHAL).
+             DUBLIN STOUTHEARTEDNESS.
+             PATIENCE AND PREJUDICE.
+
+Take which you like best.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Watkins.]
+
+                                         MONDAY, _October 18th, 1852._
+
+SIR,
+
+On my return to town I find the letter awaiting me which you did me the
+favour to address to me, I believe--for it has no date--some days ago.
+
+I have the greatest tenderness for the memory of Hood, as I had for
+himself. But I am not very favourable to posthumous memorials in the
+monument way, and I should exceedingly regret to see any such appeal as
+you contemplate made public, remembering another public appeal that was
+made and responded to after Hood's death. I think that I best discharge
+my duty to my deceased friend, and best consult the respect and love
+with which I remember him, by declining to join in any such public
+endeavours as that which you (in all generosity and singleness of
+purpose, I am sure) advance. I shall have a melancholy gratification in
+privately assisting to place a simple and plain record over the remains
+of a great writer that should be as modest as he was himself, but I
+regard any other monument in connection with his mortal resting-place as
+a mistake.
+
+                                     I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+              OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Tuesday, Oct. 19th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+We are now getting our Christmas extra number together, and I think you
+are the boy to do, if you will, one of the stories.
+
+I propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist
+entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round
+the fire. _I don't care about their referring to Christmas at all_; nor
+do I design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names, as:
+
+        THE GRANDFATHER'S STORY.
+        THE FATHER'S STORY.
+        THE DAUGHTER'S STORY.
+        THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY.
+        THE CHILD'S STORY.
+        THE GUEST'S STORY.
+        THE OLD NURSE'S STORY.
+
+The grandfather might very well be old enough to have lived in the days
+of the highwaymen. Do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or both, to
+do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? If you do, I embrace you
+(per post), and throw up a cap I have purchased for the purpose into
+mid-air.
+
+Think of it and write me a line in reply. We are all well and blooming.
+
+Are you never coming to town any more? Never going to drink port again,
+metropolitaneously, but _always_ with Fielden?
+
+Love to Mrs. White and the children, if Lotty be not out of the list
+long ago.
+
+                                       Ever faithfully, my dear White.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                              ATHENAEUM, _Monday, November 22nd, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+Having just now finished my work for the time being, I turn in here in
+the course of a rainy walk, to have the gratification of writing a few
+lines to you. If my occupations with this same right hand were less
+numerous, you would soon be tired of me, I should write to you so often.
+
+You asked Catherine a question about "Bleak House." Its circulation is
+half as large again as "Copperfield"! I have just now come to the point
+I have been patiently working up to in the writing, and I hope it will
+suggest to you a pretty and affecting thing. In the matter of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin," I partly though not entirely agree with Mr. James. No
+doubt a much lower art will serve for the handling of such a subject in
+fiction, than for a launch on the sea of imagination without such a
+powerful bark; but there are many points in the book very admirably
+done. There is a certain St. Clair, a New Orleans gentleman, who seems
+to me to be conceived with great power and originality. If he had not "a
+Grecian outline of face," which I began to be a little tired of in my
+earliest infancy, I should think him unexceptionable. He has a sister
+too, a maiden lady from New England, in whose person the besetting
+weaknesses and prejudices of the Abolitionists themselves, on the
+subject of the blacks, are set forth in the liveliest and truest colours
+and with the greatest boldness.
+
+I have written for "Household Words" of this next publication-day an
+article on the State funeral,[14] showing why I consider it altogether a
+mistake, to be temperately but firmly objected to; which I daresay will
+make a good many of the admirers of such things highly indignant. It may
+have right and reason on its side, however, none the less.
+
+Charley and I had a great talk at Dover about his going into the army,
+when I thought it right to set before him fairly and faithfully the
+objections to that career, no less than its advantages. The result was
+that he asked in a very manly way for time to consider. So I appointed
+to go down to Eton on a certain day at the beginning of this month, and
+resume the subject. We resumed it accordingly at the White Hart, at
+Windsor, and he came to the conclusion that he would rather be a
+merchant, and try to establish some good house of business, where he
+might find a path perhaps for his younger brothers, and stay at home,
+and make himself the head of that long, small procession. I was very
+much pleased with him indeed; he showed a fine sense and a fine feeling
+in the whole matter. We have arranged, therefore, that he shall leave
+Eton at Christmas, and go to Germany after the holidays, to become well
+acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a walk of life
+as he will probably tread.
+
+And I think this is the whole of my news. We are always talking of you
+at home. Mary Boyle dined with us a little while ago. You look out, I
+imagine, on a waste of water. When I came from Windsor, I thought I must
+have made a mistake and got into a boat (in the dark) instead of a
+railway-carriage. Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves. I am
+ever, with the best and truest wishes of my heart, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+               OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Monday, Nov. 22nd, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+First and foremost, there is no doubt whatever of your story suiting
+"Household Words." It is a very good story indeed, and would be
+serviceable at any time. I am not quite so clear of its suiting the
+Christmas number, for this reason. You know what the spirit of the
+Christmas number is. When I suggested the stories being about a
+highwayman, I got hold of that idea as being an adventurous one,
+including various kinds of wrong, expressing a state of society no
+longer existing among us, and pleasant to hear (therefore) from an old
+man. Now, your highwayman not being a real highwayman after all, the
+kind of suitable Christmas interest I meant to awaken in the story is
+not in it. Do you understand? For an ordinary number it is quite
+unobjectionable. If you should think of any other idea, narratable by an
+old man, which you think would strike the chord of the season; and if
+you should find time to work it out during the short remainder of this
+month, I should be greatly pleased to have it. In any case, this story
+goes straightway into type.
+
+What tremendous weather it is! Our best loves to all at home. (I have
+just bought thirty bottles of the most stunning port on earth, which
+Ellis of the Star and Garter, Richmond, wrote to me of.)
+
+I think you will find some good going in the next "Bleak House." I write
+shortly, having been working my head off.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Wednesday, Dec. 1st, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I send you the proof of "The Old Nurse's Story," with my proposed
+alteration. I shall be glad to know whether you approve of it. To assist
+you in your decision, I send you, also enclosed, the original ending.
+And I have made a line with ink across the last slip but one, where the
+alteration begins. Of course if you wish to enlarge, explain, or
+re-alter, you will do it. Do not keep the proof longer than you can
+help, as I want to get to press with all despatch.
+
+I hope I address this letter correctly. I am far from sure. In haste.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, December 9th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I am driven mad by dogs, who have taken it into their accursed heads to
+assemble every morning in the piece of ground opposite, and who have
+barked this morning _for five hours without intermission_; positively
+rendering it impossible for me to work, and so making what is really
+ridiculous quite serious to me. I wish, between this and dinner, you
+would send John to see if he can hire a gun, with a few caps, some
+powder, and a few charges of small shot. If you duly commission him with
+a card, he can easily do it. And if I get those implements up here
+to-night, I'll be the death of some of them to-morrow morning.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday Evening, Dec. 9th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I hear you are not going to poor Macready's. Now, don't you think it
+would do you good to come here instead? _I_ say it would, and I ought
+to know! We can give you everything but a bed (all ours are occupied in
+consequence of the boys being at home), and shall all be delighted to
+see you. Leave the bed to us, and we'll find one hard by. I say nothing
+of the last day of the old year, and the dancing out of that good old
+worthy that will take place here (for you might like to hear the bells
+at home); but after the twentieth, I shall be comparatively at leisure,
+and good for anything or nothing. Don't you consider it your duty to
+your family to come? _I_ do, and I again say that I ought to know.
+
+Our best love to Mrs. White and Lotty--happily so much better, we
+rejoice to hear--and all.
+
+                                  So no more at present from
+                                                     THE INIMITABLE B.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, Dec. 17th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I received your kind note yesterday morning with the truest
+gratification, for I _am_ the writer of "The Child's Story" as well as
+of "The Poor Relation's." I assure you, you have given me the liveliest
+and heartiest pleasure by what you say of it.
+
+I don't claim for my ending of "The Nurse's Story" that it would have
+made it a bit better. All I can urge in its behalf is, that it is what I
+should have done myself. But there is no doubt of the story being
+admirable as it stands, and there _is_ some doubt (I think) whether
+Forster would have found anything wrong in it, if he had not known of my
+hammering over the proofs in making up the number, with all the three
+endings before me.
+
+                  With kindest regards to Mr. Gaskell,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Dec. 20th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+If I did not know that you are likely to have a forbearing remembrance
+of my occupation, I should be full of remorse for not having sooner
+thanked you for "Basil."
+
+Not to play the sage or the critic (neither of which parts, I hope, is
+at all in my line), but to say what is the friendly truth, I may assure
+you that I have read the book with very great interest, and with a very
+thorough conviction that you have a call to this same art of fiction. I
+think the probabilities here and there require a little more respect
+than you are disposed to show them, and I have no doubt that the
+prefatory letter would have been better away, on the ground that a book
+(of all things) should speak for and explain itself. But the story
+contains admirable writing, and many clear evidences of a very delicate
+discrimination of character. It is delightful to find throughout that
+you have taken great pains with it besides, and have "gone at it" with a
+perfect knowledge of the jolter-headedness of the conceited idiots who
+suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes, and that any
+writing can be done without the utmost application, the greatest
+patience, and the steadiest energy of which the writer is capable.
+
+For all these reasons, I have made "Basil's" acquaintance with great
+gratification, and entertain a high respect for him. And I hope that I
+shall become intimate with many worthy descendants of his, who are yet
+in the limbo of creatures waiting to be born.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--I am open to any proposal to go anywhere any day or days this
+week. Fresh air and change in any amount I am ready for. If I could only
+find an idle man (this is a general observation), he would find the
+warmest recognition in this direction.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Evening, Dec. 20th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Every appearance of brightness! Shall I expect you to-morrow morning? If
+so, at what hour?
+
+I think of taking train afterwards, and going down for a walk on Chatham
+lines. If you can spare the day for fresh air and an impromptu bit of
+fish and chop, I can recommend you one of the most delightful of men for
+a companion. O, he is indeed refreshing!!!
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                   OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Christmas Eve, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have gone carefully through the number--an awful one for the amount of
+correction required--and have made everything right. If my mind could
+have been materialised, and drawn along the tops of all the spikes on
+the outside of the Queen's Bench prison, it could not have been more
+agonised than by the ----, which, for imbecility, carelessness, slovenly
+composition, relatives without antecedents, universal chaos, and one
+absorbing whirlpool of jolter-headedness, beats anything in print and
+paper I have ever "gone at" in my life.
+
+I shall come and see how you are to-morrow. Meantime everything is in
+perfect trim in these parts, and I have sent down to Stacey to come here
+and top up with a final interview before I go.
+
+Just after I had sent the messenger off to you, yesterday, concerning
+the toll-taker memoranda, the other idea came into my head, and in the
+most obliging manner came out of it.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Here is ---- perpetually flitting about Brydges Street, and
+hovering in the neighbourhood, with a veil of secrecy drawn down over
+his chin, so ludicrously transparent, that I can't help laughing while
+he looks at me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. G. Linnaeus Banks.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 26th, 1852._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I will not attempt to tell you how affected and gratified I am by the
+intelligence your kind letter conveys to me. Nothing would be more
+welcome to me than such a mark of confidence and approval from such a
+source, nothing more precious, or that I could set a higher worth upon.
+
+I hasten to return the gauges, of which I have marked one as the size of
+the finger, from which this token will never more be absent as long as I
+live.
+
+With feelings of the liveliest gratitude and cordiality towards the many
+friends who so honour me, and with many thanks to you for the genial
+earnestness with which you represent them,
+
+                             I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Will you do me the favour to inform the dinner committee that a
+friend of mine, Mr. Clement, of Shrewsbury, is very anxious to purchase
+a ticket for the dinner, and that if they will be so good as to forward
+one for him to me I shall feel much obliged.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] The great Duke of Wellington's funeral.
+
+
+
+
+1853.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In this year, Charles Dickens was still writing "Bleak House," and went
+to Brighton for a short time in the spring. In May he had an attack of
+illness, a return of an old trouble of an inflammatory pain in the
+side, which was short but very severe while it lasted. Immediately on
+his recovery, early in June, a departure from London for the summer was
+resolved upon. He had decided upon trying Boulogne this year for his
+holiday sojourn, and as soon as he was strong enough to travel, he, his
+wife, and sister-in-law went there in advance of the family, taking up
+their quarters at the Hotel des Bains, to find a house, which was
+speedily done. The pretty little Villa des Moulineaux, and its excellent
+landlord, at once took his fancy, and in that house, and in another on
+the same ground, also belonging to M. Beaucourt, he passed three very
+happy summers. And he became as much attached to "Our French Watering
+Place" as to "Our English" one. Having written a sketch of Broadstairs
+under that name in "Household Words," he did the same of Boulogne under
+the former title.
+
+During the summer, besides his other work, he was employed in dictating
+"The Child's History of England," which he published in "Household
+Words," and which was the only book he ever wrote by dictation. But, as
+at Broadstairs and other seaside homes, he had always plenty of
+relaxation and enjoyment in the visits of his friends. In September he
+finished "Bleak House," and in October he started with Mr. Wilkie
+Collins and Mr. Egg from Boulogne, on an excursion through parts of
+Switzerland and Italy; his wife and family going home at the same time,
+and he himself returning to Tavistock House early in December. His
+eldest son, Charles, had left Eton some time before this, and had gone
+for the completion of his education to Leipsic. He was to leave Germany
+at the end of the year, therefore it was arranged that he should meet
+the travellers in Paris on their homeward journey, and they all returned
+together.
+
+Just before Christmas he went to Birmingham in fulfilment of an offer
+which he had made at the dinner given to him at Birmingham on the 6th of
+January (of which he writes to Mr. Macready in the first letter that
+follows here), to give two readings from his own books for the benefit
+of the New Midland Institute. They were his first public readings. He
+read "The Christmas Carol" on one evening, and "The Cricket on the
+Hearth" on the next, before enormous audiences. The success was so
+great, and the sum of money realised for the institute so large, that he
+consented to give a second reading of "The Christmas Carol," remaining
+another night in Birmingham for the purpose, on the condition that seats
+were reserved, at prices within their means, for the working men. And to
+his great satisfaction they formed a large proportion, and were among
+the most enthusiastic and appreciative of his audience. He was
+accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law, and on this occasion a
+breakfast was given to him after his last reading, at which a silver
+flower-basket, duly inscribed, was very gracefully presented to _Mrs._
+Charles Dickens.
+
+The letters in this year require little explanation. Those to his wife
+and sister-in-law and Mr. Wills give a little history of his Italian
+journey. At Naples he found his excellent friend Sir James Emerson
+Tennent, with his wife and daughter, with whom he joined company in the
+ascent of Vesuvius.
+
+The two letters to M. Regnier, the distinguished actor of the Theatre
+Francais--with whom Charles Dickens had formed a sincere friendship
+during his first residence in Paris--on the subject of a projected
+benefit to Miss Kelly, need no further explanation.
+
+Mr. John Delane, editor of _The Times_, and always a highly-esteemed
+friend of Charles Dickens, had given him an introduction to a school at
+Boulogne, kept by two English gentlemen, one a clergyman and the other a
+former Eton master, the Rev. W. Bewsher and Mr. Gibson. He had at
+various times four boys at this school, and very frequently afterwards
+he expressed his gratitude to Mr. Delane for having given him the
+introduction, which turned out so satisfactory in every respect.
+
+The letter of grateful acknowledgment from Mr. Poole and Charles
+Dickens to Lord Russell was for the pension for which the old dramatic
+author was indebted to that nobleman, and which enabled him to live
+comfortably until the end of his life.
+
+A note to Mr. Marcus Stone was sent with a copy of "The Child's History
+of England." The sketch referred to was one of "Jo'," in "Bleak House,"
+which showed great feeling and artistic promise, since fully fulfilled
+by the young painter, but very remarkable in a boy so young as he was at
+that time. The letter to Mr. Stanfield, in seafaring language, is a
+specimen of a playful way in which he frequently addressed that dear
+friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+       "A curiosity from _him_. No date. No signature."--W. H. H.
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have not a shadow of a doubt about Miss Martineau's story. It is
+certain to tell. I think it very effectively, admirably done; a fine
+plain purpose in it; quite a singular novelty. For the last story in the
+Christmas number it will be great. I couldn't wish for a better.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell's ghost story I have got this morning; have not yet read.
+It is long.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.]
+
+                                H.M.S. _Tavistock, January 2nd, 1853._
+
+Yoho, old salt! Neptun' ahoy! You don't forget, messmet, as you was to
+meet Dick Sparkler and Mark Porpuss on the fok'sle of the good ship
+_Owssel Words_, Wednesday next, half-past four? Not you; for when did
+Stanfell ever pass his word to go anywheers and not come! Well. Belay,
+my heart of oak, belay! Come alongside the _Tavistock_ same day and
+hour, 'stead of _Owssel Words_. Hail your shipmets, and they'll drop
+over the side and join you, like two new shillings a-droppin' into the
+purser's pocket. Damn all lubberly boys and swabs, and give me the lad
+with the tarry trousers, which shines to me like di'mings bright!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday Night, Jan. 14th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have been much affected by the receipt of your kindest and best of
+letters; for I know out of the midst of what anxieties it comes to me,
+and I appreciate such remembrance from my heart. You and yours are
+always with us, however. It is no new thing for you to have a part in
+any scene of my life. It very rarely happens that a day passes without
+our thoughts and conversation travelling to Sherborne. We are so much
+there that I cannot tell you how plainly I see you as I write.
+
+I know you would have been full of sympathy and approval if you had been
+present at Birmingham, and that you would have concurred in the tone I
+tried to take about the eternal duties of the arts to the people. I took
+the liberty of putting the court and that kind of thing out of the
+question, and recognising nothing _but_ the arts and the people. The
+more we see of life and its brevity, and the world and its varieties,
+the more we know that no exercise of our abilities in any art, but the
+addressing of it to the great ocean of humanity in which we are drops,
+and not to bye-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever
+will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect. Is it not so? _You_
+should have as much practical information on this subject, now, my dear
+friend, as any man.
+
+My dearest Macready, I cannot forbear this closing word. I still look
+forward to our meeting as we used to do in the happy times we have
+known together, so far as your old hopefulness and energy are concerned.
+And I think I never in my life have been more glad to receive a sign,
+than I have been to hail that which I find in your handwriting.
+
+Some of your old friends at Birmingham are full of interest and enquiry.
+Kate and Georgina send their dearest loves to you, and to Miss Macready,
+and to all the children. I am ever, and no matter where I am--and quite
+as much in a crowd as alone--my dearest Macready,
+
+                           Your affectionate and most attached Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 3rd, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+The subject is certainly not too serious, so sensibly treated. I have no
+doubt that you may do a great deal of good by pursuing it in "Household
+Words." I thoroughly agree in all you say in your note, have similar
+reasons for giving it some anxious consideration, and shall be greatly
+interested in it. Pray decide to do it. Send the papers, as you write
+them, to me. Meanwhile I will think of a name for them, and bring it to
+bear upon yours, if I think yours improvable. I am sure you may rely on
+being widely understood and sympathised with.
+
+Forget that I called those two women my dear friends! Why, if I told you
+a fiftieth part of what I have thought about them, you would write me
+the most suspicious of notes, refusing to receive the fiftieth part of
+that. So I don't write, particularly as you laid your injunctions on me
+concerning Ruth. In revenge, I will now mention one word that I wish you
+would take out whenever you reprint that book. She would never--I am
+ready to make affidavit before any authority in the land--have called
+her seducer "Sir," when they were living at that hotel in Wales. A girl
+pretending to be what she really was would have done it, but she--never!
+
+                                           Ever most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 9th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I meant to have spoken to you last night about a matter in which I hope
+you can assist me, but I forgot it. I think I must have been quite
+_bouleverse_ by your supposing (as you pretended to do, when you went
+away) that it was not a great pleasure and delight to me to see you act!
+
+There is a certain Miss Kelly, now sixty-two years old, who was once one
+of the very best of English actresses, in the greater and better days of
+the English theatre. She has much need of a benefit, and I am exerting
+myself to arrange one for her, on about the 9th of June, if possible, at
+the St. James's Theatre. The first piece will be an entertainment of her
+own, and she will act in the last. Between these two (and at the best
+time of the night), it would be a great attraction to the public, and a
+great proof of friendship to me, if you would act. If we could manage,
+through your influence and with your assistance, to present a little
+French vaudeville, such as "_Le bon Homme jadis_," it would make the
+night a grand success.
+
+Mitchell's permission, I suppose, would be required. That I will
+undertake to apply for, if you will tell me that you are willing to help
+us, and that you could answer for the other necessary actors in the
+little French piece, whatever the piece might be, that you would choose
+for the purpose. Pray write me a short note in answer, on this point.
+
+I ought to tell you that the benefit will be "under distinguished
+patronage." The Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Leinster, the Duke of
+Beaufort, etc. etc., are members of the committee with me, and I have no
+doubt that the audience will be of the _elite_.
+
+I have asked Mr. Chapman to come to me to-morrow, to arrange for the
+hiring of the theatre. Mr. Harley (a favourite English comedian whom you
+may know) is our secretary. And if I could assure the committee
+to-morrow afternoon of your co-operation, I am sure they would be
+overjoyed.
+
+                                                  _Votre tout devoue._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 20th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I am heartily obliged to you for your kind letter respecting Miss
+Kelly's benefit. It is to take place _on Thursday, the 16th June_;
+Thursday the 9th (the day originally proposed) being the day of Ascot
+Races, and therefore a bad one for the purpose.
+
+Mitchell, like a brave _garcon_ as he is, most willingly consents to
+your acting for us. Will you think what little French piece it will be
+best to do, in order that I may have it ready for the bills?
+
+                               Ever faithfully yours, my dear Regnier.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  BOULOGNE, _Monday, June 13th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+You will be glad, I know, to hear that we had a delightful passage
+yesterday, and that I made a perfect phenomenon of a dinner. It is
+raining hard to-day, and my back feels the draught; but I am otherwise
+still mending.
+
+I have signed, sealed, and delivered a contract for a house (once
+occupied for two years by a man I knew in Switzerland), which is not a
+large one, but stands in the middle of a great garden, with what the
+landlord calls a "forest" at the back, and is now surrounded by flowers,
+vegetables, and all manner of growth. A queer, odd, French place, but
+extremely well supplied with all table and other conveniences, and
+strongly recommended.
+
+The address is:
+
+        Chateau des Moulineaux,
+        Rue Beaurepaire, Boulogne.
+
+There is a coach-house, stabling for half-a-dozen horses, and I don't
+know what.
+
+We take possession this afternoon, and I am now laying in a good stock
+of creature comforts. So no more at present from
+
+                                                Yours ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Mrs. Dickens and her sister unite in kindest regards.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      CHATEAU DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                    _Saturday Night, June 18th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                           "BLEAK HOUSE."
+
+Thank God, I have done half the number with great care, and hope to
+finish on Thursday or Friday next. O how thankful I feel to be able to
+have done it, and what a relief to get the number out!
+
+                 GENERAL MOVEMENTS OF INIMITABLE.
+
+_I don't think_ (I am not sure) I shall come to London until after the
+completion of "Bleak House," No. 18--the number after this now in
+hand--for it strikes me that I am better here at present. I have picked
+up in the most extraordinary manner, and I believe you would never
+suppose to look at me that I had had that week or barely an hour of it.
+If there should be any occasion for our meeting in the meantime, a run
+over here would do you no harm, and we should be delighted to see you at
+any time. If you suppose this place to be in a street, you are much
+mistaken. It is in the country, though not more than ten minutes' walk
+from the post-office, and is the best doll's-house of many rooms, in the
+prettiest French grounds, in the most charming situation I have ever
+seen; the best place I have ever lived in abroad, except at Genoa. You
+can scarcely imagine the beauty of the air in this richly-wooded
+hill-side. As to comforts in the house, there are all sorts of things,
+beginning with no end of the coldest water and running through the most
+beautiful flowers down to English foot-baths and a Parisian
+liqueur-stand. Your parcel (frantic enclosures and all) arrived quite
+safely last night. This will leave by steamer to-morrow, Sunday evening.
+There is a boat in the morning, but having no one to send to-night I
+can't reach it, and to-morrow being Sunday it will come to much the same
+thing.
+
+I think that's all at present.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+        CHATEAU DES MOULINEAUX, RUE BEAUREPAIRE, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Thursday, June 23rd, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR PUMPION,
+
+I take the earliest opportunity, after finishing my number--ahem!--to
+write you a line, and to report myself (thank God) brown, well, robust,
+vigorous, open to fight any man in England of my weight, and growing a
+moustache. Any person of undoubted pluck, in want of a customer, may
+hear of me at the bar of Bleak House, where my money is down.
+
+I think there is an abundance of places here that would suit you well
+enough; and Georgina is ready to launch on voyages of discovery and
+observation with you. But it is necessary that you should consider for
+how long a time you want it, as the folks here let much more
+advantageously for the tenant when they know the term--don't like to let
+without. It seems to me that the best thing you can do is to get a paper
+of the South Eastern tidal trains, fix your day for coming over here in
+five hours (when you will pay through to Boulogne at London Bridge), let
+me know the day, and come and see how you like the place. _I_ like it
+better than ever. We can give you a bed (two to spare, at a pinch
+three), and show you a garden and a view or so. The town is not so cheap
+as places farther off, but you get a great deal for your money, and by
+far the best wine at tenpence a bottle that I have ever drank anywhere.
+I really desire no better.
+
+I may mention for your guidance (for I count upon your coming to
+overhaul the general aspect of things), that you have nothing on earth
+to do with your luggage when it is once in the boat, _until after you
+have walked ashore_. That you will be filtered with the rest of the
+passengers through a hideous, whitewashed, quarantine-looking
+custom-house, where a stern man of a military aspect will demand your
+passport. That you will have nothing of the sort, but will produce your
+card with this addition: "Restant a Boulogne, chez M. Charles Dickens,
+Chateau des Moulineaux." That you will then be passed out at a little
+door, like one of the ill-starred prisoners on the bloody September
+night, into a yelling and shrieking crowd, cleaving the air with the
+names of the different hotels, exactly seven thousand six hundred and
+fifty-four in number. And that your heart will be on the point of
+sinking with dread, then you will find yourself in the arms of the
+Sparkler of Albion. All unite in kindest regards.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I thought you might like to see the flourish again.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                               BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, July 27th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have thought of another article to be called "Frauds upon the
+Fairies," _a propos_ of George Cruikshank's editing. Half playfully and
+half seriously, I mean to protest most strongly against alteration, for
+any purpose, of the beautiful little stories which are so tenderly and
+humanly useful to us in these times, when the world is too much with us,
+early and late; and then to re-write "Cinderella" according to Total
+Abstinence, Peace Society, and Bloomer principles, and expressly for
+their propagation.
+
+I shall want his book of "Hop o' my Thumb" (Forster noticed it in the
+last _Examiner_), and the most simple and popular version of
+"Cinderella" you can get me. I shall not be able to do it until after
+finishing "Bleak House," but I shall do it the more easily for having
+the books by me. So send them, if convenient, in your next parcel.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                   CHATEAU DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                            _Sunday, Aug. 24th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Some unaccountable delay in the transmission here of the parcel which
+contained your letter, caused me to come into the receipt of it a whole
+week after its date. I immediately wrote to Miss Coutts, who has written
+to you, and I hope some good may come of it. I know it will not be her
+fault if none does. I was very much concerned to read your account of
+poor Mrs. Warner, and to read her own plain and unaffected account of
+herself. Pray assure her of my cordial sympathy and remembrance, and of
+my earnest desire to do anything in my power to help to put her mind at
+ease.
+
+We are living in a beautiful little country place here, where I have
+been hard at work ever since I came, and am now (after an interval of a
+week's rest) going to work again to finish "Bleak House." Kate and
+Georgina send their kindest loves to you, and Miss Macready, and all the
+rest. They look forward, I assure you, to their Sherborne visit, when
+I--a mere forlorn wanderer--shall be roaming over the Alps into Italy. I
+saw "The Midsummer Night's Dream" of the Opera Comique, done here (very
+well) last night. The way in which a poet named Willyim Shay Kes Peer
+gets drunk in company with Sir John Foll Stayffe, fights with a noble
+'night, Lor Latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of-honour you may have
+read of in history, called Mees Oleevia), and promises not to do so any
+more on observing symptoms of love for him in the Queen of England, is
+very remarkable. Queen Elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable
+disguise of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three broad,
+following him into taverns and worse places, and enquiring of persons of
+doubtful reputation for "the sublime Williams," was inexpressibly
+ridiculous. And yet the nonsense was done with a sense quite admirable.
+
+I have been very much struck by the book you sent me. It is one of the
+wisest, the manliest, and most serviceable I ever read. I am reading it
+again with the greatest pleasure and admiration.
+
+                          Ever most affectionately yours,
+                                                     My dear Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Saturday, Aug. 27th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I received your letter--most welcome and full of interest to me--when I
+was hard at work finishing "Bleak House." We are always talking of you;
+and I had said but the day before, that one of the first things I would
+do on my release would be to write to you. To finish the topic of "Bleak
+House" at once, I will only add that I like the conclusion very much
+and think it _very pretty indeed_. The story has taken extraordinarily,
+especially during the last five or six months, when its purpose has been
+gradually working itself out. It has retained its immense circulation
+from the first, beating dear old "Copperfield" by a round ten thousand
+or more. I have never had so many readers. We had a little reading of
+the final double number here the night before last, and it made a great
+impression I assure you.
+
+We are all extremely well, and like Boulogne very much indeed. I laid
+down the rule before we came, that we would know nobody here, and we
+_do_ know nobody here. We evaded callers as politely as we could, and
+gradually came to be understood and left to ourselves. It is a fine
+bracing air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of town
+and country. We live on a green hill-side out of the town, but are in
+the town (on foot) in ten minutes. Things are tolerably cheap, and
+exceedingly good; the people very cheerful, good-looking, and obliging;
+the houses very clean; the distance to London short, and easily
+traversed. I think if you came to know the place (which I never did
+myself until last October, often as I have been through it), you could
+be but in one mind about it.
+
+Charley is still at Leipzig. I shall take him up somewhere on the Rhine,
+to bring him home for Christmas, as I come back on my own little tour.
+He has been in the Hartz Mountains on a walking tour, and has written a
+journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. It has cost about
+as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies.
+
+I contemplate starting from here on Monday, the 10th of October;
+Catherine, Georgina, and the rest of them will then go home. I shall go
+first by Paris and Geneva to Lausanne, for it has a separate place in my
+memory. If the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a
+summer), I shall then go by Chamonix and Martigny, over the Simplon to
+Milan, thence to Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Naples, thence, I hope, to
+Sicily. Back by Bologna, Florence, Rome, Verona, Mantua, etc., to
+Venice, and home by Germany, arriving in good time for Christmas Day.
+Three nights in Christmas week, I have promised to read in the Town Hall
+at Birmingham, for the benefit of a new and admirable institution for
+working men projected there. The Friday will be the last night, and I
+shall read the "Carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that
+they shall have that night entirely to themselves.
+
+It just occurs to me that I mean to engage, for the two months odd, a
+travelling servant. I have not yet got one. If you should happen to be
+interested in any good foreigner, well acquainted with the countries and
+the languages, who would like such a master, how delighted I should be
+to like _him_!
+
+Ever since I have been here, I have been very hard at work, often
+getting up at daybreak to write through many hours. I have never had the
+least return of illness, thank God, though I was so altered (in a week)
+when I came here, that I doubt if you would have known me. I am redder
+and browner than ever at the present writing, with the addition of a
+rather formidable and fierce moustache. Lowestoft I know, by walking
+over there from Yarmouth, when I went down on an exploring expedition,
+previous to "Copperfield." It is a fine place. I saw the name
+"Blunderstone" on a direction-post between it and Yarmouth, and took it
+from the said direction-post for the book. We imagined the Captain's
+ecstasies when we saw the birth of his child in the papers. In some of
+the descriptions of Chesney Wold, I have taken many bits, chiefly about
+trees and shadows, from observations made at Rockingham. I wonder
+whether you have ever thought so! I shall hope to hear from you again
+soon, and shall not fail to write again before I go away. There seems to
+be nothing but "I" in this letter; but "I" know, my dear friend, that
+you will be more interested in that letter in the present connection,
+than in any other I could take from the alphabet.
+
+Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves, and more messages than
+this little sheet would hold. If I were to give you a hint of what we
+feel at the sight of your handwriting, and at the receipt of a word from
+yourself about yourself, and the dear boys, and the precious little
+girls, I should begin to be sorrowful, which is rather the tendency of
+my mind at the close of another long book. I heard from Cerjat two or
+three days since. Goff, by-the-bye, lived in this house two years.
+
+                Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                Yours, with true affection and regard.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+                    CHATEAU DES MOULINEAUX, RUE BEAUREPAIRE, BOULOGNE.
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+               A note--Cerberus-like--of three heads.
+
+First. I know you will be glad to hear that the manager is himself
+again. Vigorous, brown, energetic, muscular; the pride of Albion and the
+admiration of Gaul.
+
+Secondly. I told Wills when I left home, that I was quite pained to see
+the end of your excellent "Bowl of Punch" altered. I was unaffectedly
+touched and gratified by the heartiness of the original; and saw no
+earthly, celestial, or subterranean objection to its remaining, as it
+did not so unmistakably apply to me as to necessitate the observance of
+my usual precaution in the case of such references, by any means.
+
+Thirdly. If you ever have a holiday that you don't know what to do with,
+_do_ come and pass a little time here. We live in a charming garden in a
+very pleasant country, and should be delighted to receive you. Excellent
+light wines on the premises, French cookery, millions of roses, two cows
+(for milk punch), vegetables cut for the pot, and handed in at the
+kitchen window; five summer-houses, fifteen fountains (with no water in
+'em), and thirty-seven clocks (keeping, as I conceive, Australian time;
+having no reference whatever to the hours on this side of the globe).
+
+I know, my dear Cunningham, that the British nation can ill afford to
+lose you; and that when the Audit Office mice are away, the cats of that
+great public establishment will play. But pray consider that the bow may
+be sometimes bent too long, and that ever-arduous application, even in
+patriotic service, is to be avoided. No one can more highly estimate
+your devotion to the best interests of Britain than I. But I wish to see
+it tempered with a wise consideration for your own amusement,
+recreation, and pastime. All work and no play may make Peter a dull boy
+as well as Jack. And (if I may claim the privilege of friendship to
+remonstrate) I would say that you do not take enough time for your
+meals. Dinner, for instance, you habitually neglect. Believe me, this
+rustic repose will do you good. Winkles also are to be obtained in these
+parts, and it is well remarked by Poor Richard, that a bird in the
+handbook is worth two in the bush.
+
+                                                 Ever cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, _Sept. 8th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I am in town for a day or two, and Forster tells me I may now write to
+thank you for the happiness you have given me by honouring my name with
+such generous mention, on such a noble place, in your great book. I
+believe he has told you already that I wrote to him from Boulogne, not
+knowing what to do, as I had not received the precious volume, and
+feared you might have some plan of sending it to me, with which my
+premature writing would interfere.
+
+You know how heartily and inexpressibly I prize what you have written to
+me, or you never would have selected me for such a distinction. I could
+never thank you enough, my dear Landor, and I will not thank you in
+words any more. Believe me, I receive the dedication like a great
+dignity, the worth of which I hope I thoroughly know. The Queen could
+give me none in exchange that I wouldn't laughingly snap my fingers at.
+
+We are staying at Boulogne until the 10th of October, when I go into
+Italy until Christmas, and the rest come home.
+
+Kate and Georgina would send you their best loves if they were here, and
+would never leave off talking about it if I went back and told them I
+had written to you without such mention of them. Walter is a very good
+boy, and comes home from school with honourable commendation. He passed
+last Sunday in solitary confinement (in a bath-room) on bread and water,
+for terminating a dispute with the nurse by throwing a chair in her
+direction. It is the very first occasion of his ever having got into
+trouble, for he is a great favourite with the whole house, and one of
+the most amiable boys in the boy world. (He comes out on birthdays in a
+blaze of shirt-pin).
+
+If I go and look at your old house, as I shall if I go to Florence, I
+shall bring you back another leaf from the same tree as I plucked the
+last from.
+
+                         Ever, my dear Landor,
+                                    Heartily and affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Delane.]
+
+                    VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 12th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR DELANE,
+
+I am very much obliged to you, I assure you, for your frank and full
+reply to my note. Nothing could be more satisfactory, and I have to-day
+seen Mr. Gibson and placed my two small representatives under his
+charge. His manner is exactly what you describe him. I was greatly
+pleased with his genuineness altogether.
+
+We remain here until the tenth of next month, when I am going to desert
+my wife and family and run about Italy until Christmas. If I can execute
+any little commission for you or Mrs. Delane--in the Genoa street of
+silversmiths, or anywhere else--I shall be delighted to do so. I have
+been in the receipt of several letters from Macready lately, and
+rejoice to find him quite himself again, though I have great misgivings
+that he will lose his eldest boy before he can be got to India.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister are proud of your message, and beg their
+kind regards to be forwarded in return; my other half being particularly
+comforted and encouraged by your account of Mr. Gibson. In this charge I
+am to include Mrs. Delane, who, I hope, will make an exchange of
+remembrances, and give me hers for mine.
+
+I never saw anything so ridiculous as this place at present. They
+expected the Emperor ten or twelve days ago, and put up all manner of
+triumphal arches made of evergreens, which look like tea-leaves now, and
+will take a withered and weird appearance hardly to be foreseen, long
+before the twenty-fifth, when the visit is vaguely expected to come off.
+In addition to these faded garlands all over the leading streets, there
+are painted eagles hoisted over gateways and sprawling across a hundred
+ways, which have been washed out by the rain and are now being blistered
+by the sun, until they look horribly ludicrous. And a number of our
+benighted compatriots who came over to see a perfect blaze of _fetes_,
+go wandering among these shrivelled preparations and staring at ten
+thousand flag-poles without any flags upon them, with a kind of
+indignant curiosity and personal injury quite irresistible. With many
+thanks,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                 BOULOGNE, _Sunday, Sept. 18th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                              COURIER.
+
+Edward Kaub will bring this. He turned up yesterday, accounting for his
+delay by waiting for a written recommendation, and having at the last
+moment (as a foreigner, not being an Englishman) a passport to get. I
+quite agree with you as to his appearance and manner, and have engaged
+him. It strikes me that it would be an excellent beginning if you would
+deliver him a neat and appropriate address, telling him what in your
+conscience you can find to tell of me favourably as a master, and
+particularly impressing upon him _readiness and punctuality_ on his part
+as the great things to be observed. I think it would have a much better
+effect than anything I could say in this stage, if said from yourself.
+But I shall be much obliged to you if you will act upon this hint
+forthwith.
+
+                            W. H. WILLS.
+
+No letter having arrived from the popular author of "The Larboard
+Fin,"[15] by this morning's post, I rather think one must be on the way
+in the pocket of Gordon's son. If Kaub calls for this before young
+Scotland arrives, you will understand if I do not herein refer to an
+unreceived letter. But I shall leave this open, until Kaub comes for it.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                 VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                        _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR LORD,
+
+Your note having been forwarded to me here, I cannot forbear thanking
+you with all my heart for your great kindness. Mr. Forster had
+previously sent me a copy of your letter to him, together with the
+expression of the high and lasting gratification he had in your handsome
+response. I know he feels it most sincerely.
+
+I became the prey of a perfect spasm of sensitive twinges, when I found
+that the close of "Bleak House" had not penetrated to "the wilds of the
+North" when your letter left those parts. I was so very much interested
+in it myself when I wrote it here last month, that I have a fond sort of
+faith in its interesting its readers. But for the hope that you may have
+got it by this time, I should refuse comfort. That supports me.
+
+The book has been a wonderful success. Its audience enormous.
+
+I fear there is not much chance of my being able to execute any little
+commission for Lady John anywhere in Italy. But I am going across the
+Alps, leaving here on the tenth of next month, and returning home to
+London for Christmas Day, and should indeed be happy if I could do her
+any dwarf service.
+
+You will be interested, I think, to hear that Poole lives happily on his
+pension, and lives within it. He is quite incapable of any mental
+exertion, and what he would have done without it I cannot imagine. I
+send it to him at Paris every quarter. It is something, even amid the
+estimation in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what
+shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully remembered
+as he, with the best reason, remembers you. Forgive my saying this. But
+the manner of that transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh
+in my memory in association with your name, and I cannot help it.
+
+                            My dear Lord,
+                                    Yours very faithfully and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                              BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+The courier was unfortunately engaged. He offered to recommend another,
+but I had several applicants, and begged Mr. Wills to hold a grand
+review at the "Household Words" office, and select the man who is to
+bring me down as his victim. I am extremely sorry the man you recommend
+was not to be had. I should have been so delighted to take him.
+
+I am finishing "The Child's History," and clearing the way through
+"Household Words," in general, before I go on my trip. I forget whether
+I told you that Mr. Egg the painter and Mr. Collins are going with me.
+The other day I was in town. In case you should not have heard of the
+condition of that deserted village, I think it worth mentioning. All the
+streets of any note were unpaved, mountains high, and all the omnibuses
+were sliding down alleys, and looking into the upper windows of small
+houses. At eleven o'clock one morning I was positively _alone_ in Bond
+Street. I went to one of my tailors, and he was at Brighton. A
+smutty-faced woman among some gorgeous regimentals, half finished, had
+not the least idea when he would be back. I went to another of my
+tailors, and he was in an upper room, with open windows and surrounded
+by mignonette boxes, playing the piano in the bosom of his family. I
+went to my hosier's, and two of the least presentable of "the young men"
+of that elegant establishment were playing at draughts in the back shop.
+(Likewise I beheld a porter-pot hastily concealed under a Turkish
+dressing-gown of a golden pattern.) I then went wandering about to look
+for some ingenious portmanteau, and near the corner of St. James's
+Street saw a solitary being sitting in a trunk-shop, absorbed in a book
+which, on a close inspection, I found to be "Bleak House." I thought
+this looked well, and went in. And he really was more interested in
+seeing me, when he knew who I was, than any face I had seen in any
+house, every house I knew being occupied by painters, including my own.
+I went to the Athenaeum that same night, to get my dinner, and it was
+shut up for repairs. I went home late, and had forgotten the key and was
+locked out.
+
+Preparations were made here, about six weeks ago, to receive the
+Emperor, who is not come yet. Meanwhile our countrymen (deluded in the
+first excitement) go about staring at these arrangements, with a
+personal injury upon them which is most ridiculous. And they _will_
+persist in speaking an unknown tongue to the French people, who _will_
+speak English to them.
+
+Kate and Georgina send their kindest loves. We are all quite well. Going
+to drop two small boys here, at school with a former Eton tutor highly
+recommended to me. Charley was heard of a day or two ago. He says his
+professor "is very short-sighted, always in green spectacles, always
+drinking weak beer, always smoking a pipe, and always at work." The last
+qualification seems to appear to Charley the most astonishing one.
+
+                        Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 HOTEL DE LA VILLA, MILAN, _Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I have walked to that extent in Switzerland (walked over the Simplon on
+Sunday, as an addition to the other feats) that one pair of the new
+strong shoes has gone to be mended this morning, and the other is in but
+a poor way; the snow having played the mischief with them.
+
+On the Swiss side of the Simplon, we slept at the beastliest little
+town, in the wildest kind of house, where some fifty cats tumbled into
+the corridor outside our bedrooms all at once in the middle of the
+night--whether through the roof or not, I don't know; for it was dark
+when we got up--and made such a horrible and terrific noise that we
+started out of our beds in a panic. I strongly objected to opening the
+door lest they should get into the room and tear at us; but Edward
+opened his, and laid about him until he dispersed them. At Domo D'Ossola
+we had three immense bedrooms (Egg's bed twelve feet wide!), and a sala
+of imperceptible extent in the dim light of two candles and a wood fire;
+but were very well and very cheaply entertained. Here, we are, as you
+know, housed in the greatest comfort.
+
+We continue to get on very well together. We really do admirably. I lose
+no opportunity of inculcating the lesson that it is of no use to be out
+of temper in travelling, and it is very seldom wanted for any of us. Egg
+is an excellent fellow, and full of good qualities; I am sure a generous
+and staunch man at heart, and a good and honourable nature.
+
+I shall send Catherine from Genoa a list of the places where letters
+will find me. I shall hope to hear from you too, and shall be very glad
+indeed to do so. No more at present.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                   CROCE DI MALTA, GENOA, _Saturday, Oct. 29th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We had thirty-one hours consecutively on the road between this and
+Milan, and arrived here in a rather damaged condition. We live at the
+top of this immense house, overlooking the port and sea, pleasantly and
+airily enough, though it is no joke to get so high, and though the
+apartment is rather vast and faded.
+
+The old walks are pretty much the same as ever, except that they have
+built behind the Peschiere on the San Bartolomeo hill, and changed the
+whole town towards San Pietro d'Arena, where we seldom went. The Bisagno
+looks just the same, strong just now, and with very little water in it.
+Vicoli stink exactly as they used to, and are fragrant with the same old
+flavour of very rotten cheese kept in very hot blankets. The Mezzaro
+pervades them as before. The old Jesuit college in the Strada Nuova is
+under the present government the Hotel de Ville, and a very splendid
+caffe with a terrace garden has arisen between it and Palavicini's old
+palace. Another new and handsome caffe has been built in the Piazza
+Carlo Felice, between the old caffe of the Bei Arti (where Fletcher
+stopped for the bouquets in the green times, when we went to the ----'s
+party), and the Strada Carlo Felice. The old beastly gate and guardhouse
+on the Albaro road are still in their dear old beastly state, and the
+whole of that road is just as it was. The man without legs is still in
+the Strada Nuova; but the beggars in general are all cleared off, and
+our old one-armed Belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two ago.
+I am going to the Peschiere to-day. The puppets are here, and the opera
+is open, but only with a buffo company, and without a buffet. We went to
+the Scala, where they did an opera of Verdi's, called "Il Trovatore,"
+and a poor enough ballet. The whole performance miserable indeed. I wish
+you were here to take some of the old walks. It is quite strange to walk
+about alone. Good-bye, my dear Georgy. Pray tell me how Kate is. I
+rather fancy from her letter, though I scarcely know why, that she is
+not quite as well as she was at Boulogne. I was charmed with your
+account of the Plornishghenter and everything and everybody else. Kiss
+them all for me.
+
+                                       Ever most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      HOTEL DES ETRANGERS, NAPLES,
+                                       _Friday Night, Nov. 4th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+Instead of embarking on Monday at Genoa, we were delayed (in consequence
+of the boat's being a day later when there are thirty-one days in the
+month) until Tuesday. Going aboard that morning at half-past nine, we
+found the steamer more than full of passengers from Marseilles, and in a
+state of confusion not to be described. We could get no places at the
+table, got our dinners how we could on deck, had no berths or sleeping
+accommodation of any kind, and had paid heavy first-class fares! To add
+to this, we got to Leghorn too late to steam away again that night,
+getting the ship's papers examined first--as the authorities said so,
+not being favourable to the new express English ship, English
+officered--and we lay off the lighthouse all night long. The scene on
+board beggars description. Ladies on the tables, gentlemen under the
+tables, and ladies and gentlemen lying indiscriminately on the open
+deck, arrayed like spoons on a sideboard. No mattresses, no blankets,
+nothing. Towards midnight, attempts were made by means of an awning and
+flags to make this latter scene remotely approach an Australian
+encampment; and we three lay together on the bare planks covered with
+overcoats. We were all gradually dozing off when a perfectly tropical
+rain fell, and in a moment drowned the whole ship. The rest of the night
+was passed upon the stairs, with an immense jumble of men and women.
+When anybody came up for any purpose we all fell down; and when anybody
+came down we all fell up again. Still, the good-humour in the English
+part of the passengers was quite extraordinary. There were excellent
+officers aboard, and the first mate lent me his cabin to wash in in the
+morning, which I afterwards lent to Egg and Collins. Then we and the
+Emerson Tennents (who were aboard) and the captain, the doctor, and the
+second officer went off on a jaunt together to Pisa, as the ship was to
+lie at Leghorn all day.
+
+The captain was a capital fellow, but I led him, facetiously, such a
+life all day, that I got almost everything altered at night. Emerson
+Tennent, with the greatest kindness, turned his son out of his state
+room (who, indeed, volunteered to go in the most amiable manner), and I
+got a good bed there. The store-room down by the hold was opened for Egg
+and Collins, and they slept with the moist sugar, the cheese in cut, the
+spices, the cruets, the apples and pears--in a perfect chandler's shop;
+in company with what the ----'s would call a "hold gent"--who had been
+so horribly wet through overnight that his condition frightened the
+authorities--a cat, and the steward--who dozed in an arm-chair, and all
+night long fell headforemost, once in every five minutes, on Egg, who
+slept on the counter or dresser. Last night I had the steward's own
+cabin, opening on deck, all to myself. It had been previously occupied
+by some desolate lady, who went ashore at Civita Vecchia. There was
+little or no sea, thank Heaven, all the trip; but the rain was heavier
+than any I have ever seen, and the lightning very constant and vivid. We
+were, with the crew, some two hundred people; with boats, at the utmost
+stretch, for one hundred, perhaps. I could not help thinking what would
+happen if we met with any accident; the crew being chiefly Maltese, and
+evidently fellows who would cut off alone in the largest boat on the
+least alarm. The speed (it being the crack express ship for the India
+mail) very high; also the running through all the narrow rocky channels.
+Thank God, however, here we are. Though the more sensible and
+experienced part of the passengers agreed with me this morning that it
+was not a thing to try often. We had an excellent table after the first
+day, the best wines and so forth, and the captain and I swore eternal
+friendship. Ditto the first officer and the majority of the passengers.
+We got into the bay about seven this morning, but could not land until
+noon. We towed from Civita Vecchia the entire Greek navy, I believe,
+consisting of a little brig-of-war, with great guns, fitted as a
+steamer, but disabled by having burst the bottom of her boiler in her
+first run. She was just big enough to carry the captain and a crew of
+six or so, but the captain was so covered with buttons and gold that
+there never would have been room for him on board to put these valuables
+away if he hadn't worn them, which he consequently did, all night.
+
+Whenever anything was wanted to be done, as slackening the tow-rope or
+anything of that sort, our officers roared at this miserable potentate,
+in violent English, through a speaking-trumpet, of which he couldn't
+have understood a word under the most favourable circumstances, so he
+did all the wrong things first, and the right things always last. The
+absence of any knowledge of anything not English on the part of the
+officers and stewards was most ridiculous. I met an Italian gentleman on
+the cabin steps, yesterday morning, vainly endeavouring to explain that
+he wanted a cup of tea for his sick wife. And when we were coming out of
+the harbour at Genoa, and it was necessary to order away that boat of
+music you remember, the chief officer (called aft for the purpose, as
+"knowing something of Italian,") delivered himself in this explicit and
+clear manner to the principal performer: "Now, signora, if you don't
+sheer off, you'll be run down; so you had better trice up that guitar of
+yours, and put about."
+
+We get on as well as possible, and it is extremely pleasant and
+interesting, and I feel that the change is doing me great and real
+service, after a long continuous strain upon the mind; but I am pleased
+to think that we are at our farthest point, and I look forward with joy
+to coming home again, to my old room, and the old walks, and all the old
+pleasant things.
+
+I wish I had arranged, or could have done so--for it would not have been
+easy--to find some letters here. It is a blank to stay for five days in
+a place without any.
+
+I don't think Edward knows fifty Italian words; but much more French is
+spoken in Italy now than when we were here, and he stumbles along
+somehow.
+
+I am afraid this is a dull letter, for I am very tired. You must take
+the will for the deed, my dear, and good night.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                ROME, _Sunday Night, Nov. 13th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We arrived here yesterday afternoon, at between three and four. On
+sending to the post-office this morning, I received your pleasant little
+letter, and one from Miss Coutts, who is still at Paris. But to my
+amazement there was none from Catherine! You mention her writing, and I
+cannot but suppose that your two letters must have been posted together.
+However, I received none from her, and I have all manner of doubts
+respecting the plainness of its direction. They will not produce the
+letters here as at Genoa, but persist in looking them out at the
+post-office for you. I shall send again to-morrow, and every day until
+Friday, when we leave here. If I find no letter from her _to-morrow_, I
+shall write to her nevertheless by that post which brings this, so that
+you may both hear from me together.
+
+One night, at Naples, Edward came in, open-mouthed, to the table d'hote
+where we were dining with the Tennents, to announce "The Marchese
+Garofalo." I at first thought it must be the little parrot-marquess who
+was once your escort from Genoa; but I found him to be a man (married to
+an Englishwoman) whom we used to meet at Ridgway's. He was very glad to
+see me, and I afterwards met him at dinner at Mr. Lowther's, our charge
+d'affaires. Mr. Lowther was at the Rockingham play, and is a very
+agreeable fellow. We had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight,
+preparatory to which I was near having the ridiculous adventure of not
+being able to find the house and coming back dinnerless. I went in an
+open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman, to my
+surprise, pulled up at the end of the Chiaja. "Behold the house," says
+he, "of Il Signor Larthoor!"--at the same time pointing with his whip
+into the seventh heaven, where the early stars were shining. "But the
+Signor Larthoor," returns the Inimitable darling, "lives at Pausilippo."
+"It is true," says the coachman (still pointing to the evening star),
+"but he lives high up the Salita Sant' Antonio, where no carriage ever
+yet ascended, and that is the house" (evening star as aforesaid), "and
+one must go on foot. Behold the Salita Sant' Antonio!" I went up it, a
+mile and a half I should think. I got into the strangest places, among
+the wildest Neapolitans--kitchens, washing-places, archways, stables,
+vineyards--was baited by dogs, answered in profoundly unintelligible
+Neapolitan, from behind lonely locked doors, in cracked female voices,
+quaking with fear; could hear of no such Englishman or any Englishman.
+By-and-by I came upon a Polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old
+Frenchman, with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not
+rained for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in
+his hand. To him I appealed concerning the Signor Larthoor. "Sir," said
+he, with the sweetest politeness, "can you speak French?" "Sir," said I,
+"a little." "Sir," said he, "I presume the Signor Loothere"--you will
+observe that he changed the name according to the custom of his
+country--"is an Englishman." I admitted that he was the victim of
+circumstances and had that misfortune. "Sir," said he, "one word more.
+_Has_ he a servant with a wooden leg?" "Great Heaven, sir," said I, "how
+do I know! I should think not, but it is possible." "It is always," said
+the Frenchman, "possible. Almost all the things of the world are always
+possible." "Sir," said I--you may imagine my condition and dismal sense
+of my own absurdity, by this time--"that is true." He then took an
+immense pinch of snuff, wiped the dust off his umbrella, led me to an
+arch commanding a wonderful view of the bay of Naples, and pointed deep
+into the earth from which I had mounted. "Below there, near the lamp,
+one finds an Englishman, with a servant with a wooden leg. It is always
+possible that he is the Signor Loothere." I had been asked at six, and
+it was now getting on for seven. I went down again in a state of
+perspiration and misery not to be described, and without the faintest
+hope of finding the place. But as I was going down to the lamp, I saw
+the strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a
+white-waistcoat (evidently hired) standing on the top of it, fuming. I
+dashed in at a venture, found it was the place, made the most of the
+whole story, and was indescribably popular. The best of it was, that as
+nobody ever did find the place, he had put a servant at the bottom of
+the Salita, to "wait for an English gentleman." The servant (as he
+presently pleaded), deceived by the moustache, had allowed the English
+gentleman to pass unchallenged.
+
+The night before we left Naples we were at the San Carlo, where, with
+the Verdi rage of our old Genoa time, they were again doing the
+"Trovatore." It seemed rubbish on the whole to me, but was very fairly
+done. I think "La Tenco," the prima donna, will soon be a great hit in
+London. She is a very remarkable singer and a fine actress, to the best
+of my judgment on such premises. There seems to be no opera here, at
+present. There was a Festa in St. Peter's to-day, and the Pope passed to
+the Cathedral in state. We were all there.
+
+We leave here, please God, on Friday morning, and post to Florence in
+three days and a half. We came here by Vetturino. Upon the whole, the
+roadside inns are greatly improved since our time. Half-past three and
+half-past four have been, however, our usual times of rising on the
+road.
+
+I was in my old place at the Coliseum this morning, and it was as grand
+as ever. With that exception the ruined part of Rome--the real original
+Rome--looks smaller than my remembrance made it. It is the only place on
+which I have yet found that effect. We are in the old hotel.
+
+You are going to Bonchurch I suppose? will be there, perhaps, when this
+letter reaches you? I shall be pleased to think of you as at home again,
+and making the commodious family mansion look natural and home-like. I
+don't like to think of my room without anybody to peep into it now and
+then. Here is a world of travelling arrangements for me to settle, and
+here are Collins and Egg looking sideways at me with an occasional
+imploring glance as beseeching me to settle it. So I leave off.
+Good-night.
+
+                          Ever, my dearest Georgy,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+        HOTEL DES ILES BRITANNIQUES, PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, ROME,
+                                            _Monday, Nov. 14th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+As I never made a good bargain in my life--except once, when, on going
+abroad, I let my house on excellent terms to an admirable tenant, who
+never paid anything--I sent Edward into the Casa Dies yesterday morning,
+while I invested the premises from the outside, and carefully surveyed
+them. It is a very clean, large, bright-looking house at the corner of
+the Via Gregoriana; not exactly in a part of Rome I should pick out for
+living in, and on what I should be disposed to call the wrong side of
+the street. However, this is not to the purpose. Signor Dies has no idea
+of letting an apartment for a short time--scouted the idea of a
+month--signified that he could not be brought to the contemplation of
+two months--was by no means clear that he could come down to the
+consideration of three. This of course settled the business speedily.
+
+This hotel is no longer kept by the Melloni I spoke of, but is even
+better kept than in his time, and is a very admirable house. I have
+engaged a small apartment for you to be ready on Thursday afternoon (at
+two piastres and a half--two-and-a-half per day--sitting-room and three
+bedrooms, one double-bedded and two not). If you would like to change to
+ours, which is a very good one, on Friday morning, you can of course do
+so. As our dining-room is large, and there is no table d'hote here, I
+will order dinner in it for our united parties at six on Thursday. You
+will be able to decide how to arrange for the remainder of your stay,
+after being here and looking about you--two really necessary
+considerations in Rome.
+
+Pray make my kind regards to Lady Tennent, and Miss Tennent, and your
+good son, who became homeless for my sake. Mr. Egg and Mr. Collins
+desire to be also remembered.
+
+It has been beautiful weather since we left Naples, until to-day, when
+it rains in a very dogged, sullen, downcast, and determined manner. We
+have been speculating at breakfast on the possibility of its raining in
+a similar manner at Naples, and of your wandering about the hotel,
+refusing consolation.
+
+I grieve to report the Orvieto considerably damaged by the general vine
+failure, but still far from despicable. Montefiascone (the Est wine you
+know) is to be had here; and we have had one bottle in the very finest
+condition, and one in a second-rate state.
+
+The Coliseum, in its magnificent old decay, is as grand as ever; and
+with the electric telegraph darting through one of its ruined arches
+like a sunbeam and piercing direct through its cruel old heart, is even
+grander.
+
+                             Believe me always, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                                      ROME, _Monday, Nov. 14th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST CATHERINE,
+
+As I have mentioned in my letter to Georgy (written last night but
+posted with this), I received her letter without yours, to my unbounded
+astonishment. This morning, on sending again to the post-office, I at
+last got yours, and most welcome it is with all its contents.
+
+I found Layard at Naples, who went up Vesuvius with us, and was very
+merry and agreeable. He is travelling with Lord and Lady Somers, and
+Lord Somers being laid up with an attack of malaria fever, Layard had a
+day to spare. Craven, who was Lord Normanby's Secretary of Legation in
+Paris, now lives at Naples, and is married to a French lady. He is very
+hospitable and hearty, and seemed to have vague ideas that something
+might be done in a pretty little private theatre he has in his house. He
+told me of Fanny Kemble and the Sartoris's being here. I have also heard
+of Thackeray's being here--I don't know how truly. Lockhart is here,
+and, I fear, very ill. I mean to go and see him.
+
+We are living in the old hotel, which is not now kept by Meloni, who has
+retired. I don't know whether you recollect an apartment at the top of
+the house, to which we once ran up with poor Roche to see the horses
+start in the race at the Carnival time? That is ours, in which I at
+present write. We have a large back dining-room, a handsome front
+drawing-room, looking into the Piazza del Popolo, and three front
+bedrooms, all on a floor. The whole costs us about four shillings a day
+each. The hotel is better kept than ever. There is a little kitchen to
+each apartment where the dinner is kept hot. There is no house
+comparable to it in Paris, and it is better than Mivart's. We start for
+Florence, post, on Friday morning, and I am bargaining for a carriage to
+take us on to Venice.
+
+Edward is an excellent servant, and always cheerful and ready for his
+work. He knows no Italian, except the names of a few things, but French
+is far more widely known here now than in our time. Neither is he an
+experienced courier as to roads and so forth; but he picks up all that I
+want to know, here and there, somehow or other. I am perfectly pleased
+with him, and would rather have him than an older hand. Poor dear Roche
+comes back to my mind though, often.
+
+I have written to engage the courier from Turin into France, from
+_Tuesday, the 6th December_. This will bring us home some two days after
+the tenth, probably. I wrote to Charley from Naples, giving him his
+choice of meeting me at Lyons, in Paris, or at Boulogne. I gave him full
+instructions what to do if he arrived before me, and he will write to me
+at Turin saying where I shall find him. I shall be a day or so later
+than I supposed as the nearest calculation I could make when I wrote to
+him; but his waiting for me at an hotel will not matter.
+
+We have had delightful weather, with one day's exception, until to-day,
+when it rained very heavily and suddenly. Egg and Collins have gone to
+the Vatican, and I am "going" to try whether I can hit out anything for
+the Christmas number. Give my love to Forster, and tell him I won't
+write to him until I hear from him.
+
+I have not come across any English whom I know except Layard and the
+Emerson Tennents, who will be here on Thursday from Civita Vecchia, and
+are to dine with us. The losses up to this point have been two pairs of
+shoes (one mine and one Egg's), Collins's snuff-box, and Egg's
+dressing-gown.
+
+We observe the managerial punctuality in all our arrangements, and have
+not had any difference whatever.
+
+I have been reserving this side all through my letter, in the conviction
+that I had something else to tell you. If I had, I cannot remember what
+it is. I introduced myself to Salvatore at Vesuvius, and reminded him of
+the night when poor Le Gros fell down the mountains. He was full of
+interest directly, remembered the very hole, put on his gold-banded
+cap, and went up with us himself. He did not know that Le Gros was dead,
+and was very sorry to hear it. He asked after the ladies, and hoped they
+were very happy, to which I answered, "Very." The cone is completely
+changed since our visit, is not at all recognisable as the same place;
+and there is no fire from the mountain, though there is a great deal of
+smoke. Its last demonstration was in 1850.
+
+I shall be glad to think of your all being at home again, as I suppose
+you will be soon after the receipt of this. Will you see to the
+invitations for Christmas Day, and write to Laetitia? I shall be very
+happy to be at home again myself, and to embrace you; for of course I
+miss you _very much_, though I feel that I could not have done a better
+thing to clear my mind and freshen it up again, than make this
+expedition. If I find Charley much ahead of me, I shall start on through
+a night or so to meet him, and leave the others to catch us up. I look
+upon the journey as almost closed at Turin. My best love to Mamey, and
+Katey, and Sydney, and Harry, and the darling Plornishghenter. We often
+talk about them, and both my companions do so with interest. They always
+send all sorts of messages to you, which I never deliver. God bless you!
+Take care of yourself.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                          ROME, _Thursday Afternoon, Nov. 17th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Just as I wrote the last words of the enclosed little story for the
+Christmas number just now, Edward brought in your letter. Also one from
+Forster (tell him) which I have not yet opened. I will write again--and
+write to him--from Florence. I am delighted to have news of you.
+
+The enclosed little paper for the Christmas number is in a character
+that nobody else is likely to hit, and which is pretty sure to be
+considered pleasant. Let Forster have the MS. with the proof, and I know
+he will correct it to the minutest point. I have a notion of another
+little story, also for the Christmas number. If I can do it at Venice, I
+will, and send it straight on. But it is not easy to work under these
+circumstances. In travelling we generally get up about three; and in
+resting we are perpetually roaming about in all manner of places. Not to
+mention my being laid hold of by all manner of people.
+
+KEEP "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" IMAGINATIVE! is the solemn and continual
+Conductorial Injunction. Delighted to hear of Mrs. Gaskell's
+contributions.
+
+Yes by all manner of means to Lady Holland. Will you ask her whether she
+has Sydney Smith's letters to me, which I placed (at Mrs. Smith's
+request) either in Mrs. Smith's own hands or in Mrs. Austin's? I cannot
+remember which, but I think the latter.
+
+In making up the Christmas number, don't consider my paper or papers,
+with any reference saving to where they will fall best. I have no
+liking, in the case, for any particular place.
+
+All perfectly well. Companion moustaches (particularly Egg's) dismal in
+the extreme. Kindest regards to Mrs. Wills.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  FLORENCE, _Monday, Nov. 21st, 1853._
+
+                               H. W.
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I sent you by post from Rome, on Wednesday last, a little story for the
+Christmas number, called "The Schoolboy's Story." I have an idea of
+another short one, to be called "Nobody's Story," which I hope to be
+able to do at Venice, and to send you straight home before this month is
+out. I trust you have received the first safely.
+
+Edward continues to do extremely well. He is always, early and late,
+what you have seen him. He is a very steady fellow, a little too bashful
+for a courier even; settles prices of everything now, as soon as we come
+into an hotel; and improves fast. His knowledge of Italian is painfully
+defective, and, in the midst of a howling crowd at a post-house or
+railway station, this deficiency perfectly stuns him. I was obliged last
+night to get out of the carriage, and pluck him from a crowd of porters
+who were putting our baggage into wrong conveyances--by cursing and
+ordering about in all directions. I should think about ten substantives,
+the names of ten common objects, form his whole Italian stock. It
+matters very little at the hotels, where a great deal of French is
+spoken now; but, on the road, if none of his party knew Italian, it
+would be a very serious inconvenience indeed.
+
+Will you write to Ryland if you have not heard from him, and ask him
+what the Birmingham reading-nights are really to be? For it is
+ridiculous enough that I positively don't know. Can't a Saturday Night
+in a Truck District, or a Sunday Morning among the Ironworkers (a fine
+subject) be knocked out in the course of the same visit?
+
+If you should see any managing man you know in the Oriental and
+Peninsular Company, I wish you would very gravely mention to him from me
+that if they are not careful what they are about with their steamship
+_Valetta_, between Marseilles and Naples, they will suddenly find that
+they will receive a blow one fine day in _The Times_, which it will be
+a very hard matter for them ever to recover. When I sailed in her from
+Genoa, there had been taken on board, _with no caution in most cases
+from the agent, or hint of discomfort_, at least forty people of both
+sexes for whom there was no room whatever. I am a pretty old traveller
+as you know, but I never saw anything like the manner in which pretty
+women were compelled to lie among the men in the great cabin and on the
+bare decks. The good humour was beyond all praise, but the natural
+indignation very great; and I was repeatedly urged to stand up for the
+public in "Household Words," and to write a plain description of the
+facts to _The Times_. If I had done either, and merely mentioned that
+all these people paid heavy first-class fares, I will answer for it that
+they would have been beaten off the station in a couple of months. I did
+neither, because I was the best of friends with the captain and all the
+officers, and never saw such a fine set of men; so admirable in the
+discharge of their duty, and so zealous to do their best by everybody.
+It is impossible to praise them too highly. But there is a strong desire
+at all the ports along the coast to throw impediments in the way of the
+English service, and to favour the French and Italian boats. In those
+boats (which I know very well) great care is taken of the passengers,
+and the accommodation is very good. If the Peninsula and Oriental add to
+all this the risk of such an exposure as they are _certain_ to get (if
+they go on so) in _The Times_, they are dead sure to get a blow from the
+public which will make them stagger again. I say nothing of the number
+of the passengers and the room in the ship's boats, though the frightful
+consideration the contrast presented must have been in more minds than
+mine. I speak only of the taking people for whom there is no sort of
+accommodation as the most decided swindle, and the coolest, I ever did
+with my eyes behold.
+
+        Kindest regards from fellow-travellers.
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                VENICE, _Friday, November 25th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We found an English carriage from Padua at Florence, and hired it to
+bring it back again. We travelled post with four horses all the way
+(from Padua to this place there is a railroad) and travelled all night.
+We left Florence at half-past six in the morning, and got to Padua at
+eleven next day--yesterday. The cold at night was most intense. I don't
+think I have ever felt it colder. But our carriage was very comfortable,
+and we had some wine and some rum to keep us warm. We came by Bologna
+(where we had tea) and Ferrara. You may imagine the delays in the night
+when I tell you that each of our passports, after receiving _six vises_
+at Florence, received in the course of the one night, _nine more_, every
+one of which was written and sealed; somebody being slowly knocked out
+of bed to do it every time! It really was excruciating.
+
+Landor had sent me a letter to his son, and on the day before we left
+Florence I thought I would go out to Fiesoli and leave it. So I got a
+little one-horse open carriage and drove off alone. We were within half
+a mile of the Villa Landoro, and were driving down a very narrow lane
+like one of those at Albaro, when I saw an elderly lady coming towards
+us, very well dressed in silk of the Queen's blue, and walking freshly
+and briskly against the wind at a good round pace. It was a bright,
+cloudless, very cold day, and I thought she walked with great spirit, as
+if she enjoyed it. I also thought (perhaps that was having him in my
+mind) that her ruddy face was shaped like Landor's. All of a sudden the
+coachman pulls up, and looks enquiringly at me. "What's the matter?"
+says I. "Ecco la Signora Landoro?" says he. "For the love of Heaven,
+don't stop," says I. "_I_ don't know her, I am only going to the house
+to leave a letter--go on!" Meanwhile she (still coming on) looked at me,
+and I looked at her, and we were both a good deal confused, and so went
+our several ways. Altogether, I think it was as disconcerting a meeting
+as I ever took part in, and as odd a one. Under any other circumstances
+I should have introduced myself, but the separation made the
+circumstances so peculiar that "I didn't like."
+
+The Plornishghenter is evidently the greatest, noblest, finest,
+cleverest, brightest, and most brilliant of boys. Your account of him is
+most delightful, and I hope to find another letter from you somewhere on
+the road, making me informed of his demeanour on your return. On which
+occasion, as on every other, I have no doubt he will have distinguished
+himself as an irresistibly attracting, captivating May-Roon-Ti-Groon-Ter.
+Give him a good many kisses for me. I quite agree with Syd as to his
+ideas of paying attention to the old gentleman. It's not bad, but
+deficient in originality. The usual deficiency of an inferior intellect
+with so great a model before him. I am very curious to see whether the
+Plorn remembers me on my reappearance.
+
+I meant to have gone to work this morning, and to have tried a second
+little story for the Christmas number of "Household Words," but my
+letters have (most pleasantly) put me out, and I defer all such wise
+efforts until to-morrow. Egg and Collins are out in a gondola with a
+servitore di piazza.
+
+You will find this but a stupid letter, but I really have no news. We go
+to the opera, whenever there is one, see sights, eat and drink, sleep
+in a natural manner two or three nights, and move on again. Edward was a
+little crushed at Padua yesterday. He had been extraordinarily cold all
+night in the rumble, and had got out our clothes to dress, and I think
+must have been projecting a five or six hours' sleep, when I announced
+that he was to come on here in an hour and a half to get the rooms and
+order dinner. He fell into a sudden despondency of the profoundest kind,
+but was quite restored when we arrived here between eight and nine. We
+found him waiting at the Custom House with a gondola in his usual brisk
+condition.
+
+It is extraordinary how few English we see. With the exception of a
+gentlemanly young fellow (in a consumption I am afraid), married to the
+tiniest little girl, in a brown straw hat, and travelling with his
+sister and her sister, and a consumptive single lady, travelling with a
+maid and a Scotch terrier christened Trotty Veck, we have scarcely seen
+any, and have certainly spoken to none, since we left Switzerland. These
+were aboard the _Valetta_, where the captain and I indulged in all
+manner of insane suppositions concerning the straw hat--the "Little
+Matron" we called her; by which name she soon became known all over the
+ship. The day we entered Rome, and the moment we entered it, there was
+the Little Matron, alone with antiquity--and Murray--on the wall. The
+very first church I entered, there was the Little Matron. On the last
+afternoon, when I went alone to St. Peter's, there was the Little Matron
+and her party. The best of it is, that I was extremely intimate with
+them, invited them to Tavistock House, when they come home in the
+spring, and have not the faintest idea of their name.
+
+There was no table d'hote at Rome, or at Florence, but there is one
+here, and we dine at it to-day, so perhaps we may stumble upon
+somebody. I have heard from Charley this morning, who appoints (wisely)
+Paris as our place of meeting. I had a letter from Coote, at Florence,
+informing me that his volume of "Household Songs" was ready, and
+requesting permission to dedicate it to me. Which of course I gave.
+
+I am beginning to think of the Birmingham readings. I suppose you won't
+object to be taken to hear them? This is the last place at which we
+shall make a stay of more than one day. We shall stay at Parma one, and
+at Turin one, supposing De la Rue to have been successful in taking
+places with the courier into France for the day on which we want them
+(he was to write to bankers at Turin to do it), and then we shall come
+hard and fast home. I feel almost there already, and shall be delighted
+to close the pleasant trip, and get back to my own Piccola Camera--if,
+being English, you understand what _that_ is. My best love and kisses to
+Mamey, Katey, Sydney, Harry, and the noble Plorn. Last, not least, to
+yourself, and many of them. I will not wait over to-morrow, tell Kate,
+for her letter; but will write then, whether or no.
+
+                            Ever, my dearest Georgy,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 19th, 1853._
+
+MY DEAR MARCUS,
+
+You made an excellent sketch from a book of mine which I have received
+(and have preserved) with great pleasure. Will you accept from me, in
+remembrance of it, _this_ little book? I believe it to be true, though
+it may be sometimes not as genteel as history has a habit of being.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[15] Meaning Mr. W. H. Wills himself.
+
+
+
+
+1854.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+The summer of this year was also spent at Boulogne, M. Beaucourt being
+again the landlord; but the house, though still on the same "property,"
+stood on the top of the hill, above the Moulineaux, and was called the
+Villa du Camp de Droite.
+
+In the early part of the year Charles Dickens paid several visits to the
+English provinces, giving readings from his books at many of the large
+manufacturing towns, and always for some good and charitable purpose.
+
+He was still at work upon "Hard Times," which was finished during the
+summer, and was constantly occupied with "Household Words." Many of our
+letters for this year are to the contributors to this journal. The last
+is an unusually interesting one. He had for some time past been much
+charmed with the writings of a certain Miss Berwick, who, he knew, to be
+a contributor under a feigned name. When at last the lady confided her
+real name, and he discovered in the young poetess the daughter of his
+dear friends, Mr.[16] and Mrs. Procter, the "new sensation" caused him
+intense surprise, and the greatest pleasure and delight. Miss Adelaide
+Procter was, from this time, a frequent contributor to "Household
+Words," more especially to the Christmas numbers.
+
+There are really very few letters in this year requiring any explanation
+from us--many explaining themselves, and many having allusion to
+incidents in the past year, which have been duly noted by us for 1853.
+
+The portrait mentioned in the letter to Mr. Collins, for which he was
+sitting to Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A., was to be one of a series of oil
+sketches of the then celebrated literary men of the day, in their
+studies. We believe this portrait to be now in the possession of Mrs.
+Ward.
+
+In explanation of the letter to Mr. John Saunders on the subject of the
+production of the latter's play, called "Love's Martyrdom," we will
+give the dramatist's own words:
+
+        "Having printed for private circulation a play
+        entitled 'Love's Martyrdom,' and for which I
+        desired to obtain the independent judgment of
+        some of our most eminent literary men, before
+        seeking the ordeal of the stage, I sent a copy
+        to Mr. Dickens, and the letter in question is
+        his acknowledgment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        "He immediately took steps for the introduction
+        of the play to the theatre. At first he
+        arranged with Mr. Phelps, of Sadler's Wells,
+        but subsequently, with that gentleman's
+        consent, removed it to the Haymarket. There it
+        was played with Miss Helen Faucit in the
+        character of Margaret, Miss Swanborough (who
+        shortly after married and left the stage) as
+        Julia, Mr. Barry Sullivan as Franklyn, and Mr.
+        Howe as Laneham.
+
+        "As far as the play itself was concerned, it
+        was received on all sides as a genuine dramatic
+        and poetic success, achieved, however, as an
+        eminent critic came to my box to say, through
+        greater difficulties than he had ever before
+        seen a dramatic work pass through. The time has
+        not come for me to speak freely of these, but I
+        may point to two of them: the first being the
+        inadequate rehearsals, which caused Mr. Dickens
+        to tell me on the stage, four or five days only
+        before the first performance, that the play was
+        not then in as good a state as it would have
+        been in at Paris three weeks earlier. The other
+        was the breakdown of the performer of a most
+        important secondary part; a collapse so
+        absolute that he was changed by the management
+        before the second representation of the piece."
+
+This ill-luck of the beginning, pursued the play to its close.
+
+        "The Haymarket Theatre was at the time in the
+        very lowest state of prostration, through the
+        Crimean War; the habitual frequenters were
+        lovers of comedy, and enjoyers of farce and
+        burlesque; and there was neither the money nor
+        the faith to call to the theatre by the usual
+        methods, vigorously and discriminatingly
+        pursued, the multitudes that I believed could
+        have been so called to a better and more
+        romantic class of comedy.
+
+        "Even under these and other, similarly
+        depressing circumstances, the nightly receipts
+        were about L60, the expenses being L80; and on
+        the last--an author's--night, there was an
+        excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to
+        the best of my recollection, about L140, but
+        certainly between L120 and L140. And with that
+        night--the sixth or seventh--the experiment
+        ended."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 7th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I heartily assure you that to have your name coupled with anything I
+have done is an honour and a pleasure to me. I cannot say that I am
+sorry that you should have thought it necessary to write to me, for it
+is always delightful to me to see your hand, and to know (though I want
+no outward and visible sign as an assurance of the fact) that you are
+ever the same generous, earnest, gallant man.
+
+Catherine and Georgina send their kind loves. So does Walter Landor, who
+came home from school with high judicial commendation and a prize into
+the bargain.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Landor, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, January 13th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+On the very day after I sent the Christmas number to Rockingham, I heard
+of your being at Brighton. I should have sent another there, but that I
+had a misgiving I might seem to be making too much of it. For, when I
+thought of the probability of the Rockingham copy going on to Brighton,
+and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes
+at once at Junction House at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty
+overcame me. I was heartily pleased with the Birmingham audience, which
+was a very fine one. I never saw, nor do I suppose anybody ever did,
+such an interesting sight as the working people's night. There were two
+thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant
+audience it is impossible to imagine. They lost nothing, misinterpreted
+nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most
+delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that I felt as if
+we were all bodily going up into the clouds together. It is an enormous
+place for the purpose; but I had considered all that carefully, and I
+believe made the most distant person hear as well as if I had been
+reading in my own room. I was a little doubtful before I began on the
+first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite
+effort; but I soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that
+we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all
+appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire.
+
+I am obliged to go out on Monday at five and to dine out; but I will be
+at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint. You say you
+are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and
+would dine with us alone on Tuesday, _that_ is the plan that we should
+all like best. Let me have one word from you by post on Monday morning.
+Few things that I saw, when I was away, took my fancy so much as the
+Electric Telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel
+old heart of the Coliseum at Rome. And on the summit of the Alps, among
+the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained
+against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters of great beams--to say
+nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the Channel.
+With kindest loves,
+
+                             Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                                Most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, January 16th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+It is all very well to pretend to love me as you do. Ah! If you loved as
+_I_ love, Mary! But, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a
+letter as yours, Falkland, Falkland, madam, becomes my part in "The
+Rivals," and I play it with desperate earnestness.
+
+As thus:
+
+        FALKLAND (_to Acres_). Then you see her, sir,
+        sometimes?
+
+        ACRES. See her! Odds beams and sparkles, yes.
+        See her acting! Night after night.
+
+        FALKLAND (_aside and furious_). Death and the
+        devil! Acting, and I not there! Pray, sir
+        (_with constrained calmness_), what does she
+        act?
+
+        ACRES. Odds, monthly nurses and babbies! Sairey
+        Gamp and Betsey Prig, "which, wotever it is, my
+        dear (_mimicking_), I likes it brought reg'lar
+        and draw'd mild!" _That's_ very like her.
+
+        FALKLAND. Confusion! Laceration! Perhaps, sir,
+        perhaps she sometimes acts--ha! ha! perhaps she
+        sometimes acts, I say--eh! sir?--a--ha, ha, ha!
+        a fairy? (_With great bitterness._)
+
+        ACRES. Odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes!
+        You should hear her sing as a fairy. You should
+        see her dance as a fairy. Tol de rol
+        lol--la--lol--liddle diddle. (_Sings and
+        dances_). _That's_ very like her.
+
+        FALKLAND. Misery! while I, devoted to her
+        image, can scarcely write a line now and then,
+        or pensively read aloud to the people of
+        Birmingham. (_To him._) And they applaud her,
+        no doubt they applaud her, sir. And she--I see
+        her! Curtsies and smiles! And they--curses on
+        them! they laugh and--ha, ha, ha!--and clap
+        their hands--and say it's very good. Do they
+        not say it's very good, sir? Tell me. Do they
+        not?
+
+        ACRES. Odds, thunderings and pealings, of
+        course they do! and the third fiddler, little
+        Tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. Ho,
+        ho, ho, I can't bear it (_mimicking_); take me
+        out! Ha, ha, ha! O what a one she is! She'll be
+        the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha! _That's_ very
+        like her!
+
+        FALKLAND. Damnation! Heartless Mary! (_Rushes
+        out._)
+
+Scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up into form of
+letters, representing the following inscription:
+
+        When the praise thou meetest
+        To thine ear is sweetest,
+        O then
+                                     REMEMBER JOE!
+                   (_Curtain falls._)
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 16th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Guilty. The accused pleads guilty, but throws himself upon the mercy of
+the court. He humbly represents that his usual hour for getting up, in
+the course of his travels, was three o'clock in the morning, and his
+usual hour for going to bed, nine or ten the next night. That the places
+in which he chiefly deviated from these rules of hardship, were Rome and
+Venice; and that at those cities of fame he shut himself up in solitude,
+and wrote Christmas papers for the incomparable publication known as
+"Household Words." That his correspondence at all times, arising out of
+the business of the said "Household Words" alone, was very heavy. That
+his offence, though undoubtedly committed, was unavoidable, and that a
+nominal punishment will meet the justice of the case.
+
+We had only three bad days out of the whole time. After Naples, which
+was very hot, we had very cold, clear, bright weather. When we got to
+Chamounix, we found the greater part of the inns shut up and the people
+gone. No visitors whatsoever, and plenty of snow. These were the very
+best circumstances under which to see the place, and we stayed a couple
+of days at the Hotel de Londres (hastily re-furbished for our
+entertainment), and climbed through the snow to the Mer de Glace, and
+thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we went, in mule procession (I walking) to
+the old hotel at Martigny, where Collins was ill, and I suppose I bored
+Egg to death by talking all the evening about the time when you and I
+were there together. Naples (a place always painful to me, in the
+intense degradation of the people) seems to have only three classes of
+inhabitants left in it--priests, soldiers (standing army one hundred
+thousand strong), and spies. Of macaroni we ate very considerable
+quantities everywhere; also, for the benefit of Italy, we took our share
+of every description of wine. At Naples I found Layard, the Nineveh
+traveller, who is a friend of mine and an admirable fellow; so we
+fraternised and went up Vesuvius together, and ate more macaroni and
+drank more wine. At Rome, the day after our arrival, they were making a
+saint at St. Peter's; on which occasion I was surprised to find what an
+immense number of pounds of wax candles it takes to make the regular,
+genuine article. From Turin to Paris, over the Mont Cenis, we made only
+one journey. The Rhone, being frozen and foggy, was not to be navigated,
+so we posted from Lyons to Chalons, and everybody else was doing the
+like, and there were no horses to be got, and we were stranded at
+midnight in amazing little cabarets, with nothing worth mentioning to
+eat in them, except the iron stove, which was rusty, and the
+billiard-table, which was musty. We left Turin on a Tuesday evening, and
+arrived in Paris on a Friday evening; where I found my son Charley,
+hot--or I should rather say cold--from Germany, with his arms and legs
+so grown out of his coat and trousers, that I was ashamed of him, and
+was reduced to the necessity of taking him, under cover of night, to a
+ready-made establishment in the Palais Royal, where they put him into
+balloon-waisted pantaloons, and increased my confusion. Leaving Calais
+on the evening of Sunday, the 10th of December; fact of distinguished
+author's being aboard, was telegraphed to Dover; thereupon authorities
+of Dover Railway detained train to London for distinguished author's
+arrival, rather to the exasperation of British public. D. A. arrived at
+home between ten and eleven that night, thank God, and found all well
+and happy.
+
+I think you see _The Times_, and if so, you will have seen a very
+graceful and good account of the Birmingham readings. It was the most
+remarkable thing that England could produce, I think, in the way of a
+vast intelligent assemblage; and the success was most wonderful and
+prodigious--perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether. They wound
+up by giving my wife a piece of plate, having given me one before; and
+when you come to dine here (may it be soon!) it shall be duly displayed
+in the centre of the table.
+
+Tell Mrs. Cerjat, to whom my love, and all our loves, that I have highly
+excited them at home here by giving them an account in detail of all
+your daughters; further, that the way in which Catherine and Georgina
+have questioned me and cross-questioned me about you all,
+notwithstanding, is maddening. Mrs. Watson has been obliged to pass her
+Christmas at Brighton alone with her younger children, in consequence of
+her two eldest boys coming home to Rockingham from school with the
+whooping-cough. The quarantine expires to-day, however; and she drives
+here, on her way back into Northamptonshire, to-morrow.
+
+The sad affair of the Preston strike remains unsettled; and I hear, on
+strong authority, that if that were settled, the Manchester people are
+prepared to strike next. Provisions very dear, but the people very
+temperate and quiet in general. So ends this jumble, which looks like
+the index to a chapter in a book, I find, when I read it over.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Cerjat, heartily your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 18th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I am quite delighted to find that you are so well satisfied, and that
+the enterprise has such a light upon it. I think I never was better
+pleased in my life than I was with my Birmingham friends.
+
+That principle of fair representation of all orders carefully carried
+out, I believe, will do more good than any of us can yet foresee. Does
+it not seem a strange thing to consider that I have never yet seen with
+these eyes of mine, a mechanic in any recognised position on the
+platform of a Mechanics' Institution?
+
+Mr. Wills may be expected to sink, shortly, under the ravages of letters
+from all parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, proposing readings. He
+keeps up his spirits, but I don't see how they are to carry him through.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and Miss Hogarth beg their kindest regards; and I am, my
+dear sir, with much regard, too,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 30th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+Indeed there is no fear of my thinking you the owner of a cold heart. I
+am more than three parts disposed, however, to be ferocious with you for
+ever writing down such a preposterous truism.
+
+My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing
+else--the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of
+this time--the men who, through long years to come, will do more to
+damage the real useful truths of political economy than I could do (if I
+tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average of
+cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a
+soldier in nankeens on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur,
+and who would comfort the labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to
+and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one
+inhabited place from another in the whole area of England, is not more
+than four miles. Bah! What have you to do with these?
+
+I shall put the book upon a private shelf (after reading it) by "Once
+upon a Time." I should have buried my pipe of peace and sent you this
+blast of my war-horn three or four days ago, but that I have been
+reading to a little audience of three thousand five hundred at Bradford.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, March 7th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I am tardy in answering your letter; but "Hard Times," and an immense
+amount of enforced correspondence, are my excuse. To you a sufficient
+one, I know.
+
+As I should judge from outward and visible appearances, I have exactly
+as much chance of seeing the Russian fleet reviewed by the Czar as I
+have of seeing the English fleet reviewed by the Queen.
+
+"Club Law" made me laugh very much when I went over it in the proof
+yesterday. It is most capitally done, and not (as I feared it might be)
+too directly. It is in the next number but one.
+
+Mrs. ---- has gone stark mad--and stark naked--on the spirit-rapping
+imposition. She was found t'other day in the street, clothed only in her
+chastity, a pocket-handkerchief and a visiting card. She had been
+informed, it appeared, by the spirits, that if she went out in that trim
+she would be invisible. She is now in a madhouse, and, I fear,
+hopelessly insane. One of the curious manifestations of her disorder is
+that she can bear nothing black. There is a terrific business to be
+done, even when they are obliged to put coals on her fire.
+
+---- has a thing called a Psycho-grapher, which writes at the dictation
+of spirits. It delivered itself, a few nights ago, of this
+extraordinarily lucid message:
+
+                               X. Y. Z!
+
+upon which it was gravely explained by the true believers that "the
+spirits were out of temper about something." Said ---- had a great party
+on Sunday, when it was rumoured "a count was going to raise the dead." I
+stayed till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for neither
+count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch. It is really
+inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can be run away with by
+such small deer.
+
+_A propos_ of spiritual messages comes in Georgina, and, hearing that I
+am writing to you, delivers the following enigma to be conveyed to Mrs.
+White:
+
+        "Wyon of the Mint lives _at_ the Mint."
+
+Feeling my brain going after this, I only trust it with loves from all
+to all.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 17th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+I have read the article with much interest. It is most conscientiously
+done, and presents a great mass of curious information condensed into a
+surprisingly small space.
+
+I have made a slight note or two here and there, with a soft pencil, so
+that a touch of indiarubber will make all blank again.
+
+And I earnestly entreat your attention to the point (I have been working
+upon it, weeks past, in "Hard Times") which I have jocosely suggested on
+the last page but one. The English are, so far as I know, the
+hardest-worked people on whom the sun shines. Be content if, in their
+wretched intervals of pleasure, they read for amusement and do no worse.
+They are born at the oar, and they live and die at it. Good God, what
+would we have of them!
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+        OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS,"
+              NO. 16, WELLINGTON STREET, NORTH STRAND,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 12th, 1854._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I know all the walks for many and many miles round about Malvern, and
+delightful walks they are. I suppose you are already getting very stout,
+very red, very jovial (in a physical point of view) altogether.
+
+Mark and I walked to Dartford from Greenwich, last Monday, and found
+Mrs. ---- acting "The Stranger" (with a strolling company from the
+Standard Theatre) in Mr. Munn's schoolroom. The stage was a little wider
+than your table here, and its surface was composed of loose boards laid
+on the school forms. Dogs sniffed about it during the performances, and
+_the_ carpenter's highlows were ostentatiously taken off and displayed
+in the proscenium.
+
+We stayed until a quarter to ten, when we were obliged to fly to the
+railroad, but we sent the landlord of the hotel down with the following
+articles:
+
+        1 bottle superior old port,
+        1   do.    do.    golden sherry,
+        1   do.    do.    best French brandy,
+        1   do.    do.    1st quality old Tom gin,
+        1 bottle superior prime Jamaica rum,
+        1   do.    do.    small still _Isla_ whiskey,
+        1 kettle boiling water, two pounds finest white lump sugar,
+        Our cards,
+        1 lemon,
+                  and
+        Our compliments.
+
+The effect we had previously made upon the theatrical company by being
+beheld in the first two chairs--there was nearly a pound in the
+house--was altogether electrical.
+
+My ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed at your not
+saying that you drink two-and-twenty tumblers of the limpid element,
+every day. The children also unite in "loves," and the Plornishghenter,
+on being asked if he would send his, replies "Yes--man," which we
+understand to signify cordial acquiescence.
+
+Forster just come back from lecturing at Sherborne. Describes said
+lecture as "Blaze of Triumph."
+
+                              H. W. AGAIN.
+
+Miss--I mean Mrs.--Bell's story very nice. I have sent it to the
+printer, and entitled it "The Green Ring and the Gold Ring."
+
+This apartment looks desolate in your absence; but, O Heavens, how tidy!
+
+                                F. W.
+
+Mrs. Wills supposed to have gone into a convent at Somers Town.
+
+                                       My dear Wills,
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday Night, April 15th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have read the "Fatal Revenge." Don't do what the minor theatrical
+people call "despi-ser" me, but I think it's very bad. The concluding
+narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business. Still,
+the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and
+are always knocking other people's bones about in such a very irrational
+way, that I object. The way in which earthquakes won't swallow the
+monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won't boil them, is extremely
+aggravating. Also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain
+anything.
+
+You have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that I
+am truly grateful. With the dust of "Maturin" in my eyes, I sat down and
+read "The Death of Friends," and the dust melted away in some of those
+tears it is good to shed. I remember to have read "The Backroom Window"
+some years ago, and I have associated it with you ever since. It is a
+most delightful paper. But the two volumes are all delightful, and I
+have put them on a shelf where you sit down with Charles Lamb again,
+with Talfourd's vindication of him hard by.
+
+We never meet. I hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange London
+I have an inclination to adapt a portion of the Church Service to our
+common experience. Thus:
+
+"We have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have
+met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no
+help in us."
+
+            But I am always, my dear Procter,
+                                      (At a distance),
+                                                 Very cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _April 21st, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I safely received the paper from Mr. Shaen, welcomed it with three
+cheers, and instantly despatched it to the printer, who has it in hand
+now.
+
+I have no intention of striking. The monstrous claims at domination made
+by a certain class of manufacturers, and the extent to which the way is
+made easy for working men to slide down into discontent under such
+hands, are within my scheme; but I am not going to strike, so don't be
+afraid of me. But I wish you would look at the story yourself, and judge
+where and how near I seem to be approaching what you have in your mind.
+The first two months of it will show that.
+
+I will "make my will" on the first favourable occasion. We were playing
+games last night, and were fearfully clever. With kind regards to Mr.
+Gaskell, always, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 30th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I can_not_ stand a total absence of ventilation, and I should have liked
+(in an amiable and persuasive manner) to have punched ----'s head, and
+opened the register stoves. I saw the supper tables, sir, in an empty
+state, and was charmed with them. Likewise I recovered myself from a
+swoon, occasioned by long contact with an unventilated man of a strong
+flavour from Copenhagen, by drinking an unknown species of celestial
+lemonade in that enchanted apartment.
+
+I am grieved to say that on Saturday I stand engaged to dine, at three
+weeks' notice, with one ----, a man who has read every book that ever
+was written, and is a perfect gulf of information. Before exploding a
+mine of knowledge he has a habit of closing one eye and wrinkling up his
+nose, so that he seems perpetually to be taking aim at you and knocking
+you over with a terrific charge. Then he looks again, and takes another
+aim. So you are always on your back, with your legs in the air.
+
+How can a man be conversed with, or walked with, in the county of
+Middlesex, when he is reviewing the Kentish Militia on the shores of
+Dover, or sailing, every day for three weeks, between Dover and Calais?
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--"Humphry Clinker" is certainly Smollett's best. I am rather
+divided between "Peregrine Pickle" and "Roderick Random," both
+extraordinarily good in their way, which is a way without tenderness;
+but you will have to read them both, and I send the first volume of
+"Peregrine" as the richer of the two.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 7th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
+
+I cannot become one of the committee for Wilson's statue, after
+entertaining so strong an opinion against the expediency of such a
+memorial in poor dear Talfourd's case. But I will subscribe my three
+guineas, and will pay that sum to the account at Coutts's when I go
+there next week, before leaving town.
+
+"The Goldsmiths" admirably done throughout. It is a book I have long
+desired to see done, and never expected to see half so well done. Many
+thanks to you for it.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Please to observe the address at Boulogne: "Villa du Camp de
+Droite."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                 VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, _Thursday, June 22nd, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think I
+may as well report all well.
+
+We have a most charming place here. It beats the former residence all to
+nothing. We have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers,
+and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and
+everything that is airy and fresh. The great Beaucourt hovers about us
+like a guardian genius, and I imagine that no English person in a
+carriage could by any possibility find the place.
+
+Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain
+inimitable creature has made the most of it, I will say nothing, until
+you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. At present I will only
+observe that I have written exactly seventy-two words of "Hard Times,"
+since I have been here.
+
+The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat, in every stage
+and aspect of sea-sickness.
+
+The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say)
+sixty thousand soldiers. I don't imagine it to be near enough to bother
+us.
+
+If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to
+come over with the proofs on a Saturday, when the tide serves well,
+before you and Mrs. W. make your annual visit. Recollect there is always
+a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out.
+
+                                              Kind regards.
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+            VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                   _Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+Bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of "Hard Times" I beg to report this
+tenement--AMAZING!!! Range of view and air, most free and delightful;
+hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks
+already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of
+a "home" at rounders.
+
+I hope to finish and get to town by next Wednesday night, the 19th; what
+do you say to coming back with me on the following Tuesday? The interval
+I propose to pass in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded
+license in the metropolis. If you will come and breakfast with me about
+midnight--anywhere--any day, and go to bed no more until we fly to these
+pastoral retreats, I shall be delighted to have so vicious an associate.
+
+Will you undertake to let Ward know that if he still wishes me to sit to
+him, he shall have me as long as he likes, at Tavistock House, on
+Monday, the 24th, from ten A.M.?
+
+I have made it understood here that we shall want to be taken the
+greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on nourishing meats. Several
+new dishes have been rehearsed and have come out very well. I have met
+with what they call in the City "a parcel" of the celebrated 1846
+champagne. It is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good when
+weak.
+
+The camp is about a mile off. Voluptuous English authors reposing from
+their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other
+things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny,
+and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (About one hundred
+and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on Beaucourt
+since we have been here, and he has clinked glasses with them every one,
+and read a MS. book of his father's, on soldiers in general, to them
+all.)
+
+I shall be glad to hear what you say to these various proposals. I write
+with the Emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour
+floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible
+retreat. It is like being up in a balloon. Lionising Englishmen and
+Germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway
+up. Ha! ha! ha!
+
+Kindest regards from all. The Plornishghenter adds Mr. and Mrs. Goose's
+duty.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--The cobbler has been ill these many months, and unable to work;
+has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it cut three times a week. The
+little dog sits at the door so unhappy and anxious to help, that I every
+day expect to see him beginning a pair of top boots.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Saturday, July 22nd, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGINA,
+
+Neither you nor Catherine did justice to Collins's book.[17] I think it
+far away the cleverest novel I have ever seen written by a new hand. It
+is in some respects masterly. "Valentine Blyth" is as original, and as
+well done as anything can be. The scene where he shows his pictures is
+full of an admirable humour. Old Mat is admirably done. In short, I call
+it a very remarkable book, and have been very much surprised by its
+great merit.
+
+Tell Kate, with my love, that she will receive to-morrow in a little
+parcel, the complete proofs of "Hard Times." They will not be
+corrected, but she will find them pretty plain. I am just now going to
+put them up for her. I saw Grisi the night before last in "Lucrezia
+Borgia"--finer than ever. Last night I was drinking gin-slings till
+daylight, with Buckstone of all people, who saw me looking at the
+Spanish dancers, and insisted on being convivial. I have been in a blaze
+of dissipation altogether, and have succeeded (I think), in knocking the
+remembrance of my work out.
+
+Loves to all the darlings, from the Plornish-Maroon upward. London is
+far hotter than Naples.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                 VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Thursday, Aug. 17th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+I sent your MS. off to Wills yesterday, with instructions to forward it
+to you without delay. I hope you will have received it before this
+notification comes to hand.
+
+The usual festivity of this place at present--which is the blessing of
+soldiers by the ten thousand--has just now been varied by the baptising
+of some new bells, lately hung up (to my sorrow and lunacy) in a
+neighbouring church. An English lady was godmother; and there was a
+procession afterwards, wherein an English gentleman carried "the relics"
+in a highly suspicious box, like a barrel organ; and innumerable English
+ladies in white gowns and bridal wreaths walked two and two, as if they
+had all gone to school again.
+
+At a review, on the same day, I was particularly struck by the
+commencement of the proceedings, and its singular contrast to the usual
+military operations in Hyde Park. Nothing would induce the general
+commanding in chief to begin, until chairs were brought for all the
+lady-spectators. And a detachment of about a hundred men deployed into
+all manner of farmhouses to find the chairs. Nobody seemed to lose any
+dignity by the transaction, either.
+
+            With kindest regards, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. William Harness.]
+
+                   VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                          _Saturday, Aug. 19th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR HARNESS,
+
+Yes. The book came from me. I could not put a memorandum to that effect
+on the title-page, in consequence of my being here.
+
+I am heartily glad you like it. I know the piece you mention, but am far
+from being convinced by it. A great misgiving is upon me, that in many
+things (this thing among the rest) too many are martyrs to _our_
+complacency and satisfaction, and that we must give up something thereof
+for their poor sakes.
+
+My kindest regards to your sister, and my love (if I may send it) to
+another of your relations.
+
+                                        Always, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+               VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
+                                         _Wednesday, Sept. 6th, 1854._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Any Saturday on which the tide serves your purpose (next Saturday
+excepted) will suit me for the flying visit you hint at; and we shall be
+delighted to see you. Although the camp is not above a mile from this
+gate, we never see or hear of it, unless we choose. If you could come
+here in dry weather you would find it as pretty, airy, and pleasant a
+situation as you ever saw. We illuminated the whole front of the house
+last night--eighteen windows--and an immense palace of light was seen
+sparkling on this hill-top for miles and miles away. I rushed to a
+distance to look at it, and never saw anything of the same kind half so
+pretty.
+
+The town[18] looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with
+streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday--the whole range
+of the cliff tops lined with troops, and the artillery matches in hand,
+all ready to fire the great guns the moment she made the harbour; the
+sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the Prince in a blazing
+uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to see--a stupendous
+silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as never was
+heard. It was almost as fine a sight as one could see under a deep blue
+sky. In our own proper illumination I laid on all the servants, all the
+children now at home, all the visitors (it is the annual "Household
+Words" time), one to every window, with everything ready to light up on
+the ringing of a big dinner-bell by your humble correspondent. St.
+Peter's on Easter Monday was the result.
+
+                                    Best love from all.
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                BOULOGNE, _Tuesday, Sept. 26th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+First, I have to report that I received your letter with much pleasure.
+
+Secondly, that the weather has entirely changed. It is so cool that we
+have not only a fire in the drawing-room regularly, but another to dine
+by. The delicious freshness of the air is charming, and it is generally
+bright and windy besides.
+
+Thirdly, that ----'s intellectual faculties appear to have developed
+suddenly. He has taken to borrowing money; from which I infer (as
+he has no intention whatever of repaying) that his mental powers are
+of a high order. Having got a franc from me, he fell upon Mrs. Dickens
+for five sous. She declining to enter into the transaction, he
+beleaguered that feeble little couple, Harry and Sydney, into paying
+two sous each for "tickets" to behold the ravishing spectacle of an
+utterly-non-existent-and-there-fore-impossible-to-be-produced toy
+theatre. He eats stony apples, and harbours designs upon his
+fellow-creatures until he has become light-headed. From the couch
+rendered uneasy by this disorder he has arisen with an excessively
+protuberant forehead, a dull slow eye, a complexion of a leaden hue, and
+a croaky voice. He has become a horror to me, and I resort to the most
+cowardly expedients to avoid meeting him. He, on the other hand, wanting
+another franc, dodges me round those trees at the corner, and at the
+back door; and I have a presentiment upon me that I shall fall a
+sacrifice to his cupidity at last.
+
+On the Sunday night after you left, or rather on the Monday morning at
+half-past one, Mary was taken _very ill_. English cholera. She was
+sinking so fast, and the sickness was so exceedingly alarming, that it
+evidently would not do to wait for Elliotson. I caused everything to be
+done that we had naturally often thought of, in a lonely house so full
+of children, and fell back upon the old remedy; though the difficulty of
+giving even it was rendered very great by the frightful sickness. Thank
+God, she recovered so favourably that by breakfast time she was fast
+asleep. She slept twenty-four hours, and has never had the least
+uneasiness since. I heard--of course afterwards--that she had had an
+attack of sickness two nights before. I think that long ride and those
+late dinners had been too much for her. Without them I am inclined to
+doubt whether she would have been ill.
+
+Last Sunday as ever was, the theatre took fire at half-past eleven in
+the forenoon. Being close by the English church, it showered hot sparks
+into that temple through the open windows. Whereupon the congregation
+shrieked and rose and tumbled out into the street; ---- benignly
+observing to the only ancient female who would listen to him, "I fear we
+must part;" and afterwards being beheld in the street--in his robes and
+with a kind of sacred wildness on him--handing ladies over the kennel
+into shops and other structures, where they had no business whatever, or
+the least desire to go. I got to the back of the theatre, where I could
+see in through some great doors that had been forced open, and whence
+the spectacle of the whole interior, burning like a red-hot cavern, was
+really very fine, even in the daylight. Meantime the soldiers were at
+work, "saving" the scenery by pitching it into the next street; and the
+poor little properties (one spinning-wheel, a feeble imitation of a
+water-mill, and a basketful of the dismalest artificial flowers very
+conspicuous) were being passed from hand to hand with the greatest
+excitement, as if they were rescued children or lovely women. In four or
+five hours the whole place was burnt down, except the outer walls. Never
+in my days did I behold such feeble endeavours in the way of
+extinguishment. On an average I should say it took ten minutes to throw
+half a gallon of water on the great roaring heap; and every time it was
+insulted in this way it gave a ferocious burst, and everybody ran off.
+Beaucourt has been going about for two days in a clean collar; which
+phenomenon evidently means something, but I don't know what. Elliotson
+reports that the great conjuror lives at his hotel, has extra wine every
+day, and fares expensively. Is he the devil?
+
+I have heard from the Kernel.[19] Wa'al, sir, sayin' as he minded to
+locate himself with us for a week, I expected to have heard from him
+again this morning, but have not. Beard comes to-morrow.
+
+Kindest regards and remembrances from all. Ward lives in a little street
+between the two Tintilleries. The Plornish-Maroon desires his duty. He
+had a fall yesterday, through overbalancing himself in kicking his
+nurse.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                                   BOULOGNE, _Friday, Oct. 13th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Having some little matters that rather press on my attention to see to
+in town, I have made up my mind to relinquish the walking project, and
+come straight home (by way of Folkestone) on Tuesday. I shall be due in
+town at midnight, and shall hope to see you next day, with the top of
+your coat-collar mended.
+
+Everything that happens here we suppose to be an announcement of the
+taking of Sebastopol. When a church-clock strikes, we think it is the
+joy-bell, and fly out of the house in a burst of nationality--to sneak
+in again. If they practise firing at the camp, we are sure it is the
+artillery celebrating the fall of the Russian, and we become
+enthusiastic in a moment. I live in constant readiness to illuminate the
+whole house. Whatever anybody says I believe; everybody says, every day,
+that Sebastopol is in flames. Sometimes the Commander-in-Chief has blown
+himself up, with seventy-five thousand men. Sometimes he has "cut" his
+way through Lord Raglan, and has fallen back on the advancing body of
+the Russians, one hundred and forty-two thousand strong, whom he is
+going to "bring up" (I don't know where from, or how, or when, or why)
+for the destruction of the Allies. All these things, in the words of the
+catechism, "I steadfastly believe," until I become a mere driveller, a
+moonstruck, babbling, staring, credulous, imbecile, greedy, gaping,
+wooden-headed, addle-brained, wool-gathering, dreary, vacant, obstinate
+civilian.
+
+                           Ever, my fellow-countryman, affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Saunders.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _October 26th, 1854._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt of your
+obliging communication. Allow me to thank you for it, in the first
+place, with great cordiality.
+
+Although I cannot say that I came without any prepossessions to the
+perusal of your play (for I had favourable inclinings towards it before
+I began), I _can_ say that I read it with the closest attention, and
+that it inspired me with a strong interest, and a genuine and high
+admiration. The parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of
+your task appear to me those in which you shine most. I would
+particularly instance the end of Julia as a very striking example of
+this. The delicacy and beauty of her redemption from her weak rash
+lover, are very far, indeed beyond the range of any ordinary dramatist,
+and display the true poetical strength.
+
+As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, and in seeing the child of your
+fancy on his stage, I will venture to point out to you not only what I
+take to be very dangerous portions of "Love's Martyrdom" as it stands,
+_for presentation on the stage_, but portions which I believe Mr. Phelps
+will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before him in the
+persons of live men and women on the wooden boards. Knowing him, I think
+he will be then as violently discouraged as he is now generously
+exalted; and it may be useful to you to be prepared for the
+consideration of those passages.
+
+I do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the play of modern
+times best known to an audience proceeds upon the main idea of this,
+namely, that there was a hunchback who, because of his deformity,
+mistrusted himself. But it is certainly a grain in the balance when the
+balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most
+carefully trimmed. The incident of the ring is an insignificant one to
+look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to convey to an audience,
+and the least thing will make it ludicrous. If it be so well done by Mr.
+Phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be
+disagreeable. If it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so,
+because you revert to it. The quarrel scene between the two brothers in
+the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and
+impetuosity--which can alone bear out Franklyn, before the bodily eyes
+of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own
+brother--is lost. That the two should be parted, and that Franklyn
+should again drive at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a
+state of things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong
+direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave
+unhappy. I would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by
+that picture, more than once. All the most sudden inconstancy of
+Clarence I would soften down. Margaret must act much better than any
+actress I have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places;
+therefore, I think she needs compression too.
+
+All this applies solely to the theatre. If you ever revise the sheets
+for readers, will you note in the margin the broken laughter and the
+appeals to the Deity? If, on summing them up, you find you want them
+all, I would leave them as they stand by all means. If not, I would blot
+accordingly.
+
+It is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by anticipating
+what I believe Mr. Phelps will discover--or what, if ever he should pass
+it, I have a strong conviction the audience will find out--that I have
+ventured on these few hints. Your concurrence with them generally, on
+reconsideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands, can not
+in the least affect my interest in your success. On the other hand, I
+have a perfect confidence in your not taking my misgivings ill; they
+arise out of my sincere desire for the triumph of your work.
+
+With renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me,
+
+                                     I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _November 1st, 1854._
+                                   (And a constitutionally foggy day.)
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I thought it better not to encumber the address to working men with
+details. Firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect
+the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning
+and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly
+understood; and thirdly, because the paper was meant as an opening to a
+persistent pressure of the whole question on the public, which would
+yield other opportunities of touching on such points.
+
+In the number _for next week_--not this--is one of those following-up
+articles called "A Home Question." It is not written by me, but is
+generally of my suggesting, and is exceedingly well done by a thorough
+and experienced hand. I think you will find in it, generally, what you
+want. I have told the printers to send you a proof by post as soon as it
+is corrected--that is to say, as soon as some insertions I made in it
+last night are in type and in their places.
+
+My dear old Parr, I don't believe a word you write about King John! That
+is to say, I don't believe you take into account the enormous difference
+between the energy summonable-up in your study at Sherborne and the
+energy that will fire up in you (without so much as saying "With your
+leave" or "By your leave") in the Town Hall at Birmingham. I know you,
+you ancient codger, I know you! Therefore I will trouble you to be so
+good as to do an act of honesty after you have been to Birmingham, and
+to write to me, "Ingenuous boy, you were correct. I find I could have
+read 'em 'King John' with the greatest ease."
+
+In that vast hall in the busy town of Sherborne, in which our
+illustrious English novelist is expected to read next month--though he
+is strongly of opinion that he is deficient in power, and too old--I
+wonder what accommodation there is for reading! because our illustrious
+countryman likes to stand at a desk breast-high, with plenty of room
+about him, a sloping top, and a ledge to keep his book from tumbling
+off. If such a thing should not be there, however, on his arrival, I
+suppose even a Sherborne carpenter could knock it up out of a deal
+board. _Is_ there a deal board in Sherborne though? I should like to
+hear Katey's opinion on that point.
+
+In this week's "Household Words" there is an exact portrait of our
+Boulogne landlord, which I hope you will like. I think of opening the
+next long book I write with a man of juvenile figure and strong face,
+who is always persuading himself that he is infirm. What do you think of
+the idea? I should like to have your opinion about it. I would make him
+an impetuous passionate sort of fellow, devilish grim upon occasion, and
+of an iron purpose. Droll, I fancy?
+
+---- is getting a little too fat, but appears to be troubled by the
+great responsibility of directing the whole war. He doesn't seem to be
+quite clear that he has got the ships into the exact order he intended,
+on the sea point of attack at Sebastopol. We went to the play last
+Saturday night with Stanfield, whose "high lights" (as Maclise calls
+those knobs of brightness on the top of his cheeks) were more radiant
+than ever. We talked of you, and I told Stanny how they are imitating
+his "Acis and Galatea" sea in "Pericles," at Phelps's. He didn't half
+like it; but I added, in nautical language, that it was merely a
+piratical effort achieved by a handful of porpoise-faced swabs, and that
+brought him up with a round turn, as we say at sea.
+
+We are looking forward to the twentieth of next month with great
+pleasure. All Tavistock House send love and kisses to all Sherborne
+House. If there is anything I can bring down for you, let me know in
+good course of time.
+
+                             Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, Nov. 1st, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I take upon myself to answer your letter to Catherine, as I am referred
+to in it.
+
+The "Walk" is not my writing. It is very well done by a close imitator.
+Why I found myself so "used up" after "Hard Times" I scarcely know,
+perhaps because I intended to do nothing in that way for a year, when
+the idea laid hold of me by the throat in a very violent manner, and
+because the compression and close condensation necessary for that
+disjointed form of publication gave me perpetual trouble. But I really
+was tired, which is a result so very incomprehensible that I can't
+forget it. I have passed an idle autumn in a beautiful situation, and am
+dreadfully brown and big. For further particulars of Boulogne, see "Our
+French Watering Place," in this present week of "Household Words," which
+contains a faithful portrait of our landlord there.
+
+If you carry out that bright Croydon idea, rely on our glad
+co-operation, only let me know all about it a few days beforehand; and
+if you feel equal to the contemplation of the moustache (which has been
+cut lately) it will give us the heartiest pleasure to come and meet you.
+This in spite of the terrific duffery of the Crystal Palace. It is a
+very remarkable thing in itself; but to have so very large a building
+continually crammed down one's throat, and to find it a new page in "The
+Whole Duty of Man" to go there, is a little more than even I (and you
+know how amiable I am) can endure.
+
+You always like to know what I am going to do, so I beg to announce that
+on the 19th of December I am going to read the "Carol" at Reading, where
+I undertook the presidency of the Literary Institution on the death of
+poor dear Talfourd. Then I am going on to Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, to
+do the like for another institution, which is one of the few remaining
+pleasures of Macready's life. Then I am coming home for Christmas Day.
+Then I believe I must go to Bradford, in Yorkshire, to read once more to
+a little fireside party of four thousand. Then I am coming home again
+to get up a new little version of "The Children in the Wood" (yet to be
+written, by-the-bye), for the children to act on Charley's birthday.
+
+I am full of mixed feeling about the war--admiration of our valiant men,
+burning desires to cut the Emperor of Russia's throat, and something
+like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the
+wrongs and sufferings of the people at home. When I consider the
+Patriotic Fund on the one hand, and on the other the poverty and
+wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which in London alone, an
+infinitely larger number of English people than are likely to be slain
+in the whole Russian war have miserably and needlessly died--I feel as
+if the world had been pushed back five hundred years. If you are reading
+new books just now, I think you will be interested with a controversy
+between Whewell and Brewster, on the question of the shining orbs about
+us being inhabited or no. Whewell's book is called, "On the Plurality of
+Worlds;" Brewster's, "More Worlds than One." I shouldn't wonder if you
+know all about them. They bring together a vast number of points of
+great interest in natural philosophy, and some very curious reasoning on
+both sides, and leave the matter pretty much where it was.
+
+We had a fine absurdity in connection with our luggage, when we left
+Boulogne. The barometer had within a few hours fallen about a foot, in
+honour of the occasion, and it was a tremendous night, blowing a gale of
+wind and raining a little deluge. The luggage (pretty heavy, as you may
+suppose), in a cart drawn by two horses, stuck fast in a rut in our
+field, and couldn't be moved. Our man, made a lunatic by the extremity
+of the occasion, ran down to the town to get two more horses to help it
+out, when he returned with those horses and carter B, the most beaming
+of men; carter A, who had been soaking all the time by the disabled
+vehicle, descried in carter B the acknowledged enemy of his existence,
+took his own two horses out, and walked off with them! After which, the
+whole set-out remained in the field all night, and we came to town,
+thirteen individuals, with one comb and a pocket-handkerchief. I was
+upside-down during the greater part of the passage.
+
+Dr. Rae's account of Franklin's unfortunate party is deeply interesting;
+but I think hasty in its acceptance of the details, particularly in the
+statement that they had eaten the dead bodies of their companions, which
+I don't believe. Franklin, on a former occasion, was almost starved to
+death, had gone through all the pains of that sad end, and lain down to
+die, and no such thought had presented itself to any of them. In famous
+cases of shipwreck, it is very rare indeed that any person of any
+humanising education or refinement resorts to this dreadful means of
+prolonging life. In open boats, the coarsest and commonest men of the
+shipwrecked party have done such things; but I don't remember more than
+one instance in which an officer had overcome the loathing that the idea
+had inspired. Dr. Rae talks about their _cooking_ these remains too. I
+should like to know where the fuel came from.
+
+         Kindest love and best regards.
+                      Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                      TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday Night, Nov. 3rd, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+First of all, here is enclosed a letter for Mrs. Stanfield, which, if
+you don't immediately and faithfully deliver, you will hear of in an
+unpleasant way from the station-house at the curve of the hill above
+you.
+
+Secondly, this is not to remind you that we meet at the Athenaeum next
+Monday at five, because none but a mouldy swab as never broke biscuit or
+lay out on the for'sel-yard-arm in a gale of wind ever forgot an
+appointment with a messmate.
+
+But what I want you to think of at your leisure is this: when our dear
+old Macready was in town last, I saw it would give him so much interest
+and pleasure if I promised to go down and read my "Christmas Carol" to
+the little Sherborne Institution, which is now one of the few active
+objects he has in the life about him, that I came out with that promise
+in a bold--I may say a swaggering way. Consequently, on Wednesday, the
+20th of December, I am going down to see him, with Kate and Georgina,
+returning to town in good time for Christmas, on Saturday, the 23rd. Do
+you think you could manage to go and return with us? I really believe
+there is scarcely anything in the world that would give him such
+extraordinary pleasure as such a visit; and if you would empower me to
+send him an intimation that he may expect it, he will have a daily joy
+in looking forward to the time (I am seriously sure) which we--whose
+light has not gone out, and who are among our old dear pursuits and
+associations--can scarcely estimate.
+
+I don't like to broach the idea in a careless way, and so I propose it
+thus, and ask you to think of it.
+
+                                       Ever most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Procter.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 17th, 1854._
+
+MY DEAR MISS PROCTER,
+
+You have given me a new sensation. I did suppose that nothing in this
+singular world could surprise me, but you have done it.
+
+You will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and talent of your
+writing to be sincere. From the first, I have always had an especial
+interest in that Miss Berwick, and have over and over again questioned
+Wills about her. I suppose he has gone on gradually building up an
+imaginary structure of life and adventure for her, but he has given me
+the strangest information! Only yesterday week, when we were "making up"
+"The Poor Travellers," as I sat meditatively poking the office fire, I
+said to him, "Wills, have you got that Miss Berwick's proof back, of the
+little sailor's song?" "No," he said. "Well, but why not?" I asked him.
+"Why, you know," he answered, "as I have often told you before, she
+don't live at the place to which her letters are addressed, and so
+there's always difficulty and delay in communicating with her." "Do you
+know what age she is?" I said. Here he looked unfathomably profound, and
+returned, "Rather advanced in life." "You said she was a governess,
+didn't you?" said I; to which he replied in the most emphatic and
+positive manner, "A governess."
+
+He then came and stood in the corner of the hearth, with his back to the
+fire, and delivered himself like an oracle concerning you. He told me
+that early in life (conveying to me the impression of about a quarter of
+a century ago) you had had your feelings desperately wounded by some
+cause, real or imaginary--"It does not matter which," said I, with the
+greatest sagacity--and that you had then taken to writing verses. That
+you were of an unhappy temperament, but keenly sensitive to
+encouragement. That you wrote after the educational duties of the day
+were discharged. That you sometimes thought of never writing any more.
+That you had been away for some time "with your pupils." That your
+letters were of a mild and melancholy character, and that you did not
+seem to care as much as might be expected about money. All this time I
+sat poking the fire, with a wisdom upon me absolutely crushing; and
+finally I begged him to assure the lady that she might trust me with her
+real address, and that it would be better to have it now, as I hoped our
+further communications, etc. etc. etc. You must have felt enormously
+wicked last Tuesday, when I, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously
+prattling to you. But you have given me so much pleasure, and have made
+me shed so many tears, that I can only think of you now in association
+with the sentiment and grace of your verses.
+
+So pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of Richard Watts, though I
+am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion.[20]
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] The poet "Barry Cornwall."
+
+[17] "Hide and Seek."
+
+[18] On the occasion of the Prince Consort's visit to the camp at
+Boulogne.
+
+[19] Mr. Egg.
+
+[20] The inscription on the house in Rochester known as "Watts's
+Charity" is to the effect that it furnishes a night's lodging for six
+poor travellers--"not being Rogues or Proctors."
+
+
+
+
+1855.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+In the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens gave public readings at
+Reading, Sherborne, and Bradford in Yorkshire, to which reference is
+made in the first following letters. Besides this, he was fully occupied
+in getting up a play for his children, which was acted on the 6th
+January. Mr. Planche's fairy extravaganza of "Fortunio and his Seven
+Gifted Servants" was the play selected, the parts being filled by all
+his own children and some of their young friends, and Charles Dickens,
+Mr. Mark Lemon, and Mr. Wilkie Collins playing with them, the only
+grown-up members of the company. In February he made a short trip to
+Paris with Mr. Wilkie Collins, with an intention of going on to
+Bordeaux, which was abandoned on account of bad weather. Out of the
+success of the children's play at Tavistock House rose a scheme for a
+serious play at the same place. Mr. Collins undertaking to write a
+melodrama for the purpose, and Mr. Stanfield to paint scenery and
+drop-scene, Charles Dickens turned one of the rooms of the house into a
+very perfect little theatre, and in June "The Lighthouse" was acted for
+three nights, with "Mr. Nightingale's Diary" and "Animal Magnetism" as
+farces; the actors being himself and several members of the original
+amateur company, the actresses, his two daughters and his sister-in-law.
+Mr. Stanfield, after entering most heartily into the enterprise, and
+giving constant time and attention to the painting of his beautiful
+scenes, was unfortunately ill and unable to attend the first
+performance. We give a letter to him, reporting its great success.
+
+In this summer Charles Dickens made a speech at a great meeting at Drury
+Lane Theatre on the subject of "Administrative Reform," of which he
+writes to Mr. Macready. On this subject of "Administrative Reform," too,
+we give two letters to the great Nineveh traveller Mr. Layard (now Sir
+Austen H. Layard), for whom, as his letters show, he conceived at once
+the affectionate friendship which went on increasing from this time for
+the rest of his life. Mr. Layard also spoke at the Drury Lane meeting.
+
+Charles Dickens had made a promise to give another reading at Birmingham
+for the funds of the institute which still needed help; and in a letter
+to Mr. Arthur Ryland, asking him to fix a time for it, he gives the
+first idea of a selection from "David Copperfield," which was afterwards
+one of the most popular of his readings.
+
+He was at all times fond of making excursions for a day--or two or three
+days--to Rochester and its neighbourhood; and after one of these, this
+year, he writes to Mr. Wills that he has seen a "small freehold" to be
+sold, _opposite_ the house on which he had fixed his childish affections
+(and which he calls in _this_ letter the "Hermitage," its real name
+being "Gad's Hill Place"). The latter house was not, at that time, to be
+had, and he made some approach to negotiations as to the other "little
+freehold," which, however, did not come to anything. Later in the year,
+however, Mr. Wills, by an accident, discovered that Gad's Hill Place,
+the property of Miss Lynn, the well-known authoress, and a constant
+contributor to "Household Words," was itself for sale; and a negotiation
+for its purchase commenced, which was not, however, completed until the
+following spring.
+
+Later in the year, the performance of "The Lighthouse" was repeated, for
+a charitable purpose, at the Campden House theatre.
+
+This autumn was passed at Folkestone. Charles Dickens had decided upon
+spending the following winter in Paris, and the family proceeded there
+from Folkestone in October, making a halt at Boulogne; from whence his
+sister-in-law preceded the party to Paris, to secure lodgings, with the
+help of Lady Olliffe. He followed, to make his choice of apartments that
+had been found, and he writes to his wife and to Mr. Wills, giving a
+description of the Paris house. Here he began "Little Dorrit." In a
+letter to Mrs. Watson, from Folkestone, he gives her the name which he
+had first proposed for this story--"Nobody's Fault."
+
+During his absence from England, Mr. and Mrs. Hogarth occupied Tavistock
+House, and his eldest son, being now engaged in business, remained with
+them, coming to Paris only for Christmas. Three of his boys were at
+school at Boulogne at this time, and one, Walter Landor, at Wimbledon,
+studying for an Indian army appointment.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 3rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+When your Christmas letter did not arrive according to custom, I felt as
+if a bit of Christmas had fallen out and there was no supplying the
+piece. However, it was soon supplied by yourself, and the bowl became
+round and sound again.
+
+The Christmas number of "Household Words," I suppose, will reach
+Lausanne about midsummer. The first ten pages or so--all under the head
+of "The First Poor Traveller"--are written by me, and I hope you will
+find, in the story of the soldier which they contain, something that may
+move you a little. It moved me _not_ a little in the writing, and I
+believe has touched a vast number of people. We have sold eighty
+thousand of it.
+
+I am but newly come home from reading at Reading (where I succeeded poor
+Talfourd as the president of an institution), and at Sherborne, in
+Dorsetshire, and at Bradford, in Yorkshire. Wonderful audiences! and the
+number at the last place three thousand seven hundred. And yet but for
+the noise of their laughing and cheering, they "went" like one man.
+
+The absorption of the English mind in the war is, to me, a melancholy
+thing. Every other subject of popular solicitude and sympathy goes down
+before it. I fear I clearly see that for years to come domestic reforms
+are shaken to the root; every miserable red-tapist flourishes war over
+the head of every protester against his humbug; and everything connected
+with it is pushed to such an unreasonable extent, that, however kind and
+necessary it may be in itself, it becomes ridiculous. For all this it is
+an indubitable fact, I conceive, that Russia MUST BE stopped, and that
+the future peace of the world renders the war imperative upon us. The
+Duke of Newcastle lately addressed a private letter to the newspapers,
+entreating them to exercise a larger discretion in respect of the
+letters of "Our Own Correspondents," against which Lord Raglan protests
+as giving the Emperor of Russia information for nothing which would cost
+him (if indeed he could get it at all) fifty or a hundred thousand
+pounds a year. The communication has not been attended with much effect,
+so far as I can see. In the meantime I do suppose we have the
+wretchedest Ministry that ever was--in whom nobody not in office of some
+sort believes--yet whom there is nobody to displace. The strangest
+result, perhaps, of years of Reformed Parliaments that ever the general
+sagacity did _not_ foresee.
+
+Let me recommend you, as a brother-reader of high distinction, two
+comedies, both Goldsmith's--"She Stoops to Conquer" and "The
+Good-natured Man." Both are so admirable and so delightfully written
+that they read wonderfully. A friend of mine, Forster, who wrote "The
+Life of Goldsmith," was very ill a year or so ago, and begged me to read
+to him one night as he lay in bed, "something of Goldsmith's." I fell
+upon "She Stoops to Conquer," and we enjoyed it with that wonderful
+intensity, that I believe he began to get better in the first scene, and
+was all right again in the fifth act.
+
+I am charmed by your account of Haldimand, to whom my love. Tell him
+Sydney Smith's daughter has privately printed a life of her father with
+selections from his letters, which has great merit, and often presents
+him exactly as he used to be. I have strongly urged her to publish it,
+and I think she will do so, about March.
+
+My eldest boy has come home from Germany to learn a business life at
+Birmingham (I think), first of all. The whole nine are well and happy.
+Ditto, Mrs. Dickens. Ditto, Georgina. My two girls are full of interest
+in yours; and one of mine (as I think I told you when I was at Elysee)
+is curiously like one of yours in the face. They are all agog now about
+a great fairy play, which is to come off here next Monday. The house is
+full of spangles, gas, Jew theatrical tailors, and pantomime carpenters.
+We all unite in kindest and best loves to dear Mrs. Cerjat and all the
+blooming daughters. And I am, with frequent thoughts of you and cordial
+affection, ever, my dear Cerjat,
+
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 3rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+This is a word of heartfelt greeting; in exchange for yours, which came
+to me most pleasantly, and was received with a cordial welcome. If I had
+leisure to write a letter, I should write you, at this point, perhaps
+the very best letter that ever was read; but, being in the agonies of
+getting up a gorgeous fairy play for the postboys, on Charley's birthday
+(besides having the work of half-a-dozen to do as a regular thing), I
+leave the merits of the wonderful epistle to your lively fancy.
+
+Enclosing a kiss, if you will have the kindness to return it when done
+with.
+
+I have just been reading my "Christmas Carol" in Yorkshire. I should
+have lost my heart to the beautiful young landlady of my hotel (age
+twenty-nine, dress, black frock and jacket, exquisitely braided) if it
+had not been safe in your possession.
+
+Many, many happy years to you! My regards to that obstinate old
+Wurzell[21] and his dame, when you have them under lock and key again.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 27th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,
+
+Let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your story; not because it
+is the end of a task to which you had conceived a dislike (for I imagine
+you to have got the better of that delusion by this time), but because
+it is the vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious labour. It
+seems to me that you have felt the ground thoroughly firm under your
+feet, and have strided on with a force and purpose that MUST now give
+you pleasure.
+
+You will not, I hope, allow that not-lucid interval of dissatisfaction
+with yourself (and me?), which beset you for a minute or two once upon a
+time, to linger in the shape of any disagreeable association with
+"Household Words." I shall still look forward to the large sides of
+paper, and shall soon feel disappointed if they don't begin to reappear.
+
+I thought it best that Wills should write the business letter on the
+conclusion of the story, as that part of our communications had always
+previously rested with him. I trust you found it satisfactory? I refer
+to it, not as a matter of mere form, but because I sincerely wish
+everything between us to be beyond the possibility of misunderstanding
+or reservation.
+
+                             Dear Mrs. Gaskell, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 29th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+I have been in the greatest difficulty--which I am not yet out of--to
+know what to read at Birmingham. I fear the idea of next month is now
+impracticable. Which of two other months do you think would be
+preferable for your Birmingham objects? Next May, or next December?
+
+Having already read two Christmas books at Birmingham, I should like to
+get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of
+one of my long books. I have been poring over "Copperfield" (which is my
+favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called
+by some such name as "Young Housekeeping and Little Emily." But there is
+still the huge difficulty that I constructed the whole with immense
+pains, and have so woven it up and blended it together, that I cannot
+yet so separate the parts as to tell the story of David's married life
+with Dora, and the story of Mr. Peggotty's search for his niece, within
+the time. This is my object. If I could possibly bring it to bear, it
+would make a very attractive reading, with, a strong interest in it, and
+a certain completeness.
+
+This is exactly the state of the case. I don't mind confiding to you,
+that I never can approach the book with perfect composure (it had such
+perfect possession of me when I wrote it), and that I no sooner begin to
+try to get it into this form, than I begin to read it all, and to feel
+that I cannot disturb it. I have not been unmindful of the agreement we
+made at parting, and I have sat staring at the backs of my books for an
+inspiration. This project is the only one that I have constantly
+reverted to, and yet I have made no progress in it!
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, _Saturday Evening, Feb. 3rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I am coming to Paris for a week, with my friend Collins--son of the
+English painter who painted our green lanes and our cottage children so
+beautifully. Do not tell this to Le Vieux. Unless I have the ill fortune
+to stumble against him in the street I shall not make my arrival known
+to him.
+
+I purpose leaving here on Sunday, the 11th, but I shall stay that night
+at Boulogne to see two of my little boys who are at school there. We
+shall come to Paris on Monday, the 12th, arriving there in the evening.
+
+Now, _mon cher_, do you think you can, without inconvenience, engage me
+for a week an apartment--cheerful, light, and wholesome--containing a
+comfortable _salon et deux chambres a coucher_. I do not care whether it
+is an hotel or not, but the reason why I do not write for an apartment
+to the Hotel Brighton is, that there they expect one to dine at home (I
+mean in the apartment) generally; whereas, as we are coming to Paris
+expressly to be always looking about us, we want to dine wherever we
+like every day. Consequently, what we want to find is a good apartment,
+where we can have our breakfast but where we shall never dine.
+
+Can you engage such accommodation for me? If you can, I shall feel very
+much obliged to you. If the apartment should happen to contain a little
+bed for a servant I might perhaps bring one, but I do not care about
+that at all. I want it to be pleasant and gay, and to throw myself _en
+garcon_ on the festive _diableries de Paris_.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister send their kindest regards to Madame Regnier
+and you, in which I heartily join. All the children send their loves to
+the two brave boys and the Normandy _bonnes_.
+
+I shall hope for a short answer from you one day next week. My dear
+Regnier,
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, Feb. 9th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I want to alter the arrangements for to-morrow, and put you to some
+inconvenience.
+
+When I was at Gravesend t'other day, I saw, at Gad's Hill--just opposite
+to the Hermitage, where Miss Lynn used to live--a little freehold to be
+sold. The spot and the very house are literally "a dream of my
+childhood," and I should like to look at it before I go to Paris. With
+that purpose I must go to Strood by the North Kent, at a quarter-past
+ten to-morrow morning, and I want you, strongly booted, to go with me!
+(I know the particulars from the agent.)
+
+Can you? Let me know. If you can, can you manage so that we can take the
+proofs with us? If you can't, will you bring them to Tavistock House at
+dinner time to-morrow, half-past five? Forster will dine with us, but no
+one else.
+
+I am uncertain of your being in town to-night, but I send John up with
+this.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      HOTEL MEURICE, PARIS, _Friday, Feb. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I heard from home last night; but the posts are so delayed and put out
+by the snow, that they come in at all sorts of times except the right
+times, and utterly defy all calculation. Will you tell Catherine with my
+love, that I will write to her again to-morrow afternoon; I hope she may
+then receive my letter by Monday morning, and in it I purpose telling
+her when I may be expected home. The weather is so severe and the roads
+are so bad, that the journey to and from Bordeaux seems out of the
+question. We have made up our minds to abandon it for the present, and
+to return about Tuesday night or Wednesday. Collins continues in a queer
+state, but is perfectly cheerful under the stoppage of his wine and
+other afflictions.
+
+We have a beautiful apartment, very elegantly furnished, very thickly
+carpeted, and as warm as any apartment in Paris _can_ be in such
+weather. We are very well waited on and looked after. We breakfast at
+ten, read and write till two, and then I go out walking all over Paris,
+while the invalid sits by the fire or is deposited in a cafe. We dine at
+five, in a different restaurant every day, and at seven or so go to the
+theatre--sometimes to two theatres, sometimes to three. We get home
+about twelve, light the fire, and drink lemonade, to which _I_ add rum.
+We go to bed between one and two. I live in peace, like an elderly
+gentleman, and regard myself as in a negative state of virtue and
+respectability.
+
+The theatres are not particularly good, but I have seen Lemaitre act in
+the most wonderful and astounding manner. I am afraid we must go to the
+Opera Comique on Sunday. To-morrow we dine with Regnier and to-day with
+the Olliffes.
+
+"La Joie fait Peur," at the Francais, delighted me. Exquisitely played
+and beautifully imagined altogether. Last night we went to the Porte St.
+Martin to see a piece (English subject) called "Jane Osborne," which the
+characters pronounce "Ja Nosbornnne." The seducer was Lord Nottingham.
+The comic Englishwoman's name (she kept lodgings and was a very bad
+character) was Missees Christmas. She had begun to get into great
+difficulties with a gentleman of the name of Meestair Cornhill, when we
+were obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, by the intolerable
+stench of the place. The whole theatre must be standing over some vast
+cesspool. It was so alarming that I instantly rushed into a cafe and had
+brandy.
+
+My ear has gradually become so accustomed to French, that I understand
+the people at the theatres (for the first time) with perfect ease and
+satisfaction. I walked about with Regnier for an hour and a half
+yesterday, and received many compliments on my angelic manner of
+speaking the celestial language. There is a winter Franconi's now, high
+up on the Boulevards, just like the round theatre on the Champs Elysees,
+and as bright and beautiful. A clown from Astley's is all in high favour
+there at present. He talks slang English (being evidently an idiot), as
+if he felt a perfect confidence that everybody understands him. His
+name is Boswell, and the whole cirque rang last night with cries for Boz
+Zwilllll! Boz Zweellll! Boz Zwuallll! etc. etc. etc. etc.
+
+I must begin to look out for the box of bon-bons for the noble and
+fascinating Plornish-Maroon. Give him my love and a thousand kisses.
+
+Loves to Mamey, Katey, Sydney, Harry, and the following stab to
+Anne--she forgot to pack me any shaving soap.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Georgy, most affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Collins sends kind regards.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      HOTEL MEURICE, PARIS, _Friday, Feb. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I received your letter yesterday evening. I have not yet seen the lists
+of trains and boats, but propose arranging to return about Tuesday or
+Wednesday. In the meantime I am living like Gil Blas and doing nothing.
+I am very much obliged to you, indeed, for the trouble you have kindly
+taken about the little freehold. It is clear to me that its merits
+resolve themselves into the view and the spot. If I had more money these
+considerations might, with me, overtop all others. But, as it is, I
+consider the matter quite disposed of, finally settled in the negative,
+and to be thought no more about. I shall not go down and look at it, as
+I could add nothing to your report.
+
+Paris is finer than ever, and I go wandering about it all day. We dine
+at all manner of places, and go to two or three theatres in the evening.
+I suppose, as an old farmer said of Scott, I am "makin' mysel'" all the
+time; but I seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior
+vagabond.
+
+I live in continual terror of ----, and am strongly fortified within
+doors, with a means of retreat into my bedroom always ready. Up to the
+present blessed moment, his staggering form has not appeared.
+
+As to yesterday's post from England, I have not, at the present moment,
+the slightest idea where it may be. It is under the snow somewhere, I
+suppose; but nobody expects it, and _Galignani_ reprints every morning
+leaders from _The Times_ of about a fortnight or three weeks old.
+
+Collins, who is not very well, sends his "penitent regards," and says he
+is enjoying himself as much as a man with the weight of a broken promise
+on his conscience can.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _February 26th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+Charley came home, I assure you, perfectly delighted with his visit to
+you, and rapturous in his accounts of your great kindness to him.
+
+It appears to me that the first question in reference to my reading (I
+have not advanced an inch in my "Copperfield" trials by-the-bye) is,
+whether you think you could devise any plan in connection with the room
+at Dee's, which would certainly bring my help in money up to five
+hundred pounds. That is what I want. If it could be done by a
+subscription for two nights, for instance, I would not be chary of my
+time and trouble. But if you cannot see your way clearly to that result
+in that connection, then I think it would be better to wait until we can
+have the Town Hall at Christmas. I have promised to read, about
+Christmas time, at Sheffield and at Peterboro'. I _could_ add Birmingham
+to the list, then, if need were. But what I want is, to give the
+institution in all five hundred pounds. That is my object, and nothing
+less will satisfy me.
+
+Will you think it over, taking counsel with whomsoever you please, and
+let me know what conclusion you arrive at. Only think of me as
+subservient to the institution.
+
+                     My dear Mr. Ryland, always very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. David Roberts, R.A.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _February 28th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR DAVID ROBERTS,
+
+I hope to make it quite plain to you, in a few words, why I think it
+right to stay away from the Lord Mayor's dinner to the club. If I did
+not feel a kind of rectitude involved in my non-acceptance of his
+invitation, your note would immediately induce me to change my mind.
+
+Entertaining a strong opinion on the subject of the City Corporation as
+it stands, and the absurdity of its pretensions in an age perfectly
+different, in all conceivable respects, from that to which it properly
+belonged as a reality, I have expressed that opinion on more than one
+occasion, within a year or so, in "Household Words." I do not think it
+consistent with my respect for myself, or for the art I profess, to blow
+hot and cold in the same breath; and to laugh at the institution in
+print, and accept the hospitality of its representative while the ink is
+staring us all in the face. There is a great deal too much of this among
+us, and it does not elevate the earnestness or delicacy of literature.
+
+This is my sole consideration. Personally I have always met the present
+Lord Mayor on the most agreeable terms, and I think him an excellent
+one. As between you, and me, and him, I cannot have the slightest
+objection to your telling him the truth. On a more private occasion,
+when he was not keeping his state, I should be delighted to interchange
+any courtesy with that honourable and amiable gentleman, Mr. Moon.
+
+                                    Believe me always cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Austen H. Layard.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday Evening, April 3rd, 1855._
+
+DEAR LAYARD,
+
+Since I had the pleasure of seeing you again at Miss Coutts's (really a
+greater pleasure to me than I could easily tell you), I have thought a
+good deal of the duty we all owe you of helping you as much as we can.
+Being on very intimate terms with Lemon, the editor of "Punch" (a most
+affectionate and true-hearted fellow), I mentioned to him in confidence
+what I had at heart. You will find yourself the subject of their next
+large cut, and of some lines in an earnest spirit. He again suggested
+the point to Mr. Shirley Brookes, one of their regular corps, who will
+do what is right in _The Illustrated London News_ and _The Weekly
+Chronicle_, papers that go into the hands of large numbers of people. I
+have also communicated with Jerrold, whom I trust, and have begged him
+not to be diverted from the straight path of help to the most useful man
+in England on all possible occasions. Forster I will speak to carefully,
+and I have no doubt it will quicken him a little; not that we have
+anything to complain of in his direction. If you ever see any new
+loophole, cranny, needle's-eye, through which I can present your case to
+"Household Words," I most earnestly entreat you, as your staunch friend
+and admirer--you _can_ have no truer--to indicate it to me at any time
+or season, and to count upon my being Damascus steel to the core.
+
+All this is nothing; because all these men, and thousands of others,
+dote upon you. But I know it would be a comfort to me, in your
+hard-fighting place, to be assured of such sympathy, and therefore only
+I write.
+
+You have other recreations for your Sundays in the session, I daresay,
+than to come here. But it is generally a day on which I do not go out,
+and when we dine at half-past five in the easiest way in the world, and
+smoke in the peacefulest manner. Perhaps one of these Sundays after
+Easter you might not be indisposed to begin to dig us out?
+
+And I should like, on a Saturday of your appointing, to get a few of the
+serviceable men I know--such as I have mentioned--about you here. Will
+you think of this, too, and suggest a Saturday for our dining together?
+
+I am really ashamed and moved that you should do your part so manfully
+and be left alone in the conflict. I felt you to be all you are the
+first moment I saw you. I know you will accept my regard and fidelity
+for what they are worth.
+
+                                     Dear Layard, very heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Austen H. Layard.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, April 10th, 1855._
+
+DEAR LAYARD,
+
+I shall of course observe the strictest silence, at present, in
+reference to your resolutions. It will be a most acceptable occupation
+to me to go over them with you, and I have not a doubt of their
+producing a strong effect out of doors.
+
+There is nothing in the present time at once so galling and so alarming
+to me as the alienation of the people from their own public affairs. I
+have no difficulty in understanding it. They have had so little to do
+with the game through all these years of Parliamentary Reform, that they
+have sullenly laid down their cards, and taken to looking on. The
+players who are left at the table do not see beyond it, conceive that
+gain and loss and all the interest of the play are in their hands, and
+will never be wiser until they and the table and the lights and the
+money are all overturned together. And I believe the discontent to be so
+much the worse for smouldering, instead of blazing openly, that it is
+extremely like the general mind of France before the breaking out of the
+first Revolution, and is in danger of being turned by any one of a
+thousand accidents--a bad harvest--the last strain too much of
+aristocratic insolence or incapacity--a defeat abroad--a mere chance at
+home--with such a devil of a conflagration as never has been beheld
+since.
+
+Meanwhile, all our English tuft-hunting, toad-eating, and other
+manifestations of accursed gentility--to say nothing of the Lord knows
+who's defiances of the proven truth before six hundred and fifty
+men--ARE expressing themselves every day. So, every day, the disgusted
+millions with this unnatural gloom are confirmed and hardened in the
+very worst of moods. Finally, round all this is an atmosphere of
+poverty, hunger, and ignorant desperation, of the mere existence of
+which perhaps not one man in a thousand of those not actually enveloped
+in it, through the whole extent of this country, has the least idea.
+
+It seems to me an absolute impossibility to direct the spirit of the
+people at this pass until it shows itself. If they begin to bestir
+themselves in the vigorous national manner; if they would appear in
+political reunion, array themselves peacefully but in vast numbers
+against a system that they know to be rotten altogether, make themselves
+heard like the sea all round this island, I for one should be in such a
+movement heart and soul, and should think it a duty of the plainest kind
+to go along with it, and try to guide it by all possible means. But you
+can no more help a people who do not help themselves than you can help
+a man who does not help himself. And until the people can be got up from
+the lethargy, which is an awful symptom of the advanced state of their
+disease, I know of nothing that can be done beyond keeping their wrongs
+continually before them.
+
+I shall hope to see you soon after you come back. Your speeches at
+Aberdeen are most admirable, manful, and earnest. I would have such
+speeches at every market-cross, and in every town-hall, and among all
+sorts and conditions of men; up in the very balloons, and down in the
+very diving-bells.
+
+                                                Ever, cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, April 14th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I cannot express to you how very much delighted I am with the "Steele."
+I think it incomparably the best of the series. The pleasanter humanity
+of the subject may commend it more to one's liking, but that again
+requires a delicate handling, which you have given to it in a most
+charming manner. It is surely not possible to approach a man with a
+finer sympathy, and the assertion of the claims of literature throughout
+is of the noblest and most gallant kind.
+
+I don't agree with you about the serious papers in _The Spectator_,
+which I think (whether they be Steele's or Addison's) are generally as
+indifferent as the humour of _The Spectator_ is delightful. And I have
+always had a notion that Prue understood her husband very well, and held
+him in consequence, when a fonder woman with less show of caprice must
+have let him go. But these are points of opinion. The paper is masterly,
+and all I have got to say is, that if ---- had a grain of the honest
+sentiment with which it overflows, he never would or could have made so
+great a mistake.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, April 26th, 1855._
+
+                       ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I will call for you at two, and go with you to Highgate, by all means.
+
+Leech and I called on Tuesday evening and left our loves. I have not
+written to you since, because I thought it best to leave you quiet for a
+day. I have no need to tell you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts have
+been constantly with you, and that I have not forgotten (and never shall
+forget) who sat up with me one night when a little place in my house was
+left empty.
+
+It is hard to lose any child, but there are many blessed sources of
+consolation in the loss of a baby. There is a beautiful thought in
+Fielding's "Journey from this World to the Next," where the baby he had
+lost many years before was found by him all radiant and happy, building
+him a bower in the Elysian Fields where they were to live together when
+he came.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Our kindest loves to Mrs. Lemon.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, May 20th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I have a little lark in contemplation, if you will help it to fly.
+
+Collins has done a melodrama (a regular old-style melodrama), in which
+there is a very good notion. I am going to act it, as an experiment, in
+the children's theatre here--I, Mark, Collins, Egg, and my daughter
+Mary, the whole _dram. pers._; our families and yours the whole
+audience; for I want to make the stage large and shouldn't have room for
+above five-and-twenty spectators. Now there is only one scene in the
+piece, and that, my tarry lad, is the inside of a lighthouse. Will you
+come and paint it for us one night, and we'll all turn to and help? It
+is a mere wall, of course, but Mark and I have sworn that you must do
+it. If you will say yes, I should like to have the tiny flats made,
+after you have looked at the place, and not before. On Wednesday in this
+week I am good for a steak and the play, if you will make your own
+appointment here; or any day next week except Thursday. Write me a line
+in reply. We mean to burst on an astonished world with the melodrama,
+without any note of preparation. So don't say a syllable to Forster if
+you should happen to see him.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday Afternoon, Six o'clock, May 22nd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+Your note came while I was out walking. Even if I had been at home I
+could not have managed to dine together to-day, being under a beastly
+engagement to dine out. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall
+expect you here some time to-morrow, and will remain at home. I only
+wait your instructions to get the little canvases made. O, what a pity
+it is not the outside of the light'us, with the sea a-rowling agin it!
+Never mind, we'll get an effect out of the inside, and there's a storm
+and a shipwreck "off;" and the great ambition of my life will be
+achieved at last, in the wearing of a pair of very coarse petticoat
+trousers. So hoorar for the salt sea, mate, and bouse up!
+
+                                               Ever affectionately,
+                                                                DICKY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 23rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+Stanny says he is only sorry it is not the outside of the lighthouse
+with a raging sea and a transparent light. He enters into the project
+with the greatest delight, and I think we shall make a capital thing of
+it.
+
+It now occurs to me that we may as well do a farce too. I should like to
+get in a little part for Katey, and also for Charley, if it were
+practicable. What do you think of "Animal Mag."? You and I in our old
+parts; Collins, Jeffrey; Charley, the Markis; Katey and Mary (or
+Georgina), the two ladies? Can you think of anything merry that is
+better? It ought to be broad, as a relief to the melodrama, unless we
+could find something funny with a story in it too. I rather incline
+myself to "Animal Mag." Will you come round and deliver your sentiments?
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Great projects are afoot here for a grown-up play in about three weeks'
+time. Former schoolroom arrangements to be reversed--large stage and
+small audience. Stanfield bent on desperate effects, and all day long
+with his coat off, up to his eyes in distemper colours.
+
+Will you appear in your celebrated character of Mr. Nightingale? I want
+to wind up with that popular farce, we all playing our old parts.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+That's right! You will find the words come back very quickly. Why, _of
+course_ your people are to come, and if Stanfield don't astonish 'em,
+I'm a Dutchman. O Heaven, if you could hear the ideas he proposes to me,
+making even _my_ hair stand on end!
+
+Will you get Marcus or some similar bright creature to copy out old
+Nightingale's part for you, and then return the book? This is the
+prompt-book, the only one I have; and Katey and Georgina (being also in
+wild excitement) want to write their parts out with all despatch.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                          TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+I shall expect you to-morrow evening at "Household Words." I have
+written a little ballad for Mary--"The Story of the Ship's Carpenter and
+the Little Boy, in the Shipwreck."
+
+Let us close up with "Mr. Nightingale's Diary." Will you look whether
+you have a book of it, or your part.
+
+All other matters and things hereunto belonging when we meet.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Trollope.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday Morning, June 19th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,
+
+I was out of town on Sunday, or I should have answered your note
+immediately on its arrival. I cannot have the pleasure of seeing the
+famous "medium" to-night, for I have some theatricals at home. But I
+fear I shall not in any case be a good subject for the purpose, as I
+altogether want faith in the thing.
+
+I have not the least belief in the awful unseen world being available
+for evening parties at so much per night; and, although I should be
+ready to receive enlightenment from any source, I must say I have very
+little hope of it from the spirits who express themselves through
+mediums, as I have never yet observed them to talk anything but
+nonsense, of which (as Carlyle would say) there is probably enough in
+these days of ours, and in all days, among mere mortality.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, June 20th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I write a hasty note to let you know that last night was perfectly
+wonderful!!!
+
+Such an audience! Such a brilliant success from first to last! The Queen
+had taken it into her head in the morning to go to Chatham, and had
+carried Phipps with her. He wrote to me asking if it were possible to
+give him a quarter of an hour. I got through that time before the
+overture, and he came without any dinner, so influenced by eager
+curiosity. Lemon and I did every conceivable absurdity, I think, in the
+farce; and they never left off laughing. At supper I proposed your
+health, which was drunk with nine times nine, and three cheers over. We
+then turned to at Scotch reels (having had no exercise), and danced in
+the maddest way until five this morning.
+
+It is as much as I can do to guide the pen.
+
+                  With loves to Mrs. Stanfield and all,
+                                       Ever most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, June 30th, 1855._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I write shortly, after a day's work at my desk, rather than lose a post
+in answering your enthusiastic, earnest, and young--how young, in all
+the best side of youth--letter.
+
+To tell you the truth, I confidently expected to hear from you. I knew
+that if there were a man in the world who would be interested in, and
+who would approve of, my giving utterance to whatever was in me at this
+time, it would be you. I was as sure of you as of the sun this morning.
+
+The subject is surrounded by difficulties; the Association is sorely in
+want of able men; and the resistance of all the phalanx, who have an
+interest in corruption and mismanagement, is the resistance of a
+struggle against death. But the great, first, strong necessity is to
+rouse the people up, to keep them stirring and vigilant, to carry the
+war dead into the tent of such creatures as ----, and ring into their
+souls (or what stands for them) that the time for dandy insolence is
+gone for ever. It may be necessary to come to that law of primogeniture
+(I have no love for it), or to come to even greater things; but this is
+the first service to be done, and unless it is done, there is not a
+chance. For this, and to encourage timid people to come in, I went to
+Drury Lane the other night; and I wish you had been there and had seen
+and heard the people.
+
+The Association will be proud to have your name and gift. When we sat
+down on the stage the other night, and were waiting a minute or two to
+begin, I said to Morley, the chairman (a thoroughly fine earnest
+fellow), "this reminds me so of one of my dearest friends, with a
+melancholy so curious, that I don't know whether the place feels
+familiar to me or strange." He was full of interest directly, and we
+went on talking of you until the moment of his getting up to open the
+business.
+
+They are going to print my speech in a tract-form, and send it all over
+the country. I corrected it for the purpose last night. We are all well.
+Charley in the City; all the boys at home for the holidays; three prizes
+brought home triumphantly (one from the Boulogne waters and one from
+Wimbledon); I taking dives into a new book, and runs at leap-frog over
+"Household Words;" and Anne going to be married--which is the only bad
+news.
+
+Catherine, Georgie, Mary, Katey, Charley, and all the rest, send
+multitudes of loves. Ever, my dearest Macready, with unalterable
+affection and attachment,
+
+                                                 Your faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+             3, ALBION VILLAS, FOLKESTONE, _Tuesday, July 17th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+Walter goes back to school on the 1st of August. Will you come out of
+school to this breezy vacation on the same day, or rather _this day
+fortnight, July 31st_? for that is the day on which he leaves us, and we
+begin (here's a parent!) to be able to be comfortable. Why a boy of that
+age should seem to have on at all times a hundred and fifty pair of
+double-soled boots, and to be always jumping a bottom stair with the
+whole hundred and fifty, I don't know. But the woeful fact is within my
+daily experience.
+
+We have a very pleasant little house, overlooking the sea, and I think
+you will like the place. It rained, in honour of our arrival, with the
+greatest vigour, yesterday. I went out after dinner to buy some nails
+(you know the arrangements that would be then in progress), and I
+stopped in the rain, about halfway down a steep, crooked street, like a
+crippled ladder, to look at a little coachmaker's, where there had just
+been a sale. Speculating on the insolvent coachmaker's business, and
+what kind of coaches he could possibly have expected to get orders for
+in Folkestone, I thought, "What would bring together fifty people now,
+in this little street, at this little rainy minute?" On the instant, a
+brewer's van, with two mad horses in it, and the harness dangling about
+them--like the trappings of those horses you are acquainted with, who
+bolted through the starry courts of heaven--dashed by me, and in that
+instant, such a crowd as would have accumulated in Fleet Street sprang
+up magically. Men fell out of windows, dived out of doors, plunged down
+courts, precipitated themselves down steps, came down waterspouts,
+instead of rain, I think, and I never saw so wonderful an instance of
+the gregarious effect of an excitement.
+
+A man, a woman, and a child had been thrown out on the horses taking
+fright and the reins breaking. The child is dead, and the woman very ill
+but will probably recover, and the man has a hand broken and other
+mischief done to him.
+
+Let me know what Wigan says. If he does not take the play, and readily
+too, I would recommend you not to offer it elsewhere. You have gained
+great reputation by it, have done your position a deal of good, and (as
+I think) stand so well with it, that it is a pity to engender the notion
+that you care to stand better.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                   FOLKESTONE, _September 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Scrooge is delighted to find that Bob Cratchit is enjoying his holiday
+in such a delightful situation; and he says (with that warmth of nature
+which has distinguished him since his conversion), "Make the most of
+it, Bob; make the most of it."
+
+[I am just getting to work on No. 3 of the new book, and am in the
+hideous state of mind belonging to that condition.]
+
+I have not a word of news. I am steeped in my story, and rise and fall
+by turns into enthusiasm and depression.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                FOLKESTONE, _Sunday, Sept. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+This will be a short letter, but I hope not unwelcome. If you knew how
+often I write to you--in intention--I don't know where you would find
+room for the correspondence.
+
+Catherine tells me that you want to know the name of my new book. I
+cannot bear that you should know it from anyone but me. It will not be
+made public until the end of October; the title is:
+
+                            "NOBODY'S FAULT."
+
+Keep it as the apple of your eye--an expressive form of speech, though I
+have not the least idea of what it means.
+
+Next, I wish to tell you that I have appointed to read at Peterboro', on
+Tuesday, the 18th of December. I have told the Dean that I cannot accept
+his hospitality, and that I am going with Mr. Wills to the inn,
+therefore I shall be absolutely at your disposal, and shall be more than
+disappointed if you don't stay with us. As the time approaches will you
+let me know your arrangements, and whether Mr. Wills can bespeak any
+rooms for you in arranging for me? Georgy will give you our address in
+Paris as soon as we shall have settled there. We shall leave here, I
+think, in rather less than a month from this time.
+
+You know my state of mind as well as I do, indeed, if you don't know it
+much better, it is not the state of mind I take it to be. How I work,
+how I walk, how I shut myself up, how I roll down hills and climb up
+cliffs; how the new story is everywhere--heaving in the sea, flying with
+the clouds, blowing in the wind; how I settle to nothing, and wonder (in
+the old way) at my own incomprehensibility. I am getting on pretty well,
+have done the first two numbers, and am just now beginning the third;
+which egotistical announcements I make to you because I know you will be
+interested in them.
+
+All the house send their kindest loves. I think of inserting an
+advertisement in _The Times_, offering to submit the Plornishghenter to
+public competition, and to receive fifty thousand pounds if such another
+boy cannot be found, and to pay five pounds (my fortune) if he can.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                               FOLKESTONE, _Sunday, Sept. 30th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+Welcome from the bosom of the deep! If a hornpipe will be acceptable to
+you at any time (as a reminder of what the three brothers were always
+doing), I shall be, as the chairman says at Mr. Evans's, "happy to
+oblige."
+
+I have almost finished No. 3, in which I have relieved my indignant soul
+with a scarifier. Sticking at it day after day, I am the incompletest
+letter-writer imaginable--seem to have no idea of holding a pen for any
+other purpose but that book. My fair Laura has not yet reported
+concerning Paris, but I should think will have done so before I see you.
+And now to that point. I purpose being in town on _Monday, the 8th_,
+when I have promised to dine with Forster. At the office, between
+half-past eleven and one that day, I will expect you, unless I hear
+from you to the contrary. Of course the H. W. stories are at your
+disposition. If you should have completed your idea, we might breakfast
+together at the G. on the Tuesday morning and discuss it. Or I shall be
+in town after ten on the Monday night. At the office I will tell you the
+idea of the Christmas number, which will put you in train, I hope, for a
+story. I have postponed the shipwreck idea for a year, as it seemed to
+require more force from me than I could well give it with the weight of
+a new start upon me.
+
+All here send their kindest remembrances. We missed you very much, and
+the Plorn was quite inconsolable. We slide down Caesar occasionally.
+
+They launched the boat, the rapid building of which you remember, the
+other day. All the fishermen in the place, all the nondescripts, and all
+the boys pulled at it with ropes from six A.M. to four P.M. Every now
+and then the ropes broke, and they all fell down in the shingle. The
+obstinate way in which the beastly thing wouldn't move was so
+exasperating that I wondered they didn't shoot it, or burn it. Whenever
+it moved an inch they all cheered; whenever it wouldn't move they all
+swore. Finally, when it was quite given over, some one tumbled against
+it accidentally (as it appeared to me, looking out at my window here),
+and it instantly shot about a mile into the sea, and they all stood
+looking at it helplessly.
+
+Kind regards to Pigott, in which all unite.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                               FOLKESTONE, _Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have been hammering away in that strenuous manner at my book, that I
+have had leisure for scarcely any letters but such, as I have been
+obliged to write; having a horrible temptation when I lay down my
+book-pen to run out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide
+down the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the relief
+that only exercise gives me.
+
+Your letter to Miss Coutts in behalf of little Miss Warner I despatched
+straightway. She is at present among the Pyrenees, and a letter from her
+crossed that one of mine in which I enclosed yours, last week.
+
+Pray stick to that dim notion you have of coming to Paris! How
+delightful it would be to see your aged countenance and perfectly bald
+head in that capital! It will renew your youth, to visit a theatre
+(previously dining at the Trois Freres) in company with the jocund boy
+who now addresses you. Do, do stick to it.
+
+You will be pleased to hear, I know, that Charley has gone into Baring's
+house under very auspicious circumstances. Mr. Bates, of that firm, had
+done me the kindness to place him at the brokers' where he was. And when
+said Bates wrote to me a fortnight ago to say that an excellent opening
+had presented itself at Baring's, he added that the brokers gave Charley
+"so high a character for ability and zeal" that it would be unfair to
+receive him as a volunteer, and he must begin at a fifty-pound salary,
+to which I graciously consented.
+
+As to the suffrage, I have lost hope even in the ballot. We appear to me
+to have proved the failure of representative institutions without an
+educated and advanced people to support them. What with teaching people
+to "keep in their stations," what with bringing up the soul and body of
+the land to be a good child, or to go to the beershop, to go a-poaching
+and go to the devil; what with having no such thing as a middle class
+(for though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is
+nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper); what with
+flunkyism, toadyism, letting the most contemptible lords come in for all
+manner of places, reading _The Court Circular_ for the New Testament, I
+do reluctantly believe that the English people are habitually consenting
+parties to the miserable imbecility into which we have fallen, _and
+never will help themselves out of it_. Who is to do it, if anybody is,
+God knows. But at present we are on the down-hill road to being
+conquered, and the people WILL be content to bear it, sing "Rule
+Britannia," and WILL NOT be saved.
+
+In No. 3 of my new book I have been blowing off a little of indignant
+steam which would otherwise blow me up, and with God's leave I shall
+walk in the same all the days of my life; but I have no present
+political faith or hope--not a grain.
+
+I am going to read the "Carol" here to-morrow in a long carpenter's
+shop, which looks far more alarming as a place to hear in than the Town
+Hall at Birmingham.
+
+Kindest loves from all to your dear sister, Kate and the darlings. It is
+blowing a gale here from the south-west and raining like mad.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                     2, RUE ST. FLORENTIN, _Tuesday, Oct. 16th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAREST CATHERINE,
+
+We have had the most awful job to find a place that would in the least
+suit us, for Paris is perfectly full, and there is nothing to be got at
+any sane price. However, we have found two apartments--an _entresol_ and
+a first floor, with a kitchen and servants' room at the top of the
+house, at No. 49, Avenue des Champs Elysees.
+
+You must be prepared for a regular Continental abode. There is only one
+window in each room, but the front apartments all look upon the main
+street of the Champs Elysees, and the view is delightfully cheerful.
+There are also plenty of rooms. They are not over and above well
+furnished, but by changing furniture from rooms we don't care for to
+rooms we _do_ care for, we shall be able to make them home-like and
+presentable. I think the situation itself almost the finest in Paris;
+and the children will have a window from which to look on the busy life
+outside.
+
+We could have got a beautiful apartment in the Rue Faubourg St. Honore
+for a very little more, most elegantly furnished; but the greater part
+of it was on a courtyard, and it would never have done for the children.
+This, that I have taken for six months, is seven hundred francs per
+month, and twenty more for the _concierge_. What you have to expect is a
+regular French residence, which a little habitation will make pretty and
+comfortable, with nothing showy in it, but with plenty of rooms, and
+with that wonderful street in which the Barriere de l'Etoile stands
+outside. The amount of rooms is the great thing, and I believe it to be
+the place best suited for us, at a not unreasonable price in Paris.
+
+Georgina and Lady Olliffe[22] send their loves. Georgina and I add ours
+to Mamey, Katey, the Plorn, and Harry.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS,
+                                            _Friday, Oct. 19th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+After going through unheard-of bedevilments (of which you shall have
+further particulars as soon as I come right side upwards, which may
+happen in a day or two), we are at last established here in a series of
+closets, but a great many of them, with all Paris perpetually passing
+under the windows. Letters may have been wandering after me to that home
+in the Rue de Balzac, which is to be the subject of more lawsuits
+between the man who let it to me and the man who wouldn't let me have
+possession, than any other house that ever was built. But I have had no
+letters at all, and have been--ha, ha!--a maniac since last Monday.
+
+I will try my hand at that paper for H. W. to-morrow, if I can get a
+yard of flooring to sit upon; but we have really been in that state of
+topsy-turvyhood that even that has been an unattainable luxury, and may
+yet be for eight-and-forty hours or so, for anything I see to the
+contrary.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+              49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS,
+                                      _Sunday Night, Oct. 21st, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Coming here from a walk this afternoon, I found your letter of yesterday
+awaiting me. I send this reply by my brother Alfred, who is here, and
+who returns home to-morrow. You should get it at the office early on
+Tuesday.
+
+I will go to work to-morrow, and will send you, please God, an article
+by Tuesday's post, which you will get on Wednesday forenoon. Look
+carefully to the proof, as I shall not have time to receive it for
+correction. When you arrange about sending your parcels, will you
+ascertain, and communicate to me, the prices of telegraph messages? It
+will save me trouble, having no foreign servant (though French is in
+that respect a trump), and may be useful on an emergency.
+
+I have two floors here--_entresol_ and first--in a doll's house, but
+really pretty within, and the view without astounding, as you will say
+when you come. The house is on the Exposition side, about half a quarter
+of a mile above Franconi's, of course on the other side of the way, and
+close to the Jardin d'Hiver. Each room has but one window in it, but we
+have no fewer than six rooms (besides the back ones) looking on the
+Champs Elysees, with the wonderful life perpetually flowing up and down.
+We have no spare-room, but excellent stowage for the whole family,
+including a capital dressing-room for me, and a really slap-up kitchen
+near the stairs. Damage for the whole, seven hundred francs a month.
+
+But, sir--but--when Georgina, the servants, and I were here for the
+first night (Catherine and the rest being at Boulogne), I heard Georgy
+restless--turned out--asked: "What's the matter?" "Oh, it's dreadfully
+dirty. I can't sleep for the smell of my room." Imagine all my
+stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak by a thousand. Imagine
+the porter, the porter's wife, the porter's wife's sister, a feeble
+upholsterer of enormous age from round the corner, and all his workmen
+(four boys), summoned. Imagine the partners in the proprietorship of the
+apartment, and martial little man with Francois-Prussian beard, also
+summoned. Imagine your inimitable chief briefly explaining that dirt is
+not in his way, and that he is driven to madness, and that he devotes
+himself to no coat and a dirty face, until the apartment is thoroughly
+purified. Imagine co-proprietors at first astounded, then urging that
+"it's not the custom," then wavering, then affected, then confiding
+their utmost private sorrows to the Inimitable, offering new carpets
+(accepted), embraces (not accepted), and really responding like French
+bricks. Sallow, unbrushed, unshorn, awful, stalks the Inimitable through
+the apartment until last night. Then all the improvements were
+concluded, and I do really believe the place to be now worth eight or
+nine hundred francs per month. You must picture it as the smallest place
+you ever saw, but as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean as
+anything human can be, and with a moving panorama always outside, which
+is Paris in itself.
+
+You mention a letter from Miss Coutts as to Mrs. Brown's illness, which
+you say is "enclosed to Mrs. Charles Dickens."
+
+It is not enclosed, and I am mad to know where she writes from that I
+may write to her. Pray set this right, for her uneasiness will be
+greatly intensified if she have no word from me.
+
+I thought we were to give L1,700 for the house at Gad's Hill. Are we
+bound to L1,800? Considering the improvements to be made, it is a little
+too much, isn't it? I have a strong impression that at the utmost we
+were only to divide the difference, and not to pass L1,750. You will set
+me right if I am wrong. But I don't think I am.
+
+I write very hastily, with the piano playing and Alfred looking for
+this.
+
+                                      Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                  49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES,
+                                         _Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+In the Gad's Hill matter, I too would like to try the effect of "not
+budging." _So do not go beyond the_ L1,700. Considering what I should
+have to expend on the one hand, and the low price of stock on the other,
+I do not feel disposed to go beyond that mark. They won't let a
+purchaser escape for the sake of the L100, I think. And Austin was
+strongly of opinion, when I saw him last, that L1,700 was enough.
+
+You cannot think how pleasant it is to me to find myself generally known
+and liked here. If I go into a shop to buy anything, and give my card,
+the officiating priest or priestess brightens up, and says: "_Ah! c'est
+l'ecrivain celebre! Monsieur porte un nom tres-distingue. Mais! je suis
+honore et interesse de voir Monsieur Dick-in. Je lis un des livres de
+monsieur tous les jours_" (in the _Moniteur_). And a man who brought
+some little vases home last night, said: "_On connait bien en France que
+Monsieur Dick-in prend sa position sur la dignite de la litterature. Ah!
+c'est grande chose! Et ses caracteres_" (this was to Georgina, while he
+unpacked) "_sont si spirituellement tournees! Cette Madame Tojare_"
+(Todgers), "_ah! qu'elle est drole et precisement comme une dame que je
+connais a Calais._"
+
+You cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will only recollect
+it is the great main road from the Place de la Concorde to the Barriere
+de l'Etoile.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                                     _Wednesday, November 21st, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+In thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday,
+let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the
+representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. I have hardly ever
+been so affected and interested in any theatre. Its construction is in
+the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole
+conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion.
+
+Through the whole story from beginning to end, I recognise the true
+spirit and feeling of an artist, and I most heartily offer you and your
+fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. That
+it will prove a very great and a lasting one, I cannot for a moment
+doubt.
+
+O my friend! If I could see an English actress with but one hundredth
+part of the nature and art of Madame Plessy, I should believe our
+English theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. But I have
+no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. I may as well expect ever
+to see upon an English stage an accomplished artist, able to write and
+to embody what he writes, like you.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Madame Viardot.]
+
+              49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES, _Monday, Dec. 3rd, 1855._
+
+DEAR MADAME VIARDOT,
+
+Mrs. Dickens tells me that you have only borrowed the first number of
+"Little Dorrit," and are going to send it back. Pray do nothing of the
+sort, and allow me to have the great pleasure of sending you the
+succeeding numbers as they reach me. I have had such delight in your
+great genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of it,
+that I am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's intellectual
+pleasure.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 23rd, 1855._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of putting you in
+possession of my Little Friend No. 2, before the general public. It is,
+of course, at the disposal of your circle, but until the month is out,
+is understood to be a prisoner in the castle.
+
+If I had time to write anything, I should still quite vainly try to
+tell you what interest and happiness I had in once more seeing you among
+your dear children. Let me congratulate you on your Eton boys. They are
+so handsome, frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. A kiss
+to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love of my heart to
+every stone in the old house.
+
+Enormous effect at Sheffield. But really not a better audience
+perceptively than at Peterboro', for that could hardly be, but they were
+more enthusiastically demonstrative, and they took the line, "and to
+Tiny Tim who did NOT die," with a most prodigious shout and roll of
+thunder.
+
+                          Ever, my dear Friend, most faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Captain Cavendish Boyle was governor of the military prison at
+Weedon.
+
+[22] Wife of the late Sir Joseph Olliffe, Physician to the British
+Embassy.
+
+
+
+
+1856.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens having taken an _appartement_ in Paris for the winter
+months, 49, Avenue des Champs Elysees, was there with his family until
+the middle of May. He much enjoyed this winter sojourn, meeting many old
+friends, making new friends, and interchanging hospitalities with the
+French artistic world. He had also many friends from England to visit
+him. Mr. Wilkie Collins had an _appartement de garcon_ hard by, and the
+two companions were constantly together. The Rev. James White and his
+family also spent their winter at Paris, having taken an _appartement_
+at 49, Avenue des Champs Elysees, and the girls of the two families had
+the same masters, and took their lessons together. After the Whites'
+departure, Mr. Macready paid Charles Dickens a visit, occupying the
+vacant _appartement_.
+
+During this winter Charles Dickens was, however, constantly backwards
+and forwards between Paris and London on "Household Words" business, and
+was also at work on his "Little Dorrit."
+
+While in Paris he sat for his portrait to the great Ary Scheffer. It
+was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of this year, and is now
+in the National Portrait Gallery.
+
+The summer was again spent at Boulogne, and once more at the Villa des
+Moulineaux, where he received constant visits from English friends, Mr.
+Wilkie Collins taking up his quarters for many weeks at a little cottage
+in the garden; and there the idea of another play, to be acted at
+Tavistock House, was first started. Many of our letters for this year
+have reference to this play, and will show the interest which Charles
+Dickens took in it, and the immense amount of care and pains given by
+him to the careful carrying out of this favourite amusement.
+
+The Christmas number of "Household Words," written by Charles Dickens
+and Mr. Collins, called "The Wreck of the _Golden Mary_," was planned by
+the two friends during this summer holiday.
+
+It was in this year that one of the great wishes of his life was to be
+realised, the much-coveted house--Gad's Hill Place--having been
+purchased by him, and the cheque written on the 14th of March--on a
+"Friday," as he writes to his sister-in-law, in the letter of this date.
+He frequently remarked that all the important, and so far fortunate,
+events of his life had happened to him on a Friday. So that, contrary to
+the usual superstition, that day had come to be looked upon by his
+family as his "lucky" day.
+
+The allusion to the "plainness" of Miss Boyle's handwriting is
+good-humouredly ironical; that lady's writing being by no means famous
+for its legibility.
+
+The "Anne" mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, which follows
+the one to Miss Boyle, was the faithful servant who had lived with the
+family so long; and who, having left to be married the previous year,
+had found it a very difficult matter to recover from her sorrow at this
+parting. And the "godfather's present" was for a son of Mr. Edmund
+Yates.
+
+"The Humble Petition" was written to Mr. Wilkie Collins during that
+gentleman's visit to Paris.
+
+The explanation of the remark to Mr. Wills (6th April), that he had paid
+the money to Mr. Poole, is that Charles Dickens was the trustee through
+whom the dramatist received his pension.
+
+The letter to the Duke of Devonshire has reference to the peace
+illuminations after the Crimean war.
+
+The M. Forgues for whom, at Mr. Collins's request, he writes a short
+biography of himself, was the editor of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
+
+The speech at the London Tavern was on behalf of the Artists' Benevolent
+Fund.
+
+Miss Kate Macready had sent some clever poems to "Household Words," with
+which Charles Dickens had been much pleased. He makes allusion to these,
+in our two remaining letters to Mr. Macready.
+
+"I did write it for you" (letter to Mrs. Watson, 17th October), refers
+to that part of "Little Dorrit" which treats of the visit of the Dorrit
+family to the Great St. Bernard. An expedition which it will be
+remembered he made himself, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Watson and
+other friends.
+
+The letter to Mrs. Horne refers to a joke about the name of a friend of
+this lady's, who had once been brought by her to Tavistock House. The
+letter to Mr. Mitton concerns the lighting of the little theatre at
+Tavistock House.
+
+Our last letter is in answer to one from Mr. Kent, asking him to sit to
+Mr. John Watkins for his photograph. We should add, however, that he did
+subsequently give this gentleman some sittings.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                         49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, _Sunday, Jan. 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I should like Morley to do a Strike article, and to work into it the
+greater part of what is here. But I cannot represent myself as holding
+the opinion that all strikes among this unhappy class of society, who
+find it so difficult to get a peaceful hearing, are always necessarily
+wrong, because I don't think so. To open a discussion of the question
+by saying that the men are "_of course_ entirely and painfully in the
+wrong," surely would be monstrous in any one. Show them to be in the
+wrong here, but in the name of the eternal heavens show why, upon the
+merits of this question. Nor can I possibly adopt the representation
+that these men are wrong because by throwing themselves out of work they
+throw other people, possibly without their consent. If such a principle
+had anything in it, there could have been no civil war, no raising by
+Hampden of a troop of horse, to the detriment of Buckinghamshire
+agriculture, no self-sacrifice in the political world. And O, good God,
+when ---- treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose
+that these mistaken men don't feel it in the depths of their hearts, and
+don't honestly and honourably, most devoutly and faithfully believe that
+for those very children, when they shall have children, they are bearing
+all these miseries now!
+
+I hear from Mrs. Fillonneau that her husband was obliged to leave town
+suddenly before he could get your parcel, consequently he has not
+brought it; and White's sovereigns--unless you have got them back
+again--are either lying out of circulation somewhere, or are being spent
+by somebody else. I will write again on Tuesday. My article is to begin
+the enclosed.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                  49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS, _Monday, Jan. 7th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I want to know how "Jack and the Beanstalk" goes. I have a notion from a
+notice--a favourable notice, however--which I saw in _Galignani_, that
+Webster has let down the comic business.
+
+In a piece at the Ambigu, called the "Rentree a Paris," a mere scene in
+honour of the return of the troops from the Crimea the other day, there
+is a novelty which I think it worth letting you know of, as it is easily
+available, either for a serious or a comic interest--the introduction of
+a supposed electric telegraph. The scene is the railway terminus at
+Paris, with the electric telegraph office on the prompt side, and the
+clerks _with their backs to the audience_--much more real than if they
+were, as they infallibly would be, staring about the house--working the
+needles; and the little bell perpetually ringing. There are assembled to
+greet the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined elements of
+interest--old veteran fathers, young children, agonised mothers, sisters
+and brothers, girl lovers--each impatient to know of his or her own
+object of solicitude. Enter to these a certain marquis, full of sympathy
+for all, who says: "My friends, I am one of you. My brother has no
+commission yet. He is a common soldier. I wait for him as well as all
+brothers and sisters here wait for _their_ brothers. Tell me whom you
+are expecting." Then they all tell him. Then he goes into the
+telegraph-office, and sends a message down the line to know how long the
+troops will be. Bell rings. Answer handed out on slip of paper. "Delay
+on the line. Troops will not arrive for a quarter of an hour." General
+disappointment. "But we have this brave electric telegraph, my friends,"
+says the marquis. "Give me your little messages, and I'll send them
+off." General rush round the marquis. Exclamations: "How's Henri?" "My
+love to Georges;" "Has Guillaume forgotten Elise?" "Is my son wounded?"
+"Is my brother promoted?" etc. etc. Marquis composes tumult. Sends
+message--such a regiment, such a company--"Elise's love to Georges."
+Little bell rings, slip of paper handed out--"Georges in ten minutes
+will embrace his Elise. Sends her a thousand kisses." Marquis sends
+message--such a regiment, such a company--"Is my son wounded?" Little
+bell rings. Slip of paper handed out--"No. He has not yet upon him those
+marks of bravery in the glorious service of his country which his dear
+old father bears" (father being lamed and invalided). Last of all, the
+widowed mother. Marquis sends message--such a regiment, such a
+company--"Is my only son safe?" Little bell rings. Slip of paper handed
+out--"He was first upon the heights of Alma." General cheer. Bell rings
+again, another slip of paper handed out. "He was made a sergeant at
+Inkermann." Another cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper
+handed out. "He was made colour-sergeant at Sebastopol." Another cheer.
+Bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "He was the first
+man who leaped with the French banner on the Malakhoff tower."
+Tremendous cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out.
+"But he was struck down there by a musket-ball, and----Troops have
+proceeded. Will arrive in half a minute after this." Mother abandons all
+hope; general commiseration; troops rush in, down a platform; son only
+wounded, and embraces her.
+
+As I have said, and as you will see, this is available for any purpose.
+But done with equal distinction and rapidity, it is a tremendous effect,
+and got by the simplest means in the world. There is nothing in the
+piece, but it was impossible not to be moved and excited by the
+telegraph part of it.
+
+I hope you have seen something of Stanny, and have been to pantomimes
+with him, and have drunk to the absent Dick. I miss you, my dear old
+boy, at the play, woefully, and miss the walk home, and the partings at
+the corner of Tavistock Square. And when I go by myself, I come home
+stewing "Little Dorrit" in my head; and the best part of _my_ play is
+(or ought to be) in Gordon Street.
+
+I have written to Beaucourt about taking that breezy house--a little
+improved--for the summer, and I hope you and yours will come there often
+and stay there long. My present idea, if nothing should arise to unroot
+me sooner, is to stay here until the middle of May, then plant the
+family at Boulogne, and come with Catherine and Georgy home for two or
+three weeks. When I shall next run across I don't know, but I suppose
+next month.
+
+We are up to our knees in mud here. Literally in vehement despair, I
+walked down the avenue outside the Barriere de l'Etoile here yesterday,
+and went straight on among the trees. I came back with top-boots of mud
+on. Nothing will cleanse the streets. Numbers of men and women are for
+ever scooping and sweeping in them, and they are always one lake of
+yellow mud. All my trousers go to the tailor's every day, and are
+ravelled out at the heels every night. Washing is awful.
+
+Tell Mrs. Lemon, with my love, that I have bought her some Eau d'Or, in
+grateful remembrance of her knowing what it is, and crushing the tyrant
+of her existence by resolutely refusing to be put down when that monster
+would have silenced her. You may imagine the loves and messages that are
+now being poured in upon me by all of them, so I will give none of them;
+though I am pretending to be very scrupulous about it, and am looking (I
+have no doubt) as if I were writing them down with the greatest care.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                      49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, _Saturday, Jan. 19th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+I had no idea you were so far on with your book, and heartily
+congratulate you on being within sight of land.
+
+It is excessively pleasant to me to get your letter, as it opens a
+perspective of theatrical and other lounging evenings, and also of
+articles in "Household Words." It will not be the first time that we
+shall have got on well in Paris, and I hope it will not be by many a
+time the last.
+
+I purpose coming over, early in February (as soon, in fact, as I shall
+have knocked out No. 5 of "Little D."), and therefore we can return in a
+jovial manner together. As soon as I know my day of coming over, I will
+write to you again, and (as the merchants--say Charley--would add)
+"communicate same" to you.
+
+The lodging, _en garcon_, shall be duly looked up, and I shall of course
+make a point of finding it close here. There will be no difficulty in
+that. I will have concluded the treaty before starting for London, and
+will take it by the month, both because that is the cheapest way, and
+because desirable places don't let for shorter terms.
+
+I have been sitting to Scheffer to-day--conceive this, if you please,
+with No. 5 upon my soul--four hours!! I am so addleheaded and bored,
+that if you were here, I should propose an instantaneous rush to the
+Trois Freres. Under existing circumstances I have no consolation.
+
+I think THE portrait[23] is the most astounding thing ever beheld upon
+this globe. It has been shrieked over by the united family as "Oh! the
+very image!" I went down to the _entresol_ the moment I opened it, and
+submitted it to the Plorn--then engaged, with a half-franc musket, in
+capturing a Malakhoff of chairs. He looked at it very hard, and gave it
+as his opinion that it was Misser Hegg. We suppose him to have
+confounded the Colonel with Jollins. I met Madame Georges Sand the other
+day at a dinner got up by Madame Viardot for that great purpose. The
+human mind cannot conceive any one more astonishingly opposed to all my
+preconceptions. If I had been shown her in a state of repose, and asked
+what I thought her to be, I should have said: "The Queen's monthly
+nurse." _Au reste_, she has nothing of the _bas bleu_ about her, and is
+very quiet and agreeable.
+
+The way in which mysterious Frenchmen call and want to embrace me,
+suggests to any one who knows me intimately, such infamous lurking,
+slinking, getting behind doors, evading, lying--so much mean resort to
+craven flights, dastard subterfuges, and miserable poltroonery--on my
+part, that I merely suggest the arrival of cards like this:
+
+[Illustration: HW:
+
+  Horgues
+  homme de lettres
+  or
+  Drouse
+  membre de l'Institut
+  or
+  Cregibus Patalanternois
+  Ecole des Beaux arts
+
+  --every five minutes. Books also arrive with, on the flyleaf,
+
+  Jaubaud
+  Hommage a l'illustre romancier d'Angleterre
+
+  Charles De Kean.]
+
+--and I then write letters of terrific _empressement_, with assurances
+of all sorts of profound considerations, and never by any chance become
+visible to the naked eye.
+
+At the Porte St. Martin they are doing the "Orestes," put into French
+verse by Alexandre Dumas. Really one of the absurdest things I ever saw.
+The scene of the tomb, with all manner of classical females, in black,
+grouping themselves on the lid, and on the steps, and on each other, and
+in every conceivable aspect of obtrusive impossibility, is just like the
+window of one of those artists in hair, who address the friends of
+deceased persons. To-morrow week a fete is coming off at the Jardin
+d'Hiver, next door but one here, which I must certainly go to. The fete
+of the company of the Folies Nouvelles! The ladies of the company are to
+keep stalls, and are to sell to Messieurs the Amateurs orange-water and
+lemonade. Paul le Grand is to promenade among the company, dressed as
+Pierrot. Kalm, the big-faced comic singer, is to do the like, dressed as
+a Russian Cossack. The entertainments are to conclude with "La Polka des
+Betes feroces, par la Troupe entiere des Folies Nouvelles." I wish,
+without invasion of the rights of British subjects, or risk of war, ----
+could be seized by French troops, brought over, and made to assist.
+
+The _appartement_ has not grown any bigger since you last had the joy of
+beholding me, and upon my honour and word I live in terror of asking
+---- to dinner, lest she should not be able to get in at the dining-room
+door. I _think_ (am not sure) the dining-room would hold her, if she
+could be once passed in, but I don't see my way to that. Nevertheless,
+we manage our own family dinners very snugly there, and have good ones,
+as I think you will say, every day at half-past five.
+
+I have a notion that we may knock out a _series_ of descriptions for H.
+W. without much trouble. It is very difficult to get into the
+Catacombs, but my name is so well known here that I think I may succeed.
+I find that the guillotine can be got set up in private, like Punch's
+show. What do you think of _that_ for an article? I find myself
+underlining words constantly. It is not my nature. It is mere imbecility
+after the four hours' sitting.
+
+All unite in kindest remembrances to you, your mother and brother.
+
+                                                       Ever cordially.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                         49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS, _Jan. 28th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I am afraid you will think me an abandoned ruffian for not having
+acknowledged your more than handsome warm-hearted letter before now.
+But, as usual, I have been so occupied, and so glad to get up from my
+desk and wallow in the mud (at present about six feet deep here), that
+pleasure correspondence is just the last thing in the world I have had
+leisure to take to. Business correspondence with all sorts and
+conditions of men and women, O my Mary! is one of the dragons I am
+perpetually fighting; and the more I throw it, the more it stands upon
+its hind legs, rampant, and throws me.
+
+Yes, on that bright cold morning when I left Peterboro', I felt that the
+best thing I could do was to say that word that I would do anything in
+an honest way to avoid saying, at one blow, and make off. I was so sorry
+to leave you all! You can scarcely imagine what a chill and blank I felt
+on that Monday evening at Rockingham. It was so sad to me, and
+engendered a constraint so melancholy and peculiar, that I doubt if I
+were ever much more out of sorts in my life. Next morning, when it was
+light and sparkling out of doors, I felt more at home again. But when I
+came in from seeing poor dear Watson's grave, Mrs. Watson asked me to go
+up in the gallery, which I had last seen in the days of our merry play.
+We went up, and walked into the very part he had made and was so fond
+of, and she looked out of one window and I looked out of another, and
+for the life of me I could not decide in my own heart whether I should
+console or distress her by going and taking her hand, and saying
+something of what was naturally in my mind. So I said nothing, and we
+came out again, and on the whole perhaps it was best; for I have no
+doubt we understood each other very well without speaking a word.
+
+Sheffield was a tremendous success and an admirable audience. They made
+me a present of table-cutlery after the reading was over; and I came
+away by the mail-train within three-quarters of an hour, changing my
+dress and getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn,
+partly on the platform. When we got among the Lincolnshire fens it began
+to snow. That changed to sleet, that changed to rain; the frost was all
+gone as we neared London, and the mud has all come. At two or three
+o'clock in the morning I stopped at Peterboro' again, and thought of you
+all disconsolately. The lady in the refreshment-room was very hard upon
+me, harder even than those fair enslavers usually are. She gave me a cup
+of tea, as if I were a hyena and she my cruel keeper with a strong
+dislike to me. I mingled my tears with it, and had a petrified bun of
+enormous antiquity in miserable meekness.
+
+It is clear to me that climates are gradually assimilating over a great
+part of the world, and that in the most miserable part of our year there
+is very little to choose between London and Paris, except that London is
+not so muddy. I have never seen dirtier or worse weather than we have
+had here since I returned. In desperation I went out to the Barrieres
+last Sunday on a headlong walk, and came back with my very eyebrows
+smeared with mud. Georgina is usually invisible during the walking time
+of the day. A turned-up nose may be seen in the midst of splashes, but
+nothing more.
+
+I am settling to work again, and my horrible restlessness immediately
+assails me. It belongs to such times. As I was writing the preceding
+page, it suddenly came into my head that I would get up and go to
+Calais. I don't know why; the moment I got there I should want to go
+somewhere else. But, as my friend the Boots says (see Christmas number
+"Household Words"): "When you come to think what a game you've been up
+to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap
+you were, and how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and
+never to-day, that's where it is."
+
+My dear Mary, would you favour me with the name and address of the
+professor that taught you writing, for I want to improve myself? Many a
+hand have I seen with many characteristics of beauty in it--some loopy,
+some dashy, some large, some small, some sloping to the right, some
+sloping to the left, some not sloping at all; but what I like in _your_
+hand, Mary, is its plainness, it is like print. Them as runs may read
+just as well as if they stood still. I should have thought it was
+copper-plate if I hadn't known you. They send all sorts of messages from
+here, and so do I, with my best regards to Bedgy and pardner and the
+blessed babbies. When shall we meet again, I wonder, and go somewhere!
+Ah!
+
+                     Believe me ever, my dear Mary,
+                                    Yours truly and affectionately,
+
+                                                                  Joe.
+                          (That doesn't look plain.)
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                          "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, Feb. 8th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I must write this at railroad speed, for I have been at it all day, and
+have numbers of letters to cram into the next half-hour. I began the
+morning in the City, for the Theatrical Fund; went on to Shepherd's
+Bush; came back to leave cards for Mr. Baring and Mr. Bates; ran across
+Piccadilly to Stratton Street, stayed there an hour, and shot off here.
+I have been in four cabs to-day, at a cost of thirteen shillings. Am
+going to dine with Mark and Webster at half-past four, and finish the
+evening at the Adelphi.
+
+The dinner was very successful. Charley was in great force, and floored
+Peter Cunningham and the Audit Office on a question about some bill
+transactions with Baring's. The other guests were B. and E., Shirley
+Brooks, Forster, and that's all. The dinner admirable. I never had a
+better. All the wine I sent down from Tavistock House. Anne waited, and
+looked well and happy, very much brighter altogether. It gave me great
+pleasure to see her so improved. Just before dinner I got all the
+letters from home. They could not have arrived more opportunely.
+
+The godfather's present looks charming now it is engraved, and John is
+just now going off to take it to Mrs. Yates. To-morrow Wills and I are
+going to Gad's Hill. It will occupy the whole day, and will just leave
+me time to get home to dress for dinner.
+
+And that's all that I have to say, except that the first number of
+"Little Dorrit" has gone to forty thousand, and the other one fast
+following.
+
+My best love to Catherine, and to Mamey and Katey, and Walter and Harry,
+and the noble Plorn. I am grieved to hear about his black eye, and fear
+that I shall find it in the green and purple state on my return.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+   THE HUMBLE PETITION OF CHARLES DICKENS, A DISTRESSED FOREIGNER,
+
+SHEWETH,
+
+That your Petitioner has not been able to write one word to-day, or to
+fashion forth the dimmest shade of the faintest ghost of an idea.
+
+That your Petitioner is therefore desirous of being taken out, and is
+not at all particular where.
+
+That your Petitioner, being imbecile, says no more. But will ever, etc.
+(whatever that may be).
+
+                                             PARIS, _March 3rd, 1856._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas Jerrold.]
+
+                          "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OFFICE, _March 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR JERROLD,
+
+Buckstone has been with me to-day in a state of demi-semi-distraction,
+by reason of Macready's dreading his asthma so much as to excuse himself
+(of necessity, I know) from taking the chair for the fund on the
+occasion of their next dinner. I have promised to back Buckstone's
+entreaty to you to take it; and although I know that you have an
+objection which you once communicated to me, I still hold (as I did
+then) that it is a reason _for_ and not against. Pray reconsider the
+point. Your position in connection with dramatic literature has always
+suggested to me that there would be a great fitness and grace in your
+appearing in this post. I am convinced that the public would regard it
+in that light, and I particularly ask you to reflect that we never can
+do battle with the Lords, if we will not bestow ourselves to go into
+places which they have long monopolised. Now pray discuss this matter
+with yourself once more. If you can come to a favourable conclusion I
+shall be really delighted, and will of course come from Paris to be by
+you; if you cannot come to a favourable conclusion I shall be really
+sorry, though I of course most readily defer to your right to regard
+such a matter from your own point of view.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            "HOUSEHOLD WORDS" OFFICE, _Tuesday, March 11th, 1856_.[24]
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I have been in bed half the day with my cold, which is excessively
+violent, consequently have to write in a great hurry to save the post.
+
+Tell Catherine that I have the most prodigious, overwhelming, crushing,
+astounding, blinding, deafening, pulverising, scarifying secret, of
+which Forster is the hero, imaginable by the whole efforts of the whole
+British population. It is a thing of that kind that, after I knew it,
+(from himself) this morning, I lay down flat as if an engine and tender
+had fallen upon me.
+
+Love to Catherine (not a word of Forster before anyone else), and to
+Mamey, Katey, Harry, and the noble Plorn. Tell Collins with my kind
+regards that Forster has just pronounced to me that "Collins is a
+decidedly clever fellow." I hope he is a better fellow in health, too.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                        "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, March 14th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I am amazed to hear of the snow (I don't know why, but it excited John
+this morning beyond measure); though we have had the same east wind
+here, and _the_ cold and _my_ cold have both been intense.
+
+Yesterday evening Webster, Mark, Stanny, and I went to the Olympic,
+where the Wigans ranged us in a row in a gorgeous and immense private
+box, and where we saw "Still Waters Run Deep." I laughed (in a
+conspicuous manner) to that extent at Emery, when he received the
+dinner-company, that the people were more amused by me than by the
+piece. I don't think I ever saw anything meant to be funny that struck
+me as so extraordinarily droll. I couldn't get over it at all. After the
+piece we went round, by Wigan's invitation, to drink with him. It being
+positively impossible to get Stanny off the stage, we stood in the wings
+during the burlesque. Mrs. Wigan seemed really glad to see her old
+manager, and the company overwhelmed him with embraces. They had nearly
+all been at the meeting in the morning.
+
+I have seen Charley only twice since I came to London, having regularly
+been in bed until mid-day. To my amazement, my eye fell upon him at the
+Adelphi yesterday.
+
+This day I have paid the purchase-money for Gad's Hill Place. After
+drawing the cheque, I turned round to give it to Wills (L1,790), and
+said: "Now isn't it an extraordinary thing--look at the day--Friday! I
+have been nearly drawing it half-a-dozen times, when the lawyers have
+not been ready, and here it comes round upon a Friday, as a matter of
+course."
+
+Kiss the noble Plorn a dozen times for me, and tell him I drank his
+health yesterday, and wished him many happy returns of the day; also
+that I hope he will not have broken all his toys before I come back.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+              49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS, _Saturday, March 22nd, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MACREADY,
+
+I want you--you being quite well again, as I trust you are, and resolute
+to come to Paris--so to arrange your order of march as to let me know
+beforehand when you will come, and how long you will stay. We owe Scribe
+and his wife a dinner, and I should like to pay the debt when you are
+with us. Ary Scheffer too would be delighted to see you again. If I
+could arrange for a certain day I would secure them. We cannot afford
+(you and I, I mean) to keep much company, because we shall have to look
+in at a theatre or so, I daresay!
+
+It would suit my work best, if I could keep myself clear until Monday,
+the 7th of April. But in case that day should be too late for the
+beginning of your brief visit with a deference to any other engagements
+you have in contemplation, then fix an earlier one, and I will make
+"Little Dorrit" curtsy to it. My recent visit to London and my having
+only just now come back have thrown me a little behindhand; but I hope
+to come up with a wet sail in a few days.
+
+You should have seen the ruins of Covent Garden Theatre. I went in the
+moment I got to London--four days after the fire. Although the audience
+part and the stage were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a
+piece of wood half the size of a lucifer-match for the eye to rest on,
+though nothing whatever remained but bricks and smelted iron lying on a
+great black desert, the theatre still looked so wonderfully like its
+old self grown gigantic that I never saw so strange a sight. The wall
+dividing the front from the stage still remained, and the iron
+pass-doors stood ajar in an impossible and inaccessible frame. The
+arches that supported the stage were there, and the arches that
+supported the pit; and in the centre of the latter lay something like a
+Titanic grape-vine that a hurricane had pulled up by the roots, twisted,
+and flung down there; this was the great chandelier. Gye had kept the
+men's wardrobe at the top of the house over the great entrance
+staircase; when the roof fell in it came down bodily, and all that part
+of the ruins was like an old Babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating
+the black ground, sometimes in pieces so large that I could make out the
+clothes in the "Trovatore."
+
+I should run on for a couple of hours if I had to describe the spectacle
+as I saw it, wherefore I will immediately muzzle myself. All here unite
+in kindest loves to dear Miss Macready, to Katie, Lillie, Benvenuta, my
+godson, and the noble Johnny. We are charmed to hear such happy accounts
+of Willy and Ned, and send our loving remembrance to them in the next
+letters. All Parisian novelties you shall see and hear for yourself.
+
+                         Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--Mr. F.'s aunt sends her defiant respects.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+          49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS,
+                 _Thursday Night, March 27th, 1856 (after post time)._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+If I had had any idea of your coming (see how naturally I use the word
+when I am three hundred miles off!) to London so soon, I would never
+have written one word about the jump over next week. I am vexed that I
+did so, but as I did I will not now propose a change in the
+arrangements, as I know how methodical you tremendously old fellows are.
+That's your secret I suspect. That's the way in which the blood of the
+Mirabels mounts in your aged veins, even at your time of life.
+
+How charmed I shall be to see you, and we all shall be, I will not
+attempt to say. On that expected Sunday you will lunch at Amiens but not
+dine, because we shall wait dinner for you, and you will merely have to
+tell that driver in the glazed hat to come straight here. When the
+Whites left I added their little apartment to this little apartment,
+consequently you shall have a snug bedroom (is it not waiting expressly
+for you?) overlooking the Champs Elysees. As to the arm-chair in my
+heart, no man on earth----but, good God! you know all about it.
+
+You will find us in the queerest of little rooms all alone, except that
+the son of Collins the painter (who writes a good deal in "Household
+Words") dines with us every day. Scheffer and Scribe shall be admitted
+for one evening, because they know how to appreciate you. The Emperor we
+will not ask unless you expressly wish it; it makes a fuss.
+
+If you have no appointed hotel at Boulogne, go to the Hotel des Bains,
+there demand "Marguerite," and tell her that I commended you to her
+special care. It is the best house within my experience in France;
+Marguerite the best housekeeper in the world.
+
+I shall charge at "Little Dorrit" to-morrow with new spirits. The sight
+of you is good for my boyish eyes, and the thought of you for my dawning
+mind. Give the enclosed lines a welcome, then send them on to Sherborne.
+
+                             Ever yours most affectionately and truly.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                 49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS, _Sunday, April 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+                           CHRISTMAS.
+
+Collins and I have a mighty original notion (mine in the beginning) for
+another play at Tavistock House. I propose opening on Twelfth Night the
+theatrical season of that great establishment. But now a tremendous
+question.
+
+Is
+
+                              MRS. WILLS!
+
+game to do a Scotch housekeeper, in a supposed country-house, with Mary,
+Katey, Georgina, etc.? If she can screw her courage up to saying "Yes,"
+that country-house opens the piece in a singular way, and that Scotch
+housekeeper's part shall flow from the present pen. If she says "No"
+(but she won't), no Scotch housekeeper can be. The Tavistock House
+season of four nights pauses for a reply. Scotch song (new and original)
+of Scotch housekeeper would pervade the piece.
+
+                                   YOU
+
+had better pause for breath.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+                                  POOLE.
+
+I have paid him his money. Here is the proof of life. If you will get me
+the receipt to sign, the money can go to my account at Coutts's.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR CATHERINE,
+
+I did nothing at Dover (except for "Household Words"), and have not
+begun "Little Dorrit," No. 8, yet. But I took twenty-mile walks in the
+fresh air, and perhaps in the long run did better than if I had been at
+work. The report concerning Scheffer's portrait I had from Ward. It is
+in the best place in the largest room, but I find the _general_
+impression of the artists exactly mine. They almost all say that it
+wants something; that nobody could mistake whom it was meant for, but
+that it has something disappointing in it, etc. etc. Stanfield likes it
+better than any of the other painters, I think. His own picture is
+magnificent. And Frith, in a "Little Child's Birthday Party," is quite
+delightful. There are many interesting pictures. When you see Scheffer,
+tell him from me that Eastlake, in his speech at the dinner, referred to
+the portrait as "a contribution from a distinguished man of genius in
+France, worthy of himself and of his subject."
+
+I did the maddest thing last night, and am deeply penitent this morning.
+We stayed at Webster's till any hour, and they wanted me, at last, to
+make punch, which couldn't be done when the jug was brought, because (to
+Webster's burning indignation) there was only one lemon in the house.
+Hereupon I then and there besought the establishment in general to come
+and drink punch on Thursday night, after the play; on which occasion it
+will become necessary to furnish fully the table with some cold viands
+from Fortnum and Mason's. Mark has looked in since I began this note, to
+suggest that the great festival may come off at "Household Words"
+instead. I am inclined to think it a good idea, and that I shall
+transfer the locality to that business establishment. But I am at
+present distracted with doubts and torn by remorse.
+
+The school-room and dining-room I have brought into habitable condition
+and comfortable appearance. Charley and I breakfast at half-past eight,
+and meet again at dinner when he does not dine in the City, or has no
+engagement. He looks very well.
+
+The audiences at Gye's are described to me as absolute marvels of
+coldness. No signs of emotion can be hammered, out of them. Panizzi sat
+next me at the Academy dinner, and took it very ill that I disparaged
+----. The amateurs here are getting up another pantomime, but quarrel so
+violently among themselves that I doubt its ever getting on the stage.
+Webster expounded his scheme for rebuilding the Adelphi to Stanfield and
+myself last night, and I felt bound to tell him that I thought it wrong
+from beginning to end. This is all the theatrical news I know.
+
+I write by this post to Georgy. Love to Mamey, Katey, Harry, and the
+noble Plorn. I should be glad to see him here.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+You will not be much surprised to hear that I have done nothing yet
+(except for H. W.), and have only just settled down into a corner of the
+school-room. The extent to which John and I wallowed in dust for four
+hours yesterday morning, getting things neat and comfortable about us,
+you may faintly imagine. At four in the afternoon came Stanfield, to
+whom I no sooner described the notion of the new play, than he
+immediately upset all my new arrangements by making a proscenium of the
+chairs, and planning the scenery with walking-sticks. One of the least
+things he did was getting on the top of the long table, and hanging over
+the bar in the middle window where that top sash opens, as if he had got
+a hinge in the middle of his body. He is immensely excited on the
+subject. Mark had a farce ready for the managerial perusal, but it won't
+do.
+
+I went to the Dover theatre on Friday night, which was a miserable
+spectacle. The pit is boarded over, and it is a drinking and smoking
+place. It was "for the benefit of Mrs. ----," and the town had been very
+extensively placarded with "Don't forget Friday." I made out four and
+ninepence (I am serious) in the house, when I went in. We may have
+warmed up in the course of the evening to twelve shillings. A Jew played
+the grand piano; Mrs. ---- sang no end of songs (with not a bad voice,
+poor creature); Mr. ---- sang comic songs fearfully, and danced clog
+hornpipes capitally; and a miserable woman, shivering in a shawl and
+bonnet, sat in the side-boxes all the evening, nursing Master ----, aged
+seven months. It was a most forlorn business, and I should have
+contributed a sovereign to the treasury, if I had known how.
+
+I walked to Deal and back that day, and on the previous day walked over
+the downs towards Canterbury in a gale of wind. It was better than still
+weather after all, being wonderfully fresh and free.
+
+If the Plorn were sitting at this school-room window in the corner, he
+would see more cats in an hour than he ever saw in his life. _I_ never
+saw so many, I think, as I have seen since yesterday morning.
+
+There is a painful picture of a great deal of merit (Egg has bought it)
+in the exhibition, painted by the man who did those little interiors of
+Forster's. It is called "The Death of Chatterton." The dead figure is a
+good deal like Arthur Stone; and I was touched on Saturday to see that
+tender old file standing before it, crying under his spectacles at the
+idea of seeing his son dead. It was a very tender manifestation of his
+gentle old heart.
+
+This sums up my news, which is no news at all. Kiss the Plorn for me,
+and expound to him that I am always looking forward to meeting him
+again, among the birds and flowers in the garden on the side of the hill
+at Boulogne.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, June 1st, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
+
+Allow me to thank you with all my heart for your kind remembrance of me
+on Thursday night. My house was already engaged to Miss Coutts's, and I
+to--the top of St. Paul's, where the sight was most wonderful! But
+seeing that your cards gave me leave to present some person not named, I
+conferred them on my excellent friend Dr. Elliotson, whom I found with
+some fireworkless little boys in a desolate condition, and raised to the
+seventh heaven of happiness. You are so fond of making people happy,
+that I am sure you approve.
+
+                                Always your faithful and much obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 6th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+I have never seen anything about myself in print which has much
+correctness in it--any biographical account of myself I mean. I do not
+supply such particulars when I am asked for them by editors and
+compilers, simply because I am asked for them every day. If you want to
+prime Forgues, you may tell him without fear of anything wrong, that I
+was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of February, 1812; that my father was
+in the Navy Pay Office; that I was taken by him to Chatham when I was
+very young, and lived and was educated there till I was twelve or
+thirteen, I suppose; that I was then put to a school near London, where
+(as at other places) I distinguished myself like a brick; that I was
+put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's, and didn't
+much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as I can remember)
+applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the study of
+such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate parliamentary
+reporter--at that time a calling pursued by many clever men who were
+young at the Bar; that I made my debut in the gallery (at about
+eighteen, I suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no longer in
+existence, called _The Mirror of Parliament_; that when _The Morning
+Chronicle_ was purchased by Sir John Easthope and acquired a large
+circulation, I was engaged there, and that I remained there until I had
+begun to publish "Pickwick," when I found myself in a condition to
+relinquish that part of my labours; that I left the reputation behind me
+of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and that I could
+do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances, and often did.
+(I daresay I am at this present writing the best shorthand writer in the
+world.)
+
+That I began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to write
+fugitive pieces for the old "Monthly Magazine," when I was in the
+gallery for _The Mirror of Parliament_; that my faculty for descriptive
+writing was seized upon the moment I joined _The Morning Chronicle_, and
+that I was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and wrote
+the greater part of the short descriptive "Sketches by BOZ" in that
+paper; that I had been a writer when I was a mere baby, and always an
+actor from the same age; that I married the daughter of a writer to the
+signet in Edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of Scott,
+and who first made Lockhart known to him.
+
+And that here I am.
+
+Finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell Wills and
+he'll get them for you.
+
+This is the first time I ever set down even these particulars, and,
+glancing them over, I feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing
+himself in the keeper's absence.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--I made a speech last night at the London Tavern, at the end of
+which all the company sat holding their napkins to their eyes with one
+hand, and putting the other into their pockets. A hundred people or so
+contributed nine hundred pounds then and there.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                      VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                             _Sunday, June 15th 1856._
+
+MY DEAR OLD BOY,
+
+This place is beautiful--a burst of roses. Your friend Beaucourt (who
+_will not_ put on his hat), has thinned the trees and greatly improved
+the garden. Upon my life, I believe there are at least twenty distinct
+smoking-spots expressly made in it.
+
+And as soon as you can see your day in next month for coming over with
+Stanny and Webster, will you let them both know? I should not be very
+much surprised if I were to come over and fetch you, when I know what
+your day is. Indeed, I don't see how you could get across properly
+without me.
+
+There is a fete here to-night in honour of the Imperial baptism, and
+there will be another to-morrow. The Plorn has put on two bits of ribbon
+(one pink and one blue), which he calls "companys," to celebrate the
+occasion. The fact that the receipts of the fetes are to be given to the
+sufferers by the late floods reminds me that you will find at the
+passport office a tin-box, condescendingly and considerately labelled in
+English:
+
+                         FOR THE OVERFLOWINGS,
+
+which the chief officer clearly believes to mean, for the sufferers from
+the inundations.
+
+I observe more Mingles in the laundresses' shops, and one inscription,
+which looks like the name of a duet or chorus in a playbill, "Here they
+mingle."
+
+Will you congratulate Mrs. Lemon, with our loves, on her gallant victory
+over the recreant cabman?
+
+Walter has turned up, rather brilliant on the whole; and that (with
+shoals of remembrances and messages which I don't deliver) is all my
+present intelligence.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]
+
+                                       H. W. OFFICE, _July 2nd, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARK,
+
+I am concerned to hear that you are ill, that you sit down before fires
+and shiver, and that you have stated times for doing so, like the demons
+in the melodramas, and that you mean to take a week to get well in.
+
+Make haste about it, like a dear fellow, and keep up your spirits,
+because I have made a bargain with Stanny and Webster that they shall
+come to Boulogne to-morrow week, Thursday the 10th, and stay a week. And
+you know how much pleasure we shall all miss if you are not among us--at
+least for some part of the time.
+
+If you find any unusually light appearance in the air at Brighton, it is
+a distant refraction (I have no doubt) of the gorgeous and shining
+surface of Tavistock House, now transcendently painted. The theatre
+partition is put up, and is a work of such terrific solidity, that I
+suppose it will be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins of London, by
+that Australian of Macaulay's who is to be impressed by its ashes. I
+have wandered through the spectral halls of the Tavistock mansion two
+nights, with feelings of the profoundest depression. I have breakfasted
+there, like a criminal in Pentonville (only not so well). It is more
+like Westminster Abbey by midnight than the lowest-spirited man--say you
+at present for example--can well imagine.
+
+There has been a wonderful robbery at Folkestone, by the new manager of
+the Pavilion, who succeeded Giovannini. He had in keeping L16,000 of a
+foreigner's, and bolted with it, as he supposed, but in reality with
+only L1,400 of it. The Frenchman had previously bolted with the whole,
+which was the property of his mother. With him to England the Frenchman
+brought a "lady," who was, all the time and at the same time,
+endeavouring to steal all the money from him and bolt with it herself.
+The details are amazing, and all the money (a few pounds excepted) has
+been got back.
+
+They will be full of sympathy and talk about you when I get home, and I
+shall tell them that I send their loves beforehand. They are all
+enclosed. The moment you feel hearty, just write me that word by post. I
+shall be so delighted to receive it.
+
+                          Ever, my dear Boy, your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Savage Landor.]
+
+                    VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                   _Saturday Evening, July 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR LANDOR,
+
+I write to you so often in my books, and my writing of letters is
+usually so confined to the numbers that I _must_ write, and in which I
+have no kind of satisfaction, that I am afraid to think how long it is
+since we exchanged a direct letter. But talking to your namesake this
+very day at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that I would come into
+my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and write, "My dear
+Landor, how are you?" for the pleasure of having the answer under your
+own hand. That you _do_ write, and that pretty often, I know beforehand.
+Else why do I read _The Examiner_?
+
+We were in Paris from October to May (I perpetually flying between that
+city and London), and there we found out, by a blessed accident, that
+your godson was horribly deaf. I immediately consulted the principal
+physician of the Deaf and Dumb Institution there (one of the best
+aurists in Europe), and he kept the boy for three months, and took
+unheard-of pains with him. He is now quite recovered, has done extremely
+well at school, has brought home a prize in triumph, and will be
+eligible to "go up" for his India examination soon after next Easter.
+Having a direct appointment, he will probably be sent out soon after he
+has passed, and so will fall into that strange life "up the country,"
+before he well knows he is alive, which indeed seems to be rather an
+advanced stage of knowledge.
+
+And there in Paris, at the same time, I found Marguerite Power and
+Little Nelly, living with their mother and a pretty sister, in a very
+small, neat apartment, and working (as Marguerite told me) hard for a
+living. All that I saw of them filled me with respect, and revived the
+tenderest remembrances of Gore House. They are coming to pass two or
+three weeks here for a country rest, next month. We had many long talks
+concerning Gore House, and all its bright associations; and I can
+honestly report that they hold no one in more gentle and affectionate
+remembrance than you. Marguerite is still handsome, though she had the
+smallpox two or three years ago, and bears the traces of it here and
+there, by daylight. Poor little Nelly (the quicker and more observant of
+the two) shows some little tokens of a broken-off marriage in a face too
+careworn for her years, but is a very winning and sensible creature.
+
+We are expecting Mary Boyle too, shortly.
+
+I have just been propounding to Forster if it is not a wonderful
+testimony to the homely force of truth, that one of the most popular
+books on earth has nothing in it to make anyone laugh or cry? Yet I
+think, with some confidence, that you never did either over any passage
+in "Robinson Crusoe." In particular, I took Friday's death as one of the
+least tender and (in the true sense) least sentimental things ever
+written. It is a book I read very much; and the wonder of its prodigious
+effect on me and everyone, and the admiration thereof, grows on me the
+more I observe this curious fact.
+
+Kate and Georgina send you their kindest loves, and smile approvingly on
+me from the next room, as I bend over my desk. My dear Landor, you see
+many I daresay, and hear from many I have no doubt, who love you
+heartily; but we silent people in the distance never forget you. Do not
+forget us, and let us exchange affection at least.
+
+                                         Ever your Admirer and Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
+
+               VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, NEAR BOULOGNE,
+                                     _Saturday Night, July 5th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
+
+From this place where I am writing my way through the summer, in the
+midst of rosy gardens and sea airs, I cannot forbear writing to tell you
+with what uncommon pleasure I received your interesting letter, and how
+sensible I always am of your kindness and generosity. You were always in
+the mind of my household during your illness; and to have so beautiful,
+and fresh, and manly an assurance of your recovery from it, under your
+own hand, is a privilege and delight that I will say no more of.
+
+I am so glad you like Flora. It came into my head one day that we have
+all had our Floras, and that it was a half-serious, half-ridiculous
+truth which had never been told. It is a wonderful gratification to me
+to find that everybody knows her. Indeed, some people seem to think I
+have done them a personal injury, and that their individual Floras (God
+knows where they are, or who!) are each and all Little Dorrit's.
+
+We were all grievously disappointed that you were ill when we played Mr.
+Collins's "Lighthouse" at my house. If you had been well, I should have
+waited upon you with my humble petition that you would come and see it;
+and if you had come I think you would have cried, which would have
+charmed me. I hope to produce another play at home next Christmas, and
+if I can only persuade you to see it from a special arm-chair, and can
+only make you wretched, my satisfaction will be intense. May I tell you,
+to beguile a moment, of a little "Tag," or end of a piece, I saw in
+Paris this last winter, which struck me as the prettiest I had ever met
+with? The piece was not a new one, but a revival at the Vaudeville--"Les
+Memoires du Diable." Admirably constructed, very interesting, and
+extremely well played. The plot is, that a certain M. Robin has come
+into possession of the papers of a deceased lawyer, and finds some
+relating to the wrongful withholding of an estate from a certain
+baroness, and to certain other frauds (involving even the denial of the
+marriage to the deceased baron, and the tarnishing of his good name)
+which are so very wicked that he binds them up in a book and labels them
+"Memoires du Diable." Armed with this knowledge he goes down to the
+desolate old chateau in the country--part of the wrested-away
+estate--from which the baroness and her daughter are going to be
+ejected. He informs the mother that he can right her and restore the
+property, but must have, as his reward, her daughter's hand in marriage.
+She replies: "I cannot promise my daughter to a man of whom I know
+nothing. The gain would be an unspeakable happiness, but I resolutely
+decline the bargain." The daughter, however, has observed all, and she
+comes forward and says: "Do what you have promised my mother you can do,
+and I am yours." Then the piece goes on to its development, in an
+admirable way, through the unmasking of all the hypocrites. Now, M.
+Robin, partly through his knowledge of the secret ways of the old
+chateau (derived from the lawyer's papers), and partly through his going
+to a masquerade as the devil--the better to explode what he knows on the
+hypocrites--is supposed by the servants at the chateau really to be the
+devil. At the opening of the last act he suddenly appears there before
+the young lady, and she screams, but, recovering and laughing, says:
+"You are not really the ----?" "Oh dear no!" he replies, "have no
+connection with him. But these people down here are so frightened and
+absurd! See this little toy on the table; I open it; here's a little
+bell. They have a notion that whenever this bell rings I shall appear.
+Very ignorant, is it not?" "Very, indeed," says she. "Well," says M.
+Robin, "if you should want me very much to appear, try the bell, if only
+for a jest. Will you promise?" Yes, she promises, and the play goes on.
+At last he has righted the baroness completely, and has only to hand
+her the last document, which proves her marriage and restores her good
+name. Then he says: "Madame, in the progress of these endeavours I have
+learnt the happiness of doing good for its own sake. I made a necessary
+bargain with you; I release you from it. I have done what I undertook to
+do. I wish you and your amiable daughter all happiness. Adieu! I take my
+leave." Bows himself out. People on the stage astonished. Audience
+astonished--incensed. The daughter is going to cry, when she looks at
+the box on the table, remembers the bell, runs to it and rings it, and
+he rushes back and takes her to his heart; upon which we all cry with
+pleasure, and then laugh heartily.
+
+This looks dreadfully long, and perhaps you know it already. If so, I
+will endeavour to make amends with Flora in future numbers.
+
+Mrs. Dickens and her sister beg to present their remembrances to your
+Grace, and their congratulations on your recovery. I saw Paxton now and
+then when you were ill, and always received from him most encouraging
+accounts. I don't know how heavy he is going to be (I mean in the
+scale), but I begin to think Daniel Lambert must have been in his
+family.
+
+                               Ever your Grace's faithful and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                       VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE,
+                                            _Tuesday, July 8th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I perfectly agree with you in your appreciation of Katie's poem, and
+shall be truly delighted to publish it in "Household Words." It shall go
+into the very next number we make up. We are a little in advance (to
+enable Wills to get a holiday), but as I remember, the next number made
+up will be published in three weeks.
+
+We are pained indeed to read your reference to my poor boy. God keep him
+and his father. I trust he is not conscious of much suffering himself.
+If that be so, it is, in the midst of the distress, a great comfort.
+
+"Little Dorrit" keeps me pretty busy, as you may suppose. The beginning
+of No. 10--the first line--now lies upon my desk. It would not be easy
+to increase upon the pains I take with her anyhow.
+
+We are expecting Stanfield on Thursday, and Peter Cunningham and his
+wife on Monday. I would we were expecting you! This is as pretty and odd
+a little French country house as could be found anywhere; and the
+gardens are most beautiful.
+
+In "Household Words," next week, pray read "The Diary of Anne Rodway"
+(in two not long parts). It is by Collins, and I think possesses great
+merit and real pathos.
+
+Being in town the other day, I saw Gye by accident, and told him, when
+he praised ---- to me, that she was a very bad actress. "Well!" said he,
+"_you_ may say anything, but if anybody else had told me that I should
+have stared." Nevertheless, I derived an impression from his manner that
+she had not been a profitable speculation in respect of money. That very
+same day Stanfield and I dined alone together at the Garrick, and drank
+your health. We had had a ride by the river before dinner (of course he
+_would_ go and look at boats), and had been talking of you. It was this
+day week, by-the-bye.
+
+I know of nothing of public interest that is new in France, except that
+I am changing my moustache into a beard. We all send our most tender
+loves to dearest Miss Macready and all the house. The Hammy boy is
+particularly anxious to have his love sent to "Misr Creedy."
+
+                        Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+            VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE, _Sunday, July 13th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR COLLINS,
+
+We are all sorry that you are not coming until the middle of next month,
+but we hope that you will then be able to remain, so that we may all
+come back together about the 10th of October. I think (recreation
+allowed, etc.), that the play will take that time to write. The ladies
+of the _dram. pers._ are frightfully anxious to get it under way, and to
+see you locked up in the pavilion; apropos of which noble edifice I have
+omitted to mention that it is made a more secluded retreat than it used
+to be, and is greatly improved by the position of the door being
+changed. It is as snug and as pleasant as possible; and the Genius of
+Order has made a few little improvements about the house (at the rate of
+about tenpence apiece), which the Genius of Disorder will, it is hoped,
+appreciate.
+
+I think I must come over for a small spree, and to fetch you. Suppose I
+were to come on the 9th or 10th of August to stay three or four days in
+town, would that do for you? Let me know at the end of this month.
+
+I cannot tell you what a high opinion I have of Anne Rodway. I took
+"Extracts" out of the title because it conveyed to the many-headed an
+idea of incompleteness--of something unfinished--and is likely to stall
+some readers off. I read the first part at the office with strong
+admiration, and read the second on the railway coming back here, being
+in town just after you had started on your cruise. My behaviour before
+my fellow-passengers was weak in the extreme, for I cried as much as you
+could possibly desire. Apart from the genuine force and beauty of the
+little narrative, and the admirable personation of the girl's identity
+and point of view, it is done with an amount of honest pains and
+devotion to the work which few men have better reason to appreciate than
+I, and which no man can have a more profound respect for. I think it
+excellent, feel a personal pride and pleasure in it which is a
+delightful sensation, and know no one else who could have done it.
+
+Of myself I have only to report that I have been hard at it with "Little
+Dorrit," and am now doing No. 10. This last week I sketched out the
+notion, characters, and progress of the farce, and sent it off to Mark,
+who has been ill of an ague. It ought to be very funny. The cat business
+is too ludicrous to be treated of in so small a sheet of paper, so I
+must describe it _viva voce_ when I come to town. French has been so
+insufferably conceited since he shot tigerish cat No. 1 (intent on the
+noble Dick, with green eyes three inches in advance of her head), that I
+am afraid I shall have to part with him. All the boys likewise (in new
+clothes and ready for church) are at this instant prone on their
+stomachs behind bushes, whooshing and crying (after tigerish cat No. 2):
+"French!" "Here she comes!" "There she goes!" etc. I dare not put my
+head out of window for fear of being shot (it is as like a _coup d'etat_
+as possible), and tradesmen coming up the avenue cry plaintively: "_Ne
+tirez pas, Monsieur Fleench; c'est moi--boulanger. Ne tirez pas, mon
+ami._"
+
+Likewise I shall have to recount to you the secret history of a robbery
+at the Pavilion at Folkestone, which you will have to write.
+
+Tell Piggot, when you see him, that we shall all be much pleased if he
+will come at his own convenience while you are here, and stay a few days
+with us.
+
+I shall have more than one notion of future work to suggest to you while
+we are beguiling the dreariness of an arctic winter in these parts. May
+they prosper!
+
+Kind regards from all to the Dramatic Poet of the establishment, and to
+the D. P.'s mother and brother.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+P.S.--If the "Flying Dutchman" should be done again, pray do go and see
+it. Webster expressed his opinion to me that it was "a neat piece." I
+implore you to go and see a neat piece.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                               BOULOGNE, _Thursday, August 7th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I do not feel disposed to record those two Chancery cases; firstly,
+because I would rather have no part in engendering in the mind of any
+human creature, a hopeful confidence in that den of iniquity.
+
+And secondly, because it seems to me that the real philosophy of the
+facts is altogether missed in the narrative. The wrong which chanced to
+be set right in these two cases was done, as all such wrong is, mainly
+because these wicked courts of equity, with all their means of evasion
+and postponement, give scoundrels confidence in cheating. If justice
+were cheap, sure, and speedy, few such things could be. It is because it
+has become (through the vile dealing of those courts and the vermin they
+have called into existence) a positive precept of experience that a man
+had better endure a great wrong than go, or suffer himself to be taken,
+into Chancery, with the dream of setting it right. It is because of
+this that such nefarious speculations are made.
+
+Therefore I see nothing at all to the credit of Chancery in these cases,
+but everything to its discredit. And as to owing it to Chancery to bear
+testimony to its having rendered justice in two such plain matters, I
+have no debt of the kind upon my conscience.
+
+                                            In haste, ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                 BOULOGNE, _Friday, August 8th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I like the second little poem very much indeed, and think (as you do)
+that it is a great advance upon the first. Please to note that I make it
+a rule to pay for everything that is inserted in "Household Words,"
+holding it to be a part of my trust to make my fellow-proprietors
+understand that they have no right to unrequited labour. Therefore, when
+Wills (who has been ill and is gone for a holiday) does his invariable
+spiriting gently, don't make Katey's case different from Adelaide
+Procter's.
+
+I am afraid there is no possibility of my reading Dorsetshirewards. I
+have made many conditional promises thus: "I am very much occupied; but
+if I read at all, I will read for your institution in such an order on
+my list." Edinburgh, which is No. 1, I have been obliged to put as far
+off as next Christmas twelvemonth. Bristol stands next. The working men
+at Preston come next. And so, if I were to go out of the record and read
+for your people, I should bring such a house about my ears as would
+shake "Little Dorrit" out of my head.
+
+Being in town last Saturday, I went to see Robson in a burlesque of
+"Medea." It is an odd but perfectly true testimony to the extraordinary
+power of his performance (which is of a very remarkable kind indeed),
+that it points the badness of ----'s acting in a most singular manner,
+by bringing out what she might do and does not. The scene with Jason is
+perfectly terrific; and the manner in which the comic rage and jealousy
+does not pitch itself over the floor at the stalls is in striking
+contrast to the manner in which the tragic rage and jealousy does. He
+has a frantic song and dagger dance, about ten minutes long altogether,
+which has more passion in it than ---- could express in fifty years.
+
+We all unite in kindest love to Miss Macready and all your dear ones;
+not forgetting my godson, to whom I send his godfather's particular love
+twice over. The Hammy boy is so brown that you would scarcely know him.
+
+                         Ever, my dear Macready, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday Morning, Sept. 28th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I suddenly remember this morning that in Mr. Curtis's article, "Health
+and Education," I left a line which must come out. It is in effect that
+the want of healthy training leaves girls in a fit state to be the
+subjects of mesmerism. I would not on any condition hurt Elliotson's
+feelings (as I should deeply) by leaving that depreciatory kind of
+reference in any page of H. W. He has suffered quite enough without a
+stab from a friend. So pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what
+Bradbury calls "the Friars," take that passage out. By some
+extraordinary accident, after observing it, I forgot to do it.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, Oct. 4th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MAMEY,
+
+The preparations for the play are already beginning, and it is
+christened (this is a great dramatic secret, which I suppose you know
+already) "The Frozen Deep."
+
+Tell Katey, with my best love, that if she fail to come back six times
+as red, hungry, and strong as she was when she went away, I shall give
+her part to somebody else.
+
+We shall all be very glad to see you both back again; when I say "we" I
+include the birds (who send their respectful duty) and the Plorn.
+
+Kind regards to all at Brighton.
+
+                        Ever, my dear Mamey, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                           Tavistock House, _Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I _did_ write it for you; and I hoped in writing it, that you would
+think so. All those remembrances are fresh in my mind, as they often
+are, and gave me an extraordinary interest in recalling the past. I
+should have been grievously disappointed if you had not been pleased,
+for I took aim at you with a most determined intention.
+
+Let me congratulate you most heartily on your handsome Eddy having
+passed his examination with such credit. I am sure there is a spirit
+shining out of his eyes, which will do well in that manly and generous
+pursuit. You will naturally feel his departure very much, and so will
+he; but I have always observed within my experience, that the men who
+have left home young have, many long years afterwards, had the tenderest
+love for it, and for all associated with it. That's a pleasant thing to
+think of, as one of the wise and benevolent adjustments in these lives
+of ours.
+
+I have been so hard at work (and shall be for the next eight or nine
+months), that sometimes I fancy I have a digestion, or a head, or
+nerves, or some odd encumbrance of that kind, to which I am altogether
+unaccustomed, and am obliged to rush at some other object for relief; at
+present the house is in a state of tremendous excitement, on account of
+Mr. Collins having nearly finished the new play we are to act at
+Christmas, which is very interesting and extremely clever. I hope this
+time you will come and see it. We purpose producing it on Charley's
+birthday, Twelfth Night; but we shall probably play four nights
+altogether--"The Lighthouse" on the last occasion--so that if you could
+come for the two last nights, you would see both the pieces. I am going
+to try and do better than ever, and already the school-room is in the
+hands of carpenters; men from underground habitations in theatres, who
+look as if they lived entirely upon smoke and gas, meet me at unheard-of
+hours. Mr. Stanfield is perpetually measuring the boards with a chalked
+piece of string and an umbrella, and all the elder children are wildly
+punctual and business-like to attract managerial commendation. If you
+don't come, I shall do something antagonistic--try to unwrite No. 11, I
+think. I should particularly like you to see a new and serious piece so
+done. Because I don't think you know, without seeing, how good it is!!!
+
+None of the children suffered, thank God, from the Boulogne risk. The
+three little boys have gone back to school there, and are all well.
+Katey came away ill, but it turned out that she had the whooping-cough
+for the second time. She has been to Brighton, and comes home to-day. I
+hear great accounts of her, and hope to find her quite well when she
+arrives presently. I am afraid Mary Boyle has been praising the Boulogne
+life too highly. Not that I deny, however, our having passed some very
+pleasant days together, and our having had great pleasure in her visit.
+
+You will object to me dreadfully, I know, with a beard (though not a
+great one); but if you come and see the play, you will find it necessary
+there, and will perhaps be more tolerant of the fearful object
+afterwards. I need not tell you how delighted we should be to see
+George, if you would come together. Pray tell him so, with my kind
+regards. I like the notion of Wentworth and his philosophy of all
+things. I remember a philosophical gravity upon him, a state of
+suspended opinion as to myself, it struck me, when we last met, in which
+I thought there was a great deal of oddity and character.
+
+Charley is doing very well at Baring's, and attracting praise and reward
+to himself. Within this fortnight there turned up from the West Indies,
+where he is now a chief justice, an old friend of mine, of my own age,
+who lived with me in lodgings in the Adelphi, when I was just Charley's
+age. He had a great affection for me at that time, and always supposed I
+was to do some sort of wonders. It was a very pleasant meeting indeed,
+and he seemed to think it so odd that I shouldn't be Charley!
+
+This is every atom of no-news that will come out of my head, and I
+firmly believe it is all I have in it--except that a cobbler at
+Boulogne, who had the nicest of little dogs, that always sat in his
+sunny window watching him at work, asked me if I would bring the dog
+home, as he couldn't afford to pay the tax for him. The cobbler and the
+dog being both my particular friends, I complied. The cobbler parted
+with the dog heart-broken. When the dog got home here, my man, like an
+idiot as he is, tied him up and then untied him. The moment the gate was
+open, the dog (on the very day after his arrival) ran out. Next day,
+Georgy and I saw him lying, all covered with mud, dead, outside the
+neighbouring church. How am I ever to tell the cobbler? He is too poor
+to come to England, so I feel that I must lie to him for life, and say
+that the dog is fat and happy. Mr. Plornish, much affected by this
+tragedy, said: "I s'pose, pa, I shall meet the cobbler's dog" (in
+heaven).
+
+Georgy and Catherine send their best love, and I send mine. Pray write
+to me again some day, and I can't be too busy to be happy in the sight
+of your familiar hand, associated in my mind with so much that I love
+and honour.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Mr. Watson, most faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Horne.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _Oct. 20th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HORNE,
+
+I answer your note by return of post, in order that you may know that
+the Stereoscopic Nottage has not written to me yet. Of course I will not
+lose a moment in replying to him when he does address me.
+
+We shall be greatly pleased to see you again. You have been very, very
+often in our thoughts and on our lips, during this long interval.
+
+And "she" is near you, is she? O I remember her well! And I am still of
+my old opinion! Passionately devoted to her sex as I am (they are the
+weakness of my existence), I still consider her a failure. She had some
+extraordinary christian-name, which I forget. Lashed into verse by my
+feelings, I am inclined to write:
+
+        My heart disowns
+        Ophelia Jones;
+
+only I think it was a more sounding name.
+
+        Are these the tones--
+        Volumnia Jones?
+
+No. Again it seems doubtful.
+
+        God bless her bones,
+        Petronia Jones!
+
+I think not.
+
+        Carve I on stones
+        Olympia Jones?
+
+Can _that_ be the name? Fond memory favours it more than any other. My
+love to her.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Mrs. Horne, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Devonshire.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 1st, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
+
+The moment the first bill is printed for the first night of the new play
+I told you of, I send it to you, in the hope that you will grace it with
+your presence. There is not one of the old actors whom you will fail to
+inspire as no one else can; and I hope you will see a little result of a
+friendly union of the arts, that you may think worth seeing, and that
+you can see nowhere else.
+
+We propose repeating it on Thursday, the 8th; Monday, the 12th; and
+Wednesday, the 14th of January. I do not encumber this note with so many
+bills, and merely mention those nights in case any one of them should be
+more convenient to you than the first.
+
+But I shall hope for the first, unless you dash me (N. B.--I put Flora
+into the current number on purpose that this might catch you softened
+towards me, and at a disadvantage). If there is hope of your coming, I
+will have the play clearly copied, and will send it to you to read
+beforehand. With the most grateful remembrances, and the sincerest good
+wishes for your health and happiness,
+
+                      I am ever, my dear Duke of Devonshire,
+                                            Your faithful and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                         Tavistock House, _Wednesday, Dec. 3rd, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+The inspector from the fire office--surveyor, by-the-bye, they called
+him--duly came. Wills described him as not very pleasant in his manners.
+I derived the impression that he was so exceedingly dry, that if _he_
+ever takes fire, he must burn out, and can never otherwise be
+extinguished.
+
+Next day, I received a letter from the secretary, to say that the said
+surveyor had reported great additional risk from fire, and that the
+directors, at their meeting next Tuesday, would settle the extra amount
+of premium to be paid.
+
+Thereupon I thought the matter was becoming complicated, and wrote a
+common-sense note to the secretary (which I begged might be read to the
+directors), saying that I was quite prepared to pay any extra premium,
+but setting forth the plain state of the case. (I did not say that the
+Lord Chief Justice, the Chief Baron, and half the Bench were coming;
+though I felt a temptation to make a joke about burning them all.)
+
+Finally, this morning comes up the secretary to me (yesterday having
+been the great Tuesday), and says that he is requested by the directors
+to present their compliments, and to say that they could not think of
+charging for any additional risk at all; feeling convinced that I would
+place the gas (which they considered to be the only danger) under the
+charge of one competent man. I then explained to him how carefully and
+systematically that was all arranged, and we parted with drums beating
+and colours flying on both sides.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday Evening, Dec. 13th_, 1856.
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+We shall be charmed to squeeze Willie's friend in, and it shall be done
+by some undiscovered power of compression on the second night, Thursday,
+the 14th. Will you make our compliments to his honour, the Deputy
+Fiscal, present him with the enclosed bill, and tell him we shall be
+cordially glad to see him? I hope to entrust him with a special shake of
+the hand, to be forwarded to our dear boy (if a hoary sage like myself
+may venture on that expression) by the next mail.
+
+I would have proposed the first night, but that is too full. You may
+faintly imagine, my venerable friend, the occupation of these also gray
+hairs, between "Golden Marys," "Little Dorrits," "Household Wordses,"
+four stage-carpenters entirely boarding on the premises, a carpenter's
+shop erected in the back garden, size always boiling over on all the
+lower fires, Stanfield perpetually elevated on planks and splashing
+himself from head to foot, Telbin requiring impossibilities of smart
+gasmen, and a legion of prowling nondescripts for ever shrinking in and
+out. Calm amidst the wreck, your aged friend glides away on the "Dorrit"
+stream, forgetting the uproar for a stretch of hours, refreshes himself
+with a ten or twelve miles walk, pitches headforemost into foaming
+rehearsals, placidly emerges for editorial purposes, smokes over buckets
+of distemper with Mr. Stanfield aforesaid, again calmly floats upon the
+"Dorrit" waters.
+
+        With very best love to Miss Macready and all the rest,
+                    Ever, my dear Macready, most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 15th, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
+
+I am not _quite_ clear about the story; not because it is otherwise than
+exceedingly pretty, but because I am rather in a difficult position as
+to stories just now. Besides beginning a long one by Collins with the
+new year (which will last five or six months), I have, as I always have
+at this time, a considerable residue of stories written for the
+Christmas number, not suitable to it, and yet available for the general
+purposes of "Household Words." This limits my choice for the moment to
+stories that have some decided specialties (or a great deal of story) in
+them.
+
+But I will look over the accumulation before you come, and I hope you
+will never see your little friend again but in print.
+
+You will find us expecting you on the night of the twenty-fourth, and
+heartily glad to welcome you. The most terrific preparations are in hand
+for the play on Twelfth Night. There has been a carpenter's shop in the
+garden for six weeks; a painter's shop in the school-room; a gasfitter's
+shop all over the basement; a dressmaker's shop at the top of the house;
+a tailor's shop in my dressing-room. Stanfield has been incessantly on
+scaffoldings for two months; and your friend has been writing "Little
+Dorrit," etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was turned
+upside-down by the genie.
+
+                         Kindest love from all, and from me.
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Christmas Eve, 1856._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I cannot leave your letter unanswered, because I am really anxious that
+you should understand why I cannot comply with your request.
+
+Scarcely a week passes without my receiving requests from various
+quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by all the processes ever
+invented. Apart from my having an invincible objection to the
+multiplication of my countenance in the shop-windows, I have not,
+between my avocations and my needful recreation, the time to comply with
+these proposals. At this moment there are three cases out of a vast
+number, in which I have said: "If I sit at all, it shall be to you
+first, to you second, and to you third." But I assure you, I consider
+myself almost as unlikely to go through these three conditional
+achievements as I am to go to China. Judge when I am likely to get to
+Mr. Watkins!
+
+I highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with my writings. I
+doubt if I have a more genial reader in the world.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[23] Of Mr. Wilkie Collins.
+
+[24] This note was written after hearing from Mr. Forster of his
+intended marriage.
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE TO "THE LIGHTHOUSE."
+
+(Spoken by CHARLES DICKENS.)
+
+_Slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down._
+
+
+        A story of those rocks where doomed ships come
+        To cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home,
+        Where solitary men, the long year through--
+        The wind their music and the brine their view--
+        Warn mariners to shun the beacon-light;
+        A story of those rocks is here to-night.
+        Eddystone lighthouse
+
+[_Exterior view discovered._
+
+                              In its ancient form;
+        Ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm
+        That shiver'd it to nothing; once again
+        Behold outgleaming on the angry main!
+        Within it are three men; to these repair
+        In our frail bark of Fancy, swift as air!
+
+        They are but shadows, as the rower grim
+        Took none but shadows in his boat with him.
+        So be _ye_ shades, and, for a little space,
+        The real world a dream without a trace.
+        Return is easy. It will have ye back
+        Too soon to the old beaten dusty track;
+        For but one hour forget it. Billows rise,
+        Blow winds, fall rain, be black ye midnight skies;
+        And you who watch the light, arise! arise!
+
+        [_Exterior view rises and discovers the scene._
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF THE WRECK.
+
+
+I.
+
+        The wind blew high, the waters raved,
+          A ship drove on the land,
+        A hundred human creatures saved,
+          Kneeled down upon the sand.
+        Threescore were drowned, threescore were thrown
+          Upon the black rocks wild,
+        And thus among them, left alone,
+          They found one helpless child.
+
+
+II.
+
+        A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred,
+          Stood out from all the rest,
+        And gently laid the lonely head
+          Upon his honest breast.
+        And travelling o'er the desert wide,
+          It was a solemn joy,
+        To see them, ever side by side,
+          The sailor and the boy.
+
+
+III.
+
+        In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst,
+          The two were still but one,
+        Until the strong man drooped the first,
+          And felt his labours done.
+        Then to a trusty friend he spake,
+          "Across the desert wide,
+        O take this poor boy for my sake!"
+              And kissed the child and died.
+
+
+IV.
+
+        Toiling along in weary plight,
+          Through heavy jungle, mire,
+        These two came later every night
+          To warm them at the fire.
+        Until the captain said one day,
+          "O seaman good and kind,
+        To save thyself now come away,
+          And leave the boy behind!"
+
+
+V.
+
+        The child was slumb'ring near the blaze,
+          "O captain, let him rest
+        Until it sinks, when God's own ways
+          Shall teach us what is best!"
+        They watched the whitened ashy heap,
+          They touched the child in vain;
+        They did not leave him there asleep,
+          He never woke again.
+
+This song was sung to the music of "Little Nell," a ballad composed by
+the late Mr. George Linley, to the words of Miss Charlotte Young, and
+dedicated to Charles Dickens. He was very fond of it, and his eldest
+daughter had been in the habit of singing it to him constantly since she
+was quite a child.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE
+PRESS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 63, "levee" changed to "levee" (regular levee every)
+
+Page 66, "levee" changed to "levee"  (a regular levee)
+
+Page 114, word "or" inserted into text. (hencoop or any old)
+
+Page 304, 305,  307, 312, "Chateau" changed to "Chateau"
+
+Page 339, "chistened" changed to "christened" (christened Trotty Veck)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
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